Mike's mod for .21 (Full Version)

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decourcy2 -> Mike's mod for .21 (2/11/2015 8:30:44 PM)

Updated to version 6

This is the beginning of a mod. First, i would like to say that this is not an attack on the staff of this game in any way; i feel they have done an amazing job making this the best Grigsby game since BtR.

This mod adjusts aircraft, TOE, ground elements, and leaders. More may follow. If you have any good documented ideas feel free to share them.

Changes.
1)Aircraft.
Me109's have been downgraded. This plane was a dog, particularly the G-6. Probably should be lowered more but the howling from the Luftwaffe fan boys would be more than i could handle.

Fw190a8 and D9 have been downgraded slightly, the A8 particularly was overloaded. I may reverse this and instead raise the mnvr of the A4 and A5 which were pretty much the peak of A series FW's. A8 equals 34.5 mnvr and A4 equals 35.5 mnvr. That kind of thing.

P40N was a dog, the worst of the P40s and the object of a Congressional investigation. Lowered Mnvr.

P39Q, added 1 armour, lowered durability.

Slight adjustments to reliability of Halifax and Lancaster bombers in particular. Also, made the B26B reliability worse, but increased it's mnvr.

Made the He219 slightly better.

Fixed the engine on the P51B/C-1. In game the engine is the same as the B/C-10, which is inaccurate. The B/C-1's best speed altitude changed from 25,000ft to 20,000ft.


2)TOE.
Very slight change so far, added a few more 76 gun Sherman's to American tank battalions only. In vanilla i fear too many 75 gun Sherman's will still be in service in late 44, early 45.

3)Ground elements.
So far this has been mostly fixing survivability on Sherman's. This is the
only thing where i feel 2by3 dropped the ball. The Sherman burning up is a myth that any decent historian knows. The US army did tests on PzIVH's and Shermans and found that dry Shermans burned about 2% less often than PzIVH's, and that Tigers burned about half as often and Panthers maybe 60% as often.

I raised the survivability of the dry Sherman's to 5 and lowered the PzIV survivability to 6. You will note that my info means the numbers should be about the same, but Axis fan boys, so i will leave it at 6.

4)Leaders.

Monty, lowered infantry ability, i have very little respect for Monty. I raised his morale to 8 as he was probably the most inspiring Allied leader.

Eisenhower, lowered morale, raised infantry. I respect Eisenhower more than most, but he was not particularly inspirational.

Guderian. He should be removed, but instead I lowered his abilities.

Sepp Dietrich. !@#$%^&*!!! You are freaking kidding me, this man was a party crony and drinking buddy of Hitler's, every battle he was in he showed how bone headed he was. I left his morale alone, but lowered everything else.

Modified slightly a number of American officers.
Crerar or whatever, i lowered slightly, but Simonds i raised slightly.

Raised Lawton Collins abilities slightly, best American corps commander.

Airmen.
Lowered Coningham, Brereton, and Leigh-Mallory's abilities. Raised Park, Quesada and Twinning's abilities.

Installation.
Place all 4 files in your Gary Grigsby's war in the west/Dat folder.
If you would like to save the original files, before you install copy the same four files from that 'Dat' folder to another location, I use GGWitW/temp for my backups.

New intructions: There are now two picture files. The larger image of an aircraft is 107Kb, this gets copied to Warinthewest/Dat/Art/Photo
The second image is 1.5 Kb and copies to Warinthewest/Dat/Art/Units

These two images will have no negative effect on your game if you are not using my mod.

The 43-45 scen file goes into dat/scen folder



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/11/2015 9:27:16 PM)

Oh, and i forgot to ask a question.

As it stands the Allies can have P51B/C-1's escorting bombers in the second week of September. In the real world I think the first unit did not transition to P51B's till October and the first 8th AF bomber escort was not till December and first German plane shot down by a P51 WHILE ESCORTING BOMBERS was not till January '44.

Should I change the arrival date for the P51B-1? From June 43 till September 43 (when the factories convert to P51B-10) changed to July 43 to September 43 which means the plane will be in production for a very short period of time.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/12/2015 10:43:24 PM)

Next question, 2by3, can we mod VPs? I tried loading the '43-'45 scenario, going to the map and checking vp cities and i see nothing, so then i checked the lists, specifically 'locations' which seemed logical and i see no vp information.

thanks,
Mike



Helpless -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/13/2015 6:37:57 AM)

quote:

Next question, 2by3, can we mod VPs?


Not yet, but it should be added quite soon.

Edit. You can edit VPs of the short (limited map) scenarios.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/14/2015 8:16:57 PM)

Here is an updated 43-45 campaign with increased Commonwealth pilot pools, a few aircraft on both sides have very small pools now, etc.

British Ventura's were increased a fair amount, the British may not have liked them but they were still on inventory and with the way patrol and recon aircraft pools drop in game i felt the need to increase something.

Also increased F-5 pools as the F-4 is skipped in game and from my sources most of the F's in Tunisia were converted to unarmed recon planes after the G's and H's arrived.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/17/2015 2:42:25 PM)

Next question, does anyone have production info for the JU88/188 recon versions? I have some production data on other versions but none at all on the 88D or the 188 recon.

Thanks,
Mike



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/17/2015 3:10:09 PM)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_188
-> F-1 and D-2

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88#Serienproduktion
-> A-1 Aufkl, A-5 Aufkl, D-series



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/17/2015 7:29:45 PM)

Thanks Denniss, I figured 'My books and notes from the Library of fricken' Congress don't mention recon 88 numbers, i won't bother checking Wikipedia.'

And Wikipedia had it. Well, thanks!



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/18/2015 3:20:57 AM)

Version 2 modified the A20/Boston adding a bit of Mnvr.
Also, re-do of the A36. The A36 was never, ever called the Apache, that is a myth from the '80's. The A36 was always the Mustang.



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/18/2015 10:38:46 AM)

Apache is a valid name for the A-36 as it was used by North American to separate it from the Mustang.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/18/2015 3:56:02 PM)

That is not correct. That myth was started by amateur historians in the 1980's. North American discussed giving a new name, either 'invader' or 'apache' to the A36 but the USAAF refused, the 'invader' name was already in use for the XA-26 project and the USAAF felt the A36 was just a version of the P51.

The name 'Apache' was thus never used except in a few memos going back and forth between NAA and the USAAF in early '42. These memos were discovered in the 80's and amateur historians everywhere started calling the A36 'Apache', but it was never used by the USAAF.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/22/2015 4:00:47 AM)

Mod is updated in first post.



winkr7 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/22/2015 1:42:26 PM)

Mike Decourcy2;

Its a brave man who tampers with the 109. An accurate war in the west (or east for that matter) can only come in a mod. The Jerry fans wouldn't buy it otherwise.

yours
Winkr7



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/22/2015 3:06:51 PM)

Yeah, the G-6 was a disaster. I have read accounts from a half dozen British and American aces who flew 109's and they tell about it's problems. I have read German accounts from production chiefs trying to cancel the 109 because the Luftwaffe did not want it but they couldn't because of Messerschmitt's political pull.

For example, the Fw190 is known as a poor turner, it's theoretical turn rate was much less than the Bf109. This dies not tell the whole story though; because of the narrow cockpit the pilot was only capable of exerting very limited force on his controls. Unfortunately for him at 300mph the elevators were unmovable by a 109 pilot. Unmovable. All of that theoretical turn rate was useless.
On the 190 the theoretical turn rate was poor but due to good design even at 300mph the pilot could turn at the max theoretical rate, or near enough.

The 109 was aerodynamically a nightmare, and the G series particularly the 6 and later were overloaded. Supposedly the -10 was a bit cleaner and the -14 more so but i have very little first hand reports of those two models, and remember they were quite late war.



Smirfy -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/22/2015 3:23:34 PM)

On tanks burning, the Panther operationally tended to burn especially when the fuel tanks were not full seems it had a pariculair problem with vapour.




decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (2/23/2015 3:42:11 PM)

Okay, I just read more about the Spitfire then I ever wanted to know. Thought I knew some, but no I did not.

What i am thinking about is mnvr ratings. We have: (In Parenthesis my mod)
33(32) P40N
34-36 P47 probably a hair overrated.
32-34 P38 probably underrated, particularly the 'L'
36 P51
34 Spit V
35 Spit IX & VIII

35(34) Most 109G's
35 Fw190A

Okay, what i am seeing here is after what i read the Spit/190 numbers do not look correct. The 190 was clearly better than the Spit V, thus the VIII program and then the crash program for the IX.
I had thought, from basic encyclopedia's etc that the Spit VIII was significantly better than the IX but from the technical reading and pilot reports i just read this was not so; the VIII and IX were almost identical between 21000-25000ft, the LF IX was better than the VIII at less than 21000 and the HF IX was better than the VIII at above 25000.

Also, from all reports etc it showed that the IX and VIII were significantly more maneuverable than the 190A. I am contemplating leaving the F-IX at 35, and changing the LF & HF IX plus the VIII to 36 mnvr to represent this superiority. Remember, the 190 still has more durability which makes a significant difference in combat.

What does everybody think? I am still contemplating lowering the P51D to 35 as well, stability, porpoising etc. The 51D was know to be limited below 20000ft, both the 190 and N1K George beat up 51D's below 20000.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/5/2015 5:07:59 PM)

Okay, next update.
This fixes the climb rate and max speed altitude of the Spit XII which were both too high. Aircraft design is just like tank design, there are trade offs. The Spit XII traded higher mnvr by shortening it wings with a slower climb and lower max speed altitude.

Also, for whatever reason the Ventura has a laughably small bomb loadout in the game, i canged those 100lb bombs to 250lb bombs and again i am being generous for the Axis. The Ventura II's carried mines, torpedos etc.
I added mines as a loadout but have not yet added a torpedo.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/6/2015 9:56:31 PM)

Minor update, fixes the armament on the Me410, minor changes on loadout for P47D's.

All updates are in first post.



marion61 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/12/2015 5:16:53 PM)

I'll play if your axis...[;)] (southern humor)



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/12/2015 5:39:57 PM)

Sure, this mod does not help either side. I am used to BTR where i just set all of my factories to Do335's on the first turn; I started playing this and I was like "What? I can't switch the entire Axis war economy? Obviously Gary Grigsby hates me!".



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 6:03:41 PM)

You may want to fix an invalid upgrade path for A-20B to 708 instead of the intended 707 A-20G.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 6:11:04 PM)

Thanks Denniss, and i found another mistake for you guys as well.

Aircraft ID#24, 110G2, one of the weapons sets has 20mm cannons as 'ext'.
I'll continue to point these out for you as I find them.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 9:34:59 PM)

I started a game as the Axis and found a couple problems.

Ju88's and 188's internal fuel is much too low. You have a clean He111 at 370 mins, a 217 at 280 mins, and a Ju88A4 at 160 minutes. I will agree that range is probably the hardest thing to model but all of my sources show a clean Ju88A4 had a range just below that of a He111H16.
I am increasing the endurance on A4's to 260 minutes which gives about the correct range. Also minor changes to the range on 188's as they were longer ranged than the database shows.

Do217K level bombers have two bomb loads that are virtually identical so i removed one and switched it out to two Hs293s. This is incorrect, as they actually carried 2 Fritz X's, but that is what the database has, and it is what the He177 is already using in '43. Kinda wish we had Fritz X's as that is what smacked the Savannah but, the other glide bomb is okay.



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 9:48:08 PM)

Clean Ju 88 = only wing tanks = 1680 l fuel; same with Ju 188
Clean He 111 had 3450 l of fuel

Ju 88 comes only near He 111 range if using the 1220 l tank in forward bomb bay, may need the 680 l tank in rear bomb bay to have same range.
Do 217K already had a weapon set with two Hs 293 and fuel tanks



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 10:42:57 PM)

Okay, I am sticking with my numbers. You are correct the wing tanks carried 1680L of fuel but my sources show the 1220 L tank in the front bomb bay as standard equipment and every source i have shows the A4 capable of carrying two 1000 kg bombs and the two internal fuel tanks (front & rear bomb bay) having a range of 1100 miles.

The range in WitW standard is 700 miles carrying an external bomb load of 3300lbs instead of 4400lbs. Also, from my sources they usually carried two under wing fuel tanks when carrying the 28 50kg bombs, whereas in game the range is 410 miles.

Also, my sources give a fuel total for the He111 shows a fuel capacity of 2980L. The only way I see 3450L of internal fuel is if you are assuming imperial gallons but I have no data at all on which gallons. Also i am assuming U.S. gallons for the Ju88 fuel total not imperial.

I do not show Hs293s on the 217, could they be too far down the editor to see? I have noticed that if i create too many loadouts the loadouts scroll off the bottom and i see no way to scroll to them.



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 11:00:15 PM)

Carp on a stick... the Do217 did have the glide bomb option. Is there a way to scroll down weapon loadouts?

Okay, the 88A4 with 3300lbs of bombs has 980 miles of range while the He111 has about 750 miles with 4400lbs. The 111 is now too low but I mostly don't care as the Axis have like one air group flying He 111's in '43. From what I understood most of the 111 bomb loads were a mix of internal and external which would allow the internal fuel tank as the 111H16 did have a lift capacity of 6000lbs. Also, if all internal bomb load, the 111 H5 and later had clasps for two underwing fuel tanks.



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/13/2015 11:15:31 PM)

Below aircraft image, "Edit Weapon sets"
The 1200l tank was left out to enable the internal bombload, using the droptanks may be a good idea to get more range (will have to look at effects)
According to load plans it was impossible to carry 2t of bombs with full internal fuel, this was only possible with rear tank less than half filled.

He 111 wing fuel tank capacity was 2x 1025l + 2x 700l. 835l of extra fuel could be carried inside instead of 4x 250kg bobms



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/14/2015 12:07:54 AM)

Thanks on the edit weapon sets button, i am red in the face; i have been going through these files essentially every day for two months and never saw that button. Sigh.

Do you see the problem i am seeing though? I have ranges with 4000lbs on the 88 anywhere from 874 miles to 1102 miles. I chose 1000ish miles, with 900 or so in game range, to show the effects of fuel reserve, but in vanilla WitW a 88 carrying 4400lbs has a range of 550 miles. This is just too low.



Denniss -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/14/2015 12:58:15 AM)

I have to find better range data, especially regarding the cruise speed (which currently seems to be at or near max cruising speed).



decourcy2 -> RE: Mike's first mod (3/17/2015 3:29:58 PM)

Okay, i updated the file in the first post. I split the difference on the JU88. Denniss and I will work on this and argue back and forth until we come up with something.

But, the 110G's guns have been fixed and i updated fixed weapon sets for a number of aircraft.



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