DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness?

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DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 8:37:23 AM

GreyJoy

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Hi,

Maybe i've found something interesting in Scen 30 (Ironbabes with reduced cargo).
I'm playing with PDU OFF and noticed something strange while planning my R&D industries setups
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3597230

It seems that the not a single Group (included those who arrive as reinforcements) can upgrade to the Norm.
Is that WAD?

Thanks

GJ

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 10:25:08 AM

HansBolter

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What do you mean by "upgrade to the Norm"?

I'm playing that scenario against the AI with extended map and stacking limits and have found no anomalies.

I am, however, playing with PDU on. I imagine that may be the difference.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 11:18:12 AM

GreyJoy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

What do you mean by "upgrade to the Norm"?

I'm playing that scenario against the AI with extended map and stacking limits and have found no anomalies.

I am, however, playing with PDU on. I imagine that may be the difference.

I mean that there's not a single group, active or scheldued to arrive, that has the float plane Norm in its upgrade path.
That means in a PDU OFF environement, you won't be able to use the Norm, no matter when or where.
This is strange, cause, afaik, every single plane which is not in production in 1941 can be used throughout the game, even if sometimes in very small numbers.
Considering that the Norm is, along with Jake, the best FP in Japanese arsenal, I find this OOB decision quite strange and wondered if it was WAD or, maybe, just an oversight

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 1:51:14 PM

Symon

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Yep. That's true. No groups have it and none of them upgrade to it. The airteam probably did it that way because the plane never worked in reality; it was a deathtrap and was cancelled after 6 prototypes and 9 production planes were built.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 2:00:52 PM

PaxMondo

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Nic,

Most of the "fun" planes for the IJ will never have a group, or maybe only one, to use them with PDU OFF. You need to plan on using the Nate until '45. Kate/Val the entire game. A6M the entire game. That's what PDU OFF means. You have to follow exactly what the air groups upgraded to when they upgraded historically. There is almost no deviation allowed. Don't bother to R&D as it will not help you much at all and just eat supply for very little benefit.

So the good news is that the IJ side now plays like the allied side, the economy is trivial; it almost runs itself. This allows you to focus on the tactical combat and ignore the economy. Banzai!!!

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 4:58:42 PM

GreyJoy

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Symon: Yes, that's a rational reason and, when someone pointed me out that only 15 of those planes were built in RL before the program was completely written off, i thought it was a good one. However the same logic do not apply to a lot of other "late war goodies" Japan has. There are 32 Sentais that can upgrade to the KI-94II, which, afaik, never was produced. Same can be said for jet planes or many other cool stuff that never went gold in RL, remaining only "fantasy programs". That's why i asked the original question, because i thought it was strange that a so severe treatement was given to the poor "Norm", while to other fantasy planes were given the ability and the chance to see the light of Birth and to be part of the war (even in small numbers). Not that having or not having the Norm changes my "japanese" life, mind you, just curious

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 5:02:25 PM

GreyJoy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Nic,

Most of the "fun" planes for the IJ will never have a group, or maybe only one, to use them with PDU OFF. You need to plan on using the Nate until '45. Kate/Val the entire game. A6M the entire game. That's what PDU OFF means. You have to follow exactly what the air groups upgraded to when they upgraded historically. There is almost no deviation allowed. Don't bother to R&D as it will not help you much at all and just eat supply for very little benefit.

So the good news is that the IJ side now plays like the allied side, the economy is trivial; it almost runs itself. This allows you to focus on the tactical combat and ignore the economy. Banzai!!!

I know very well Pax! :-)))
But that's the fun part imho! Trying to do the best with what you have!
I do not agree with you on the RnD stuff anyway. If you do things right, i do believe you can still impact on the general situation of your air forces!
Fighting with KI-43 Ic or with a KI-43 IIb makes all the difference imho. And if you can get the IIb version 6 months earlier...well, why shouldn't i try?

Think i'll never play with PDU ON again in a PBEM

Just like stacking limits, extended maps or DBB Oob, PDU OFF is now part of my "MUST HAVE"

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 5:40:04 PM

ny59giants

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GJ - I think a good trade off for allowing PDU "ON" is for the Allies to get working torpedoes.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 9:33:08 PM

castor troy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

GJ - I think a good trade off for allowing PDU "ON" is for the Allies to get working torpedoes.

really? As the Allied I am at least as horny about PDU on as the Japanese. Having a production model and playing with PDU off makes it moot to me.

< Message edited by castor troy -- 4/25/2014 10:33:39 PM >

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/25/2014 11:35:19 PM

mind_messing

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

GJ - I think a good trade off for allowing PDU "ON" is for the Allies to get working torpedoes.

No ship withdrawals is better, IMO.

PDU On makes Japanese air power stronger, No ship withdrawals boosts Allied naval strength.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 4:43:32 AM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
Fighting with KI-43 Ic or with a KI-43 IIb makes all the difference imho. And if you can get the IIb version 6 months earlier...well, why shouldn't i try?

Wait until you get there and then tell me ... I've already been there and done that.

You still have all those Nate units which won't upgrade until '45, ditto Kate, Val, Nettie, etc ... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you're never going to convert me. I did one game PDU OFF, never again. No fun at all for me. It was too frustarating to be in late '43 and still stuck flying Val and Kate and Oscar and Nate and Zeros, but trying to face Corsair, Bolts, Stangs, Cats, .... sure, you'll have a couple Tojo, a George, a few Jill and Judy, a couple Helen, a Peggy but Oscar, Nate, Zero, Val, Sally, Nettie and Kate are going to still be the most prevalent. Be prepared for that. Seriously. You build Sally until '45. You build Nettie until '45. You need to really plan to build a ton of Tsurugi type. You get a lot of small groups late for kami that will only use those Tsurugi AC.

I'm happy you're excited, but what you're finding now is only the tip of the iceberg. You've already had 4 separete threads now on your "discoveries" of what you can't do or can't use. RnD all you wish, but you had better keep all the 1941 AC in production or you won't be flying a lot of air groups ...

< Message edited by PaxMondo -- 4/26/2014 5:43:56 AM >

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 7:27:08 AM

GreyJoy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
Fighting with KI-43 Ic or with a KI-43 IIb makes all the difference imho. And if you can get the IIb version 6 months earlier...well, why shouldn't i try?

Wait until you get there and then tell me ... I've already been there and done that.

You still have all those Nate units which won't upgrade until '45, ditto Kate, Val, Nettie, etc ... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you're never going to convert me. I did one game PDU OFF, never again. No fun at all for me. It was too frustarating to be in late '43 and still stuck flying Val and Kate and Oscar and Nate and Zeros, but trying to face Corsair, Bolts, Stangs, Cats, .... sure, you'll have a couple Tojo, a George, a few Jill and Judy, a couple Helen, a Peggy but Oscar, Nate, Zero, Val, Sally, Nettie and Kate are going to still be the most prevalent. Be prepared for that. Seriously. You build Sally until '45. You build Nettie until '45. You need to really plan to build a ton of Tsurugi type. You get a lot of small groups late for kami that will only use those Tsurugi AC.

I'm happy you're excited, but what you're finding now is only the tip of the iceberg. You've already had 4 separete threads now on your "discoveries" of what you can't do or can't use. RnD all you wish, but you had better keep all the 1941 AC in production or you won't be flying a lot of air groups ...

Do you want to scare me Pax?

I understand what you mean, but i've deeply seen the "other side" (PDU ON), both from japanese and allied POVs, and my opinion is that, in a Pbem environement, the downsides of PDU ON are really too many. You can't control the fact that the IJ Air Force can field, in late 1942, only Tojos and Georges and Jacks. In 1943 only Franks and later models of J2Ms and N1Ks. In 1944 you are gonna face hordes of KI-94s, Shidens etc etc. Too much imho.
I already foresee my future frustrations of having to fight Bolts and Corsairs with Oscars and Zeros. I know it won't be easy, nor satisfying... but i'm pretty sure that will give me and my opponent a much interesting game.
This thread (and the other one) were meant not to complain, but only to understand if it was WAD not to be able to field the Norm FP at all, so the question why it was included in the game at all. Just curiosity, nothing more!

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 7:28:06 AM

GreyJoy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

GJ - I think a good trade off for allowing PDU "ON" is for the Allies to get working torpedoes.

I'm not looking for any tradeoff at all micheal. I'm pretty confident the PDU OFF will give us a much better gaming experience

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 2:12:26 PM

castor troy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

quote:

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

GJ - I think a good trade off for allowing PDU "ON" is for the Allies to get working torpedoes.

I'm not looking for any tradeoff at all micheal. I'm pretty confident the PDU OFF will give us a much better gaming experience

let's keep this in mind and speak about it in early/mid 44 if the game makes it that far

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 7:32:55 PM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

if it was WAD not to be able to field the Norm FP at all, so the question why it was included in the game at all. Just curiosity, nothing more!

For the PDU ON like all of the other late model AC and to allow the game to go a bit beyond VJ day as Bill indicated. Very few of any of the late IJ AC models in the game ever actually got into production much.

Norm worked and it didn't work. The issue was that the float was jettisoned and generally lost so this made every mission for the Norm pricey. The range wasn't that much greater than the Jake, so the IJN didn't pursue it. Also, while faster than the Jake, it still was easy meat for allied fighters, so again, not much gain for a fair amount of cost. I tend to agree with the IJN assessment.

In my mod, I've dropped the normal range way down and added drop tanks to bring it back to its normal range. The purpose is to represent the added cost of a norm Norm mission. It isn't perfect, but its a step. My next go around, I think will make a 2E to better represent the AvSupport requirement.

Then in game, just like the IJN, I don't tend to use them too much. They burn supply at 2x the Jake and the extra range isn't all that much. However, there are a few places on the map where those extra few hexes matter and so I do build and equip a few groups.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/26/2014 7:50:08 PM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

You can't control the fact that the IJ Air Force can field, in late 1942, only Tojos and Georges and Jacks. In 1943 only Franks and later models of J2Ms and N1Ks. In 1944 you are gonna face hordes of KI-94s, Shidens etc etc. Too much imho.

True, absolutely true. But you should also know exactly how to counter this as the allies. It isn't hard at all, it just requires time.

Most allied players suffer morale issues, not game issues, because their expectation is that the war should proceed at the historical pace. That won't happen if the IJN doesn't suffer a Midway and if the internal politics of the IJ production are removed; both of which are typical in a PBEM game. That means, the allies can't expect to have overwhelming force until VE day. That's 18 months later than their expectations based upon history, but a history that will not play out in the game and they simply lose their will to play. Every IJ player knows that you cannot stop the Russian hordes, or for that matter the allied LCU's from about '44 on. Literally, you cannot stop them as the IJ. The allied firepower is so overwhelming, you just have to see it from the IJ side to really understand the losses. You've seen it, you know.

So a PDU ON game will last until '46 if both players are evenly matched. The allies get to use ALL of their late game toys. They probably won't be able to land in Japan unless they pull off a Hokkaido landing like you did against Rader. But, they will have taken everything else back and will be pulverizing the HI from bases in Korea with those 100's of B17's that they get after VE day.

So, the allies win with a HUGE VP advantage. The IJ economy is wrecked. They may or may not have an airforce at games end, but if they do it is just pool aircraft as they can't build any more.

This all assumes that the IJ player doesn't implode his economy, which we've seen several times now. Of course, the allies win that much sooner if that happens.

< Message edited by PaxMondo -- 4/26/2014 8:55:09 PM >

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/27/2014 6:55:04 AM

obvert

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The other thing I'm hoping PDU-off allows is to get away from the reliance on massive death star airbases countered by other defensive death star bases. Wen you have 1946 experiments flying in 44 that's all you can have, and it makes the game not very interesting.

PDU-off could allow players to be creative about how they use the planes they have.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/28/2014 2:59:03 AM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

The other thing I'm hoping PDU-off allows is to get away from the reliance on massive death star airbases countered by other defensive death star bases. Wen you have 1946 experiments flying in 44 that's all you can have, and it makes the game not very interesting.

PDU-off could allow players to be creative about how they use the planes they have.

PDO OFF doesn't change how many planes you can and will build, only the models. You still have the exact same number of air groups. So instead of 1000's of Tojo's you will build 1000's of Nates. You'll stack them as much as you can because numbers matter. In fact with Nates you will need even more numbers to be able to hold your front. I wonder if that was Tojo's reasoning?

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/28/2014 3:14:53 AM

PaxMondo

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I do have to add this about PDU OFF: it makes the P-40 a front line aircraft for much of the game as it was historically. I can remember a long time back reading about the air war in WWII and wondering why in the heck the US kept building the P40 when it had so many better planes. After my first, and only, PDU OFF game I discovered why. Since the IJA was still fielding the Nate/Oscar, the P-40 was still a very competitive plane. Given that it was tooled up and well supplied, it made sense to keep it in production. If the IJA had switched over to Tojo in a big way, as many PDU ON game do, I doubt the US would have continued the P40 production.

Developing this realization led me to change my mod. The allies stop building the P40 with the K model and switch to a more advanced model depending upon the country. For the USAAAF, this is the P47. So all of the P40/P39 production goes to P47 to counter the Tojo 'incursion'. I'm sure that if this had happened IRL there would have been some drop in numbers, but for my mod I just did a simple conversion keeping the total number of aircraft put into the game whole.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/28/2014 3:36:29 PM

oldman45

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I am sure you're aware Pax that many of the motivations for the US production was how many could we build? The Sherman tank, the P40 various ships these were mass produced even though they were not the best. That said, I like your idea and may go back and look at my mod now.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/29/2014 12:24:53 AM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: oldman45

I am sure you're aware Pax that many of the motivations for the US production was how many could we build? The Sherman tank, the P40 various ships these were mass produced even though they were not the best. That said, I like your idea and may go back and look at my mod now.

Absolutely, mass production was a key part of the US war effort. I also know that engine production was the limiting factor for most of the '43 US fighters; the P40 was one of the leasst affected.

However, my gut tells me that if the US was losing a lot of pilots because of an inferior fighter more P47/F4U engines might have come about. That didn't happen so we can't really know, just speculation on my part.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/29/2014 1:06:55 AM

wdolson

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In the Pacific, it took a while to figure out how to fight the Zero. Once the US developed tactics for fighting the Zero by keeping speeds up, the P-40 was perfectly adequate. The F6F used the same engine as the P-47 and the F4U, the P&W 2800. The B-26 and A-26 used the same engine too.

If Japan had better fighters before the good pilots were gone, it is an interesting what if. There were some models of the P-40 with the Packard Merlin used in North Africa and Italy. They weren't sent to the Pacific because most air battles were at lower altitude. Lockheed drew up plans to convert the P-38 to Merlins which would probably have made it a much better plane. With Merlins the turbo superchargers could be eliminated which would have made the plane much lighter.

It was technically possible to shut down Alison production and build Merlins on the same production lines. That would have put Packard Merlins into P-39s, P-40s, and P-38s. It would have dramatically improved high altitude performance, but probably not dramatically improved low altitude performance except on the P-38.

The P-40 remained in use in the Pacific and CBI because of its reliability. It was the best US fighter for primitive air strips. In game it should be one of the few liquid cooled planes with a service rating of 1. The design added 1 to all planes with liquid cooled engines, and it's accurate for most of them, but not for the P-40 which had a very simple cooling system compared to other liquid cooled engines.

There is an advantage to having a plane that stays airborne day after day, even if it isn't the best performing plane around. This is one major reason the F6F ended up the standard carrier fighter and not the F4U. The Hellcat had 90% of the Corsair's performance without any of the drawbacks. Until the kamikaze threat, it was more than adequate for the job running up the best kill to loss ratio of any fighter in WW II.

Bill

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/29/2014 1:10:57 PM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

In the Pacific, it took a while to figure out how to fight the Zero. Once the US developed tactics for fighting the Zero by keeping speeds up, the P-40 was perfectly adequate. The F6F used the same engine as the P-47 and the F4U, the P&W 2800. The B-26 and A-26 used the same engine too.

Bill, Agree with everything you stated 100%.

My speculation was surrounding the Tojo vs P40. If the IJA had started to field more of them, like what happens in a PDU ON game, then I'm not sure that they P40 would have stayed. Against the Zero/Nate/Oscar it is a competitive plane. Against the Tojo, not so much. It loses its speed advantage and that's an issue.

I did consider dropping the Merlin into the P40, but as you noted, its low level performance doesn't change that much. The P40 is just not a 400mph design. I could have switched the production to the Mustang, which in many ways makes more sense (liquid cooled, Allison production converts to Merlin easier than ramping up the P&W) but I chose the P47 because it is a better plane for my competition.

When I do the PBEM version of my mod, I'll likely change it to the Mustang as it just makes a little more sense ...

Thanks for confirming my read on the production history of these planes. Nice to have things confirmed by an expert.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 4/29/2014 10:52:17 PM

wdolson

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Not sure I would call myself an expert.

What the US most needed in the Pacific was range. The Twin Mustang was developed for the long range escort role. Twin engines were a benefit when flying long range missions over water. The P-38 ran up the score it did because it was the best long range fighter in the theater for a long time.

The Allies didn't need the best fighters in the Pacific because they were not often coming up against large concentrations of the enemy as they were in Europe and Japanese pilot quality fell off a cliff during the Solomons campaign. Germany's pilot quality declined dramatically too, but it happened later and they still had the ability to concentrate very large formations of defensive fighters until quite late in the war.

It wasn't until the war came to the Home Islands that the Allies began to encounter large fighter concentrations.

The game does allow a good Japanese player to skew history and build better planes earlier as well as keep a good training queue going. The bad news was the Mustangs and Thunderbolts were mostly dedicated to Europe until that war was over. The better fighters for the Pacific were being built in the largest numbers possible. Vought, Goodyear, and Brewster were building as many Corsairs as possible (though the Brewster Corsairs turned out to be unreliable pieces of junk) and Grumman was maxxed out on F6F production. Similarly Lockheed was mass producing P-38s and it was never really intended for mass production. The P-38 was supposed to be an interceptor built in small numbers.

The game doesn't really lend itself well to the complexity of production some planes had. For Japan you do need to build engines, but a George or Tojo was a much more complex machine than a Zero and it took longer to build. It also took more skilled workers who were in very short supply.

The Allies just get planes without any effort, but the P-40 stayed in production because it was good enough and it was very fast and east to build. Which also lent itself to easy maintenance in the field. The Wildcat and Hellcat were also very easy to maintain which allowed Grumman and GM to build a lot of them. The Corsair was a much more complex machine. There was more production line space dedicated to the Corsair than the Hellcat, but Grumman's production was 2X all Corsair production combined.

A lot of criticism has been heaped on the US for standardizing on less than the best equipment, but the strategy actually proved successful in the end. The Sherman was a generation older than most German tanks in the last year of the war and Sherman losses were staggeringly high, but the US built so many of them, there were rarely shortages. I don't think Germany had a single panzer division that ever reached full strength after 1942. Every loss for Germany was irreplaceable.

Same thing with aircraft. The P-40 and the Hellcat were not the best fighters of the war, but they were available in large enough numbers to overwhelm the enemy. In most instances, losses could be made up very quickly and damage could be repaired, even in primitive conditions, very easily.

Bill

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 5/1/2014 2:35:04 AM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The game doesn't really lend itself well to the complexity of production some planes had. For Japan you do need to build engines, but a George or Tojo was a much more complex machine than a Zero and it took longer to build. It also took more skilled workers who were in very short supply.

Bill

Agree with most of what you say.

In my mod, I have "jacked up" the cost of engine factories for all the new engines. The "4" series (45,44,42, etc) all cost at least 1500 supply to build. The rocket/jet engines are 2000. I'm also looking to add "ghost" engines to several models to represent, as you say above, the additional complexity above the standard models that IJ was producing. I wish I could add 0.5 or 0.25 engines as that would make it much easier to balance the economics. But, still, I am happy with my changes so far.

I've added 'ghosts' to the Dinah III's for example. The engines in that were not the typical Ha-33, but were as you say above a far more complicated version. A nice plane, but not for a frontier air strip. I've also added a couple of 'ghosts' to the Emily. Again, a complex AC and only a couple dozen were acutally built for that reason.

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 5/2/2014 12:05:10 AM

Symon

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What are 'ghost' engines? Could you be a bit more specific? Thanks. J

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 5/2/2014 12:12:36 AM

wdolson

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I interpreted it to mean he added more engines required than historically necessary. For example give the Emily 5 engines instead of 4.

Bill

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 5/2/2014 2:33:23 AM

PaxMondo

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I interpreted it to mean he added more engines required than historically necessary. For example give the Emily 5 engines instead of 4.

Bill

Yes. Drives up the initial cost reflecting the greater comlexity and special skills and resources to build, and the higher AV support cost in the field reflects the difficulty in the field ... far from perfect I know. But it helps to limit the number of late war planes, or better to say, it increases their cost to better reflect what they had to work with ...

< Message edited by PaxMondo -- 5/2/2014 3:43:22 AM >

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RE: DBB scen 30 (IronBabes): Norm FP weirdness? - 5/2/2014 7:03:09 PM

Symon

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quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I interpreted it to mean he added more engines required than historically necessary. For example give the Emily 5 engines instead of 4.

Bill

Seems you were right. Thanks Bill. Ciao. John

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