Matrix Games Forums

I'm starting a practice game as axis against the AI using the beta patch.
I noticed that all Italian fighters require 2 Engines, not just the Fiats. Is that deliberate?
It was an encouragement to change Italian production to Bf109-G6a and use my excess DB engines for something to give the Axis Allied....but I just wondered if this was deliberate. I noticed the IAR still only needed one engine. A good reason to keep in in production as well.

that was one of the biggest bottlenecks of the It designs, they couldn't get the engines needed, they were trying to build there own, but also had to depend on the Germans giving them engines

so yes, it costs them more

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

that was one of the biggest bottlenecks of the It designs, they couldn't get the engines needed, they were trying to build there own, but also had to depend on the Germans giving them engines

so yes, it costs them more

Well.....I can understand why you feel there should be a bottleneck for Italian production and am not going to castigate you for choosing to implement the botleneck in such a manner but.....

You are absolutely correct in noting the difficulties the Italian aircraft industry had in getting German engines to test in the period 1940-42. The attendant difficulties really impacted upon the start up date for production runs (which in game terms is best handled by altering the arrival date). Italian seria 5 production aircraft used licensed manufactured local engine production. Sure aircraft production was not particuarly efficient but I don't think one could put the burden of low production in 1944 solely on engine production - there were plenty of other limiting factors (which in game terms could be represented by requiring multiple parts, instead of the usual one, for single engine Italian fighters).

Alfred

Surely this bottleneck would not exist in the german, french, rumanian, etc factories.
I say this because:
1. I was intending to convert asmuch as the current production of fighter aircraft over to what appears to be the best axis single engined fighter, the Re 2005, (all the other single engine fighters seem to be useless)
2. the fiat engine in the Re 2005 is a licence built DB605A, so there should not be any bottleneck.

Note in doing this would require a long process of part, engine and factory assembly production changes and the ensueing loss of production in current other models, but that would be my executive decision.

I would agree, if we could make only It EFac produce the engine needed, but since any EFac can make it, then I need to make it a bottleneck

"2. the fiat engine in the Re 2005 is a licence built DB605A, so there should not be any bottleneck. "

but got to disagree with the idea behind this, just because the licence was bought, doesn't mean it was easy for them to build it, even with the licences and the plans, they had trouble building enough to use

(that and the fact that I can not make the system use two parts per plane, doesn't help)

I could make any factory south of Prague run at half efficiency... [:D]

...south of Stuttgart? Heh.

Don't push me... South of Templehof. Or Hamburg.  

Does this mean my strategy of using this fighter would have caused enough pain to the allies to beat the version 1.0 of BTR.

ORIGINAL: harley

Don't push me... South of Templehof. Or Hamburg.  

That is OK by me as long as it extends around the world on the same latitude knocking out American and British aircraft production[:D]

Alfred

ORIGINAL: Wayn Reinbold

Does this mean my strategy of using this fighter would have caused enough pain to the allies to beat the version 1.0 of BTR.

why ?

it means the plane was HARDer to build then most of the other common planes, one reason, not many of them were built in real life

My strategy is that given equipment equal to that of the Allies I should be able to beat the the computer in a 1943 long campaign, assuming replacement rates are similar to the First BtR. In game terms, the Re 2005 appears to be the equal to what the allies have at Aug 1943, therefore I was going to make it the most prolific of the single engined fighters from Aug 1943 to the point where I had developed the Ta 152 (and it appears this is going to be made more difficult). At two engines a piece the RE 2005 may still be worth it [:)]. As you know the problem is to ensure enough pilots survive long enough to be equipped with the Ta152.

Personally the Fw 190 should be the best the Axis have, and according the Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown, the Fw190 was the equal of the Spitfire IX, in Jan 1944.
re his book "Wings on my Sleeve" page 59 published 2007. This is not reflected in this game, or maybe the numbers describing what I assume are the main attributes of the aircraft Mvr, Speed, climb rate are not telling the whole story [;)] . Eric Brown was a RAE test pilot during WW2, but you probably know this.

On pilot replacements
Can you tell me what the daily replacement rates are for all the various nationalities and whether this has changed from the Old BtR?
I assume the pilots would be switchable from bombers to fighters if the fighters are running short (I don't think you can go the other way because the bomber course is much longer than tthe fighter course). I'm not sure whether the allies could make use of semi trained pilots as the germans did.

if you want to make 2005 or 55's go ahead, it is just going to cost you more to do so

I wouldn't make either one, the MAIN plane, but I would build enough to use (in my old games, I used to make enough 2005s and refit JG 3 with them, and keep them around Bremen)

you do have enough production, that some of it can be wasted (remember, 5 a day is still 150 a mouth, that is still enough to change over 1 JG a month, with some left over for replacements (not enough for replacements, but...)

but remember, they are not truely uber planes, the Axis planes can still do more then they can

yes, I know Brown, from what I have read, the 190 outclassed the V, it wasn't until the IX that the Spit again gained the edge, and once the A-8 came out, the IX was better (the A-8 is not as bad as most games make it, but it was still gaining much more weight, then the engine could handle, and still had trouble above med alt)

the real Issue, is how do you compare them ?

from WWI, the Germans were never that concerned with turn rate, to them, climb and roll, were the most importent thing needed in a fight, so there planes were built to roll and climb, turn was 2ndary (and it is still debated now, which could out turn which, a lot of 109 pilots say/think they out turned a Spit, and a lot of Spit pilots think they could out turn a 109, most times, you got somebody who wasn't flying the plane to the edge, while the other one was, tests between captured planes, don't really tell you what is real, it tells you what you want to hear)

(WWI, had a odd one, the French captured a new German plane and the Germans captured a new French plane, both ran tests, with there newest model, and both sent out reports to there units, that due to the tests, they had the better plane, not to worry if you got into combat with it, as it couldn't do what your plane could, they were the same planes in both sets of tests, and both sides came away from the testing, that there plane could do better)

WWII, Commando's were asked, if on one of there raids, if they happened to land close to a LW airfield, to kind of look around and see if they could grab a box or two of sparkplugs, the 190's they were testing, they knew had burned out plugs in it, but all the data from there tests were passed on, even though the testers knew they had a bad model to be testing

pilot numbers, that is something near and dear to Harley's heart, and he not going to be giving out much info on that, even to me, he only gave me, the basic's on how it works, he wouldn't give me the numbers, it changes by year

for Allied, I would say, a bomber pilot and a fighter pilot come from the same pool

you do, have extra real pilots, they are set up to come in along the way, but they will come into the unit they belonged to, so you could have a unit with a lot of pilots, while others are low

(if I could redo the pilot system, I would like to have the system, look to see if it has a pool of replacement pilots for this unit, pull from the pool first, only after the pool is dried up, then go to the AI pilot system, but, that would be a lot of work, and, if a maybe, maybe way down the road)

Thanks for your response.

I realise the Re 2005 is not a uber plane the main idea was to give the luftwaffe an aricraft that would improve the suvival chances of the pilots. Also in this current game with the beta version I am doing reasonably well even with the luftwaffe air units.

I have terminated this game, because I noticed the production system was making no Re2005, even though it was the only Italian plane in production and given the initial prduction was 5xRe2005. (beta ver of game). I had switched all the macchi production to either Ta 152H or Re2005. This may be because I have continued a game started in version 1 thinking I would get around the two engines for the Re2005[:)], but I noticed last night that no Re2005's have been produced (production on human control), Its day 4. So I have restarted the game with a fresh campaign in 1943.

One trick I have tried was to change current models for future ones because I noticed the future air formations had full complements of aircraft. I was suprised this worked. I ended up with 100 Fw190D's and about 170 Me 109G14s in my replacement pool in 17 Aug 1943. I could change out future Me 262s for current Me 109G-6, but that would be silly. This is extemely gamey. I'll do the right thin and put them back[;)]. I think in the old BtR all the future air formations had a nominal one or 2 a/c except when they where becoming operational.

In the game I have just terminated, I've noticed the KIA / WIA ratio is a bit kinder that the old BtR game or 1.06, where it seemed most shotdowns would result in maybe 75% or more of the axis pilots being killed when compared to the allied KIA vs MIA (parachute) was about 50%:50%. This is good to see. I assume the KIA ratio would get worse if too many missions are flown, and fatigue start to be a factor.

I have to do some research on crew prduction rates. Middlebrook is a good source for this.

Rating Aircraft would not be easy, and the information can be ambiguous to say the least. And that why I give some weight to someone like Eric Brown who have first hand experience of allied and axis aircraft was a package. Also I like Eric Brown because he says what I want to hear. But if you have not read them i would recomend his books "Duel in the Sky" adn "wings on my sleve".

Anyhow I'll try playing the game as is, and see how I go. Basically if I can achieve a 10:1 ratio between KIA axis pilots and a combination of KIA and MIA for the allies, i may eventually bet the game as the axis. This is dependant of cause the new game requires a 20:1 ratio [:)]. I may go to the trouble of recording the pilot populations of each airforce over a period of days to find out what the pilot production rates are.

ORIGINAL: Wayn Reinbold

...

One trick I have tried was to change current models for future ones because I noticed the future air formations had full complements of aircraft. I was suprised this worked. I ended up with 100 Fw190D's and about 170 Me 109G14s in my replacement pool in 17 Aug 1943. I could change out future Me 262s for current Me 109G-6, but that would be silly. This is extemely gamey. I'll do the right thin and put them back[;)]. I think in the old BtR all the future air formations had a nominal one or 2 a/c except when they where becoming operational.

...

I wondered about this, with the future formations having alot of planes and pilots. Thanks for the info.

It looks like another change is coming, eh? [;)]

TS

No, this is the same as the old BTR. Some units had full complements of future aircraft. I remember doing exactly this with the units...

We definately balanced the KIA/WIA rate some time ago...

I'd did not bother with this trick in the old BtR.

instead I changed:
- the Mvr Rating of the Fw190A to 37 as a match to the Spitfire IX,
- made the drop tanks of the germans 60min (this give a rate of 5litres/min) instead of the 30min in the current game (also upped changed all the other drop tanks to the same 5 litres /min)
- May have fiddled with the internal fuel for the P47C
- Definitely changed the internal fuel for the Spit IX and Spit XIV fighters. No way did spits have 3hrs of internal fuel, except the PR which had no guns (extra fuel in the leading edge of the wing).
- also i fiddled with the airbourne radar. I thought I was not getting the kill rates achieved historically at night. (maybe this was wrong because in game terms the replacement rate for bomber command was not historical? (I think I ended up with a 5% kill rate against bomber command). and when i looked at bomber command units when the game stopped. they were not in a very good state. I think in Middleton's Nurenburg raid he states for every 2bombers they had 3 crews, and from a rough calc for the battle of the ruhr BC lost 870 aircraft (4.7%) and BC gained in strength from 400 to 800 a/c. which equates to 8.35 new crews per day. Thus to keep BC at 400 a/c the germans would have had to shot down 870+400 = 6.9% on average.