1920 Rules Changes (advanced draft)

[Logi]

Interestingly enough if we count the manpower relative to pop size.

New Swiss is at 0.14% with their airforce.

Japan is at 0.22% with their airforce.

Romania is at 0.13% with their airforce.

[Nobody]

Well, talking manpower:
[...]
* we should be tracking manpower limits of navies, but we haven't yet dreamed up a neat way to do that. If we do, it'll probably just be total tons of commissioned shipping multiplied by some constant, and not using SS's crew size figures at all.

Which would be essentially the same, because springssharp does that as well (although probably based on normal or maximum size).

[Logi]

By-the-way, how many corps of troops do you have DF? From your H1/1919 report, it appears 50 divisions so 25 corps.

Calculating your army into the equation, your manpower relative to national pop is 3.52%.

[Valles]

Ground-wise, the Maori have 27 corps, most of them obsolete. The Air Service operates sixteen Class Two airships, but the eight air stations they run out of are rated up to Class Five. There are, as yet, no airplane operations being undertaken.

[TexanCowboy]

Well, talking manpower:

If Romania could fully mobilize, it could support 675,000 men in uniform (13.5 million *0.05). You have 8 corps, which equals 400,000 men. Your airforce would account for ~11,000 or 12,000 men. So depending on your navy*, you're at least under the conceivable manpower limit.

Still in 1920, not having fought a war which required the extended mobilization of huge airforces, 600 aircraft seems like a lot for a nation such as Romania. I don't suppose we can put that genie back in the bottle now.

* we should be tracking manpower limits of navies, but we haven't yet dreamed up a neat way to do that. If we do, it'll probably just be total tons of commissioned shipping multiplied by some constant, and not using SS's crew size figures at all.

About 100 of those belong personnally to the queen.

[damocles]

Current RLM PLANNED air strength as of 2H1919

Fokker D-V (from Bavaria), 500 aircraft. (fighter)
Fokker J-1 500 aircraft. (fighter)
Fokker R-2 500 aircraft (recon aircraft)
Fokker W-1 500 aircraft.(naval seaplane)

RLM bases.                       D-V        J-1          R-2       W-1            Air Brigades
Amsterdam (1+3*)              72           72          72         72              1st
Flyssen  (1+3*)                    72           72          72         72              2nd
Jakarta  (1+3*)                     72           72          72         72              3rd    
Ullapool (1+2*)                   72           72          72         72               4th  
Singapore (1+2*)                 72           72          72         72               5th
Surabaya  (1+2*)                  72           72          72         72               6th

Totals                                  452 + 48 452+48  452+48 452+48  
* Each air force base can call on the services of near by civil flying fields as satellite airfields. These are built and maintained as part of the civil air ministry(, note in wartime would be taken into RLM base service. There are 15 such civil airfields      

The RLM organizes in air brigades attached to a corps or fleet regional command.    

There are currently six such air brigades.  

RLM bases		D-V	J-1	R-2	W-1	Air Brigades
Amsterdam (1+3*)		72	72	72	72	1st
Flyssen  (1+3*)		72	72	72	72	2nd
Jakarta  (1+3*)		72	72	72	72	3rd
Ullapool (1+2*)		72	72	72	72	4th
Singapore (1+2*)		72	72	72	72	5th
Surabaya  (1+2*)		72	72	72	72	6th
Totals		452 + 48	452+48	452+48	452+48

The six brigades are ~ wings under the 1920 rules. Planes are mostly single engine 1913/1916 types due for replacement. As of the moment, 1 type 1910 airship in service.

The airfield were built under the old rules at $1.5 per airfield and the aircraft purchased in bulk lots and I spent 13.8 BP on the air-force, The plan was to have 4 airfields per brigade when complete. I in effect to this point have spent $31.50 and 13.5 BP on my airforce.

21 Type 1 airfields.                   ($42.0 and 5.25BP)            ($21 spent)
17 air wings (2040 aircraft)      ($25.50 and 5.1BP)  ($10.5 spent)
totals                                       ($67.50 and 10.35BP)      

We can therefore allot that I have 21 airfields planned at 50% paid, with all BP needed accounted.  I have bought 5 of the 17 planned air wings.  

I need to spend  ($21 and $18 respectively in the next two reports to comply within the new rules)

Planned air force end strength will be ~ 60,000 men.

D.
 
D.  

[Kaiser Kirk]

Bavaria

7 x 1914 airfields
1 x 1914 seaplane base
1 x 1916 airfield

900 x 1914 single-engine aircraft
50 x 1914 medium seaplanes

100 x 1916 single-engine aircraft
50 x 1916 heavy aircraft.

Total :
1,000 singles,
50 mediums
50 heavies.

8 x Zeppelins
4 x hangers

My aircraft are roughly arranged 150/airstrip.  I have been presuming that was a central main strip and various auxiliaries as a major airbase. I'll note that at $4, Type 2 airship hangers cost as much as a type 3 group airfield, yet *are not* stand alone ? They need to both be sited at the airbase AND eat up space at that base?

I will note that old purchases were in batches of 100/50/25
While the new airfield limits means that basically my strips would need to be a type 2 strip at $3 & 0.5 BP for them to have been serving as they have.
 

[Guinness]

First note that I entirely forgot a blurb on Naval Aviation which I've added above. I've also clarified what value one might derive by scrapping aircraft bought before the rule change.

I do not like the Squadron/Wing/Group divisons. I would much prefere the cleaner method we have now, with everyone splitting up their planes as they see fit.

Here we have the eternal standardization vs. customization debate. As is the case with army units, some standardization is required to allow us to sim battles and when necessary compare apples to apples, etc.

For example: take the RRC and their 5800 aircraft. How are we to sim action including all those planes if we can't at least boil them down to operational formations.

At any rate, I don't believe the unit structure necessarily limits customization, especially storyline customization. If one wants to build a wing made up of 1 squadron of heavy bombers, 1 squadron of medium bombers, and 3 squadrons of fighters, one can do that. The Mods would still see that as a wing of certain capabilities whenever it enters into a hex to do battle.

Also, Squadron/Wing/Group are simply our standardized designator. They could easily be Air Battalion/Air Regiment/Air Division or what-have-you.

On the airfield issue: this has been helpful, and the mods have conferred, but right now I see two options:

1. Every airbase everywhere turns into one kind of airbase after the change (ie they all become type 0's as originally outlined, or whatnot).
2. Airbases are converted based on some simple equation based on number of aircraft fielded. So someone with a small number of bases and a large number of aircraft would end up with the same small number of large bases, while someone with lots of bases and less aircraft would end up with the same number of small airbases.

Both seem "fair" on their own merrits, so to a certain extent I don't care either way. I see the need to avoid forcing players to have to conjure up a number of new airbases to support all their aircraft.

[Desertfox]

Here we have the eternal standardization vs. customization debate. As is the case with army units, some standardization is required to allow us to sim battles and when necessary compare apples to apples, etc.

I understand what you mean. I would just like the numbers to be broken up in simpler divisions. The current system of 100/50/25 means easier math, and clear values (ie 1 heavy = 2 twins = 4 singles).

I would propose the following:

Squadron: 25 12 6 
Wing: 100 50 25 
Group: 500 250 125

Keeps the current systems numbers, keeps using mutiples of 5, and makes base estimations easier.

Ie:

Type 0 = 25 points
Type 1 = 100 points
Type 2 = 200 points
Type 3 = 500 points

1 point = 1 single engine plane (twins 2, heavies 4)

Type 0 Airship = 2 points
Type 1 Airship = 4 points
Type 2 Airship = 8 points
Type 3 Airship = 12 points

I do agree that airship hangars should NOT need an airfield and the argument could be made that they should count as an airfield already.

[Sachmle]

As of 1/20 DKB will have:

500 1910/1914 Single Engine planes
150 1910/1914 Twin Engine planes
32 Type 2 Zeppelins

2 1906/1910 Airfields
2 1910/1914 Airfields
16 Type 2 Zeppelin Hangers

I too do not like the:

From 1920, airships must be based at a permanent airfield.

Granted that's probably because I'd have to build 15 airfields to support my Zeppelin hangers since most of them are not at locations which currently have airfields.

I would be ok with offsetting this idea with adding BP in small amount (0.25, 0.50, etc..) to the cost of Zeppelin hangers starting with Type 3 and up to represent the infrastructure needed to support such large airships.

[Guinness]

Existing airship bases are also convertible to type 0 airfields.

This means that anywhere one has an airship hanger or hangers automatically becomes a type 0 airfield.

[Sachmle]

Existing airship bases are also convertible to type 0 airfields.

This means that anywhere one has an airship hanger or hangers automatically becomes a type 0 airfield.

Ooops...

[ctwaterman]

OK...

I figured this was going to happen sooner or latter so I didnt go building a huge number of Airfields and treated them all as Central Repair and Maintenance Depot and assumed the Type 0 Airstrips as forward operational locations.

I am completely shocked by the sheer number of Aircraft Deployed by some nations particulairly China RRC ????   I have been writting stories about my aircraft training program and at no point have I ever more then doubled the size of my pilot force in a Single Year.   There simply hasnt been an In game need or emphasis to do so.....  Until Recently I believe a posted a story about that as well.

What I was trying to do was avoid the 50% losses due to flying accident inherrent in simply throwing pilots with only 8 or 10 hours flying time into the air let alone into combat !  It appears some nations have done that anyway.

The Italian Airforce Consists of the Following Airbases
1916 Airfields are located at
Marsala Sicily
Spinea Italy
Aseb Eritrea
Dire Dawa Somalia
Kigali Burundi
Nacala Italian South Africa
Tunis North Africa
Type 2 Airship Hangers are also located at
Nacala Italian South Africa
Blantrye Italian South Africa
Dire Dawa Somalia
Rome Italy
Marsala Sicily
2 More Type 2 Hangers are Building Soon
Mogadishu
Tobruk

My Airforce has the following aircraft deployed into squadrons similar to Foxy' proposal among those airfields listed above.
600 1916 Single Engine Fighters and Scouts
100 1916 Twin Engined Light Bombers or Recon Aircraft
150 1916 Long Range Heavy Bombers mostly Maritime Reconisance
200 1914 Single Engine aircraft used at my training squadrons
100 1914 Twin Engined Aircraft also used as my training squadrons.

I dont have the problem RRC does but I didnt buy 5000+ Aircraft yet I will note that I did purchase around 1000 aircraft for HY2 1919 but I actually expect that if I actually end up in a war most of those will be replacement aircraft for those worn out under combat conditions or simply lost in combat or damaged.

The fact that most of these aircraft will very soon be obsolete is not a problem as the 1914 Aircraft have to be replaced no matter what by 1921 there 6 years are up.
Nacal

[Logi]

Well consider that of that 5800 planes, 1500 are trainers. And ~2800 are obsolete 1914 tech planes. Furthermore that size was built over 6 years. and the majority were built during war.

I have never doubled the size of my airforce, never felt the need to, just been slowly building it up.

I mean, you have a problem with the RRC, which spans a great area and has a large population, having bases for 5800 airplanes. I wonder what you think about Japan's 9100?

[Desertfox]

I thought my air force was too big at a 1,000, untill I saw the Japanese and Chinese ones... The Dutch one also appeared overnight.