I'm new so this isn't obvious to me.

[Tharkun]

Say I wanted Panther tanks before 5/43 how can I do that?

Here is what I've done to see about the R&D from the manual.

I took every tank factory and told it to produce Panthers at the start of the game (6/41) and I played up until 9/42 then got disgusted and stopped. The manual states for each factory I try producing Panthers at, they are advanced a week per turn.

So if I tell say, 10 tank factories to produce Panthers at the start of the game (6/41) then after 7 turns shouldn't the Panthers become available in 5/42 instead of 43?

I'm trying to figure out how that all works so I played human on both sides so I could learn that aspect of the game.

Thanks for any help you can give!

[JagdFlanker]

I took every tank factory and told it to produce Panthers at the start of the game (6/41) and I played up until 9/42 then got disgusted and stopped. The manual states for each factory I try producing Panthers at, they are advanced a week per turn.

i remember when i first started playing the game i read that part in the manual, but i remember it saying there is a chance the production may advance by 1 week. and i believe it checks each factory if production is moved up, so if one factory gets lucky it does not apply to the other factories or the unit type starting early. so , i would guess overall chances are small any factory would be worth converting early!

[Denniss]

As far as I remember research works this way :
All factories set to research for a specific type accumulate their size together and this is the chance of this equipment arriving one weak earlier .
If you have some factories with alltogether size of 25 researching for Panther then each week there's a 25% chance of Panther arriving one week earlier .

[Tharkun]

So basically it's not worth the time to do so as you need war supplies right now. Am I correct in that thinking?

ORIGINAL: Denniss

As far as I remember research works this way :
All factories set to research for a specific type accumulate their size together and this is the chance of this equipment arriving one weak earlier .
If you have some factories with alltogether size of 25 researching for Panther then each week there's a 25% chance of Panther arriving one week earlier .

[Denniss]

ORIGINAL: Tharkun
So basically it's not worth the time to do so as you need war supplies right now. Am I correct in that thinking?

Yep - might be OK for cheaper parts like smaller tanks/JPz/StuG or some fighters/Tank-Buster but not for this big and expensive tanks or big bombers/Me-262 .
At least Research should be only done if the factories have grown in size - makes no sens to switch a size-5/cost-4 (=20 points) factory to a cost-7 research resulting in a size-2 research