1920 Rules Changes (advanced draft)

[maddox]

TC, you're probably right on the cost of maintaining a heavy bomber compared to a fighter.

But, as long there is/are a maintenance area, spare parts and qualified personel, even a B29 could get repairs "in the field".
Of course, that will reflect in the wear and tear of the aircraft.

Maybe an in between solution, without "heavy airfields", planes will need replacement each year.

[damocles]

Concentrating on the issue of airfields again:

First, I'd like comment on this alternate structure:

Could I respectfully suggest. (in blue).

My immediate concern is having an installation with no BP requirement that is permanent will encourage players to build lots and lots of type 0 airfields and nothing bigger. However, to build the equivalent of 1 Type 2 airfield in type 0's, it would also be more expensive.

Then adjust costs by 0.25$/0.1BP  per squadron based on an airfield. That way all we have to do is multiply the capacity to get the cost of an airfield.

In my case it would be $0.75 and 0.3BP for a Dutch aerodrome, or we could round it out to the nearest higher unit on which case it would be $1 and 0.4BP for a Dutch aerodrome with a 1910 airship costing a squadron, the next size airship costing 2 squadrons and so forth.

As for paved runways and permanent facilities, Double the cost of the grass fields?

That way no one gets away from having FREE airfields. I leave it to the mods to rule on highways used as runways and emergency grass strips.

By the way the British started paving their Malay aerodromes in the Mid 1920s. Too much rain turned the fields to mud.

Just a suggestion. I am content with some kind of costs.......              

If we implement this, we might advance transferability of existing airfields to Type 2's. Or maybe we total up the BP spent on airfields per player so far, and you can spread that around. Ie, if you've spent 6BP on airfields, you might end up with six type 3 airfields, or 12 type 2, or 24 type 1, etc. similar to Mike's idea above.

Too complicated. If you list and multiplu by the base unit(squadron equivalents per airfield, you can  simplify bookkeeping.

[Guinness]

Until I had an unfortunate top of the box run in with a 6'4" 145lb Angolan a few years ago and broke my collarbone, I usually played two full games a week in net (one men's league team, one coed).

Naval aviation: my thought was that the minimum unit size (a squadron) would suffice. A nation with only shipboard floatplanes might have one naval aviation squadron to cover all of them (for instance).

On the H-P V/1500: we're attempting a one-size fits all solution here. I expect that one will always find outliers, like the V/1500, Russian K-7, what have you. The mods would reserve the right to torture a player fielding such outliers in too many numbers.

Damocles: you weren't around for the great paved runway controversy, but the conclusion was that paved runways weren't that important until right at the start of World War 2. So I'm happy to defer them. They might end up included in the future as something like a Type 2+ airfield upgrade.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Mikes comments on the players with HUGE numbers of aircraft compared to airfields.

Its very obvious that people wanted large air-forces because they are "cool". 

Well, I run 150 AC/airfield, and actually alot of my "planning" revolved around buying some aircraft every 6 months to keep my industry busy. Smallest unit was 100.  I slacked in HY21919, but have generally stuck to it.  

[damocles]

Until I had an unfortunate top of the box run in with a 6'4" 145lb Angolan a few years ago and broke my collarbone, I usually played two full games a week in net (one men's league team, one coed).

Naval aviation: my thought was that the minimum unit size (a squadron) would suffice. A nation with only shipboard floatplanes might have one naval aviation squadron to cover all of them (for instance).

On the H-P V/1500: we're attempting a one-size fits all solution here. I expect that one will always find outliers, like the V/1500, Russian K-7, what have you. The mods would reserve the right to torture a player fielding such outliers in too many numbers.

Damocles: you weren't around for the great paved runway controversy, but the conclusion was that paved runways weren't that important until right at the start of World War 2. So I'm happy to defer them. They might end up included in the future as something like a Type 2+ airfield upgrade.

Okay on that. Just so I don't get rained out when I start training on Java fields.

One question....How do you use a tables function on this board?   

[TexanCowboy]

*converts all aircraft to Handley Page V/1500*

AHH!!!! GET THAT CHAINSAW AWAY FROM ME!!!!  ;D ;D

[Guinness]

One question....How do you use a tables function on this board?   

With my magic moderator foo, I'm allowed to post html tables. :)

I have tinkered with an excel macro that barfs forth bbcode tables too. If you google for such things, there are a few.

[miketr]

One thought is the following.

Only 4 engine aircraft strictly speaking require an airfield.  Squadrons, Groups and Wings operating from rough fields have reduced availability, call it half strength or something.  This is to represent the lack of dedicate repair shops, hangers, fuel storage, etc.

What this means is that you need to consider costs to be balanced against the idea, of what if I don't want any air fields and just build twice as many aircraft on the cost saved of not building the airfields.

As to costs it looks like you have the $ to BP ratio of aircraft about 5 to 1.  I would have airfields cost the same for all levels.

Now lets look at the base costs.

1921 Aircraft
Squadron:$0.50 & 0.10 BP   
Wing: $2.50 & 0.50   BP
Group: $12.50   & 2.50 BP

The cost ratio for airfields
Squadron:$1
Wing:$2
Group:$4

So we have a two to one ratio for a squadron of aircraft and the field to support it.  Which means that you could build another two squadrons of aircraft. 

The wing  costs 25% more than the airfield to support it.  So you couldn't quiet buy another wing by neglecting the airfield.

The group costs is horribly in favor of building the airfield.

As aircraft costs go up the ratio's tilt as airfields costs are flat for all generations.

I think it might be worth while to decrease the costs of the base airfield a little to $0.25 or $0.375 depending on what type of cost ratio you want between the squadron and airfield.

Michael

[ctwaterman]

Ok having sat down and taken a good hard look at the Aircraft rules... well about the only thing I have a problem with is that the Attack rate in Artillary rating is the same no matter what type of Aircraft.

A 1916 Single Engine Fighter or Observation plane has 1 to 3 Machine guns, and carries 1 or 2 crew and maybe upwards of 50 Kg of Bombs.

Some of the Early Twin Engines and 3 to 4 Engined Bombers could carry 500 to 1000 Kg of bombs or even 18" Torpedoes.

I would prefer to see some difference in attack strength between a set years Single Engined, Twin Engined, and Heavy Aircraft.  The Fighters are for shooting down enemy observation planes, the Single Engine Observations planes are for taking Photos behind the enemies lines.   The Heavy Bombers supprisingly in the early periods often outgunned the fighters and were extremely dangerous and able to obsorb damage.

[Guinness]

Coming back to this.

First: Charles on relative aircraft capabilities: I hear what you are saying, and agree to a point, but for the purpose of the rules and keeping them as simple as possible, I've chosen an "average" artillery rating per unit. At the very small scale, ie a squadron, etc. the composition will likely matter. However, in formulating these rules, I was imagining units of greater scale, escorted bomber formations, etc. So I hope the average rating for larger units would suffice. For small unit actions, where a squadron of bombers is met by a squadron of fighters, I think we can be confident that whoever is simming that battle will award relative bonuses where appropriate.

On airfields: after collecting many comments on the subject, both public and private, I'll revise the previous posting as such:

Players may total up the amount of BP used in construction of airfields up to 1920. This amount of BP may then be reallocated into post-rule change airfields.

For instance, if a player spent 1.5 BP total on 3 1913 tech airfields (ie 0.5BP x 3), and then 3 BP total on 3 1917 tech airfields (ie 1BP x 3), they will have spent a total of 4.5BP on airfields up to 1920. They may then reallocate that into 4.5BP of new airfields at their convenience. This might be 4 type 3 airfields and 1 type 2, or it might be 9 type 2's, etc. I think most players will find this quite generous, and that only a few will still need to build more than a few more airfields to accommodate their existing air forces.

Also, when converting the existing pile-o-airplanes system to the new unit system, players will be allowed to round up on a squadron basis. So if you have 20 twin engine aircraft, congratulations, you now have 2 squadrons, not 1.25 squadrons. This is strictly to make the conversion easier and to prevent players having to account for half squadrons. To build wings and groups past that, add up the number of squadrons that result.

[TexanCowboy]

And if you spent no BP, but still have 7 airfields?

[Guinness]

These would be 1910 tech? Earlier?

At any rate, the mods reserve the right to handle special cases... specially. So after the rule changes go official in 1920 pm us.

[TexanCowboy]

1910 level airfields, yes...

[Guinness]

Lets give it some time and see how things shake out. How soon are you going to have a newer aircraft tech?

[TexanCowboy]

As soon as I finish digesting the 5-6 techs I've been given as gifts, and get around to researching it....not until 1922, at the earliest....unless I get gifted more....(designs ploy to get Capet to give Romania aircraft.... ;D)