AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues [OUTDATED]

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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mikemike
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Proposal for more realistic AV support handling

Post by mikemike »

How about representing the integral AV support of an air unit (AKA "ground echelon") as part of the air unit? I think most Allied (as well as Luftwaffe) air units had their very own associated mechanics (why "crew chiefs" otherwise?) and I assume the Japanese were similarly organised.

This could be represented by A) a field in the Air unit for the number of associated AV squads or B) a field in the Air unit pointing to an AV LCU. Option A might mean less ocupied LCU slots (which still seem to be in short supply, at least for the Japanese side in the "Ironman" scenario) while option B might mean fewer code changes (this is guessing).

What I imagine the effect of this modification to be:

Most of the AV support would be contained in the air units (I'll refer to them as "ACU" and to the ground echelon as "GE"), with no or only limited generic AV support in the base units. When transferring an ACU to a different base, the GE would have to be transported there as well. This could happen by air or surface transport. Medium or heavy bombers with a max load of more than 1500 lbs, multi-engined patrol or transport aircraft (this might be alternatively determined by an additional flag "carries GE" in the Aircraft DB) would be able to carry the GE over extended range; at longer distances or for any other aircraft types the GE could be carried by a transport ACU by selecting "Transport Troops" and the transferred ACU. If no air transport is available the GE would have to be transferred by surface transport (rail/road or ship). If an ACU is transported by ship, the GU would be carried along automatically.

The AV support squads in an ACU would be subject to the same mechanisms regarding support, supply and replacement as squads in an LCU.

This would have the effect of making the ACU unable to become fully operational at the new base until the GE catches up with it (the ACU could meanwhile share AV support already present at the base but that would impact operations of all ACU present) which seems rather more realistic than the current state of affairs.

I realize that the same effect could be achieved by associating an ACU with an AV support LCU per House Rule but this would not be enforced/handled by the game. On the other hand, this proposal would mean mixing ACU and LCU code which might well present a major coding headache.
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Panther Bait
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RE: Proposal for more realistic AV support handling

Post by Panther Bait »

Unfortunately the ground echelon is a lot more than just men and a few toolbags. While there were mechanics associated with the individual planes/squadrons, there are also machine shops, engine shops, semi-heavy equipment, spare parts, etc. that are all part of the aviation support numbers as well. Much of that other equipment would not be transferable in even the largest bombers, because the bombers don't have the right fittings (tie-downs, strapping, floor space) necessary.

While it would be nice to have organic mechanic support in the air units, you'd still always have GE units that would require transport (air, ship or land), and having that many fragments all over the place would be a nightmare. The only good thing is that it would slow down the pace of moving air units around on a whim.

I'd be happy with stricter AvSupport rules that break base forces into type, i.e. "fighter" base forces for fighters, night fighters, fighter-bombers; "light bomber" base forces for DBs, TBs, etc.; and "bomber" base forces for LBs, but even that might be too much to handle.

Mike

P.S. One other problem might be representing "staging" aircraft, particularly bombers, from another base. It was not uncommon to fly bombers from their home base further in the rear to a more forward base to either rest or refuel (and maybe arm), before flying a combat mission later in the day or the next day. This might typically be done when you needed a larger strike to start an offensive than could be comfortably staged at the forward bases long-term. It is the one area where the ease of relocating air units in WitP actually fits well. Implenting intergral av.support would complicate that or require an only-send-the-planes type toggle.
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by Cathartes »

Edit: TimTom replied in the regular forum. Endurance is a legacy field from WitP and ignored completely in WitP AE. Only the entered range figures apply.

Thanks to TimTom (I'm not mistaken he was part of the Dev Team, right?).

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Barb
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by Barb »

mikemike: I was thinking about the same general lines you are.
1. Air unit could have AV support in its own TOE. But I dont know what this could do with code :)
2. Simply have normal "Air support/Service/Maintenance squadrons" associated with each air squadron. That way one could operate planes with another squadrons support without penalty, or with little houserule to force players to move their support squadrons around together with their aircrafts - and here transport planes could have value of gold!

Both Squadrons and Bases had their own personnel and while the Base one was almost static, the squadron ones were mobile.


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Monter_Trismegistos
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by Monter_Trismegistos »

Anybody knows what these means?

Accelerated training for 21 New Zealand pilots
Accelerated training for 4 Chinese pilots
Accelerated training for 12 Soviet pilots
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by TheElf »

ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Anybody knows what these means?

Accelerated training for 21 New Zealand pilots
Accelerated training for 4 Chinese pilots
Accelerated training for 12 Soviet pilots
It means 21 New Zealand pilots, 4 Chinese pilots, and 12 Soviet pilots accelerated their training above normal rates.
IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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Monter_Trismegistos
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by Monter_Trismegistos »

It means pilots on map gained additional experience?
It means number of pilots in pool was increased?
It means experience of pilots in pool was increased?
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mikemike
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RE: Proposal for more realistic AV support handling

Post by mikemike »

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Unfortunately the ground echelon is a lot more than just men and a few toolbags. While there were mechanics associated with the individual planes/squadrons, there are also machine shops, engine shops, semi-heavy equipment, spare parts, etc. that are all part of the aviation support numbers as well. Much of that other equipment would not be transferable in even the largest bombers, because the bombers don't have the right fittings (tie-downs, strapping, floor space) necessary.

While it would be nice to have organic mechanic support in the air units, you'd still always have GE units that would require transport (air, ship or land), and having that many fragments all over the place would be a nightmare. The only good thing is that it would slow down the pace of moving air units around on a whim.

I'd be happy with stricter AvSupport rules that break base forces into type, i.e. "fighter" base forces for fighters, night fighters, fighter-bombers; "light bomber" base forces for DBs, TBs, etc.; and "bomber" base forces for LBs, but even that might be too much to handle.

Mike

P.S. One other problem might be representing "staging" aircraft, particularly bombers, from another base. It was not uncommon to fly bombers from their home base further in the rear to a more forward base to either rest or refuel (and maybe arm), before flying a combat mission later in the day or the next day. This might typically be done when you needed a larger strike to start an offensive than could be comfortably staged at the forward bases long-term. It is the one area where the ease of relocating air units in WitP actually fits well. Implenting intergral av.support would complicate that or require an only-send-the-planes type toggle.

Okay, you're right concerning bulky support equipment (for British planes, this would mean at least starter carts). So then, only transport aircraft can carry GE squads and that maximally to extended range. Would cut down on code modification.

Aircraft on a staged mission would have to use available AV support at the staging point or just bear operational casualties, i.e. be prepared that maybe just two-thirds of the planes sent will be able to fly the combat part of the mission and maybe half the planes left after combat will be able to return to home base next turn, the rest littering the staging point and waiting for repairs.

As AV support is pretty generic, I don't think it would enhance realism much to differentiate it by type. Most of the maintenance would be pretty much the same independent of type ( a Twin Wasp is a Twin Wasp, whether in a B-24, a C-47 , a Wildcat or a Catalina) and only a small proportion would be type-specific (more for night fighters, less for day fighters). There is no representation of depot-level maintenance, either. It might, however, enhance realism to vary the proportion of AV support to aircraft (12 AV support squads might maintain 24 P-40 or 12 B-25 or 8 B-24 or 6 B-29, for instance. A crude approximation might be half an AV squad per engine, rounded up).

Barb:
I'm aware that one could associate GE and ACU manually. Just a matter of defining appropriate AV support LCUs (which largely don't exist now in the game, at least not for the Japanese side. Try maintaining a twelve-aircraft squadron with an eight AV squad Aviation Company). Associating them by code would just make ACU transfers more realistic and prevent gamey exploits. It would also keep most of the AV support with the ACUs and leave the base forces with base defence and engineering, general support and some generic AV support.
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erstad
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by erstad »

ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

It means pilots on map gained additional experience?
It means number of pilots in pool was increased?
It means experience of pilots in pool was increased?

I would assume this is referring to the pilots in the training pipeline.

As a guess, I would think they most likely advanced two months instead of one. It's hard to imagine they would advance three months, and nothing I've observed in the pipeline handling suggests partial months are involved.

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oldman45
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RE: Allied A/C prodcution rates

Post by oldman45 »

ORIGINAL: Monter_Trismegistos

Anybody knows what these means?

Accelerated training for 21 New Zealand pilots
Accelerated training for 4 Chinese pilots
Accelerated training for 12 Soviet pilots

I have had this come up, I assumed it ment I had used too many pilots and the "system" was rushing more pilots to the front.
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by AvG »

1rst Campaign. Dec 1941. 6* Ki-44 Tojo's in Canton. Basic Tojo first available from 9/42!!!

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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by denisonh »

Early fielded prototypes. Actually used against the AVG in early 1942.
ORIGINAL: AvG

1rst Campaign. Dec 1941. 6* Ki-44 Tojo's in Canton. Basic Tojo first available from 9/42!!!

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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by AvG »

Yeah, that kind of explanation I figured out myself.
The question is however is this meant to be or is it a slip of some devs-keyboard?

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denisonh
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by denisonh »

The Air Team went to great lengths to put all the actual air organizations with the corresponding equipment on the OOB, so believe it is as designed.
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by invernomuto »

ORIGINAL: AvG

Yeah, that kind of explanation I figured out myself.
The question is however is this meant to be or is it a slip of some devs-keyboard?

AvG

It was an historical unit. It was already present in WITP.
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by AvG »

OK. Thank you. You convinced me. (99%. Already in WitP is not a very strong argument)

Now a very stupid question: How do you guys manage to get these quotes in such a nice white rectangle?
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scott64
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by scott64 »

ORIGINAL: AvG

OK. Thank you. You convinced me. (99%. Already in WitP is not a very strong argument)

Now a very stupid question: How do you guys manage to get these quotes in such a nice white rectangle?
AvG
Use the quote reply button on the upper right.[:)]
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Howard Mitchell
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by Howard Mitchell »

ORIGINAL: AvG

OK. Thank you. You convinced me. (99%. Already in WitP is not a very strong argument)

Now a very stupid question: How do you guys manage to get these quotes in such a nice white rectangle?
AvG

Hello AVG, it's done by using 'quote' rather than reply! [:)]

I agree that 'its already in the game' is not a very strong argument, but the Bloody Shambles volumes by Shores, Cull and Izawa give some details on the career of these early Ki-44s. They say JAAF had a total of nine in the 47th Indpendent Chutai at the start of the war (seven pre-production aircraft and two prototypes according to Rene Francillon's Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War). They saw some limited combat:

- 15 Jan 42 – Two engaged Buffaloes over singapore, Capt. Yasuhiko Kuroe claiming one.
- 18 Jan 42 – One Buffalo claimed over Singapore.
- 26 Jan 42 – Ki 44s fought in a series of chaotic engagements over Endau, protecting shipping from British attacks, claiming two (including probably one Hurricane).

There is a bit of disagreement between my sources as the exactly when the unit operating them became the 47th, but they were there well before other units were equipped with proper production machines.
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Mike Solli
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by Mike Solli »

ORIGINAL: AvG

OK. Thank you. You convinced me. (99%. Already in WitP is not a very strong argument)

There's plenty of documentation for this unit available.
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RE: AE Air Issues and Air OOB Issues

Post by ChezDaJez »

Now a very stupid question: How do you guys manage to get these quotes in such a nice white rectangle?
AvG

If you just want to quote part of a post, highlight the text, copy it to the clipboard and select reply. The highlighted text will apear in a quote box in the new posting.

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