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timtom -> RE: Things I still don't understand! (8/8/2009 5:51:59 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
quote:
ORIGINAL: pad152
There seems to be a ton of air groups no replacements some with only 1 plane that withdraw in 30 – 60 days, what’s the point?
I asked about this several times. Thats the way the air team wants it is the simplest answer I can give you. I agree, it makes no sense. If you notice, the 7th BG goes away in Apr 42 and comes back in May 42 in India because in real life they were sent through Africa to India so even if you have them operating out of India in Apr 42 (which personally I would if I were the allies) you still have to withdraw them, so they can make the move to India. I went round and round on this point (and lost).
Here's what I answered YH when he brought this one up.
quote:
ORIGINAL: timtom
Following the loss of Java, what remained of the 7th air echelon was folded into other units, 19th BG primarily but also other units such as eight pilots going to the Air Transport Squadron, forerunner of 374th TCG. The ground echelons of HQ, 9th and 88th squadrons left for India aboard USAT W.A.Holbrook, arriving Karachi mid-March. 7th BG had deployed via the Atlantic ferry route and nine aircraft and crews had been delayed following various mishaps enroute. However with the loss of Palembang, these nine crews were unable to rejoin the rest of the 7th and found themselves stranded in India. They became the nucleus of the reformed air echelons of 9th & 88th (436th) BS'. From early July to early October, 9th BS operated out of Lydda, Palestine. Later in the year 492nd & 493rd BS' are added to 7th BG. Meanwhile the 11th & 22nd BS' were transferred to the US "without personnel", basically meaning a paper transfer. Cadres for the new 11th BS (M) and 22nd BS (M) were provided by 17th BG (M) then based at Columbia AAB, SC, not least drawn from the socalled "Project 157". The Doolittle raid having been flown by volunteers from 17th BG (sans fighter pilots), the idea was to form another provisional unit from the group, labelled "Project 157". This unit was to transfer to China and join up with the Doolittle raiders as a part of the general if small scale effort to reinforce the Chinese with US airpower. Project 157 would eventually mature into the 341st BG. While the advance echelon of the 11th & 22nd left the US end of May, the last personnel didn't arrive India until the end of July. A forward detachment of the 11th entered combat with the CATF almost immediately, flying a six-plane strike on Lashio enroute to Kumning. Neither units would be fully engaged until towards the end of the year, not least because they provided cadres for 490th and 491st BS' which would make up the rest of 341st BG.
So to recap, to start 7th BG consists of 9th, 11th, 22nd BS' + 88th RS. 9th BS is called to withdraw because it deploys out of the theatre, returning 11/42 with a full complement of B-24's. 11th & 22nd BS' are called to withdraw because they were disbanded and reformed in the US as entirely new units with no connection to their forerunners. These return 7/42 with 24 shiny new B-25C's between them. So in these cases the withdraw -> return system doubles as a way of manipulating the replacement rate. Now it appears that in reality 7th BG was combat ineffective for the better part of '42. Just ignoring this in this case and others for the sake of expediancy results in fundamentally misrepresenting the actual force levels available at the time. If the idea is that the flow of the game should at least relate to historical realities then IMO these issues must be tackled head-on, "inconvenient" as that might be.
On Pads more general question, underpinning the OOB design is a set of methodological guidelines which serves as rules-of-thumb when tackling the multitude of design decisions involved. Not only does this mean that the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented with every new unit, but it also ensures that
there's one set of rules is applied to all, and hopefully leads to a structured design for which at least plausible defense can be mounted.
So, with the "useless" WC units, how does this methodology go? Well, the first question is whether we're dealing with a combat- or combat-support unit operating in a manner explicitly modelled in the game on-map. In the case of the "useless" units, the answer is yes - these were combat units either fully formed or in the process of forming, temporarily assigned to the defense of the US western seaboard at the outbreak of war. Once the press realised that invasion wasn't imminent, these units reverted to full-time training and/or transferred east.
The basic contention that these units are "useless" begs the question "to whom and by what definition". Some players might enjoy the attention to detail and historiosity (is that a word?) and think it a quality in itself, or take note of the woeful state of many USAAC units as a didactic point in its own right. And of course the a very slight chance that they might be used in other than a patrol capacity - a posibility which would only increase if these units were not there.
However accepting the basic contention that the air units in question are useless, the OOB designer is then left with the problem of formulation a workable methodology which can be applied across the board without prejudice. How do you define whether a unit is "useless" or not? If it's a question of location, should then the RCAF units go as well? What about Alaska? Exactly where does this imaginary line of "uselessness" run? Is it that they never left the US? Then what about units which never left metropolitan Japan, Australia, New Zealand or Canada? Is it the number of aircraft in a unit? Does this mean that all small or understrength units should be eliminated? How many aircraft is enough be "useful"? Same question with the short availability dates. So rather than make a number of arbitrary decisions on the behalf of the player, this OOB designer chose go back to the simple starting point: Is the unit in question combat- or combat-support unit operating in a manner explicitly modelled in the game on-map? If yes, leave the decision whether a unit is "useful" or not to the player.
Anyone is obviously at liberty to disagree, but there is - I believe - a considered reason for the current setup which has nothing to do with overblow egos or a lack of comprehension. That said on my personal top-three list of fix-its is making the withdrawal procedure automatic like the way it works for LCU's unless the player invests PPs to keep a unit in play, but I don't set patching priorities or do the coding so can only promise to push for it.
The total number of restricted WC air units called on to withdraw (this is, disband) is 65. This out of 2011 Allied units.
quote:
ORIGINAL: pad152
Realism Bites! - I don't think the following are realistic or very historical.
- Canada has more medium bomber replacements then the USA for first 60-90 days!
- RAAF Wirraway can't preform CAP or escort missions but, can do ASW missions!
In repeat, what I wrote when Pad asked last weekend on the air thread. In addition I might add that at game-start, the Allied player has 79 B-26's available, 68 B-25B's in "useless" units, and 80 B-18's of which 18 are "useless". There's also 13 A-20A's and 101 B-17's of which 25 are "useless". By comparison there 12 RCAF Bolingbrokes with 56 airframes arriving as replacements up to and including July '42 to equip four sqns of 48 a/c.
quote:
ORIGINAL: timtom
quote:
ORIGINAL: pad152
No US medium bomber production, replacements, spares for 4 months 12/41-3/42. How is this historic ?
Below is an extract from Table 91: Airplanes on Hand in Theaters vs Japan, by Type and Principel Model from the Army Air Force Statistical Digest, World War II.
[image]local://upfiles/8484/D23D6786023E4DCC8CB11C695A29119D.jpg[/image]
"On hand" just means "allocated to theatre" and could as well be a crated aircraft somewhere in CONUS as over Rabaul.
The MB "other" category is actual B-26's because this is how 5th AF categoried them for some reason. "2nd Line and Misc." by a process of elimination must be the B-18. Curiously the A-24 is booked as a fighter, maybe because its single-engined.
What you're essentially seeing is the arrival of 3rd (A-20, A-24, B-25) & 22nd BG's (B-26) plus a few 7th & 11th AF squadrons. As is evident, bar the B-18, medium bombers weren't available in any kind of numbers until March.
To make matters worse, the Dutch, Americans, and Ozzies have to share the early, meager allocation of B-25's...
Regarding the Wirraway. It was a general purpose a/c which fullfilled a number of roles, incl. CAP-type missions. AFAIK the Wirraway was credited with exactly one A2A kill. Later in the war USN dive- and torpedobomber shot down a three-figure number of enemy a/c and I don't mean by the reargunner either. Patrol a/c from both sides regularly engaged in combat with one-another. Any a/c with a gun can fly CAP.
However that's really beside the point. The reason why the Wirraway has been made a LB is two-fold: Primarily because it's believed that this better reflects the role it was actually used in rather than the role it might have been used in, but also to underline the historical situation concerning the state of Australia's home air defense. Why did 8th, 35th & 49th PG's go to Oz post-haste, and why were the Ozzies ready to accept hand-me-down P-39's and P-40's not to mentioned the almost criminal B339-23?
Yes, it'd be preferable if the Wirraway could also fly CAP. The Wirraway's isn't the only a/c that sits uncomfortably with the labels we have to work with. However the design-process involves compromises and trade-offs. If we were to code our way out of everything, kittens would still be dying.
[image]local://upfiles/8484/085F0B5DA23044D49D64421388016746.jpg[/image]
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