Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell

VS,

Sources for my wild speculation are Francis Dean's "America's Hundred Thousand", Warren Bodie's "Lockheed P-38 Lightning" and the USAAF Statistical Digest. Table 75 from the Digest gives the following figures for factory acceptances -

August '43: 102 P-38, 501 P-39, 463 P-40, 434 P-47 and 175 P-51.
September '43: 66 P-38 (plus 89 F-5's converted on the factory production line - at this point F-5 production was done in 6-month batches by the factory, instead of the later system of converting P-38 fighters after delivery), 280 P-39, 400 P-40, 496 P-47 and 201 P-51.

These figures need to be reduced by allocation and delivery times (e.g. most of the P-39's went to the USSR, and while the P-51's were all Merlin-engined B models, they were in the process of shipment and weren't available in the ETO/MTO for a couple of months), while on the other hand the game may require an increase or tweaking of production as HS has done for the P-40 variants to deal with the AI's ability to use up the entire production of allied aircraft in high-attrition attacks. So while I'm a stickler for historical accuracy, I think some gameplay feeedback would be just as valid.

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell

I can change the H to 3 a day, was going to have the J be 9 in 43, and 12 in 44, will use April 44 as the start date for the L

yes, the H and J have alt troubles, the L will be better

the J gets the 110 extra fuel the change in the wing made

Excelleurnt. Despite the evidence that HS was doing this anyway, I will now appropriate all the credit. For my next trick, I will get Harley to start drinking expensive imported foreign beer.

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell

Aha, so there *is* a '45 replacement scale.....

quote:

ORIGINAL: medaloffairness

Hi my BTR addicted friends,

Since I heard that a new version of my beloved game is going to be rereleased (?) and so many persons are putting so much effort in the accuracy of the historical input, I read no newspaper any more but books about planes and airwar history in that times.

And I found something which might be surprising for some of you:

The most output of planes on the axis side took place in the mid of the year 1944. The raid for destroying the facilities in the Big week was published as a victory for the Allied, but as we see in the statistics the result seems to be different.

Single engine Planes:
Jan 44: 1315
Feb 44: 1016
March: 1377
April: 1696
May: 1907
June: 2177
July: 2627
August: 3031

If someone wants to get the source of this figures I can deliver it. These numbers are not taken from a funny website but from a thesis for a doc. at an university.

The reason for this high numbers of production is the big week and the previous attacks on the german aircraft industry itself. After this attack, which destroyed most of the buildings but not the machines, the production of planes were diversified into pieces. This was realized by conducting the production under the earth :-)
This had also a bad effect on the persons who produced them because their working hours were increased to a 75 hours week.
These production numbers sounds great in the first place but there were other problems which accured, which had effects on the availability of these planes.
1.) Shortage of Replacements for turbines and engines. Due to the diversified production any harm to the logistical surroundings were crucial.
2.) Shortage of fuel started in the mid of 1944 (which was also the reason for the fail of the Ardennes offensive, beside some brave American units)

In the game the destroying of the oil industry and railways are reflected very well and will lead to the same result like the historical one. But I doubt that targeting air factories in late 1944 is historical accurate because the production of the planes itself was not that harmed due to the reasons mentioned above, like it would be, if you can attack a single aircraft factory in the game.

It would be interesting for me what others do think about it.


Gameplay Questions:

1.Production delay

Another thing which was a bit surprising for me in the old version of BTR was that if you have a factory with capacity of 4 and you change just one plane type, than the production will be delayed for all planes produced.
I thought about some reasons for it but I can`t find one which would fit. Could someone explain it, please?

2. Additional power for german planes

In order to increase the horse power of FW 190 and ME 109 it was possible to use a chemical mix on an alcoholic basis (methanol) for a short time which enabled the pilots to evade from the scene. Of course, this harms the engine a bit, but was very important in a dogfight with many opponents. I am sure that everyone who knows the simulator IL2 Sturmovik is thankful for having this opportunity when it`s getting hot and the air is filled with bullets :-) (By the way: My nick on IL2 is Oktopus)
Is there a chance to get this into the game?

Thanks for reading my silly thougts at night. ;-)

Best Regards
Chris








Thanks for reading my thread