Sustained Air Ops

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Sustained Air Ops - 1/22/2021 11:00:17 AM

p1t1o

Posts: 271
Joined: 4/6/2015
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Just a quick one:

How long does a scenario have to be before "Surge" Air Ops starts to become unrealistic?

Post #: 1

RE: Sustained Air Ops - 1/22/2021 12:24:57 PM

thewood1

Posts: 6529
Joined: 11/27/2005
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There are nuggets in this link, though not a definitive answer. There was a RAND report I came across a couple years ago talking about OPTEMPO for logistics flights that had some insights as well. I am not sure where I saw it.

https://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=3262

(in reply to p1t1o)

Post #: 2

RE: Sustained Air Ops - 1/24/2021 4:03:29 PM

SeaQueen

Posts: 1451
Joined: 4/14/2007
From: Washington D.C.
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
How long does a scenario have to be before "Surge" Air Ops starts to become unrealistic?

It depends? What is the context of the scenario? People ask these questions like there's a single obvious answer and there isn't one. When you're talking about "surge" ops you're really talking about maintenance and turn around times. Those can be constrained by everything from the availability of parts, to the maintainers being fatigued. The "sweet spot" for CMO is the 12-24 hour time frame, so in a 12-24 hour snap shot of an ongoing conflict, a lot of stuff is beyond the scope of the scenario. Things like a given tail being flown so much that its engines are in need of an overhaul, but the engine that was supposed to arrive in a C-130 flight didn't get there because it had to turn around thanks to a bunch of J-20s flying through its route, aren't handled easily by CMO. What I do, given the 12-24 hour snapshot, is just randomize which aircraft are in maintenance and which aren't, based on a reasonable probability of being mission capable (I use data publicly available in Air Force magazine, typically, and if I don't have data, I use an average of the type (e.g. fighters) ).

So... given that, when to use "surge" versus "sustained" ops? It depends on what you're trying to capture in the scenario. Sustained ops will radically cut your sortie rate, and in my mind reflects almost a peacetime or maybe a very protracted conflict, where manpower, budgets, parts, fuel and resources are constrained or at least tightly controlled and conserved. It's less a difference in any physical constraint, in some ways, and more a difference in mindset. I would imagine both peace and wartime scenarios using both "surge" and "sustained" settings.

Does that help?

(in reply to p1t1o)

Post #: 3

RE: Sustained Air Ops - 1/25/2021 1:56:18 AM

p1t1o

Posts: 271
Joined: 4/6/2015
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Totally aware that an exact timeframe is impossible in practical reality due to all the things you mentioned,, however after only a few minutes of tinkering, it became apparent that the most significant practical impact on scenario design was the need for vastly more aircraft on the ground to support the same kind of sortie rate as we are used to in most scenarios.

So when designing an enemy, it became more a question of bulk numbers. With a large enemy, with a huge airforce capable of supporting a round the clock defence, would be very much more difficult to damage with ground attacks without also having a comparatively large airforce at your disposal.

Since in my scenario it is a variation of the classic "small advanced force vs. large, less-advanced force" (over a timeframe of 4-6 days) this is predicted to have a large impact on playability.

In the end I have opted for Surge, but am strategically selecting a number of aircraft to be under Sustained Ops.

This feels more realistic - the sustained timeframe is usually very long, and represents those "engine part lost on the motorway" type of circumstances.

More importantly though, it is very useful for modulating the rate of AI missions, so a single strike missions rather than be a slow constant stream, could be - in combination with other tweaks - given a less predictable sortie timetable with of varying strengths.

Much more design & playtesting to go yet before I really know how this will really turn out though :)

(in reply to SeaQueen)

Post #: 4