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Post by blarglol on Nov 14, 2023 23:29:51 GMT -6
Or do you only use naval patrol craft? Is there any benefit to using floatplanes from naval air stations?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Nov 15, 2023 10:47:25 GMT -6
Or do you only use naval patrol craft? Is there any benefit to using floatplanes from naval air stations? I believe that the answer revolves around the purpose of floatplanes. Oberservation and air/sea rescue. So, does it make sense to put a floatplane on a land base to perform reconnaissance when there might be better, faster aircraft that can perform recon better. The answer is no. However, they could be useful as air/sea rescue if need. But a boat could perform the same task.
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Post by blarglol on Nov 15, 2023 14:19:51 GMT -6
Or do you only use naval patrol craft? Is there any benefit to using floatplanes from naval air stations? I believe that the answer revolves around the purpose of floatplanes. Oberservation and air/sea rescue. So, does it make sense to put a floatplane on a land base to perform reconnaissance when there might be better, faster aircraft that can perform recon better. The answer is no. However, they could be useful as air/sea rescue if need. But a boat could perform the same task.
Right, I didn't know if the game treated them differently in some way based on geography. I guess in theory, they might be good to base near narrow straits, because the game just has planes fly a certain distance, including over land. So longer range flying boats might waste patrol time over say....Libya, when a floatplane based in the same location would fly less distance over water, but spend all of it looking for ships. |
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Post by asdfzxc922 on Nov 15, 2023 18:58:28 GMT -6
Early floatplanes make surprisingly effective bombers, and also contribute a bit to your ASW score. They might be useful early on for poor nations who can only afford a few small airbases.
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Post by blarglol on Nov 15, 2023 20:37:25 GMT -6
Early floatplanes make surprisingly effective bombers, and also contribute a bit to your ASW score. They might be useful early on for poor nations who can only afford a few small airbases. Is their documentation somewhere that states which aircraft contribute to ASW score and how much that is/how it's calculated? |
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Post by asdfzxc922 on Nov 18, 2023 15:37:45 GMT -6
Early floatplanes make surprisingly effective bombers, and also contribute a bit to your ASW score. They might be useful early on for poor nations who can only afford a few small airbases. Is their documentation somewhere that states which aircraft contribute to ASW score and how much that is/how it's calculated? I'm getting this info straight from AircraftBasicData3.dat. The second to last column is the ASW score (if there's two numbers, the second one is the likelihood of killing a sub instead of merely suppressing it). Floatplanes are about 1/3 as effective as flying boats, while helicopters are about 1/3 as effective as floatplanes (extrapolating forwards from 1950). Zeppelins are almost as effective as flying boats at suppressing subs, but are bad at killing them. No other plane types have an ASW score. |
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Post by blarglol on Nov 19, 2023 12:35:06 GMT -6
Is their documentation somewhere that states which aircraft contribute to ASW score and how much that is/how it's calculated? I'm getting this info straight from AircraftBasicData3.dat. The second to last column is the ASW score (if there's two numbers, the second one is the likelihood of killing a sub instead of merely suppressing it). Floatplanes are about 1/3 as effective as flying boats, while helicopters are about 1/3 as effective as floatplanes (extrapolating forwards from 1950). Zeppelins are almost as effective as flying boats at suppressing subs, but are bad at killing them. No other plane types have an ASW score. I didn't know airships had ASW score, this is very nice to know |
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Post by Burningapple3 on Nov 21, 2023 4:43:32 GMT -6
Is their documentation somewhere that states which aircraft contribute to ASW score and how much that is/how it's calculated? I'm getting this info straight from AircraftBasicData3.dat. The second to last column is the ASW score (if there's two numbers, the second one is the likelihood of killing a sub instead of merely suppressing it). Floatplanes are about 1/3 as effective as flying boats, while helicopters are about 1/3 as effective as floatplanes (extrapolating forwards from 1950). Zeppelins are almost as effective as flying boats at suppressing subs, but are bad at killing them. No other plane types have an ASW score. I previously checked and the ASW value of the airship was 0 in the game. It may be calculated somewhere, just not shown here. |
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krawa
Junior Member
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Post by krawa on Dec 17, 2023 6:00:37 GMT -6
Floatplanes usually have a higher cruising speed than naval patrol craft, so they will be a bit quicker in spotting enemy ships. As single engined planes they are also cheaper than naval patrol craft per plane.
To answer the question, yes I use them if from a certain Airbase speed and Numbers are more important than range
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 17, 2023 7:42:58 GMT -6
Floatplanes usually have a higher cruising speed than naval patrol craft, so they will be a bit quicker in spotting enemy ships. As single engined planes they are also cheaper than naval patrol craft per plane. To answer the question, yes I use them if from a certain Airbase speed and Numbers are more important than range That is not necessarily true. The OS2U Kingfisher had a maximum speed of 171 MPH at 5000 feet. It had a range of 908 miles. The PBY had a top speed of 195 MPH with a range of 2504 miles. The PBY had a ceiling of over 15600 feet and had 3 x .30 caliber guns and 2 x .50 caliber guns in waist blisters.
Floatplanes were basically spotters for fire control, the PBY's were much better scouting aircraft. However, some floatplanes like the Aichi A3 Jake could do 234 mph. |
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krawa
Junior Member
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Post by krawa on Dec 17, 2023 9:42:35 GMT -6
I was only talking about the game, here the floatplane scouts often have higher cruising speeds than Contemporary patrol craft. Max speed in RTW is according to the tool tips only used to determine combat results and therefore of secondary importance for scout planes.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 17, 2023 10:37:10 GMT -6
I was only talking about the game, here the floatplane scouts often have higher cruising speeds than Contemporary patrol craft. Max speed in RTW is according to the tool tips only used to determine combat results and therefore of secondary importance for scout planes. Yes, I understand. But you need to remember the mission of the plane and in this case, it is scouting for enemy forces. For this mission, range is the most important characteristic along with altitude. With altitude, the crew can see farther and detect enemy forces. The ability to throttle back, and stay in the air longer helps the mission success. |
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krawa
Junior Member
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Post by krawa on Dec 18, 2023 4:51:32 GMT -6
I was only talking about the game, here the floatplane scouts often have higher cruising speeds than Contemporary patrol craft. Max speed in RTW is according to the tool tips only used to determine combat results and therefore of secondary importance for scout planes. Yes, I understand. But you need to remember the mission of the plane and in this case, it is scouting for enemy forces. For this mission, range is the most important characteristic along with altitude. With altitude, the crew can see farther and detect enemy forces. The ability to throttle back, and stay in the air longer helps the mission success. I don't claim that range isn't, up to a certain point, the most important stat of a scout plane. My claim that in certain areas (Baltic, North Sea, parts of the Mediteranean) the range of the floatplane scout is sufficient at some point (usually 30's) to reach the opposite coastline and in such cases naval patrol craft offer zero advantage as they are slower and more expensive to maintain.
I did a look a bit into the stats of different planes of the era and I think your comparison of the PBY to the Kinhfisher is a bit misleading. The stats you posted are correct, but engine of the Kingfisher is a single 450hp, while the PBY has 2x 1200hp so it's not surprising the PBY is also faster. If you compare instead to floatplanes with a similiar engine as in the PBY (Aichi E13A, Ar 196 and Curtiss Seahawk) the floatplane scouts are faster, so RTW is correct on that aspect
I don't think that altitude makes much difference here. First the ceiling of the planes is similiar if we assume similar engines, second once clouds are present scout planes have to stay below the clouds to find anything, which usually means ~2000m or less.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 18, 2023 8:09:37 GMT -6
Yes, I understand. But you need to remember the mission of the plane and in this case, it is scouting for enemy forces. For this mission, range is the most important characteristic along with altitude. With altitude, the crew can see farther and detect enemy forces. The ability to throttle back, and stay in the air longer helps the mission success. I don't claim that range isn't, up to a certain point, the most important stat of a scout plane. My claim that in certain areas (Baltic, North Sea, parts of the Mediteranean) the range of the floatplane scout is sufficient at some point (usually 30's) to reach the opposite coastline and in such cases naval patrol craft offer zero advantage as they are slower and more expensive to maintain.
I did a look a bit into the stats of different planes of the era and I think your comparison of the PBY to the Kinhfisher is a bit misleading. The stats you posted are correct, but engine of the Kingfisher is a single 450hp, while the PBY has 2x 1200hp so it's not surprising the PBY is also faster. If you compare instead to floatplanes with a similiar engine as in the PBY (Aichi E13A, Ar 196 and Curtiss Seahawk) the floatplane scouts are faster, so RTW is correct on that aspect
I don't think that altitude makes much difference here. First the ceiling of the planes is similiar if we assume similar engines, second once clouds are present scout planes have to stay below the clouds to find anything, which usually means ~2000m or less.
I think everyone understands my point in the post. I will leave it at that. Enjoy |
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Post by TheOtherPoster on Dec 19, 2023 5:42:34 GMT -6
More than range, what’s really important for a patrol aircraft is endurance: 2 aircraft with the same range but one with a lower cruising speed means that it can actually stay flying longer, which for a patrol aircraft is more useful. The faster the plane the better of course, my point is only that for long range shore based patrol aircraft the key factor is the number of hours the plane can stay on station.
Also, looking at the ceiling of the aircraft is an exercise in futility unless your plane has an airborne radar: fly too high and you won’t spot the Grand Fleet below you. Never mind a sub lurking just below the surface! So patrol altitude tended to be the same, very low, until the introduction of airborne radar and even after.
Anyway nothing of all that is relevant for us in the game, and as interesting as it may be, maybe it would be better to focus on the game. So descending from the realm of history into the world of RTW3 and to sum up what has been said, the main value of having patrol aircraft from air bases is their ASW value, i.e. to reduce the effectiveness of enemy subs and even to sink some. Flying boats and patrol planes are bigger and more capable and so they have a better ASW value than floatplanes, but they are also more expensive to build and to maintain. So if you’re playing a poor nation with a very tight budget then floatplanes may be an option for you. Also, I don’t know how well this has been modded by the programmer but we are also supposed to keep some kind of ASW patrol throughout the empire, particularly if the enemy has bases in the same sea area. Regarding international commerce, our home area and the North Atlantic are really the key areas. So our main ASW effort should go there. But to defend a far away possession from a couple of enemy subs there, maybe the best cost/effective option is just to keep a few colonial ships and floatplanes.
The only other use for shore based long range patrol planes in RTW3 would be to help us locate the enemy in battle: small floatplanes, if shore based may lack range to reach our fleet, so this could be an argument on support of using big patrol planes instead of floatplanes from land bases. But I don’t think it works very well: once the AI generates a battle scenario, we know the enemy is already nearby. So close in fact that our ships can reach it in a few hours! So to locate the enemy it’s much faster to use shipboard floatplanes than long range patrol planes from our nearest base. Even if we do not have shipboard floatplanes, the chances are that in the game we will find the enemy from our own ships before any patrol aircraft reaches the area from their bases.
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