A/C ready times (Full Version)

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gilmaor -> A/C ready times (5/11/2014 2:39:11 PM)

Hello all.
I just love Command!

but the thing that bothers me is the ready times for A/C - they are just to long.

After talking with a long time air craft ordnance crew man (served in the IAF during the 1973 war).

and according to him, any aircraft can be loaded with any type of weapon and refuled in 20-30 mins.

Why are the ready times in command are so long?, how can I changed it in the scenario editor.

Thanks.



Tomcat84 -> RE: A/C ready times (5/11/2014 3:18:46 PM)

This is always a big discussion.

The main reason is: it's not just about the ordnance. It's also about planning the route, calculating what weapons you need for a particular target, determining the fuzing settings, briefing the flight members, going out to the jet.

It takes a lot of time to plan a COMAO.

You will see that air to air loadouts do indeed have a 30 minute ready time, as they are relatively simple. But complex strike missions require a lot of time. Hence the longer ready times. As I said it is not just about putting some bombs on the jet.

if you want you can change it in the scenario editor by going to the airfield, selecting the aircraft you want and clicking "set time to ready' and filling in a value days hours minutes



Randomizer -> RE: A/C ready times (5/11/2014 3:52:56 PM)

In real life bombs and missiles do not assemble themselves. There is also the issue of getting the munitions ready and out to the flight line. It takes time to assemble bombs and particularly rockets, which usually are not stored as a single unit but need the warhead and fins mated to the motor. Bombs need fuzes and fins attached and guidance systems if smart bombs.

The non-explosive components are generally stored elsewhere as are the different explosive components, which often have differing ammunition storage classifications, are frequently incompatible and so stored in different magazines. Transportation, assembly and testing of the munitions is a labour-intensive job requiring highly-trained specialist people, tools and equipment. These facilities tend to be dispersed with the magazines well separated from the assembly buildings or safe working areas. The transport and mobility equipment is almost always specialized and in short supply while the people need things like food and rest when not performing their duties, which are stressful, often physically difficult and fatiguing.

A more reasonable way might be to have aircraft ready sequentially (even in batches of X-number of planes followed readying in such and such time and all additional aircraft taking significantly longer) but overall the times and flexibility in CMANO seems pretty solid based on real sortie rates even during surge operations. The latter are almost always unsustainable over time and result in large backogs in MX and logistics issues once they're complete.

Having worked with ammunition items for much of my own military career I suspect that the ammo-handling and assembly problem acts as a largely invisible delimiter to sortie rates and so ready times. In games and on TV ammunition appears magically ready and complete but not in the real world.

-C



mikmykWS -> RE: A/C ready times (5/11/2014 4:32:12 PM)

Hi OP,

Could you get the average sortie rate rather than the physical weapons load time? This is really what we use to determine rates and so far its proved accurate.

Mike



gilmaor -> RE: A/C ready times (5/18/2014 11:49:30 AM)

Hey

Well sorry for the delayed resposnse.
Weapons in peace time are not assembled and theier different components are scattered. but command simulates War time. (at least in 99% of the scenarios) so weapons should be ready to be place on plane at a moments notice.



Tomcat84 -> RE: A/C ready times (5/18/2014 11:56:39 AM)

Even in war time they still need to figure out if that MK82 bomb body is getting a GBU-38 kit or a GBU-12 kit. And if it's already set then they still need to figure out if that GBU-38 needs an FMU-152 fuze or an FMU-139. And what are the fuze settings going to be? Does it get a DSU-33 or a nose cone?

And that is weapon assembly. The main delay is mission planning. You do not randomly say: thats the target, here we go on a modern strike mission. It takes planning and briefing time. Even in war. And especially when theres a large COMAO going cross FLOT.



Randomizer -> RE: A/C ready times (5/18/2014 2:14:23 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: gilmaor79@gmail.com

Hey

Well sorry for the delayed resposnse.
Weapons in peace time are not assembled and theier different components are scattered. but command simulates War time. (at least in 99% of the scenarios) so weapons should be ready to be place on plane at a moments notice.

Nobody throws ammunition safety and handling rules under the bus in wartime, or at least nobody who does not wish to see their munitions infrastructure destroyed in needless accidents. To believe that all weapons will sit assembled on all available pylons on all available aircraft betrays a profound lack of knowledge about how military equipment and munitions are handled in the real world whether at peace or war.

-C



Feltan -> RE: A/C ready times (5/18/2014 7:55:16 PM)

I agree that it is frustrating, but one shouldn't confuse frustration for lack of realism.

The 30 minutes for AAW and similar missions seems about right to me.

The 6 hours for complex munitions is, in my opinion, fine -- but kind of on the high end of expectations.

The 20 hours to prep a B-52 or B-2 seems high. I am not expecting multiple sorties per day, but I can't imagine that it takes more than 10-12 hours in the most challenging circumstances.

Regards,
Feltan



thewood1 -> RE: A/C ready times (5/18/2014 8:27:06 PM)

The long cycle times for large bombers, especially stealth, has been explained and justified several times in the last six months. Search ready times.



gilmaor -> RE: A/C ready times (5/20/2014 8:37:30 PM)

Well, for large bomber I guess that it takes a lot of time to prepare them,

As for the fighters,

In today's reality in command one of the major rules of war cannot be excuted and its the ability to contantly hit the enemy until he cannot take it anymore - continuation.

in command each plane can attack three times a day (6 hour ready time) and if the mission changes even less.
the gournd crew's job in to give the planners (i.e. the player (We) in command) the agility to decide and change the battle plan in accordance with the results and the movments of the enemy. the israeli air force pulled some 18,000 sorties in 33 days! bare in mind that there about 600 planes in the IAF. ground crew worked around the clock, and I read that the every men in the air bases that could be spared helped assembling munitions.

Lets say we're in the 80' the russian attack east germeny, if each NATO plane could be used up to 2-3 times a day then west will be overrun days.

Gil,



Dimitris -> RE: A/C ready times (5/20/2014 9:43:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: gilmaor79@gmail.com
Well, for large bomber I guess that it takes a lot of time to prepare them,

As for the fighters,

In today's reality in command one of the major rules of war cannot be excuted and its the ability to contantly hit the enemy until he cannot take it anymore - continuation.

in command each plane can attack three times a day (6 hour ready time) and if the mission changes even less.
the gournd crew's job in to give the planners (i.e. the player (We) in command) the agility to decide and change the battle plan in accordance with the results and the movments of the enemy. the israeli air force pulled some 18,000 sorties in 33 days! bare in mind that there about 600 planes in the IAF. ground crew worked around the clock, and I read that the every men in the air bases that could be spared helped assembling munitions.

Lets say we're in the 80' the russian attack east germeny, if each NATO plane could be used up to 2-3 times a day then west will be overrun days.

Gil,


Please read this first: http://www.harpoonhq.com/waypoint/articles/Article_056.pdf



gilmaor -> RE: A/C ready times (5/20/2014 11:02:55 PM)

point taken



Feltan -> RE: A/C ready times (5/21/2014 12:22:13 AM)

Sunburn,

That is very good rationale, but it fails (in my opinion) in one frequent case: you have, say, and FA-18 with a combat load for ground strike, and you switch to a different ground strike configuration (ex. from Mk82 to Mk84 bombs) -- and you have to start getting ready from scratch. Much of the rationale is to limit sortie rates, and I get that. However, once an aircraft is in a ready state, and it has paid the "penalty" of the long turn around time, the sortie rate isn't going to be impinged upon by reducing the ready time for an aircraft that is modifying its load.

Regards,
Feltan




nimitz68 -> RE: A/C ready times (5/21/2014 1:28:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan

Sunburn,

That is very good rationale, but it fails (in my opinion) in one frequent case: you have, say, and FA-18 with a combat load for ground strike, and you switch to a different ground strike configuration (ex. from Mk82 to Mk84 bombs) -- and you have to start getting ready from scratch. Much of the rationale is to limit sortie rates, and I get that. However, once an aircraft is in a ready state, and it has paid the "penalty" of the long turn around time, the sortie rate isn't going to be impinged upon by reducing the ready time for an aircraft that is modifying its load.

Regards,
Feltan




That's the problem I had with it initially, but it would be a big fix to address 'properly.' If we take the example you give, the re-wait time is an unfair penalty. But if we look at a Nagumo situation where you're going from bombs (land attack) to torpedoes (ASuW strike), the wait time isn't nearly as unfair as your briefings, etc. would have to be redone, not just a reload. So do you introduce a post-sortie maintenance period and then separate target briefing/loadout times? OK, great solution, but more complexity and a significant revamp to the database and another host of numbers to debate/argue.

There is a workaround - you can open the game save in scenario edit mode (if you don't play it in that mode) and manually set a ready time you feel is realistic based on what sort of swap you're doing. If you care about the 'validity' of your gameplay, you'll make it reasonable.



Feltan -> RE: A/C ready times (5/21/2014 1:39:58 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: nimitz68

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan

Sunburn,

That is very good rationale, but it fails (in my opinion) in one frequent case: you have, say, and FA-18 with a combat load for ground strike, and you switch to a different ground strike configuration (ex. from Mk82 to Mk84 bombs) -- and you have to start getting ready from scratch. Much of the rationale is to limit sortie rates, and I get that. However, once an aircraft is in a ready state, and it has paid the "penalty" of the long turn around time, the sortie rate isn't going to be impinged upon by reducing the ready time for an aircraft that is modifying its load.

Regards,
Feltan




That's the problem I had with it initially, but it would be a big fix to address 'properly.' If we take the example you give, the re-wait time is an unfair penalty. But if we look at a Nagumo situation where you're going from bombs (land attack) to torpedoes (ASuW strike), the wait time isn't nearly as unfair as your briefings, etc. would have to be redone, not just a reload. So do you introduce a post-sortie maintenance period and then separate target briefing/loadout times? OK, great solution, but more complexity and a significant revamp to the database and another host of numbers to debate/argue.

There is a workaround - you can open the game save in scenario edit mode (if you don't play it in that mode) and manually set a ready time you feel is realistic based on what sort of swap you're doing. If you care about the 'validity' of your gameplay, you'll make it reasonable.



nimitz68,

Fair points, but I am not suggesting the change in load-out for free. Rather, what about 3 hours instead of 6 in the example above? It would allow for the Japanese results at Midway.

While I am not familiar with the code for the game, what I am suggesting would be some pretty simple logic to insert (famous last words from someone who has sworn off such statements at work).

Regards,
Feltan



nimitz68 -> RE: A/C ready times (5/21/2014 1:48:32 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan


nimitz68,

Fair points, but I am not suggesting the change in load-out for free. Rather, what about 3 hours instead of 6 in the example above? It would allow for the Japanese results at Midway.

While I am not familiar with the code for the game, what I am suggesting would be some pretty simple logic to insert (famous last words from someone who has sworn off such statements at work).

Regards,
Feltan



Hey, I've got no problem with super-accuracy and all that, but it's another variable for the game to keep track of, etc. If the programmers want to address it in due course then I'd be all for it, but where this should rack-and-stack with bug fixes and major new features would have to be figured by the experts or the community as a whole.

I've run into the very situation you describe - I picked the wrong JASSMs for my B-52s and didn't know it until I was flipping through the DB during a lull in activity. Maddening when you're talking, what, a 12-hr ready time. Yeah, that's when I used the ScenEditor to bail myself out and save about 5 hours of extra wait time.

Guess what I'm trying to say is I agree with you - there is a more elegant solution to the problem than a single ready time, but the implementation is (I think) somewhat problematic and since there's a readily available workaround I can live with it. But hey, just because I can live with it doesn't matter too much to everyone else. :)





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