Summer Project

nice paint jobs :b:

techumseh said:

I tried to figure out the best function for the P-47 Thunderbolt in RAF service. It replaced the Hurricane II in 1944 as their main ground attack plane, but it was also a good fighter. But if I allow it to also attack other aircraft it's attack factor will be too high, so I'm only allowing it to be used as a bomber.

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High ATT and low DEF maybe, so that it can't provide air defence? not realistic I realise, but it would stop players from using P-47s as fighters to defend other aircraft and ground units....

Which factors are used when a fighter defends a city from an attacking bomber?

Given the vanilla bomber/stealth bomber and fighter/stealth fighter stats and the great frequency in vanilla the fighter defending the city beats the attacking bomber, I'd bet it's the fighter's Attack versus the bomber's Defense. Since most well-crafted scenarios rework most elements of almost every unit type, I mostly have to judge on the vanilla game.

In my experience, a fighter intercepting a bomber attacking it's city or airfield has a much poorer chance than an fighter attacking a bomber in open terrain. So I've always assumed that an intercept uses both plane's defense factor. Does anyone have a definitive answer?

From memory (so you should probably verify this), this is how air combat works:

bomber/helicopter attacks scrambling fighter: use bomber's attack figure, fighter's defence x 4
fighter attacks scrambling fighter: use fighter's attack, scrambling's fighter's defence x 2
anything attacks airbase: attack, defence (no scramble bonus)
fighter attacks in flight bomber: use fighter's attack, use bomber's defence
fighter attacks helicopter: use fighter's attack, helicopter's defence x0.5

Also, all defenders gain the terrain defensive bonus.

Thanks Prof. G. That's helpful, and fits my experience. I only wish that defensive terrain had no effect on air combat. I avoid attacking bombers over mountains for that reason.

I haven't had as much time to spend on my project over the last week or two as I would have liked, but I did spend some time on my Order of Battle (OOB). I finished reading "Defeat into Victory" by Viscount William Slim, not well known but perhaps the best British general of the war. It's an excellent account, and quite helpful.

Also useful is "The Burma Air Campaign, 1941-1945" by Michael Pearson. Allied air power was uniquely important in Burma, as whole divisions were moved and supplied by air.

I often use board wargames as sources for my scenarios. They have a map, an OOB including times and locations of reinforcements and withdrawals, and can give you an idea of the main strategic factors in the campaign or battle you are trying to represent. I found two games that were helpful. The first, an old Game Designers Workshop effort from 1976 called simply "Burma" gives a good overview of the campaign from 1943 on. Like many older games, it more or less ignores the air war, but gives a good idea of the supply side of things. The second, also called "Burma" is a newer release from 2008 and covers the battles in North and Central Burma in 1944-45 in much greater detail, including the air campaign.

It remains to find the org chart for the units represented in the games, and the types of equipment used at various times throughout the campaign. Several web sites provide most of this information. For air units involved, I used this: http://www.fireandfury.com/orbats/pacburmaairorbats.pdf This site provides more detail on the OOBs of the various nations who participated: http://www.rothwell.force9.co.uk/burmaweb/ordersof.htm

Progress is uneven as always, but I continue to make headway. I'm waiting for the next version of the Patch, as I hope to incorporate it into the scenario. Cheers.

A few other reference materials: The West Point Atlas of the Second World War, Asia and the Pacific, with accompanying historical volume. "Stillwell and the American Experience in China", by Barbara Tuchman. "The Chindit War", by Shelford Bidwell. And a dreadful 1962 war movie called "Merrill's Marauders". I haven't yet been able to view the 1945 film "Objective Burma" starring Errol Flynn.

I had a bit of time today to work on improvements and wonders. Like Operation Market-Garden, this scenario will be quite minimalist regarding improvements and technologies - the focus is on military operations.

There are 4 civs: The British, the Japanese, the Chinese and the Thais. The Brits are the protagonist, the others are AI controlled. For simplicity's sake the AI civs will have a fundamentalist govt (renamed Militarist), while the British, based in restive India, will have a Communist govt (renamed Colonial). Unrest in the rear was a real problem for the Brits in India (and Burma for that matter), so I want to incorporate that.

Initially, the Brits have 54 cities, half in Burma and half in India. The Chinese and the Thai's each have six, and the Japanese have none. I decided to place 3 happiness wonders, one each in Calcutta, Mandalay and Rangoon. British morale will drop as the Japanese capture the latter two during the first season, partly offset by a reduction in the unhappiness factor as the number of controlled cities drops.

British morale drops further when Gandhi and the Congress Party launches the "Quit India Movement" in Aug 1942. Events will give a tech that will render the Calcutta wonder (probably Hanging Gardens) obsolete temporarily. The British will then be able to research a tech that reverses the obsolescence. Historically, the British had effectively suppressed the Congress campaign by the start of 1944.

Here's a list of the wonders planned for the scenario:

Hanging Gardens, Calcutta (built) Raj Bhavan (Govt House)
Oracle, Rangoon (built) Golden Pagoda
Great Wall, Kunming (built) Generalissimo's HQ
Sun Tzu's War Academy, British (unbuilt) Slim's Headquarters
Isaac Newton's College, British (unbuilt) Mountbatten's Command
Adam Smith's Trading Co.,Calcutta (built) The Raj
Cure for Cancer, Mandalay (built) Mandalay Palace

Improvements will be limited and inexpensive, to discourage players from selling them off. Temples, Marketplaces, Libraries and City Walls will be in all cities. They will be the only buildable improvements. A few larger cities may have Banks, Universities, Factories, Supermarkets and/or Coliseums. Harbors and Coastal fortresses will go to coastal cities if they need them, and two cities will have airports, one in N. India, the other in Kunming, China to simulate "The Hump" airlift.

I'm currently looking for good graphics to use for icons to represent these improvements and wonders. That's all for now.

I'm really looking forwards to a good Burma scenario. Its a fascinating campaign with really diverse units and often overlooked, hence the 'forgotten army'. Keep plugging away Tech!

Thanks, I shall. I prefer obscure topics for some reason. Some of them are quite interesting.

In this case, I think Gen. Slim was one of the outstanding generals of the entire war, though he is not particularly well known. His defensive-offensive battle of Imphal-Kohima was masterful, but his June 1944 - March 1945 offensive was brilliant. The British 14th Army surrounded or broke up three Japanese armies, leading to the re-capture of Rangoon and the end of the war in Burma. IMHO it was a campaign on a par with Manstein's 1940 victory in France or Zhukov's Battle of Stalingrad.

Techumseh, while we're on the topic of Burma, a side question I've long wondered. Why did Burma have the Counts-Mountbatten of Burma, but no other colonial possession in the whole British Empire that I'm aware of had a noble titleage (at least of British, if not endemic, origin) attached to them except those short-lived baronetcies around towns in Upper Canada used for gratitude to the leaders of the United Empire Loyalists who had to flee the United States after the American Revolutionary War?

When given titles as a reward for their efforts, successful British commanders were allowed to add the name of their great victory to the title. Hence Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. There was no County of Alamein. Similarly, reference to Burma was for the battle and did not imply Mountbatten was it's feudal overlord.

I think anyone who is made a peer is allowed to choose the place name after their title; most of them seem to choose somewhere they were born or lived or in the case of Montgomery or Mountbatten a place they are connected with through a famous event. As Tech says it doesn't imply some kind of feudal overlordship, unlike the hereditary peerage titles where the family in question were originally the literal lord of the manor of a town or county. Either way the whole system of peerages in the UK is ridiculous and incompatible with a modern democracy.....

Fairline said:

...it doesn't imply some kind of feudal overlordship, unlike the hereditary peerage titles where the family in question were originally the literal lord of the manor of a town or county. Either way the whole system of peerages in the UK is ridiculous and incompatible with a modern democracy.....

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Really? That surprises me. According to Downton Abbey, the British aristocracy is kind and benevolent, and the real scoundrels are all downstairs. It seems you might be better off to leave things as they are.

don't.....I'm too easily trolled

jesus though, they export that Downton Abbey horsehockye to Canada? oh ffs

I really despise the image of Britain as portrayed by some of our more crappy films and TVs..... all toffs lording it over the lower classes who properly know their place... grrrrr

You would do well to heed the example of Mr. Carson, sir.

On a more business-like note, I have made a bit of progress. A rough prototype of a tech tree has allowed me to place improvements and wonders. There will be separate branches for the British and the AI civs. The British will have tech choices that allow them to vary their strategy to some degree, eg. gliders or landing craft, or earlier airlift to China or more bombers.

The AI tech branch will be strictly linear, leading to Future tech of course. Since they are all Fundamentalist, I can slow their research down to a crawl to reduce the number of techs I need in their branch.

Next, a bit of research on city populations to size the cities, placing improvements and wonders, and the tedious task of adding irrigation everywhere lie ahead. Roads and railways are already done. Cheers.

Adding the irrigation should be a quicker task with the ToTPP hotkeys. Glad to hear things are progressing well. My own 2015 project is also making good progress. Hopefully we can look forwards to at least a couple of new scenarios this year