Dawn of Battle concerns

[Brooke]

Baumer -- that is an awesome resource you found.  I thank you for it and will add it to my list of useful references! 

I have some thoughts, but first I'll give Fencer's.

Fencer's thoughts on the aspects you bring up mainly involve the following two aspects.

One is that this scenario is for a particular portion of North Africa but does not include the whole Mediterranean area or even the whole African area.  He has the allied order of battle for the area over which we are running for June, 1943, and it shows a lot fewer P-40's than in the referenced chart.

The other is indeed one of playability and balance.  We have the axis less outnumbered than it was in real life during this time because it's very hard to balance the playability of a scenario if the side numbers get to be too different.  As a result, the relative percentage of P-40's was made lower to compensate.

My thoughts were initially like yours.  I figured there would be a higher percentage of P-40's and discussed it with Fencer.  But I agree with his thoughts on balance.  Also there are still two larger squadrons of P-40's -- they are still a major presence -- so I am pacified.

[Brooke]

One other thing while I'm thinking about it.  It wasn't asked yet, but it might be.  (I'm a B-24 jealot, so I would ask. )

We don't have any B-24's in this scenario while the Mediterranean area had lots of B-24's.

However, of B-17's and B-24's in the area, the B-24's were preferentially used (because of their longer range) to hit targets in Italy, and the B-17's were preferentially used to go after targets in and around Tunisia.  So, it's because of the area of the fight we are concentrating on that we have only B-17's.

[SuBWaYCH]

Great find by Baumer! Anything that makes this more historically accurate is awesome! 

[Baumer]

Brooke,

I'm glad you like the source, it has many great tables to look over. I especially like the one about ordnance per month by theater, very interesting.

Here are a few more source's to give additional background (I believe you have a few of these listed with the rules all ready).

-US Army Air Forces in World War II Combat Chronology 1941-1945 ( I actually have a paper copy but you can download it as a pdf.
 http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/wwii_combat_chronology.pdf

-US Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume 2 Europe: Torch to Pointblank August 1942 to December 1943 (large pdf)
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/aaf_wwii-v2.pdf

-Aerial Interdiction, Air Power and the Land Battle in Three American Wars (Good data on the North Africa campaign)
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/Publications/fulltext/aerial_interdiction.pdf



To your other points;

I can understand combining planes like the B-17 and B-24 (or the B-25 and B-26) to a single unit for the sake of squad size in the scenario.

I don't have any definitive data sources for the Luftwaffe or the Italian Air Force, but most documents I have, tend to say the Allies had a 3-1 or 4-1 numerical advantage during this time frame. As a potential Axis pilot in this scenario, I would find that a very daunting prospect! So I can see creating some artificial balance for the benefit of the scenario.


The P-40
Looking at the information for June of 1943 I came up with the following numbers;
      Model          Number   % of total       80 aircraft equivalent #

• B-17             269         7.94%                     6
• B-24             192         5.67%                     5
• B-25             437        12.89%                   10
• B-26             278         8.20%                     7
• A-20             166         4.90%                     4
• P-38             514         15.16%                  12
• P-39             347         10.24%                    8
• P-40             717         21.15%                  17
• P-51             290         8.55%                     7
• Other            180         5.31%                     4

I still have to disagree with the aircraft distribution within the 12th Air Force. Looking at the data referenced above, it is clear that the P-40 bore the brunt of fighter operations throughout the North Africa campaign. As you can see, there was a very significant build-up in the Mediterranean theater between February 1943 (1,521 1st line combat aircraft) and June 1943 (3,390 1st line combat aircraft). So I can appreciate a reduction to the percentage of P-40's, however it's still the single most numerous fighter within the USAAF in theater. I'd be glad to review any material that has different numbers to see if there's something I've misunderstood.

Baumer

[Fencer51]

Not too sure I like having what I replied, paraphrased.. so here is the direct quote.

Krusty handled Gavagai's post quite well on the 110-C4. 

As to Baumer's question.. (btw for the record I really like Baumer, he's a good troop)

There are several ways to answer this.  In no particular order..

1.  This is not a Snapshot or FSO where percentages of aircraft are used.

2.  The numbers he quotes for P-40s in the Mediterranean show 556 for February.  That is almost 14 fighter groups of aircraft.  There were not 14 US Fighter Groups in the entire theater equiped with P-40s, in fact there were not 14 FGs of US Fighters!  In June, where I have a complete OOB, when his same chart shows 717 P-40s there were 5 Groups or 15 Squadrons (325th FG, 57th FG, 79th FG, 33rd FG, 324th FG).  Seems like alot but that would be about 240 planes.  Where are the other 477?  Depots?  Training? On board transports?  On their way to the South Pacific?  Dunno.  You cannot use numbers in a list of "airplanes on hand" because that could be the entire African Continent and definately included the entire Mediterranean from Morocco to Iraq.  They may not even be assigned to units!

3.  This is a recreation of a portion or a campaign not the whole campaign.  There are oodles of units and aircraft which are not included because of playability, lack of suitable AH2 A/C, lack of contribution, or just plain not essential to what we are recreating.

4.  Enjoyment and balance.  The Allies outnumbered the Axis by better than 2 to 1 in aircraft.  The scenario does not duplicate that.  What it does do is allow the best aircraft for the Luftwaffe available, and a corresponding sample of the Allied aircraft (chosen to maintain a balance against the best the Luftwaffe have which will be in equal numbers) to give the flavor of the battle.  If we were to use percentages for aicraft assignment, then we would definately have to reduce the Luftwaffe to their in theater strength relative to the Allies numbers.  It matters not if there were 556 P-40s when 532 (for argument's sake) were either parked in Morocco, straffing the crap out of Germans along the ridges of Northern Tunisia, flying patrols to Sardinia, wrapped up in plastic in the hold of the USS Swayback, passing through to India, or otherwise occupied outside of the battle.

I hope I have answered his question, I did not take it to be critical and hope that the above answers will be taken in the same mannor.

Now, Fireflies...  Hate em.  Would rather have 75mm Shermans.  But here is why I think they are essential

1.  This is an open terrain.  You give the Allies T34/76ss and the Axis will set back at 3000yds in their Tigers and pick them off using the MkIVs as a screen.
2.  The Allies had a huge superiority in Artilery.  Arty was what stopped the Axis at Kasserine.  The gunners lined up lowered their tubes and shot thousands of shells on the Afrkia Korp.  We don't have Arty.  So we compenstate by giving the Allies a better tank, and we compensate for THAT by giving the Axis alot more Tigers than they actually had available.
3.  You are going to get German tankers no matter what.  With a Sherman (Firefly) you will get Allied Tankers because they will think that they have a shot at winning.

If you copy this to Baumer, please let him know he can email me with any further questions as well and I appreciate his input.

Cheers,