Wondering

[Hard Sarge]

the posting of the AFV change of name drew some strong reactions, so over all, not sure about some of the things I was trying to work on,if I should or not

I don't want to waste a long of time on trying to get something into the game that people are going to say is spelled wrong or doesn't need to be there

so, thought I would ask beforehand on this one (as it would not be a "major" work effort to make happen)

so.....

one early complaint was the the Ground attack units in the game, can change to "good" planes and end up becoming good units, we have taken care of that, Ground Attack planes can only upgrade to Ground attack planes, until late war, and there are a couple of end war models that they can upgrade to

but there is a late war Ground Attack plane that was being worked on, but only a few models were made, of course, hassle is info is shaky on it to start with, and almost none of my books agree with each other as to what the right model names are, so if I say it is this, someone is going to say it should be that (and still over all, we both will be right)

not sure

[Alfred]

Hard Sarge,
 
Not sure I quite follow what you are saying but if you mean that Fw-190F will only upgrade to a similar ground attack plane and not an interceptor (eg Fw-190D) or jet, then I think that is a good design decision.
 
Alfred

[Hard Sarge]

Well, the 190 F and G, will be able to Upgrade to the Do 335 or the He 162, if and when they are around

but I was thinking about adding another ground attack model, but I thought I would try and let you guys argue it out first, and then step in and pick up the peices

[Denniss]

Ta 152 C ?

I don't think another ground attack variant is of any use, you hardly use the Fw 190 F/G anyway

[Hard Sarge]

naw, not the C, besides it is already in

oh, you will use the F and G now, you not got much choice

(either that, or just let them burn out and sit idle)

trying to have a reason for the GE to keep the F and G in production, they can use those factories to build something else, but then all the Ground attack units turned interceptors are worthless

[HMSWarspite]

I use the 190F quite a lot, as a bomber destroyer. The G is a little more problematic, but I use it as a reserve utility fighter (light areas, and so on)

I think restricting the interchangeabilty is realistic - I think the player has too much freedom as the LW (you could move the entire LW to a small area of Ge if you want at present!)

[Rainerle]

Well if you consider that IRL bomber pilots were retrained to become fighter pilots restricting FW F/G Units to ground attack units only is a bit over the point. The game should be modelled in such a way that converting those pilots imposes the problems that were faced IRL, like the lack of fighter training that would make those pilots rather green in the beginning (or until they got enough training).
Just saying that these started out as ground-attack and have always to be that is , well it's unrealistic.

[SMK-at-work]

Flying is flying is flying - I see no particular reason why GA units with what are essentially fighter a/c shouldn't keep at least most of their exp & morale if retasked to air-air with better a/c for the role - I certainly don't think they would lose any morale from it - a bit of exp maybe.

However most pilots couldn't shoot straight anyway - so the added problems of shooting air-air probably weren't really much - Battle pilots wre considered suitable recruits to be put into Hurricanes and Spitfires in 1940 after all, and there's vastly more difference between those a/c than betwen a 190G or F and another single-seat fighter.

[Hard Sarge]

Well, remember some points, only a few GA pilots did well as fighter pilots (one was great)

most of them were out of there element in air to air fighting, most GA units do not have the Exp of there Air to Air trained brothers, if you give them true fighters, they will in the end, become true fighters, only it will take time

we had too many complaints about the F and G units being able to be changed to As and 109s (and the player and the AI does not want to waste Production space on building them, now they will, if they want the numbers that they can have)

for the G, try using it in the East, South East, there is were it's range is more importent then it's firepower

the 300's had a lot of bomber, stuka , recon and transport pilots, a lot of times they did very well at night, but when forced to fight during the day, they also did well, when they were able to bounce a Bomb Group, but they had massive trouble vs fighters, most of them were not even trained in air to air combat

(in 3 missions, JG301 lost something like 71 pilots)

one trick used was to bring in a High Staffel from another JG and make it the 4th Staffel to the Gruppen, it worked for a while, but they were also worn out and shot apart

[SMK-at-work]

By the end of 1944 Jgd pilots weren't trained for air-to-air combat either!![:(]

[Hard Sarge]

Well, with in reason, I think you could say that, but they were talked to, and given hints and tried to be helped, if they could get though there first few missions, they stood a chance, the HARD part was the first few missions

but overall, yea, the training time went way down

[HMSWarspite]

Actually, on reflection, I change my mind. No restriction on aircraft conversions, but a random exp loss per pilot if you change types (F to grd Att, NF to F etc). You could make JG to ZG say 0-10 exp loss, but NJG to JG 5-30 or something, and SG to JG 0-20 etc.

[AmiralLaurent]

The problem with SG units in BTR is that they can only be used as fighter units, they can't be ordered to fly ground-attack missions as they did IRL. So because a given unit intercepted IRL heavy bombers 3 times during the war, it will be included as a "fighter" unit and be used by players every day...

On the other hand the Allied player has no need to fly defensive flight in BTR either, but at least the OOB takest his into account by not giving him all units that were really available (for example, most of the units that defended North Africa in 43-44 won't arrive in BTR until they were engaged over Italy in more offensive roles).

As for "flying is flying is flying", yes, but air-to-air combat is not the same... The most important part of it was to fight in team (Rotte, Schwarm) and needed a lot of training to get used to... Most green pilots spent their first dozen of air combats just trying to follow their Rotte leader, then became able to know what was happening and may shoot at somebody with some accuracy. The problem was that in SG units you had few experienced pilots able to lead others in a dogfight. Some SG pilots did well (the best claimed 116 kills) but on the Eastern Front, ie in small-scale fights between tactical aircraft at low altitude. That has almost nothing to do with the battles against heavy bombers in the West (and air units transfered from one front to the other usually suffered a lot due to the change of tactics needed).

[Hard Sarge]

Roger and Roger, but when the first game came out, the biggest complaint was that the GE side, didn't stand a chance, and most of the changes made back then, were to give the GE side a chance

with out all the SG and KG and what not units, the GE is going to be overwelmed (and even with them, he/it is going to be in trouble)

so, you are either going to give them way overmodelled planes, or give them units that did fight in the air war, but not as often as the standard fighting units

[Alfred]

Hard Sarge,
 
I'm wondering....could the new unnamed GA plane you are considering be....the Go-229A?
 
Alfred

[Hard Sarge]

No nothing that fancy (hopeing to work out more jets for later on)

but the feed back so far been kind of Neg, so thinking of dropping the idea

[Alfred]

Hard Sarge,
 
Well I'm sure whichever way you go will be the right decision.  As an Axis player, I like the design decision to restrict Fw-190F and Fw-190G upgrades to Do-335 and He-162 only.
 
Alfred

[Hard Sarge]

Thank you Sir

over all it seems to be working the way we wanted it to

main thinking right now, is the info on the plane is a little ruff, it was thought about, then pulled from production, then it was added to production, and then it was pulled, and depending on where you look, it is going to be called this, or it is going to be called that, and in the long run, I am thinking it would only cause more posts of, that plane wasn't built, or you got the wrong plane model

other hassle is, if you can get to the 2 they can upgrade to, they are decent planes, and this plane would also be in the same time frame

[HMSWarspite]

On the issue of giving the Ge side bonus units because otherwise they get overwhelmed, the correct way to have sorted it is of course to provide more restiction to the Allies. That would not have been possible before because either you take units out of the OOB (always a good route to an argument), or you need executable changes. One issue that I would like to see is the issue of training losses. You can scale production to allow for aircraft sent elsewhere, and lost in training, but someone is doing all this trainpng! The training units not in the game count for some (OTU and HCU in RAF terms). However maybe morale or fatigue loss per mission should be looked at, or enforced 'rest days' at so many per month for each unit, during which they are elegable for 'training casualties' at a suitable rate. (and I don't mean when the weather is bad). Coordination penaltes ought to be a function of mission size as well (2 squadron escort of 1 bomb group shound not be an issue, but we can easily put together 20 sqds escorting 10 bomb groups!)

If this could be addressed, we could then get realistic numbers of Ge aircraft operating (btw they need some form of training/rest requirement as well), without them being swamped by the vast air armada.

How many Allied players would put a sequence of BC raids together like this?
Day 1, raids of 596 to Peenemunde, and 8 to Berlin
day 2, 0 (actually 30 OTU leaflet raid)
3, 8 to Berlin
4, 0
5, 0
6, 0
7, 462 to Leverkusen, 12 to Ruhr, 6 to Hamburg
8, 727 to Berlin
9, 8 to Berlin
10, 6 to Berlin
11, 0
12, 674 to Nurembeg
13, 4 to Cologne, 4 to Duisburg
14, 660 to Munchengladbach, 45 toTroops in France.
15, 622 to Berlin, 41 to Troops, 8 to Cologne.

This is actually the raids (relevent to BTR) that BC put on from 17th Aug to the end of the month. Most BTR players would be a little busier than 3891 BC sorties (excluding NF) in the first 12 turns with Window in full effect? Or at least, I have leanrt to be. I did 23000+ sorties in this time, and BC was a big part in my last full campaign start.

[edit to correct maths]

[Hard Sarge]

not to disagree, but what was the reason for BC not flying

if I remember right, it was weather related, not rest being needed

which I must say that I must play different then others, as I do send out the small raids, to keep the enemy busy when I do not want to be (those small raids were mainly Mossie hassle raids)

plus I got to disagree with the answer you are drawing from the data you have

it was common for the Tac units to fly 2 to 3 missions a day, the fighters in VIII command flew double missions a lot, with the early shorter range planes they flew inbound coverage, returned and refueled and then flew outbound cover missions (the longer range planes did not have to do this)

a normal combat day for the Meds of IXth was a double mission (they didn't have as far to fly and take as long to rearm as the Heavies)

the Spits that landed in France, would fly up to 4 or 5 missions a day (combat wings, 3 to 4 squadrons, based on one strip)

in june 44, 403 415 and 421 RCAF squadrons flew 1783 missions
in july (add in 443 RCAF to the wing) flew 4382 missions
in Aug flew 2819 missions

(June starts almost a week late, lot of bad weather in June and Aug)