The ongoing JG42 war

[Nephris]

This is a small planing sheet I began a few weeks ago on a beermat in a croatian pub, after some mail contacts with Larry .
I now ended it as I think it fits into this discussion.
The plan is just an illustration, but I suppose it is easier to discuss about sth more visual and maybe we can avoid some misunderstandings from the beginning.


click to enlarge.

Once again it is just a plan in what I filled my humble thoughts for a sequel event, up to now we keep going on with moscow I presume ?!?
Although I am a real fan of Bessarabia, I am of course not "nailed" to map.


Historical based on events beginning in April 44

[:FI:Sneaky_Russian]

It's a great map, but in more than one way.
Only problem with Bessarabia is that it's a pretty massive map 340x290km or 98,600 sq Km.
Finding some action may be a problem, especially with such a wide front.

[:FI:Armitage]

given our penchant for no organization, (which I do not want trifled with)

We as the FI need to discuss this amongst ourselves. While in general we are not well organised if we are going to be fighting an online war we need to be organised, have people assigned to fighters, ground attack, strategic bombing, ground defense and a general strategy for each mission/war.

Part of the reason why we lost the war was we had no plan at the start (we got better) at the end.

[Nephris]

Finding some action may be a problem, especially with such a wide front.

Right. For that reason I devided the map into battlegrounds.
Each rectangle would represent one campaign/Operation. I just put all into one
map, to show the historically relation.
The operation can be ran in chronological order, or trigger each other, or simply by democratic choice.

Sizes of the battle area ( from far red spawn depot to blue spawn depot)
Dnestr Bridgehead -> ca. 110x90km
Odessa Bulge -> 130x110km
Targul-Fumos&Iasi Operation -> 130 x 120km


Maybe someone of you find the time to test some armored vehicles.
I still cant say for sure what blue tank vs red tanks is a fair fight.
Like 4xPzVI-F2 vs 4xSherman/T34 or similar.

[:FI:Gadje]

given our penchant for no organization, (which I do not want trifled with)

We as the FI need to discuss this amongst ourselves. While in general we are not well organised if we are going to be fighting an online war we need to be organised, have people assigned to fighters, ground attack, strategic bombing, ground defense and a general strategy for each mission/war.

Part of the reason why we lost the war was we had no plan at the start (we got better) at the end.

Nah I don't buy that.
How many times have we finished Sunday having destroyed more ground targets shot down lots of human pilots and been scratching our heads as to why we still made no progress on the map. The reason for that wasn't lack of organisation for many of those attacks took teamwork, it was as we now realise our lack of understanding of how DCG works. Primarily the importance of fuel. Without protecting it and destroying the enemies there is no chance of winning. We did virtually none of either until very recently. Perhaps it could be argued it was stupid not to realise sooner but we have been playing information catch up and have done fine all in all I'd say.

Re the map for the next war, my vote for what it is worth would be Kuban. It is a map well known by everyone flying IL-2 by now and the planeset historically was well matched.

[:FI:Sneaky_Russian]

Kuban is good , Norway, N Africa or PTO possibly Burma might also be good and a change from Russian planes.

[:FI:Armitage]

All of the above maps are good. Burma would be interesting but the distances can quite large.

[Nephris]

Hi Folks,
upcomming Sunday I will fire up the Server again.
For now we are still on Moscow, but I guess for reasons of variety, and after more than 6 months flying the same map,
I will prepare a sequel to startup anytime in September.

At this point I need to cancel our sunday evening date on sunday 22nd September, as "Wiesn" (Oktoberfest) begins, which takes my absolute attention for 4 days in a row.



As far as you are still interested to fly with us,what we really hope,I will ask a few =FI= guys to join a small discussion round in Teamspeak to deal about the planeset (and several other things like Downgrades y/n,maybe fixed plane numbers each mission,industrial vehicles & where to place,bridge repair time,....)

[:FI:Genosse]

Hi Folks,
upcomming Sunday I will fire up the Server again.
For now we are still on Moscow, but I guess for reasons of variety, and after more than 6 months flying the same map,
I will prepare a sequel to startup anytime in September.

At this point I need to cancel our sunday evening date on sunday 22nd September, as "Wiesn" (Oktoberfest) begins, which takes my absolute attention for 4 days in a row.



As far as you are still interested to fly with us,what we really hope,I will ask a few =FI= guys to join a small discussion round in Teamspeak to deal about the planeset (and several other things like Downgrades y/n,maybe fixed plane numbers each mission,industrial vehicles & where to place,bridge repair time,....)

Welcome back, Nephris!

It's good to see you back online again, mate. I hope you did enjoy your holiday and were able to get some recreational time.

As you can see the community doesn't seem to be sure which campaign to start next nor about its modalities. So, I think it might be a good idea to pick up the Moscow campaign until we get to a common sense about the new one ...

Talking about the Oktoberfest, did I get this right that you won't be around on this single Sunday (Sep 22th, 2013) only?

Catch you later, Flo!

[:FI:Genosse]

Folks!

I'd like to present you the basic statements of an email Nephris has sent to me. Before I'll do this I'd like to apologise for all mistakes of the attempt of my German-English translation ...

As far as I can remember we've already chosen the next map before I went into my vacation: it'll be Bessarabia. Of course not the whole map but just the three parts (as seen above). I still have holiday until next Monday and thus enough time left the set the map initially up. At least the question which map to take has already been due for two months now.

[...]

The planeset could be based on aircraft of 1944 containing German, Romanian, VVS and US ones without being historically incorrect. Since the navigation could be quite tricky for all of us we could use navigation beacons on the airfields being recognized by those late war planes.

I've to admit that I'm not feeling very pleasant to force this map upon you, guys. But it will make things easier for me as the host and we could progress a bit faster. As already mentioned in the thread before I suggest to meet on any TS server in order to negotiate the winning conditions, the planeset, down-/upgrade availability, positioning of static trucks and bridges, times of resupply, amount of flak emplacements at the airfields, HSFX/4.12 or even the swap to HSFX for version 4.12. There are certainly some things we need to talk about and to clarify.

As mentioned before we are going to fly the Moscow campaign until I will able to set up the Bessarabia campaign in September.

[...]

If there should be any objections by you, guys, then I'd like to ask for a better proposal that needs to be offered quickly so I could take care of it during my remaining holiday: testing always takes a lot of time but I think I could finish it within three days. If you still prefer the Kuban map we could do a side step towards the southern Ukraine afterwards ...

Any corrections on the previous missions or any wishes for the upcoming ones are very welcome to me. In any case I'm going to create smaller missions with the maps we will use (< 100kb).

[...]

I won't be aroung on Sunday, 22nd 2013 ... I need to ease my pain on the Oktoberfest Wiesn ... but will be back the next one though.

So, folks!

Let's hear you voices! Let's read your statements!

[:FI:Nellip]

OK Frank, I'll do my best.

My thoughts:

1. Both sides need to be clear on winning conditions, what key areas and objectives are and so on. In the first few weeks of the Moscow map red were not clear on these and never recovered. Hopefully our experience with the first campaign will make us less naive next time
2. Personally not worried about the historical accuracy of downgrades and so on. If you punish the team that is doing badly with worse planes next time it just makes the gap wider and recovery for that team more difficult. Maybe make the better planes to be moved to bases further from the front lines as a punishment rather than removed completely (probably that has to be done manually each week so maybe not practical?)
3. Balanced plane set - self explanatory.
4. Map - not bothered - Bessarabia is fine by me so long as we break it up into smaller areas for the actual campaign. Not flown that one much, so my only concern would be how easy to navigate is it? A map with some notable features is best for most people as it gives a chance of working out where you are, particularly after a dogfight you survive but then cannot decide where you are!

Basically if someone is prepared to do the work to give me some fun on a Sunday I'm up for it

Hope that helps.

Neil

[:FI:Gadje]

Good idea Nellip on point 2. Never thought of that move the best planes further away rather than eliminate them. That way re-supply doesn't have to be altered by the host to keep fighter pilots happy in the rides of their choice.
Personally that event made me think why bother to target human fighter pilots when shooting them down gets ignored by the host changing plane resupply as required. That's plainly has to stop. Your suggestion is a good compromise.

Concerning the map Bessarabia is in my view is a Turkish carpet of a map. All uniform pattern for miles, near impossible to spot anyone below. Not well know by the FI at all either and why Kuban would be better in my view. Equally well known by both sides I suspect. Has mountains, rivers, sea, plains, pretty much it all landscape wise. Planeset is great too and even purely historical it is pretty well balanced as would be our two teams knowledge of the map.
However Nephris it is your war. I worry however if all of us will be still flying another 6 months over a carpet no matter how much you personally wish to fly Bessarabia. Yet I understand this is a chance to do something you would prefer. Nothing wrong in that.

[:FI:Blue2]

Basically if someone is prepared to do the work to give me some fun on a Sunday I'm up for it

Neil summed it up well for me there.
Don't care which map. Don't care what planeset. (Including balanced or not - "balance" was rare in the war and I value/enjoy the historical immersion even if my side is disadvantaged.... in fact I kinda like the challenge of being the "underdog" sometimes! Besides, if the victory conditions are properly set up to take things like this into consideration for each side, then you can HAVE a balanced game even with imbalanced forces. This is very common in old board-based wargames I played as a youngster. I'm sure the same applies to DCG...?)

DO care that both sides have ~equal intel from the start. Both should know location of most or ALL of their own assets/locations, but very little of the enemy's (maybe airfields only, and perhaps not even all of those). Both sides should have a good understanding of DCG setings for the campaign. Also, neither side should be afforded any intel advantage at any point during the war, and we need to reach consensus on any form(s) of simulated reconnaissance that will OK to use, i.e. .ntrk recordings, mission files, AI recon flights, etc. (Bears some discussion).

I'm up for the teamspeak meeting. When shall we hold it?

[Nephris]

Hi folks,
maybe you want make some thoughts about following topics

1.Bridges
Bridges are a powerfull way to block adcancing vehicles.
But for not braking a complete campaign development the bridge repair time
should be discussed.


2.Downgrades
Definition
A downgrade kicks in as soon as a certain number of minimum planes is deceeded.
A downgrade plane is basically a technical weaker plane than its level 1 plane (e.g. Bf109F4 - Bf109E4), but the plane is determined by human decision.
The downgrade offers a certain degree of variabilty and sustainability, on the other hand
it happens to not work perfect each time in connection of DCG and MDS and needs manual adjustments.

Approaches
2.1 Squadrons are filled to its maximums at 24. AI and humans use the same squadrons,
as soon as the minimum is reached the downgrade kicks. After a determined period of time the max numbers are filled again (resupplied).

2.2 Using different squadrons for AI and humans, as we did the past weeks on Moscow.
AI crashes and AI kills dont count into human plane numbers. Like Bf109F4 (human) and Bf109F4b (AI).
However at least one AI plane will have to fly in each human squadron /mission for being countable by DCG.If it crashes it will get substracted off human plane numbers.
This seems to be an issue of DCG as it is no born MDS Tool.

2.3 Using fixed plane numbers each mission, and no downgrades at all.


3.Industrie assets
DCG uses static oil trucks and transport trucks as indicator for an armys supply health.
Static Oil trucks influence the moving rate of an armys vehicles
Static Transport trucks influence the spawn rate of an armys vehicles.
Destroyed statics can be repaired by moving truck columns, passing the location with statics.

Il2 1946 maps offer several industrial buildings. If a static truck inside a building is destroyed, the building itself is "repaired" in next mission awhile the static inside gets only by passing columns
A pilot cant check in flight for sure if a static inside a building is destroyed or not.

Approaches
3.1 placing static vehicles in front of industrial buildings
3.2 placing static vehicles at airfields
3.3 no use of static vehicles, using fixed rates


4.Game Version
Atm we use Il2 4.11.1 @ HSFX 6.0.17.
Since a few weeks/days stock Il2-1946 4.12.1 was released.
An updated HSFX Version is in the pipe but will probably last another few months.

4.1 playing with HSFX 6.017 @ 4.11.1 - switching to HSFX 7 @ 4.12.1 as soon as it got released.
plus: larger pool to use abalanced planeset ; minus: missing features of 4.12.1
4.2 playing with Il2 4.12.1



5.Planeset
Please create a list for an =FI= balanced planeset (red & blue) for late 1943 and early 1944 (fighter,fighter bomber,bomber).
We do the same, that way we will have a base to discuss in TS.




6.Airfield Artillery
What numbers and kinds of anti air weapons would you like to see at airfields?
Categorizing airfields into 3 size levels (airbase,airfield,airstrip)
airbase: 2x 88mm/85mm ; 2x37mm/40mm; 2x20mm ; 2xMG
airfield: 2x37mm/40mm; 2x20mm ; 2xMG
airstrip: 2x20mm ; 2xMG


7.Static Airplanes
Shall destroyed static aircrafts at airfields be substracted from the total numbers?
Depending to decision from Downgrades


8. Mission target
We got several ways to end a campaign.
8.1 each team has to conquer a single location to win
8.2 each team has to conquer one location out of two or three possible location to win
8.3 each team begins with the same initial numbers of locations. After a pre-definded time (e.g.20 missions)
the team with most conquered locations win.
8.4 one team has to break though a location, awhile the other team has to hold the location for a certain time (e.g.20 missions)


The questions above and probably follwing are a way to implement your meanings
to several key points.
You are invited to leave your comments to help forming the campaign from the beginning.

We will start with next Moscow mission next sunday 25th august.



edit:

a first sketch, which represents the roads, location to conquer, depots and airfields implemented.
Not all airfields will be connected to the roads system, to keep the map small. That also means, nothing can get repaired at none connected airfields.
Location to conquer will have same distances to depots.
By the chance of 1/3 vehicles will spawn at the small depots, all remaining will get spawned at the main depot.

[:FI:Nellip]

I have now flown a few QMB missions on the Bessarabia map and I do foresee some issues with the textures, lack of features in the landscape etc. I'll have to mute Pike or I'll go mad with all the "where am I's!" and "who are you's!". Kuban would be good, but if Nephris wants to do Bessarabia and he is the one doing all the work, then so be it.

I'd go with fuel trucks in front of industrial buildings, but this needs to be balanced and more spreadout. By that I mean fuel dispersed over a larger number of locations, equal distances behind the lines where possible, and with equal defences.

Downgrades I would not bother with. If one side is doing badly it just puts them in a more difficult position and makes it less fun for them, and possibly less fun for the opposition as well. Ultimately we all do this for enjoyment and if it ceases to be fun less people will take part, which impacts everyone else. If moving the better planes further from the front is not practical as per my suggestion earlier in the thread, then I would not bother with downgrades at all.

Unless HSFX7 is out imminently I would stick with 4.11.1 and HSFX6 for the duration of the campaign.