June, 2017 Scenario design discussion

[BFOOT1]

I kinda like your idea Guppy, I'd still add P-47's to allied side, since it's pretty popular as well.

[Chris79]

Why not limit the fuel of escort fighters since they get an air start. Figure how much fuel they would burn from the point of historical take off to the air start point, and subtract that from the aggregate total fuel load out.

[oboe]

Thanks for all the work you're doing Brooke and for soliciting input from us during the design phase.   I'm sure it'll be a great time.

When I look at this plane set depicting Big Week though, I feel it's too constricted.   It seems right to me that the design should include 110s, the 410s, 190A-8s, and B-24s.   The 110s and 410s would equipped with rockets, I believe?   Is it possible to put them in, employable at the CO's discretion?   With enough flexibility in the design that mauled units may be withdrawn from subsequent frames?

I think scenarios are more exciting if uncertainty remains as far as what opposing aircraft you may run across as a pilot.   And it would add options (and perhaps some constraints too) for the COs when developing tactical plans. 

It's historical.  It adds variety and uncertainty.  HTC went to a lot of work to build these models and include them in the game and if they turned out to be hangar queens in th MA, scenarios are where they find their purpose.  Let's use them, or at least give COs the option?     

[Brooke]

Howdy, Oboe.

A-8's weren't around until well after Big Week.

I'm not sure about 410's, if they were much in Big Week or not, but as a guy who has occasionally flown 410's in the MA and has flown 110's in a scenario, I would not fly a 410 in a scenario because it is such a horrible dog.  But I would fly a 110.  They can at least dogfight if they have to.

I would also not fly anything with the air-to-air rockets for three reasons.  First is that not many aircraft attacked with rockets compared to the usual way with cannon.  Say a few percent of fighters historically attacked with rockets (probably a vast over-representation compared to history) -- that would be one fighter when we have 40 fighters.  Second is that anything loading those rockets will fly like a complete dog and end up being cannon fodder.  Third is that folks wouldn't practice the rockets enough to hit well with them.  Folks often don't even practice stuff that is vastly easier to practice than that.  So, if we did it, what we'd get is some folks being ordered to fly with rockets, would tend to get annihilated (because the aircraft are such dogs) and not kill much of anything because they aren't well practiced with rockets -- and we'd have a bunch of people complaining and unhappy and arguing that the axis needs 50 more fighters.

B-24's were in Big Week at about 1/3 proportion of bombers.

The big problem with putting in all plane types, though, is that we have only 40-ish people per side.  If we have B-24's, you have a group of B-24's with 4 planes in it.  That isn't very workable, because a lot of the defense of bombers is that there are a bunch of them together.  If we have only a few together, they will be sitting ducks.  Also, it isn't really workable to fly B-17's and B-24's together in a mixed group, as we have to take into account not all pilots are equally expert.  For folks who haven't flown as B-17 or B-24 GL's in DGS, DGSII, or BOG, this probably wouldn't come immediately to mind, but that's a thing that has to be considered when we think about how to structure groups.

When we have 100 pilots per side, we can start putting in everything.  When we have 40 per side, we have to start leaving out low-proportion aspects and going for the stuff that was typically there so that we don't get a group that is too tiny, or blow out our proportions such that the fight is no longer representative of what was going on in the historical battle, or have folks doing things as a major part of the scenario that were minor parts at most of the real battle.

[shotgunneeley]

I think it would be simpler to determine the total number of viable industrial objects and award "X" points per object destroyed to the Allies (and the same per object saved to the Axis) rather than justifying a computed 21 point "headstart" for the Axis. Whatever works in regards to placing an emphasis on attacking/defending German industry over simply tallying up air-to-air victories.

And count me in for a shiny set of B-17s on this one. I'd vote for manual bomb sights as well, but from what I've been reading here we expect to be hard pressed for buff pilots as is!

[shotgunneeley]

I think it would be simpler to determine the total number of viable industrial objects and award "X" points per object destroyed to the Allies (and the same per object saved to the Axis) rather than justifying a computed 21 point "headstart" for the Axis. Whatever works in regards to placing an emphasis on attacking/defending German industry over simply tallying up air-to-air victories.

And count me in for a shiny set of B-17s on this one. I'd vote for manual bomb sights as well, but from what I've been reading here we expect to be hard pressed for buff pilots as is!

Nevermind to the score part, I was simply assuming Allies would win the bombing campaign if they destroyed 50% or more of the industrial objects.

Still gonna fly B-17s

[Brooke]

The current scoring system would tend to work out approximately that way, but there are mitigating cases.  For example, under the current scoring system, if the 8th AF did that much bombing but lost the entire air force in the process, while the Luftwaffe didn't suffer large losses, the Luftwaffe would tend to win.

[oboe]

Hiya Brooke,

Here's a thought - you could pencil in a B-24 group with the same number of pilots as the B-17 groups.  Then stipulate in the design that the B-24 group must replace each of the B-17 groups one time, in any of the 4 frames (CO's discretion).  That way, 25% of the sorties flown in our "Big Week" will be flown by B-24s (much closer to the 30% historical figure).  It gets the B-24s into the action, preserves some diversity in the plane set and addresses your concern about an undermanned bomber group getting mauled.

The same type of thing could be done with 410s and 110s.   The 190A-7 was present since late 1943, and had the up-gunned cowl guns to 13mm - so couldn't the A-8 substitute for the A-7?

As far as rockets, if they are at least available as an option - perhaps most LW pilots would share your dim view of them, and agree with you as to their drawbacks - and so not take them.  But a few might try it - and that might end up making the proper historical ratio of pilots who flew with them.  That way, film of the event's action might end up displaying rocket attacks by Me110s - just like in Big Week.  Or, it may not.  But the option and uncertainty would be there.

<S>, and Happy Easter, and safe travels!

[BaldEagl]

We will definitely increase the squadron numbers if registration fills up, but I am hesitant to increase it right now because we are averaging (over last 3 scenarios) 75 players and had to go to extreme lengths to fill even to those levels.  This one is already set for 94, a substantial increase.  It's probably best to make sure it fills before we increase anything.

I skipped the last scenario because, by the time I ended up deciding to fly in it, there were only a handful of slots open on each side and there was nothing open that I wanted to fly in (on either side).  I saw this same discussion before that scenario but when it got down to 3ish spots open on a side there were no new spots opened.  I know because I kept checking back.

I think whatever you've "designed" is the best that you'll get, particularly if you're going to wait to completely "fill" each initial open slot.

I see a lot of discussion about percent if aircraft present, etc.  Here's an idea... with every plane shot down those percentages change (and did change).

If you want to attract players then you have to be at least somewhat less rigid.  I get that you want a historic representation but you're not going to get it without people.

[Brooke]

Registration was open for over 1 month for the last scenario, and there open spots in all types of aircraft for weeks.  If anyone wanted a particular plane type, all they had to do was not wait weeks to register.

Also, opening more spots when spots are still open, or having way more spots than what you actually will fill, doesn't work well.  All you end up doing is incentivizing people not to register and creating imbalances.

[Brooke]

Howdy, Oboe.  I think the setup is pretty decent, and I'd rather skip complications in player-enforced rules of manning planes.

There was no 190A-8 in Big Week.  If Big Week was mostly A-7's (I don't know if that was the case), the 190A-5 is a much better match to it than is a 190A-8 anyway.

For rockets, maybe 1% of attacks in Big Week were rocket attacks.  If so, we're talking about less than one plane with rockets here.

I looked up the Me 410 vs. Bf 110.  The large majority of twin-engine fighters in Big Week (which were still a much smaller proportion than 109's and 190's) were 110's.  So, again, if you have a small proportion of an already small proportion, it's a thing that needs to be skipped when you are talking about 40-ish folks on a side.  The axis can opt for four 110G's in place of four 190's if they want -- but I will leave that to the axis to decide if they want them, but we should do it one way or the other prior to registration opening so that folks know what they are signing up for.

Oboe, what are you going to fly in this one?

[Devil 505]

If Big Week was mostly A-7's (I don't know if that was the case), the 190A-5 is a much better match to it than is a 190A-8 anyway.

No Brooke, it A-7 was the first model to be equipped with the 13mm cowl Mg's and half of the 70 plane production run were built with the 30mm cannon and the rest were had Mg151 cannons in the outer bays. For all practical purposes an A-7 is an A-8.

Also according to the Jg 26 War Diary, Jg 27 suffered 11 total 190 pilot casualties during Big Week, 4 were in A-7's. Given an estimated Geschwader strength of 70 total 190's split between the Stab and First and Second Gruppen. Knowing that only Jg 1 and 26 received the A-7, if one assumes they were split evenly then half of each Gescheader would be in the A-7.

[Fencer51]

For what it's worth, Gruppen I and II of JG26 in February 1944

I / JG26
 
2.44
At start                            Added       Lost      End of month strength
 
3           Fw 190A-4              1           2          2
2           Fw 190A-5              0                       2
22          Fw 190A-6             7           11        18
0            Fw 190A-7             2                       2
0            Fw 190A-6 / R6      12                     12
7            Fw 190A-7 / R6      6            4         9


II / JG26

2.44

2             Fw 190A-5         1         2              1
25           Fw 190A-6         6         20            11
11           Fw 190A-7         9         10            10

[Stampf]

Winner. ^

[Brooke]

According to the sources for the Wiki article on 190 variants, the A-7 didn't have 30 mm cannon in wings.  Devil, where are you finding the data that half of A-7's had 30 mm cannon in the wings (as opposed to rarer 190 underwing gun pods)?

I'm getting The Luftwaffe Data Book -- I'm hoping it will have more data on such things, but I won't know until it arrives.  Also, just ordered The FW 190 in Action book to see if it covers such things.

Anyway, using Fencer's data and assuming that it is representative of all of Big Week 190's and using Devil's assertion that half of A-7's had 30 mm cannon, 16% of 190's have 30 mm cannon, which comes out to 2.6 aircraft for us.

If that is a decent analysis (I'll see if we can get more data on any of this), maybe we could have one group of 4 aircraft that is 190A-8's or Bf 110G's or 190A-5's (at Luftwaffe's choice -- although would prefer it to be made prior to us opening registration if possible), one group that is 4 190A-5's, and another group that is 8 190A-5's.

Swareiam, any thoughts on this?