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Post by axe99 on Jun 7, 2019 18:31:03 GMT -6
That is a note-worthy suggestion. :] Thinking through this (and as another player that draws down squadrons in peacetime, although to 5 and not 4 aircraft), a couple ideas of what might* be helpful are (the first is my favourite at this stage, noting I haven't tested or coded them, and imagining can be very different from doing): - A matched pair of templates for each airbase - one for wartime and one for peacetime. If it was possible to substitute other templates in for those existing, rather than remake them for each airbase, then even better (and with the templates being updated in one place for all templates, although this might cause trouble if the templates are at different sized airbases - maybe the templates would need to be ordered by size of airbase?)
- Standard 'draw down' and 'mobilise' levels for squadrons. Draw down would reduce squadrons to a base number (4 or 5), while mobilise would pro-rata increase them to fill the airbase (up to a max of 20 aircraft per squadron). This option might be easiest for the AI. Add in buttons for 'mobilise' and 'draw down' airforce, and it could be a one-button operation at the start and end of each war.
As for the on-topic question, I'm afraid I haven't really come across any numbers as to the actual cost of the various airforces and units in the budgets of belligerents. Must try and track some down sometime. They feel alright to me though, although that's about as subjective and potentially uninformed a measure as one is likely to get anywhere! Edit: and ninja'd by tbr . * Or might not - if either seem silly, please ignore .
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Post by aeson on Jun 7, 2019 18:50:17 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 7, 2019 19:09:22 GMT -6
I don't know if this information is germane to this discussion, but the B-29 cost $893,730 in 1942, $605,360 in 1944 and $459,465 in 1945. For 1942, just multiply the cost time $13.27 for current US dollars.
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Post by ramjb on Jun 7, 2019 19:58:52 GMT -6
I usually go "all or nothing": I keep 8-strong floatplane squadrons on almost every base I own, but only permanent squadrons on one or two vital points. The rest is empty. When war begins I raise squadrons from scratch (which BTW it's a little bit surprising that we're able to create an air force out of nothing in just one month, but I just rationalize it as those planes being "in reserve" and just put in service, which, btw, the reserve tab in the air forces section doesn't get a lower maintenaince as one would expect XD). But a template like that would be amazing. One for each base size would make things sooooo much faster....you got my vote on that idea .
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Post by namuras on Jun 8, 2019 2:07:30 GMT -6
We went around the horn on this Tortuga to finally get a "balanced" result. Historically navies had to limit plans or even draw down to afford large air-arms, so if you can keep your navy expanding And inflate all the bases with all the aircraft you could wish then something would be off. One of our testers goes to the extremely diligent level of reducing squadrons of aircraft in peace-time to only 4 planes to save cash! I could never bring myself to do that (just because of the level of down-shift it would require in my play speed) but he can always afford larger fleets than I tend to. I think it's a little unfortunate that the game rewards such tedium. However, I suspect it's not the intended design, just a result of a one-man dev team. After my first time playing RtW2, I already suggested that we be allowed to control templates for airbases, to reduce the tedium of adding or editing squadrons manually for each. Whoever does this manually right now must be spending seriously like 20 minutes just changing squadron numbers! Great Scott! That management is one of the reasons i dread going to war and dread finishing a war... first you setup your land bases, then you have to dismiss / reduce the squadrons.
What i'd like is to be able to mark multiple squadrons and edit their numbers simultanious atleast.
If we could set templates that would be even better.
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Post by dorn on Jun 8, 2019 3:23:28 GMT -6
Agreed. On top of it squadron could be set as elite which means full readiness during peace times. Even carrier had not full wartime complement in peace. Right now there is just too nuisance micromanagement which could be solve a lot by UI improvements.
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Post by stevethecat on Jun 8, 2019 14:40:09 GMT -6
Aircraft costs overtook my naval costs in the later 1930's, and have been mostly crippling since. Also moving aircraft into reserve doesn't change anything.
There really should be a one button option on each airfield to reduce activity there in order to save money.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Jun 9, 2019 8:55:20 GMT -6
A suggestion to add templates for airbase squadron composition has been on the table for over 8 months now. Other priorities prevail.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Jun 9, 2019 10:44:05 GMT -6
That came out rather harsher than I intended. I should have said other priorities have prevailed up to this point. The feedback and suggestions from you guys will certainly make an improvement in aircraft management more likely.
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Post by dorn on Jun 9, 2019 11:09:56 GMT -6
A suggestion to add templates for airbase squadron composition has been on the table for over 8 months now. Other priorities prevail. If something on UI side should be done, this is the one of two first things, the second one is improvements in "set up strike". I will be quite open, very large fleet in RTW 1 played as UK was just at edge of micromanagement. Right now, very large fleet is nightmare in RTW 2, crossing line of reasonable micromanagement by wide margin. My first playthrough as UK very large fleet was excellent experience for uncovering new things but from 40s and several battles involving larger number of carries (still less than 10), I started to pray that next battle will not have large carrier force as it is not fun because dozens of clicks which should not be needed. The second thing was that at start of wars there is need creating new squdrons, shifting them between airbase and adapting everything and it is nightmare because of a lot of clicks. It is quite similar to old Master of Orion. Master of Orion 2 is superior to MoO1, but not playing the largest map. Playing the largest map in MoO2 is terrible experience in micromanagement if you are not one who looks at it with pleasure. Right now RTW2 compared to RTW1 is very similar experience comparing MoO2 to MoO1. RTW2 is better, richer by design, however micromanagent very large fleets makes it very unpleasure experience, sometimes even flustrating experience. The main reasons are air operations (in battle and outside battle) , which needs hundreds of clicks bringing nothing. I understand that right now priorities are bugfixes and balance the game, however several small improvements in UI relating to air management will give RTW2 much much better experience with large fleet than any additional contents. And larger fleet suits RTW2 well be closer to real size of fleet. Please Fredrik W , consider this.
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Post by p3wp3wb0om on Jun 9, 2019 12:58:17 GMT -6
I too would like a method of templating airbases as I generally keep a small number of scouts at each base. I currently keep squadrons not assigned to a carrier at home airfields/reserve when not at war and reassign them where needed when it breaks out. I would like to see a quick drag and drop/or template system that would allow you to move planes you have around more easily than currently.
I would not be looking for any system that would allow you to conjure an airforce out of nothing overnight.
Is there anything in the works for an airplane/pilot replacement system to simulate taking large losses you cant replace? IE Japan after Midway/Philippine Sea.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 9, 2019 21:54:40 GMT -6
This may not be useful but you are all aware that aircraft maintenance is basically planned and unplanned. Unplanned means simply combat damage or just non-operational damage. Planned maintenance is based on flight hours and this could vary with each individual aircraft type. There is a third and that is a major overhaul at which time you would include all major upgrades. Now, in war this is a bit tricky. Generally, in war time, the planned maintenance will be accomplished by the aircraft mechanics in the squadron. In peacetime, some maintenance is accomplished by the squadron, while some is accomplish at the intermediate level. The final level is depot maintenance. This final level is where major overhauls, upgrades are performed. The plane is disassembled, fuselage, wings are checked for cracks, engines are sent to the engine shop for overhaul and testing. Finally, all the parts will be sent to the main hangar, the plane will be completely assembled then flown by a test pilot. If it passes all tests, it will then be flown or moved back to the squadron. Over the years this routine has changed a little but not much.
Aircraft maintenance is absolutely critical and the Japanese naval air service paid a high price for its lack of parts, skills and creativeness. One of the keys for US aircraft maintenance was cannibalizing's parts from one aircraft to get another up. The Japanese never did this. When the airfields at Rabaul were finally retaken, there were planes sitting on the field with only one problem, yet had they cannibalized parts, half to three quarters could have been made flyable.
I just thought this brief information would be useful. Enjoy
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Post by alexbrunius on Jun 9, 2019 22:39:36 GMT -6
Well, each bomber had a crew of 10 (on average). that's 5000 guys flying the things to begin with. WWII USAAF Bombardment Groups operated 48 bombers each. Each bombardment group had (on paper) 294 officers and 1,487 enlisted men. This includes both aircrews and ground support crews, officers, etc. 500 bombers means roughly 11 bombardment groups, hence 3334 officers and 16357 enlisted men. USS Iowa had a (wartime) complement of 151 officers, 2,637 enlisted. To be fair here we should add the people from shipyards, etc, who worked on the ship maintenaince, overhauls, etc - but those didn't work full-time just for this ship, just did so when the ship had to go through it's regular schedule, or for repairs and equipment upgrade. One week they'd be working on her, the next one on a different ship, so it's quite a far less dedicated job and as such a much more complex thing to calculate objectively from the personnel perspective. I mean, I'm not sure about the respective costs of spare parts, engines, fuel, weapons, etc.... but I'd say that just looking from the personnel standpoint things don't look very promising for Mitchell's claim in what regards to maintenaince and operation costs... And considering how much fuel did 500 bombs use (a single B-17 could load around 2780 gallons of fuel before adding more fuel tanks in the bomb bays), I'd say that accounts for quite the number of Iowas aswell. It's a bit unfair to compare airplanes ground based admin & maintenance staff with a ships at sea compliment and not include a single land based worker. Based on numbers in the total Navy for another game I came up with a rough ratio of 4:1 per ship, so the Iowa would get a bit over 10000 total employeed to remain in active duty. Even if we count on a pretty massive ground overhead of 19 people for each fighter ( 20 with pilot ) This mean we could afford over 500 fighters for each Battleship in terms of maintenance. Maybe there could be a budget option at startup? "Realistic aircraft maintenance costs" which reduce it to more historical levels? ( default of )
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Post by ramjb on Jun 9, 2019 23:59:59 GMT -6
It's a bit unfair to compare airplanes ground based admin & maintenance staff with a ships at sea compliment and not include a single land based worker. I did factor them in. Read my post. The problem is that whatever ground crew is attached to a squadron, will work with planes on that squadron all the time. He's dedicated to that sole job. A shipyard worker who happens to work on an Iowa class battleship will do so as long as the ship goes through maintenaince, overhauls, refits, repairs, etc which demand a shipyard. This week that worker is working on an Iowa BB, next week he'll be taking part in fitting out a cruiser, the next one he'll be working on repairs for a destroyer ,etc. He's not an "Iowa class land worker", he's a shipyard worker. Completely different thing. If a shipyard isn't needed, he's not involved in the operation of that ship. And ships spent FAR more time away from a shipyard's drydock than inside one. When the ship doesn't need some kind of repairs or maintenaince exclusive to the shipyard, and is simply moored to a pier, no land worker will lay a hand on it. The shipboard engineers who're part of the battleship complement will do so. That's why they're part of the complement to begin with. And most of maintenaince of a ship happens away from a drydock or a shipyard- it's done on a day by day basis by the mechanics on board who're part of the ship's crew. The rest is done by people who work for the shipyard and are paid to work for the shipyard - not to work on a particular ship. Hence, whatever costs they mean, are part of the overall shipyard costs, not the costs of running the ship. Which I agree makes the comparison a bit awkward because without those workers, the ship would not be able to go through the periodic shipyard refits and overhauls every ship needs - but then again, whatever manpower is needed for those refits and overhauls is periodic, not permanent...the rest of the maintenaince is done by the own crew. Meanwhile any maintenaince a bomber needs *IS* permanent and constant (there's a reason why air forces keep a detailed lists of hours of maintenaince per hour of flight, and costs per hour of flight for their bombers, while ships have no statistic like that at all). Based on numbers in the total Navy for another game I came up with a rough ratio of 4:1 per ship, so the Iowa would get a bit over 10000 total employeed to remain in active duty.
Barring the fact that whatever number of land workers were needed to keep a battleship in active service weren't given vacation when said ship was deployed, let's say, in the middle of the Pacific (but instead were working on other ships), so it's completely unjustified to "pass the bill" on the complete number to a single ship... Which game are you using as a base of calculations, and how did you came with that number?. Because from my point of view that's absolutely ludicrous and beyond any realistic scope. A shipyard like the one in Mare Island peaked at 50.000 workers during World War II, for instance, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard peaked at 75000 in 1944. You're going to need extremely good arguments to back up that 10.000 number to "keep an Iowa in active duty", because given the number of battleships the US operated in WWII, there'd been no workers left in the shipyards to keep anything else in active duty, let alone build the biggest war navy ever seen, while also working on non-US vessels to boot (many british and french warships were refitted and overhauled in US shipyards during WW2). So unless some dark magic was involved, simple numbers of shipyard workers in WW2 don't seem to back up your calculations...
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Post by alsadius on Jun 10, 2019 8:21:07 GMT -6
I suspect the bulk of the tail for a naval vessel is the bureaucracy of the navy - the clerks, the training institutions, the general planning staff, and so on. (And don't forget the manufacturing of ammo/spare parts/similar.) 4:1 doesn't strike me as outlandish.
Aircraft have by far the worst teeth/tail ratio, though, so 20:1 is totally believable there. The USAAF in 1944 had 2.4 million personnel and 80,000 planes, for a 30:1 ratio. And that doesn't include anyone on the civilian side, manufacturing parts or shipping supplies.
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