Matrix Games Forums

Pardon in advance my question that may be stupid or showing I'm an ignirant but how on earth is it possible to move air bases ? I supposed that planes need runways and other equipment which are, by nature, not easily movable. Where are the runways for my planes to take off and land ?

Could anybody clarify this point for me ?

I didn't print and read the manual yet. I am waiting for my Christmas present: a Sony Ebook reader )_

You're not moving runways, but you are moving the mechanics, armorers, fueling & fuel storing equipment, anti-aircraft, and other support. The aircraft just "fly" to the new base location. An important point to keep in mind is that air base units can only launch aircraft if they are located in clear, light woods, or urban hexes.

how can an airbase launch an aircraft without runways or worse, from a "light wood" ? Sorry but this makes no sense to me ...

one word ' abstraction '

Back then there was few runways, mainly it was a flat patch of grass...

So if I understand well, you are telling me that during east campaign in WW2 airfields were mobile structures ? Is this really historically acurate ?

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

how can an airbase launch an aircraft without runways or worse, from a "light wood" ? Sorry but this makes no sense to me ...

Most airfields in Russia were dirt or grass strips. They didn’t need large 8000-9000 foot concrete runways to operate most airframes like the US and British strategic bombers needed. So one week’s time is more than enough to carve out an airstrip capable of handling the airframes in question.

As is mentioned above it’s the base facilities that limit air operations. Mechanics, fuel depots, spare parts, base defense forces, etc. are the big issue when moving your air power from one place to another. And those facilities are represented by the air base counters. The planes assigned to the counters can be assumed to be spread out over many small airfields in its hex and perhaps some of the surrounding hexes, so that part is an abstraction.

Jim

ORIGINAL: Timmeh

one word ' abstraction '

No sorry. This is supposed to be deadly accurate game.

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Most airfields in Russia were dirt or grass strips. They didn’t need large 8000-9000 foot concrete runways to operate most airframes like the US and British strategic bombers needed. So one week’s time is more than enough to carve out an airstrip capable of handling the airframes in question.

As is mentioned above it’s the base facilities that limit air operations. Mechanics, fuel depots, spare parts, base defense forces, etc. are the big issue when moving your air power from one place to another. And those facilities are represented by the air base counters. The planes assigned to the counters can be assumed to be spread out over many small airfields in its hex and perhaps some of the surrounding hexes, so that part is an abstraction.

Jim

No sorry. This is supposed to be deadly accurate game.

Ok ... ok ... I get your point. But this is certainly the most bizarre/unrealistic part of the game. Especially when considering the HUGE amount of MP of these structures !

US seabees were the best at the time (different front), jungle what jungle theres your air strip...

ORIGINAL: nukkxx
Especially when considering the HUGE amount of MP of these structures !

It’s a design decision, but when you consider what moving would entail it’s not as bad as you might think. First you get the order, move your groups to the area southwest of Kiev. You take what 2 or 3 days to get your command packed up and ready to go. Then it takes what half a day to drive to Kiev from the Polish border? Probably less but let’s be generous and say two days.

You then take a day or two unpacking your command and getting your air operations up and running. That’s a week, so I’m not too concerned about the movement distance. Allowing planes to fly in the same turn an airbase moves is another question though.

It’s probably an abstraction made to prevent overcomplicating all the behind the scenes planning that would go into setting up advance airbases in anticipation of the move. It can very well be done (and probably was) with perfect timing so that when the base stuff arrives planes were already on the new airstrips and ready to go, but more often than not there were probably delays involved for most moves.

I’m not familiar with the game enough to tell if moving airbases has a major impact on the performance of those planes or not. But I assume it would have some detrimental effect. If not it should at least for the turn of the move.

Jim

In fact air base unit is a series of real life airbases operating under one command and geographically located in one region. We don't model air fields as it is done in WITP, where they placed in some particular location/city. This greatly reducing the complexity and allows player to manage better air assets in situation of rapidly advancing/or retreating fronts.

As for movements, for example Soviet air groups were not tied to any particular air base. All personal could be reallocated (fly over) to other place quite fast and use available facilities there. As stated above in many cases such facilities were very minimalistic.

OK, perhaps an illustration then:

consider then the square counter beside the can of green goodness a typical AF counter in our game. What do they have in common?

OMG.. they're People!

It still looks like very unrealistic to me .. sorry guys but that might be the poorest aspect of the game. A huge desapointment ...

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

It still looks like very unrealistic to me .. sorry guys but that might be the poorest aspect of the game. A huge desapointment ...

Believe it or not, it's a very realistic depiction.....


some selected quotes:

Luftwaffe units found themselves shuttling back and forth from battlefront to battlefront throughout the late summer and fall- a situation that only exacerbated supply and maintenance difficulties on the primitive grass fields of the theater. Visiting bases in the east in fall 1941, Milch discovered a catastrophic situation: aircraft were awaiting repairs at a number of bases, but no work was occurring because the units had moved on and the supply system was providing barely enough bombs, fuel and parts to support operations.

On 9 October the Luftwaffe flew only 300 sorties off the sodden grass strips that were its bases. If the Luftwaffe had confronted great difficulties so far, it was now entering a nightmare period.

Only the arrival of cold weather in mid November allowed the ground forces to resume the advance on Moscow. The Luftwaffe, however, was unable to provide much support. Its strength in front of Moscow lay on unimproved airstrips with neither the maintenance nor supply support for sustained operations.

The figures on the Eastern Front were even worse, as Luftwaffe ground crews attempted to repair aircraft in unheated shelters in temperatures well below zero.

http://junebarbarossa.devhub.com/blog/3 ... ern-front/

The source isn't special, but you won't find one which says anything different.

It still looks like very unrealistic to me .. sorry guys but that might be the poorest aspect of the game. A huge desapointment ...

Why? What would be better model with given game size and complexity, without major impact to the playability?

I'm not saying that air model is perfect, but exiting level of approximation, ihmo, does very good job. There is so many things which can be added on the top and make air war more realistic.

Don't get Pavel started on the Air Model!!!!

Don't get Pavel started on the Air Model!!!!

I'm on the other side now, Bob [:)]

IMO what might be worthwhile is to give a bonus to repairing damaged aircraft and fatigue reduction to air bases in cities/towns/light urban hexes. There were permanent airfields of various sizes at these places and a permanent airfield did improve many things. After the Germans retreat in 44, the Luftwaffe was comparatively functional because it was suddenly very close to it's home bases and their workshops.

However, this is really only a minor nice to have.