Matrix Games Forums

Yes ,but can you repeat the result for the allied stopping the bombing?

Would you like to test this in a pbm? I'm not especially good as allied, but we could test this if you like? Maybe even post the results?

Yes I would like to test it.

If you want to play I am more then ready to play.

When do you want to start.

We can start today!

I'll send you an PM with my email addresses.

I think you have to send (axis) the first email.....but I'm not sure.

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

NO, but 9 women can have 9 babys in a month.

Don't nurf the PBM capabilities for research to much because the AI is not working. Against a human this strategy might now work as well.

My point is the "mythical man month"

throwing resources at a project will not bring it to fruition earlier, as people step on one another's toes, work is duplicated, empire building happens rather than cooperation. Then there's the inspiration, and by that I mean the eureka moment one man has at one point in time - that cannot happen when everyone is on top of one another. If Kurt Tank had to work with all these dweeb engineers he may never have come up with the idea for the widget in the thingumybob that actually made the TA152 possible, instead he would have been lost in the miasma of administration, work allocation and petty politics.

So...

We need to maintain the ability to bring in a type earlier... But not this early. There's ways I can do that, and I open that up to discussion, the community is a valuable tool to brainstorm these ideas.

I understand that....but I also belive some of the newer weapons could have been used much earlier if not for polotics. After all they were flying prototypes of Me262s in 1942-1943.

I suggest SOME (not all) of the following.

1. Restrict come companies to producing stuff from their own firm.

IE. BMW must make some sort of BMW engine....
DMB must make some sort of DMB engine....
Junkers must make Junkers or Jumo engines..

Messersmit (or Bf) and Focke Wolf must make planes of their own types.
Doiriner and Henckel as well as the occupied nations (including engines) can switch to anything.

Double the time for conversions for occupied nations (and Italy) to advanced german types.

OR

2. Require research on consecutive (series) types with the exception that perhaps ME109G6 should allow research on any Messersmit types.

Or

3. Make advancement for 100/research points on a single type in a month automatic.
For the second 100 research points (on the same plane) in a month use a 50% chance.
For the third 100 research poinst....................33% chance (ie. 100/n% where n = the number of 100s of points.

Do NOT penalize spreading research around.

IE putting 100 Research Points/ per month on G14, G10, FW190D, and Me262 do not penalizer each other. But putting 400 points on FW190D alone would.

Of course if you do all of this....I won't enjoy playing as much.

Just some ideas.

hassle is, in 45, the Jumo still wasn't really ready, so to say it could of been ready in 42/43 is just not going to happen

the real delay in the 262 was the engine, Hitler didn't help, but the plane still wasn't ready, didn't matter if it was being used as a bomber or as a figther

I understand the problems with the engines. But how much of the failure to solve the problem could have been overcome by reassignment of resources and effort? It is not clear to me that they made nearly as much effort as they could have to solve this problem. Other problems may have had a higher priority for example.

Also, I'm not sure that they did actually solve it. In part they just elected to use the engines as high end consumables....discarding them after a short lifetime. That part of the solution could have been implemented much earlier, but would have required a different way of thinking about the situation.

From what I've read about Speer and the Reich Armaments managers, I'm not convinced they really went into a total war production effort before 1943--4 and that they could clearly have done much earlier. Likewise, had they decided to focus on a single jet engine, they perhaps could have moved faster. I suspect Messersmitt would have preferred to use the BMW jets rather than the Junkers product. They may have wasted much effort on the BMW jet which could have been abandoned. Do you see my point?

I have noticed production under computer control produces several ME-262 airframes and engines. All else being equal, if left alone roughly how many months will the computer shave off the introduction time if I let it build what it wants?
I realize a precise answer cannot be given due to bottlenecks and Allied bombing. I am just looking for a rough answer.
The CPU invests in a few research projects on it's own.

One other questions. Is there a place to see how many 'experimental' air frames have been built so we can estimate how many months we have taken off the introduction date. Or do we just have to guess?
And when do you know you have broken the production threshold? Do you just have to check every few days as to what you can produce?

ORIGINAL: joliverlay
Do NOT penalize spreading research around.

IE putting 100 Research Points/ per month on G14, G10, FW190D, and Me262 do not penalizer each other. But putting 400 points on FW190D alone would.

Some good ideas for me to think about, but I will take time to reassure you on this point, each research stream would have it's own limits...

I like to take discussion to another point of view. I thing the problem is not the converting sheer number of factories to some significant plane. What missing in the game is the fog of war of how really a developed plane will fare in real combat. In the minds of German leader I think main problem was they were not sure to turn which wonder weapon. Because It is a great risk to take you can decide to invest Ta152 but what will happen if something goes wrong and they discover it after mass producing. I think this is the main reason they stick to Bf 109 and FW 190. Good is good enough. Probably They havent got the guts to loudly proclaim such a frantic Change. But In the game I can make that Frantic Change very easly because I know exacly the end result.

I would suggest something different. Every plane should have Variable Stats. You couldnt know what will the end result. So couldnt risk on investing only one plane. Or maybe if possible something like service ratings. like the one in Witp AE. If a plane produced very early on a poor service rating would prevent it from large scale operating which should gradually decrease.

Bottom line.... I think it is better to have some fog effect on the plane would cause not to invest heavly on one plane.

Regards

From what I've read about Speer and the Reich Armaments managers, I'm not convinced they really went into a total war production effort before 1943--4 and that they could clearly have done much earlier. Likewise, had they decided to focus on a single jet engine, they perhaps could have moved faster. I suspect Messersmitt would have preferred to use the BMW jets rather than the Junkers product. They may have wasted much effort on the BMW jet which could have been abandoned. Do you see my point?

As I play more and read more about german Air warfare something hits me. I think much of the problem comes from Messerschmitt specially From Willy Messerschmitt. Like a good bussiness man He got good connections with the party and enforced Use of his product to great extend. in 1936's clearly Heinkel produced a bit more complex but faster plane the BF 109 But what I read tells me it was a executive decision to divide fighter production to Messerschmitt and bomber production to Heinkel.

And The Design of Bf 109. There is two novel features, one is use of landing gear and other is easly removable wings. So Bf 109 could easly moved around and serviced unliked many other planes. Because the wing doesnt have to carry the load of landing gear both wing could be in simple construction and could be easly detached form the main Body. So the plane can be moved very easly around.

But we know the end Result was a narrow tire span that make landing and take of was very difficult. And almost 15% loses occured from landing and takeoff.

In design point of view this features are only for the factory and Company. It would greatly accelerate the production. One legs on it is on a moving production line. So The wings. But this is so profit oriented.

That 15% cant change the war but would mean a few more man could live and fight.

Even late in the war if I am not wrong he elluded high order of mass producing different planes other then his own. One example if I am not wrong is HE-219. He was ordered to mass produce HE-219 but he slip on to it.

And BV-155 issue. When the design project transfered to Blohm-Voss they discovered it was very badly detailed and there was alot of discussion and argument.

Accually These reasons are quite make me transfer all the Messerschmitt production to something different.

Kurt Tank was not the most company man neither Hortens. They were good designers. So we see them perish after the war.

BUt what they design still lives On.

ORIGINAL: harley


My point is the "mythical man month"

throwing resources at a project will not bring it to fruition earlier, as people step on one another's toes, work is duplicated, empire building happens rather than cooperation. Then there's the inspiration, and by that I mean the eureka moment one man has at one point in time - that cannot happen when everyone is on top of one another. If Kurt Tank had to work with all these dweeb engineers he may never have come up with the idea for the widget in the thingumybob that actually made the TA152 possible, instead he would have been lost in the miasma of administration, work allocation and petty politics.

So...

We need to maintain the ability to bring in a type earlier... But not this early. There's ways I can do that, and I open that up to discussion, the community is a valuable tool to brainstorm these ideas.

Remember way back in the development forum I said that it was too easy to bring forward the inservice date of late war a/c. After the discussion Sarge did implement a number of roadblocks by adding extra engine types which would require the re-tooling of factories with consequent loss of actual production but even with this I still advocated a flat 200 "research a/c built" cost to advance one month instead of the present 100 and I think this should be across the board for all a/c development. Also as I said at the time as an Axis fanboy it grieved me to say it but it's just too easy to advance the inservice date.

von Shagmeister

ORIGINAL: von Shagmeister

ORIGINAL: harley


My point is the "mythical man month"

throwing resources at a project will not bring it to fruition earlier, as people step on one another's toes, work is duplicated, empire building happens rather than cooperation. Then there's the inspiration, and by that I mean the eureka moment one man has at one point in time - that cannot happen when everyone is on top of one another. If Kurt Tank had to work with all these dweeb engineers he may never have come up with the idea for the widget in the thingumybob that actually made the TA152 possible, instead he would have been lost in the miasma of administration, work allocation and petty politics.

So...

We need to maintain the ability to bring in a type earlier... But not this early. There's ways I can do that, and I open that up to discussion, the community is a valuable tool to brainstorm these ideas.

Remember way back in the development forum I said that it was too easy to bring forward the inservice date of late war a/c. After the discussion Sarge did implement a number of roadblocks by adding extra engine types which would require the re-tooling of factories with consequent loss of actual production but even with this I still advocated a flat 200 "research a/c built" cost to advance one month instead of the present 100 and I think this should be across the board for all a/c development. Also as I said at the time as an Axis fanboy it grieved me to say it but it's just too easy to advance the inservice date.

von Shagmeister

I agree that aircraft service dates should be extended. But I like to say that man*Hour issues something Different.

I like to ask you that what do you understand when lots of contruction asset is converted to R&D.

There is three possible answers or combination of three.
1) To Design Process.
2) To Development process
3) Manufacture Design Phase.

You will ask what is Manufacture Design phase. It is the phase where blueprints are copied, Supply arrangements made, new molds arranged, new manufacturing machines bought, construction system arrangement made, etc, etc, etc,

I conclude that when we convert factory to a future design. we are not engaging in design process but in Development and Manufacture design process. which is more strait forward bussiness.

Which means we build tons of Prototype which are not used in real combat but actual performance testing. And putting many many hours of work in the factories to decide how to produce these wonder weapons fast and accurate.
So my conculusion is that if we can decide on a time when the design finished and most of the blueprints are ready there should be no limit in production design. In real life terms if you convert appox.. 50 factories to production you makes almost 200.000 man of work to a single task. which is an easier goal oriented work then Design. Real time tables probably wont be too different then the game results.

Well Sven in the old game.....

I just converted everything to FW190-A production
leaving one factory each for the production of Zerstroyers.

I eventually had a super-abundance of FW190-A

Didnt mean much since it was all but immpossible to bounce US interceptors

But the front line squadrons never ran dry.

ahhh german production politics. One of my favorite topics!

ORIGINAL: guctony
As I play more and read more about german Air warfare something hits me. I think much of the problem comes from Messerschmitt specially From Willy Messerschmitt. Like a good bussiness man He got good connections with the party and enforced Use of his product to great extend. in 1936's clearly Heinkel produced a bit more complex but faster plane the BF 109 But what I read tells me it was a executive decision to divide fighter production to Messerschmitt and bomber production to Heinkel.

I thoroughly disagree with the assesment. Yep, the He112 was faster. It was also smaller and lighter, and thus had a much more limited development potential. and contrary to your stated point of "it was a bit more complex", the He112 was way, way more expensive that the 109, most of it coming from its complex wing design.

Even then, the official luftwaffe single-engined fighter competition was held during 1936. By that date the 109 was in a very good shape and could easily be put into pre-production. In contrast the He112 was a nightmare of mechanical problems that still required more than one year to be fixed. In the competition there were two planes calling the atention: one with very good performance and ready to be put in service, the other with even better performance, but more expensive, and really not ready for the trials.

The results can hardly surprise anyone. In fact the Bf109 won against all odds, for Milch and Messerchmitt had an extreme personal feud dating back from some years behind. If the RLM chose the 109 as winner with that personal hate of Milch against Messerschmitt it was only because the plane was excellent, cheap to build, cheap to maintain, and ready for production. And had won the hearts of a lot of pilots, mechanics and high-ranking personnel within the RLM. Milch simply couldn't say "no"...as much as he wanted to because he really HATED (with caps) Willy Messerschmitt and wanted to kill Bayerische Fleugzeugwerke since some years before (and he almost achieved it at least once).

The He112 on the other hand simply wasn't ready, and had no backing by pilots or RLM "top" heads. Yeah, it was liked, more or less. Yeah, everyone was impressed with it's promised performance. But the plane in 1936 couldn't deliver what it promised, everyone liked the 109 more, thus the 112 was the loser. And a clean loser.

The He100 was a whole different world. It was an extraordinary design for its time but I still wonder about it's development potential. And anyway the He100 came as a flying prototype during 1938. Too late. Germany was hard pressed by then to build enough 109s to fullfit the luftwaffe demands. Even by the war start, the Luftwaffe had a lot of outdated 109Doras in front service because there weren't enough Emils to cover for the demand.
Under those circunstances changing production was a no-no. It would've required a stop,retooling and restarting of the factory lines producing the plane. As it was it was a close run for the LW to have enough planes for the Poland and French campaign. So, simply said, Germany couldn't allow itself to build the He100 by 1938.

Something similar happened to one of my all-time favorite planes, btw, the Focke-wulf Falke. It was an outstanding design, superior in almost everything to the Bf110. However by the time the Falke was ready to be built, Germany couldn't build it because it would've meant stopping the 110 production line, retooling it, and starting it with the Falke. Again, there weren't nearly enough 110s to cover the ZGs demands of the plane (IIRC some ZGs went to war with 109Ds as their main fighter, like ZG26, for instance). To introduce the Falke simply couldn't be done.

And The Design of Bf 109. There is two novel features, one is use of landing gear and other is easly removable wings. So Bf 109 could easly moved around and serviced unliked many other planes. Because the wing doesnt have to carry the load of landing gear both wing could be in simple construction and could be easly detached form the main Body. So the plane can be moved very easly around.

I think you're not giving enough credit to Messerschmitt. He applied almost every novel aeronautic feature he could in his plane. Retractable landing gear, wing slats, and for the first time a total dissatention to wing loading, fixing instead on speed as the main weapon of the plane, etc... He gave his plane cannons at a time when almost every other designer in the world was fixated on MGs. And he achieved all that in an easily built plane (more than 30.000 built in the extremely inneficient and corrupt Nazi production system), easily serviciable, and with a long life expectancy with upgrades.

Honestly, being a plane designed in 1935, one couldn't ask much more from Messerschmitt, or his plane.

Did the plane have faults?. Of course, there has been no combat plane without an achilles heel in the whole story of aviation. But by its time, the 109 was a superb machine.

But we know the end Result was a narrow tire span that make landing and take of was very difficult. And almost 15% loses occured from landing and takeoff.

I always find it kind of funny that the 109 is remembered among other things because its "dangerous" landing gear while another plane with exactly the same gear distribution, with almost the same % of loses in landing accidents as the spitfire is rarely mentioned for it.

Yes, the gear was a compromise. It had too short track and could give problems when landing or taking off. However remember that in that 15% of accidents one has to include all the untrained kids who slammed themselfs against the ground when trying to land by late 1944/early 1945. For the time being (1935-36) Messerchmitt designed a plane for well trained pilots. They also had accidents, of course, but he wanted a plane easy to build, easy to maintain in flyable condition. It's a tradeoff, and I always thought it worked all right in the end.

In design point of view this features are only for the factory and Company. It would greatly accelerate the production. One legs on it is on a moving production line. So The wings. But this is so profit oriented.

Not really. When germany started to give some serious steps towards war production fighter parts were built at very different companies. That includes the Bf109 and the 190.

Its worth mentioning that kurt Tank also took a lot of compromises so his fighter could be easily built and maintained on the field. He took modular production ideas and took them to the limit. His way to deal with the problem of changing a wing was radically different than messerschmitt, though, but in an overall analysis, both Messerschmitt and Tank had easiness of production and maintainance as one of their top objectives when designing their respective planes.

and I'll insist, with more than 30.000 109s built and more than 20.000 190s built (an awesome feat in an inneficient production system as the one in Germany), they gave the Luftwaffe a tool to fight until the bitter end...mostly because of their attention to easiness of building and maintainance.

So no, I don't think messerschmitt was thinking about profit when designing his plane.

Even late in the war if I am not wrong he elluded high order of mass producing different planes other then his own. One example if I am not wrong is HE-219. He was ordered to mass produce HE-219 but he slip on to it.

This I've never heard of. Sources?

And in any case the He-219 program was full of $h1t. Firstly the plane couldn't deliver what the designer said it could do. Secondly there was such a crapload of politics behind the program that noone wanted to get dirty in the pool of scum that plane caused (Milch vs Heinkel, Heinkel friends with Kammhuber, Kammhuber vs Milch. His persistence about taking the 219 into production was one of the reasons kammhuber got sacked, so go figure who wouldve accepted any mass production orders without some serious issues.)

And thirdly, Messerschmitt had already his hands full with the Bf109 updates, the Me210/Me410, the Me262 project, the projected 109 successors, the Komet, the Amerika Bomber, etc. I'd also have tried to avoid complying such an order as to take part in yet another program (and even more as I said if it was so full of flying crap as the He219 was).

And BV-155 issue. When the design project transfered to Blohm-Voss they discovered it was very badly detailed and there was alot of discussion and argument.

Unsurprising. The Me-155 was never more than a more or less low-rank, low-priority item in the wide messerschmitt AF set of projects. The concept was interesting and thats' why the RLM ordered the design to be trasnferred. Blohm und Voss didn't make out anything decent out of it, anyway, and for them it indeed was a high-priority project. And yeah, there were some controversial points between BuV design team and the Me design team acting as "bridge" for the transfer to be smooth. But Messerschmitt, personally, had nothing to do with it (he never gave the plane anything like a bit of attention, to be honest...at that stage he was totally centered into turning the Me262 into a viable combat plane)

Accually These reasons are quite make me transfer all the Messerschmitt production to something different.

Kurt Tank was not the most company man neither Hortens. They were good designers. So we see them perish after the war.

BUt what they design still lives On.

I'd say the 109 design still lives on. And what about the Me262, or the myriad of projects studied in the Messerschmitt AF, many concepts of which were later used in 2nd and 3rd generation jet fighters. Messerschmitt for sure had a tremendous ego, but I think he did a very nice job within the Nazi production system to provide the luftwaffe with the right tools to do a decent job, up to the end of the war.

said that, Kurt Tank for me is a semi-god, for the Fw190 is my all time favorite, the Falke as I said, is other of my favorite all time planes, and tank designed them both. But Messerschmitt was a hell of a designer aswell.

Yes, the gear was a compromise. It had too short track and could give problems when landing or taking off. However remember that in that 15% of accidents one has to include all the untrained kids who slammed themselfs against the ground when trying to land by late 1944/early 1945. For the time being (1935-36) Messerchmitt designed a plane for well trained pilots. They also had accidents, of course, but he wanted a plane easy to build, easy to maintain in flyable condition. It's a tradeoff, and I always thought it worked all right in the end.

on this, you also got to remember what was going on, you had pilots flying off of grass fields, over and over again, and then pull them back to real airfields, and a lot of them would ground loop when they hit the brakes (Stukas were know for this also)

they talk about the touge that the 109 had, and how HARD it was to take off and land with it, what about the F4U, it had even more (and it also had it's cute little nicknames for the numbers killed learning to fly it)

going back to the He 112, how did it fare in combat ? over all it was a dud

[sarcasm]

To be fair, how about accelerating some Allied designs then too instead of all this Nazi fantasy stuff. B-29s & P-80s for example.

what about the F4U, it had even more (and it also had it's cute little nicknames for the numbers killed learning to fly it)

Another possibility to counter the "perfectly organized Nazi state economy" wetdreams. How about no USAAF vs USN rivalry and we get to fly F6F and F4U over Europe in 1943. Nice long-range, maneuverable, durable, and heavily armed. In fact, why not just introduce the 20mm armed versions early while we're at it.

[/sarcasm]

Hellcats and F4u's did fly over Europe

mainly with the RN, but some US flew also (forget the details, but they were working with the fleet for D-Day)

I have seen the combat tests reports and what they told the pilots, if they ran into enemy planes

for the Cat, it was said, if they spotted a 109 below them, attack, if it was above them, the pilots choice

for the 190, they were told, if above, leave it alone, if below it, get out there

(I always found that strange)(well, then again, it really wasn't a fast plane, compared to the Zero, yea, but not in the Stang or Jug or F4u's class)

but yea, I would love to see some bent winged birds in here

the allies have some goodies coming

ORIGINAL: Nicholas Bell

[sarcasm]

To be fair, how about accelerating some Allied designs then too instead of all this Nazi fantasy stuff. B-29s & P-80s for example.

there already is a P80 squadron in game. It arrives to Italy at something like march or april 1945. Check the Great Campaign OOB for the allies, you'll find it.

As for the B-29, it was never designed, intended, destined or even given a thought at using it over Germany. Made sense, there was no reason to bring the superfortress to Europe when it's main asset was range, and over europe that range wasn't needed because the B-17 and B-24s could reach anywhere within europe with ease.

Another possibility to counter the "perfectly organized Nazi state economy" wetdreams. How about no USAAF vs USN rivalry and we get to fly F6F and F4U over Europe in 1943. Nice long-range, maneuverable, durable, and heavily armed. In fact, why not just introduce the 20mm armed versions early while we're at it.

With all due honesty, I can't find a single job a Corsair (another of my favorite aircraft ever, BTW) could do that a P-47 couldn't do better, all the way from ultra-high alt escort fighter down to low level mud moving.

As for the Hellcat, it had a very good performance in the pacific. In europe it couldn't come close to the performance figures of the land based planes used in the theater. Again there was absolutely nothing a Hellcat could do that a Jug couldn't do MUCH better.

There is a reason the Hellcat and Corsair played a very minor part in the war going on over europe. Firstly, they were all needed over the Pacific (the hellcat more than the F4U because it was embarked and the US navy air arm had a very minor role to play in Europe). Secondly, there was nothing those planes couldn't do that any land-based plane couldn't do better. The Corsair was by far the best carrier-borne plane in the war, and a top class fighter and fighter bombers. Yet, it was not better than the P-47D at anything but very slow stallfighting (and you didn't want to stallfight in WW2, so that is a moot point). Why complicate yourself with another plane class, meaning yet another full logistic train of spare parts, pilot training, etc, to bring a plane to action when similar performing or better performing planes are already there?.

Why would you want F4Us in the game?. What for?. The P47 had it bested in everything that mattered when we speak about American fighter tactics: weapons load, firepower, range, speed, dive, zoom, high altitude performance, resistance to damage, better visibility from the cockpit, high speed maneouverability, offensive load, etc...

About the hellcat I won't repeat what I said avobe, but it's exactly the same story but with an even less capable fighter. I repeat that the F6F was a very good fighter to kill outdated zekes, oscars and tonys over the Pacific, but it didn't have the performance needed to go face to face against planes as the 109G6/G14/G10/K4, 190A8/A9/D9, nor they did have the weapon load capability the P38, 47 and even the 51 had...

so I'm still wondering why would you want those planes in europe...[&:]

About the hellcat I won't repeat what I said avobe, but it's exactly the same story but with an even less capable fighter. I repeat that the F6F was a very good fighter to kill outdated zekes, oscars and tonys over the Pacific, but it didn't have the performance needed to go face to face against planes as the 109G6/G14/G10/K4, 190A8/A9/D9, nor they did have the weapon load capability the P38, 47 and even the 51 had...


what are you talking about ?

it had the same weapon load as a P-51, it is in the same speed class as the G6, the other 3 would of been faster, but the Cat would of turned circles around them

, the FW's would of had some speed on it, and a better roll rate, but they couldn't turn with it, and the Cat was a pretty rugged plane, close to the same as the Jug, as a pure escort, it would of done well, but it wouldn't of been a hunter, like it was in the PTO, but that said, I would rather have a Jug or Stang

the F4u would of ate both plane up, the K-4 is listed as being faster, but, that is mainly on paper, none of the K-4s tested came anywhere close to what the LW paper work claimed it could do, and in the end, the K-4 was a lead slead, as long as it was going fast and forward, it was good, but that is all it could do, was go forward, very poor handling and MVR was worthless, surprise some one, dive on them, fire and zoom climb back up, it was untouchable, but it couldn't fight, Heartmann said it was pig, but it fix his tactics, so he could make it work

funny, the only thing the FW would have on them, is roll rate, which the FW is seen as the best rolling plane of the war, followed closely by the Jug, followed closely by the F4u, they are close enough, that it really comes down to pilot skill, then plane