Consumable Aviation Fuel on carriers by the numbers...

[berte]

Just like torpedo stores on carriers are a consumable, Aviation Fuel would also be a consumable with this idea.

By the numbers (estimated) The USS Lexington class carrier had around 110,000 gallons of aviation fuel supply. A Grumman F4F Wildcat with drop tanks could consume 250 gallons and an SBD Dauntless with drop tanks could consume 360 gallons per sortie. If the airwing is evenly represented by each aircraft with a complement of 78 planes, like the Lexington, then 23,790 gallons per entire air wing attack are used. You only get four and a half of those before your aviation fuel is exhausted. Five or Six if you're not using drop tanks and not every mission would start with you having full stores of avgas due to prior patrol and training sorties. Carriers that have an Asterisk in Status would obviously have far less than the full supply of aviation fuel thus limiting your air wing in what you can do.

In game, planes would consume fuel based on the range of each strike at launch and the carrier's aviation fuel supply would be adjusted. Fire could also reduce aviation fuel, as could salt water contamination, leaks and other damage. If no fuel remains, planes would not be able to be readied.

Also in Ship Design you should be able to add a little bit more or less aviation fuel that comes with the standard weight per plane as some abstract feature, perhaps 1200-1400 gallons per plane as a standard loadout. Perhaps a Light, Medium and Heavy 'carrier aviation fuel' or 'carrier supply characteristic' could be implemented that would adjust the basic weight per plane to give you that extra fuel, torpedo and bomb supply you want. As the years go by and planes are developed with yet longer range, it would make sense to have a modifier to allow your carriers to support these aircraft and their fuel needs.

Currently, continuous air wing waves with unrealistic unlimited aviation gas and bombs are the norm. I fully argue that Light, Medium and Heavy Bombs should be limited just as Torpedoes are a consumable and Aviation Fuel stores will just be the cherry on top of this great ice cream sundae of a simulation we have here.

I think this would greatly enhance the simulation by adding more depth to carriers and how you use your air wings.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment!

[seawolf]

May 4, 2020 11:21:46 GMT -6 berte said:

Just like torpedo stores on carriers are a consumable, Aviation Fuel would also be a consumable with this idea.

By the numbers (estimated) The USS Lexington class carrier had around 110,000 gallons of aviation fuel supply. A Grumman F4F Wildcat with drop tanks could consume 250 gallons and an SBD Dauntless with drop tanks could consume 360 gallons per sortie. If the airwing is evenly represented by each aircraft with a complement of 78 planes, like the Lexington, then 23,790 gallons per entire air wing attack are used. You only get four and a half of those before your aviation fuel is exhausted. Five or Six if you're not using drop tanks and not every mission would start with you having full stores of avgas due to prior patrol and training sorties. Carriers that have an Asterisk in Status would obviously have far less than the full supply of aviation fuel thus limiting your air wing in what you can do.

In game, planes would consume fuel based on the range of each strike at launch and the carrier's aviation fuel supply would be adjusted. Fire could also reduce aviation fuel, as could salt water contamination, leaks and other damage. If no fuel remains, planes would not be able to be readied.

Also in Ship Design you should be able to add a little bit more or less aviation fuel that comes with the standard weight per plane as some abstract feature, perhaps 1200-1400 gallons per plane as a standard loadout. Perhaps a Light, Medium and Heavy 'carrier aviation fuel' or 'carrier supply characteristic' could be implemented that would adjust the basic weight per plane to give you that extra fuel, torpedo and bomb supply you want. As the years go by and planes are developed with yet longer range, it would make sense to have a modifier to allow your carriers to support these aircraft and their fuel needs.

Currently, continuous air wing waves with unrealistic unlimited aviation gas and bombs are the norm. I fully argue that Light, Medium and Heavy Bombs should be limited just as Torpedoes are a consumable and Aviation Fuel stores will just be the cherry on top of this great ice cream sundae of a simulation we have here.

I think this would greatly enhance the simulation by adding more depth to carriers and how you use your air wings.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment!

I think WITPAE did this really well by having a set number of sorties for each carrier.  Treating each mission as the same greatly simplifies things

[berte]

Didn't play that game. But any sortie limit would also work. But it would need to be tweaked to take into account squadron size, not all squadrons have all planes ready. Also damage to the carrier and loss of fuel would need to be abstracted.

With as precise a simulation this is, I'd prefer to have an AvGas in gallons feature that would reduce that by each plane flying their predetermined range to target. Since the game tracks range in terms of how far a plane can fly, why not also deduct fuel per plane based on distance when a strike is launched? Seems feasable. But whatever way it's done, it'd be a good thing.

[akosjaccik]

As a counterpoint, I don't think so, frankly. The current ASMs for example imply to me at least that just because something is _technically_ in the game and maybe we may or may not feel better ourselves about it, it doesn't necessarily make the game a better simulation, let alone a better game. Same with missile/nuke subs tbh, the game splash screen shows that the end date is 1955. Anyway, I digress.
So, the main issue is that the RtW lacks-, or rather uses a very, very simplified logistical modeling. Let's say one wishes for fuel for the ships, that's for example, again, technically in the game. All these time I've played RtW, I've seen endurance dropping to zero _once,_ so what's the point? Ships will spawn with enough fuel, else the forums would be on fire. The same with avgas, as long as there is no direct player influence on at least a semi-detailed supply chain - what's the point? Should the player spawn in with randomized avgas-level? If so, what should influence that? Or for example, see the threads about the two torpedoes per TB aircraft rule, people already raised questions about that, now imagine if we assume that the carrier arriving into the battle already has depleted torpedo supplies. The problem would not be this, mind you, the problem would be that this would be due to the battle generator saying so, and the player would not have even a cause-effect answer on paper other than "RNG".

So, would I be all in for _systematically_ reforming the supply issue in the game, which in part could mean the avgas situation?
Sure, even though it could easily slip into micromanagement hell. I'd think it would be better in the long run.
However, am I a fan of putting "features" in semi-randomly on the basis on it being slash feeling realistic (until RNG makes a mess of it without any context)? Well... we don't have dentist's offices on the ships yet either, come to think of it.

[berte]

akosjaccik Good points. I'd argue starting AvGas supply would be no different than the RNG that determines what ships in a sea zone are available for the battle, which ones are in an AI only support division, etc. Someone is always bitching about that, but it a realism 'feature'. So if we have limited torps, why unlimited fuel and bombs? I don't think that should be the case. Just my opinion. You say you are for 'features', well lets get off the unlimited supply of gas and bombs. What is this, an arcade game? hehe