Aircraft tech tree?

[Chromos]

How about a direct road from prop CAS to jet CAS?. Despite people here think, Ju 87 is a CAS plane because you can give support to ground troops; or is dropping a 500 kg bomb not support? tell that to the french or british.

In the end, it doesnt matter what you think is cas or not, because the reality is beyond question. There were plans for CAS jet powered irl (Me 262 with bombs, Hs132...etc) and it should be open for develpment if you want. No, having big guns doesnt meant CAS aircraft, because then only 2-3 planes in whole ww2 could be classified as a close air support. Yes, any ANY plane with bombs or big guns can do the CAS role, and that means fw190, bf109, a6m, hurricane, ki 43.... also can be considered CAS if there are variants of it designed for it and used in that role.

There is no logical reason for not having CAS jet powered. None.

I think the "problem" here is with overall early jet planes.
They had a big advantage but were on the other hand also problematic in other fields compared to the piston engines ones.
Refering to CAS it is maybe notworthy that GER tried to restart production of old Hs-123 biplane midwar, because it was of better use on bad airfields.
So Ju-87 was usually better, but the old plane had in bad enviromnents still advantages over the newer one.

Same would/had happen to jet powered planes.
To reflect this a new unit type for each old type would be useful. So you could upgrade your wings to that new plane wich would come with diferent stats. Be it initially better in some fields, but also weaker in others.
For CAS that could be shorter range, higher cost, higher attrition(need more maintenance) but would also have higher speed wich would make it harder to shot down by planes at least, so better air_defence. Lower armour would be lower surface_defence.
By that approach, you could still produce old piston engine types, and also the new jet ones.
More research would then let the jet ones get better and better and render the piston ones obsolete for most usage after a time.
So we would have sort of progression that also happend historically.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

I don't think so. I think that all shold have the possibilities to do historical choices if they go down that route that was taken historically.
So if you develop as allies the a-bomb and do that historically then all is fine.
If you as GER spent the same amount on research and can field "ahistorcial" the a-bomb, then all is fine in my view too.
Think about a player doing ahistorical good with ITA or JAP and go for the a-bomb. Should they not be able to research them?

The A-bomb is generic and doesn't need a model name or picture. I'm asking, if jet CAS were a thing, what model would ENG, FRA, ITA, JAP, RUS, and USA have in that slot?

(If I had my way, HoI would have something like a parts-based system where you could make any crazy thing you wanted, jet CAS and beyond. But that's not what HoI4 is going to have.)

 

[Chromos]

The A-bomb is generic and doesn't need a model name or picture. I'm asking, if jet CAS were a thing, what model would ENG, FRA, ITA, JAP, RUS, and USA have in that slot?

(If I had my way, HoI would have something like a parts-based system where you could make any crazy thing you wanted, jet CAS and beyond. But that's not what HoI4 is going to have.)

..snip..
The question arose if also jet cas was possible around by that time, and they were.
So we as the player should have the possibilities to go down that route(wich was historically done) and research, build and use such.
If an allied player would go ahistorically down that route too and spam their not historically but historically possible(!) jet-cas instead of P-47, is up to them.
All other nations that weren't that far in reserach as GER will need maybe names based on what would have been likely given. But thats up to the devs.

So in the end the devs might go for such "realistic/fantasy" names like for the future tanks for GER "E-XX" just related to the countries development in that time or some later.
I guess for USA it would be some X-"name/number" and so on. Afaik they did that already for other USA-planes down the tech tree too.

 

[Axe99]

But there's no reason it should be better at the CAS role than a dedicated plane like the A-1, which the US used because it was so much better at the job than the jets in the 1950's.

It might be a better deal to have "dedicated CAS" be an offshoot of the dive bomber tree to represent something like the A-1 or the Il-2.

This'd work well - it made a lot more sense to have jet-powered 'get in and out fast before they were shot down' dive bombers than CAS (in the modern sense) planes, and they did have appreciably different roles. You could then have a jet-powered dive bomber option (nations that were less likely to have late-war air superiority could well have benefited from the speed), but leave CAS as prop-based for the timeframe of the game.

 

[Chromos]

This'd work well - it made a lot more sense to have jet-powered 'get in and out fast before they were shot down' dive bombers than CAS (in the modern sense) planes, and they did have appreciably different roles. You could then have a jet-powered dive bomber option (nations that were less likely to have late-war air superiority could well have benefited from the speed), but leave CAS as prop-based for the timeframe of the game.

Just a note to "dedicated CAS" like A-1:

The piston-engined Skyraider was designed during World War II to meet United States Navy requirements for a carrier-based, single-seat, long-range, high performance dive/torpedo bomber, to follow-on from earlier types such as the Helldiver and Avenger.[3]

So that one would than for sure be under the late war "dive bomber" branch without jet propulsion? And then an extra development to make it a CAS?
But what if I develop jet propulsion in '42 and like to equip my planes before '45..

And the Ju-87 is described:

The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka (from Sturzkampfflugzeug, "dive bomber") was a two-man (pilot and rear gunner) German dive bomber and ground-attack aircraft. Designed by Hermann Pohlmann, the Stuka first flew in 1935 and made its combat debut in 1936 as part of the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War.

So aha, dive bomber and ground attack aircraft.

There seems to be a problems with the overall used terms in our communication maybe?
Let me state my understanding:
1. A CAS is a plane that is aiding ground units in close support.
2. Dive bombing is a capability/feature of a plane to aids its aiming on a target wich greatly helps in destroying them.
(As as a notebale sidenote, the famous IL-2 was reported to be very bad at aiming. And even later success was often based on full wings making some sort of "barrage attack". Thats quite different to the usage of the other planes used in ground attack role wich where afaik mostly used in single plane attack runs. While thats of course also related to the training of the pilots as it is reported that the IL-2 aces used their cannons more then their inaccurate bombs. )
3. Dedicated planes are those that are specific designed to fill a ceratin role. (Here to support ground units in attacking nearby enemy.)
4. To aid your ground units close by, a good aiming is of course preferable.
5. Jet propulsion was developed already by ~'39, But first used in '44 while it would have been possible some earlier.
6. First Jet ground attack plane with dive bombing capabilities was developed up early ~43 and pushed more up '44.
7. One of the most famous US plane from Cold War timeline wich was used for ground attack was a piston engine design from '45.
8. Also even that GER had its Me262, they still developed piston engine fighters like Ta-152, or the even more stunning Do 335.

So difficulty is still, like how to handle the point that you can have Jets already when piston engine planes are much more ironed out and nearly maxed out in their possibilities.
A) Make two different units.
Piston engine, jet engine -upgrade path like LARM can upgrade to ARM in HoI3-, so I can refitt my piston engine wings with jet designs or go on and refit them with more modern piston engine designs. Both could have different stats(strength/weakness) like I wrote before.

B) Completely scrap piston engines and go with jets up the moment jets are developed. So piston engine techs are no more once jets are researched. Like making Jets a tech only that adds on top of my air units like in HoI3.
And adjusting different Jets types to a later date so they can't be researched earlier until wanted.

?

 

[Porkman]

I agree with the list of points above. My issue is with the "jets make everything better" assumption given by the tech tree. That's not true for dive bombers and CAS aircraft and even though the A-1 was designed as a dive bomber, that's not how the plane ended up being. By the time it was deployed, sights and targeting had gotten advanced enough to make steep angle dives redundant. It was a heavily armored monoplane that could carry 8 times the weight of ordinance that a Stuka could.

They got that by designing it for an environment where air superiority was a given. It didn't have to worry about being intercepted and it was very good at serving in the aerial artillery role.

German jet designs and putting jets on in general, would make an aircraft that was harder to intercept, but worse at the basic job of being a CAS.

I would also like to see jets giving a big hit to reliability when they're used for the first time.

 

[Alwar]

I agree with the list of points above. My issue is with the "jets make everything better" assumption given by the tech tree. That's not true for dive bombers and CAS aircraft and even though the A-1 was designed as a dive bomber, that's not how the plane ended up being. By the time it was deployed, sights and targeting had gotten advanced enough to make steep angle dives redundant. It was a heavily armored monoplane that could carry 8 times the weight of ordinance that a Stuka could.

They got that by designing it for an environment where air superiority was a given. It didn't have to worry about being intercepted and it was very good at serving in the aerial artillery role.

German jet designs and putting jets on in general, would make an aircraft that was harder to intercept, but worse at the basic job of being a CAS.

I would also like to see jets giving a big hit to reliability when they're used for the first time.

you assume that the tree is giving an assumption. so your logic is flawed.

What if i want a cas plane with max speed for fast attacks, even if limited? why shouldnt i use the jet engines? maybe it have a worse damage because it cant stay on the target or maybe just can do so much attack missions each day, who cares? just dont limit my options.

 

[Porkman]

you assume that the tree is giving an assumption. so your logic is flawed.

What if i want a cas plane with max speed for fast attacks, even if limited? why shouldnt i use the jet engines? maybe it have a worse damage because it cant stay on the target or maybe just can do so much attack missions each day, who cares? just dont limit my options.

But now you're limiting my options, If I'm the US, where's the A-1? Instead I have to design some jet engine dive bomber that doesn't do the job I want.

 

[Alwar]

the A1 is abstracted in the last prop plane of your line. just bump its upgrades

 

[Chromos]

But now you're limiting my options, If I'm the US, where's the A-1? Instead I have to design some jet engine dive bomber that doesn't do the job I want.

Afaik thats not what most here wanted to achive. Like Alwar wrote, you should be able to research your piston engine driven ones still further. At least thats what I would like to have. Be able to still use the pistion ones where I seem the fit and also use the new jets wheer I seem them useful.

In the end it seems we all would quite the same. Having units that represent the historicall possible by that time with given research.
So you could battle me with slow big armor/payload CAS. I would try to defend my units with good AA and jet fighters against that slow planes.
And also I would maybe go down the route and field jet CAS that can only deliver less payload and are more likely to be shot down when hit, but are also so fast they're quick over the target area, uninterceptable by that time for your piston engine fighters and so will be a serious threat to get along with. I least I hope so.