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I found this about attacking Japan from Attu I thought might interest some of you:

But my guess is that we had it easier than the non flying personnel. The tour of duty for flying personnel was 1 year, regardless of number of missions. For ground personnel it was two years in what was considered a hellhole, with little or nothing to do for recreation. There were also infantry and artillery stationed on Attu with even less to do, but considered necessary in case the Japanese decided to return. And there was a squadron of Navy bombers about the size of our B25s on Attu doing the same as we were doing.

One day one of the navigators from another crew came over to our hut with three .45s and three trench knives and said, "Hey, Milt. Hold these overnight, will you?" When I asked why he said they didn’t have to fly tomorrow so his pilot and co-pilot were going to get drunk and he wanted the arms out of the hut so someone wouldn’t get killed. Looking back, I’m sort of surprised that never happened to someone.

We did find out that there was a reason for us being on that God forsaken island. We were going to be flying bombing missions to two of the Kuril Islands, Shumushu and Paramushir. The Kurils are an island chain extending northward for about 600 miles from the northernmost island of Japan. We would be bombing fisheries and canneries, and shipping and radar installations. The bombing would be done about 50 to 100 feet above the ground or water. The goal was to disrupt their food supply for both military and civilians.

The missions were a 1500 mile round trip, and would take around 9 hours to complete. The catch was the B-25 was built for a maximum of 6 hours flying time. So in order to accomplish our 9 hour missions, the planes were retrofitted to provide more fuel storage. Half the bomb bay was converted into a gas tank, which held about 225 gallons, and two droppable wing tanks were added, each holding about 110 gallons.

I personally felt that was a lot of time and effort spent to send out planes that could only carry four 300 pound or ten 100 pound bombs, double lashed together. Besides, the Army had a squadron of B-24s on the next island, Shemya, a few miles away from us that would be bombing the same installations we were targeting. I found out around 50 years later that these B-24s were doing low level bombing like we were, but were designed for bombing from 20,000 to 25,000 feet, as they did in Europe. Of course, we did not question the "wisdom"(?) of our superiors, but did our training and bombing as we were told.

These operations appear to have started in mid 1943 and continued through the end of the war. As you can see the B-25s were adapted with extra fuel tanks to make the trips. In game B-25s don't have an option for these operations. Is there anyway to Be able to accomplish this by modding. And while on the subject, how does the game handle other a/c that provide for extended range though the use of extra tanks.

Here is the site of the above with links to the 11th Air Force
World War II History

http://www.geocities.com/tempelhof.geo/miltch1.html

I think there are 2 options
 
make another B25 type which has the required extra tankage and lower bomb load.
 
or
 
Allocate drop tanks to the weapons load of 1-2 squadrons of B25, this dissapears if you upgrade so make sure they dont.
 
My understanding is that the game will select the drop tanks as part of the load if asked to fly to a long range target.
 
Fuel bay tanks were used by a lot of aircraft, not well documented and not shown in WITP.

The squadrons (plural) of Navy bombers were PV-1s. The Stock game stats on this plane are the result of either bad, bad research or no research whatever. The aircraft was a bigger, a lot faster, and a lot more heavily armed version of the Hudson. Since it was initially built around the ASD-1 surface search radar it was used as a pathfinder for the B-24s that the USAAF operated off of Attu. When bombing Paramushiro from Attu the PV-1s carried 2 500 lbers, and an assortment of lesser bombs totalling about 2000 lbs overall. There's a lot of info at VP Navy.com.

VPB-135 and VPB-136 were the first two squadrons (deploying to Adak and Amchitka prior to the capture of Attu. Initially the PVs flew long range anti-aircraft patrols from Attu of Japanese bomber raids originating in the Kuriles. VPB-139 relieved them in Dec 1943 and began night bombing missions on the Kuriles. VPB-135 and VPB-136 returned to Attu in June 44 and began unescorted daylight bombing raids on shipping in the Kuriles. By then the planes carried a field modification chin pack of 3 x .50 cals (in addition to the reg 2 x .50 cals) and combined with their high speed (over 300 mph once the bombs were offloaded) did fairly well fighting off and shooting down Japanese fighters. Combat losses of PVs were fairly light. The majority of a/c lost were to the rotten weather. VPB-131 later served at Attu flying strikes with no bombs but using 5" HVAR rockets against shipping.

Wow, that guy was shot down just before my father arrived on Attu as a combat photographer.  He flew the B-25s from June, 45 to the end of the war.  I'm going to send this link to my father.

Bill

By '45 RAF Libby VI's of No.159 Sqd did a 6,000 miles roundtrip to Penang with 8,000lbs bombloads. This was made possible by stripping them of armour, all guns save those in the rear turret, wholesale removal of the ball turret, leaving behind half the crew, and overloading 5,000lbs.

RHS modified all Allied bombers - twice. First because bomber range had been deliberately restricted - to limit "uber bombing" effects - we made them correct. Then - because OPERATIONAL ranges were not big enough - we increased transfer range by 9% more - making operational range right - and simulating transfer with ferry tanks. We also added the PV-2 as an upgrade for the PV-1, put in ultra long range B-24s in a recon configuration, and added B-25s with big guns and functional rockets in addition to their .50s in the nose. Part of the reason was to make 2 engine raids from the North a possibility.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

RHS modified all Allied bombers - twice. First because bomber range had been deliberately restricted - to limit "uber bombing" effects - we made them correct. Then - because OPERATIONAL ranges were not big enough - we increased transfer range by 9% more - making operational range right - and simulating transfer with ferry tanks. We also added the PV-2 as an upgrade for the PV-1, put in ultra long range B-24s in a recon configuration, and added B-25s with big guns and functional rockets in addition to their .50s in the nose. Part of the reason was to make 2 engine raids from the North a possibility.

I guess that means we can conduct such raids? I have never got to that time period in a game. I will be looking for options to use B-25s on extended bombing missions. Just using the 1500 miles R/T mentioned as a Kentucky windage figure that would mean they could be used for missions 10 to 12 hexes away. Are they available and if so do you remember what the designation for the a/c is?

ORIGINAL: wdolson

Wow, that guy was shot down just before my father arrived on Attu as a combat photographer.  He flew the B-25s from June, 45 to the end of the war.  I'm going to send this link to my father.

Bill

Also available from that site is some War Stories. One relates to a mission that they were shot at by both the Japanese and the Russians. There is another with a pretty detailed adventure of a Russian internment and how they were eventually returned to the U.S.

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I think there are 2 options

make another B25 type which has the required extra tankage and lower bomb load.

or

Allocate drop tanks to the weapons load of 1-2 squadrons of B25, this dissapears if you upgrade so make sure they dont.

My understanding is that the game will select the drop tanks as part of the load if asked to fly to a long range target.

Fuel bay tanks were used by a lot of aircraft, not well documented and not shown in WITP.

Sure would be great to have a sufficient number of slots in the game to be able to accommodate more aircraft configurations.

Adding drop tanks to a squadron does NOT work at this time.

I have requested that drop tanks be treated like bombs - that is that the squadron load be what is executed. But code right now does NOT do it that way. ONLY drop tanks on the aircraft type work - and then you are forced to always have them in every squadron.

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

ORIGINAL: el cid again

RHS modified all Allied bombers - twice. First because bomber range had been deliberately restricted - to limit "uber bombing" effects - we made them correct. Then - because OPERATIONAL ranges were not big enough - we increased transfer range by 9% more - making operational range right - and simulating transfer with ferry tanks. We also added the PV-2 as an upgrade for the PV-1, put in ultra long range B-24s in a recon configuration, and added B-25s with big guns and functional rockets in addition to their .50s in the nose. Part of the reason was to make 2 engine raids from the North a possibility.

I guess that means we can conduct such raids? I have never got to that time period in a game. I will be looking for options to use B-25s on extended bombing missions. Just using the 1500 miles R/T mentioned as a Kentucky windage figure that would mean they could be used for missions 10 to 12 hexes away. Are they available and if so do you remember what the designation for the a/c is?

B-25C transfer range = 63 so extended range = 21 hexes..

B-25H transfer range = 57 so extended range = 19 hexes.

B-25H transfer range = 57 so extended range = 19 hexes.

PBJ transfer range = 57 so extended range = 19 hexes.

PV-1 and PV-2 are less impressive range wise: 11 and 12 hex extended range respectively.

The Mitchell III operated to RAF standards has an extended range of 10 hexes.

The most distant US airfield ever was/is on Shimiya. [They used to go to Adak for R&R - if you can imagine such a thing - because it had a McDonalds and a single screen movie theater! "It isn't the end of the world, but you can see it from here" was the slogan of the place.] First worked up for WWII bombers, it is approximately in the Attu hex. It was used in preference to Attu because it was more suitable for a long runway - and the runway is just about all there is. [Eventually a B-52 runway was made - and it and pads for aircraft are all there is except for a single gigantic building, today used for a unique long range radar - Cobra Dane or something like that.]