Q for BigB

[castor troy]

Using 1.3 and tried to upgrade British bombers to the LB30 but didn´t find anything that upgrades to it although there are enough in the pool.

Are there any that upgrade? Or is there the same problem as with the P51B?

Chris

[goodboyladdie]

You have to upgrade 7th Bomb Group first. It will then open up as upgrade option for other US Army level bomber groups.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

You have to upgrade 7th Bomb Group first. It will then open up as upgrade option for other US Army level bomber groups.

US Army?? I thought it was used by British?[&:]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

You have to upgrade 7th Bomb Group first. It will then open up as upgrade option for other US Army level bomber groups.

US Army?? I thought it was used by British?[&:]

iirc, they were supposed to be for the Brits, but the USAAF retained them after Dec 7

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

You have to upgrade 7th Bomb Group first. It will then open up as upgrade option for other US Army level bomber groups.

US Army?? I thought it was used by British?[&:]

Hi,

Doing research I found that the LB30 was a very limited production aircraft that was only used by one bomb group (off the top of my head I think it was the 7th BG USAAF). So as part of my effort to keep heavy bombers limited in early 1942, I only provided enough LB30s to equip one bomb group ( and only one group has that aircraft in it's upgrade path) plus production of a few planes per month to keep that group in combat.

The group in question was US but flew in S.E.Asia under the British IIRC (I will have to ask kadrin who did most of the research on that one).

But the answer is - you will have to wait until 6/42 when the B-24D to comes online to start upgrading more groups to that type of heavy bomber.

[Big B]

By the way Castor (and anyone else),

Thanks for the feedback - it's the only way I have to know if there are problems or errors.
Please feel free to post any questions or oddities you discover.


B

[wdolson]

The LB-30 was Consolidated designation for the Liberator. The British had a number of Liberator Is that were being prepped for delivery on Dec 7, 41. The USAAF retained them in the US and kept the designation LB-30. They were sent out in penny packets around the Pacific. Some ended up in Alaska, others in Hawaii. The largest concentration was with one squadron in Australia near the end of the DEI campaign. They only flew combat until Java fell, then were withdrawn and sent back to the US. Most of the survivors were given back to the RAF. A few were converted to transports (C-87s) and kept by the USAAF. The CAF in Texas has one of these conversions and it flies as Diamond Lil. It is the oldest surviving Liberator.

The game is in error with the 7th BG getting LB-30s. If they got any of them, it was only a couple and not for very long. If I recall from my research, the 7th operated B-17Es in the early going and later converted to B-24Ds of Js.

The British did not use any of these LB-30s in the Pacific. When they finally got them, they used them with Coastal Command in the Battle of the Atlantic. RAF Liberators were not widely used in the Pacific until late in the war. The workhorse heavy bomber for the RAF was the Wellington for most of the war.

Bill

[Cathartes]

Somewhere saw that the 7th Bombardment Group was attached to the 19th (Heavy) Bombardment Group in Java... anyway, here's an interesting excerpt, (if accurate, need to fix the camo in my planesides!)

Also, in the serial number listings, confirmst at least one LB-30 being with 7th BG, 11th BS.

quote from http://home.att.net/~jbaugher2/b24_5.html
(great biblio and very detailed info)

"Fifteen USAAF LB-30 bombers were deployed in Java in early 1942 to reinforce the B-17-equipped 19th Bombardment Group in a vain attempt to stem the Japanese advance. These USAAF LB-30s were hastily re-equipped with a Martin power turret armed with two 0.50-inch machine guns in the dorsal position behind the wing instead of the four-gun Boulton-Paul turret of the RAF version. The tail position was fitted with a pair of hand-held 0.50-inch machine guns mounted behind sliding doors. Single hand-held 0.50-inch machine guns were installed in the nose, ventral tunnel, and each waist position. The tunnel gun was located on the belly of the rear fuselage, and pointed in the aft direction. It was fired downward through the rear entrance hatch. Small scanning windows for the gun were located along the lower sides of the fuselage. The Dark Earth and Dark Green over Black camouflage scheme of the RAF was retained, but the roundels were painted over with USAAF insignia.

The Java-based LB-30s would be the first US-flown Liberators to see action. One was lost in a crash in the USA before delivery, another ditched en route, and a third was delayed as a result of damage incurred in an accident in the USA. Those Liberators which did reach the Java front participated in numerous attacks against Japanese targets in the Celebes, in Sumatra, and participated in raids against shipping during the Japanese invasion of Bali. By late February, the position of Allied forces in Java had become untenable, and the surviving LB-30s had to be evacuated to Australia. Two LB-30s survived in Australia until 1944 after having been converted to C-87 transport configuration. "

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: morphin

Hi
On Scen 192 i have a Validation error. Gumma (217) produce as wpn9 aircraft no. 48 (productionamount: 62). But there is no aircraft 48 defined!!

Is a fix underway?

Morphin

OK I had time to check that out -

It seems the MOVE feature in the Editor does not move everything - Namely, Production Center.

When the Oscar Ib got the Zero Bonus, it swaped slots with the A6M3 (it only got one point of bonus anyway).
But it didn't move the production - So I went back and fixed the production for Oscar Ib and A6M3 Zero.

While I was at it - I also made the P-51B available for upgrade in 1944.

I will email this out today as B-Mod 1.31 (don't PBEM diferent versions!)

Very sorry for the screw-up ... but it is FIXED and will be out later today (PM if you would like it emailed before Andrew, Spooky and Rouge have it posted).


Brian

[BeastieDog]

Big B I think you have a similar production center problem in 192 and 193 in Okayama with the slot that should be for the A6M3 taken by the Ki-43-1b.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: BeastieDog

Big B I think you have a similar production center problem in 192 and 193 in Okayama with the slot that should be for the A6M3 taken by the Ki-43-1b.

That is correct, as soon as I discovered the nature of the problem with the Oscar Ib, I knew I had to go back and change both tht Oscar and A6M3 production centers in all four scenarios - which I have done (ver 1.31) and sent in to Andrew Brown, Rogue, and Spooky (along with making the P-51B available in all scenarios).

Apologies again.

I can email anyone the corrected 1.31 scenarios now if they PM me.

[goodboyladdie]

Big B, you are a legend. Thanks very much for all your hard work. Now, how can I find the time to fit another game in....?[&o]

[BeastieDog]

Thanks also for all the work you put into your mods. I'm looking forward to my first PBEM.

[m10bob]

With all the other mods being created, and internal forum wars expanding over those mods, it is really refreshing to see Brian proceeding on his own with the concept of OOB and mech's improvements he envisioned from the beginning.
Thank you BigB for the free add-on............

[Big B]

Thanks for the kind words guys, it takes some of the sting out of the Oscar over-site.

B

[donnie_1974_texas]

Big B (or anyone with scenario editor experience).  I have been using your scenario and like the changes thus far.  I made a few mods and would like to use your plane and device data in other scenarios.  So, I have Nik's mod (44) and am using WitPX Editor (or even the stock editor for that matter).
 
I copy the 44 scen to another slot and check it out, works fine.  Then I take your plane data (wpa) and device data files (wpd) and copy and rename them to the new slot.  Pull the scenario back up to check it out.  Oddly enough, when I look at certain planes, primarily Jap fighters I see that pulling aircraft data up from the group display in the game it seems some guns do not appear as listed on the planes.  Pulled the scenario editor back up, and they show up there and properly link back to the right device so that does not seem to be the issue.
 
This has happened to me a lot, found the workaround once (in the order in which to copy files, rename, etc) but I cannot remember how to avoid it now.
 
Any suggestions?
 
Otherwise, I like the mod, A2A feels much better with the changes.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: donnie_1974_texas

Big B (or anyone with scenario editor experience). I have been using your scenario and like the changes thus far. I made a few mods and would like to use your plane and device data in other scenarios. So, I have Nik's mod (44) and am using WitPX Editor (or even the stock editor for that matter).

I copy the 44 scen to another slot and check it out, works fine. Then I take your plane data (wpa) and device data files (wpd) and copy and rename them to the new slot. Pull the scenario back up to check it out. Oddly enough, when I look at certain planes, primarily Jap fighters I see that pulling aircraft data up from the group display in the game it seems some guns do not appear as listed on the planes. Pulled the scenario editor back up, and they show up there and properly link back to the right device so that does not seem to be the issue.

This has happened to me a lot, found the workaround once (in the order in which to copy files, rename, etc) but I cannot remember how to avoid it now.

Any suggestions?

Otherwise, I like the mod, A2A feels much better with the changes.

Hmmm, my first thought was you need the Wpd Device file too - but I re-read and see that you have done that already.
So, thinking out loud - take the Wpa file and Wpd file you want, rename them and put them in your scenario you are working on (44?),... ok - after haveing copied those files over...

Here is what I would suggest. Downlaod the New Matrix Official Scenario Editor v.6 (here http://www.matrixgames.com/games/downloads.asp?gid=294 )[Once downloaded you must tell the scen edit shortcut to point at .6 instead of .1 by right-clicking the shortcut]

Now, using the new scenario editor - load your scen 44, go to Aircraft, and click "Update Airccraft Weapons" towards the top of the screen - this should realign every groups' aircraft with the new device file.

Give that a try and your troubles should be over... let us know if it worked.

B

EDIT - Now that I have had time to reason it out - I am positive that what I told you above will fix your problem. Here's why - When you load the Wpa and Wpd files you gave the scenario new aircraft and devices, but the Wpg (air groups) file still has the old data. That is why you need Scenario Editor v.6, because the "Upadate Aircraft" feature updates EVERY Airgroup to the new aircraft profile in the Wpa file.

It will work.

[Big B]

Happy to report the the corrected scenario ver 1.31 is now up and available at Andre Brown's website ...here http://www.bur.st/~akbrown/witp/scenarios.html


Thanks Andrew! [;)]

[Murphie]

ORIGINAL: Big B

Happy to report the the corrected scenario ver 1.31 is now up and available at Andre Brown's website ...here http://www.bur.st/~akbrown/witp/scenarios.html


Thanks Andrew! [;)]

Hi Big B,

Can this scenario by played against the AI?

[donnie_1974_texas]

Brian - fantastic!  The update function in Scen Edit v6 works.  Thanks for the info! -Donnie