After researching escort fighters for Germany in the 1936 Doomsday Scenario, I found to my suprise that they are not a unit build, but are now classified as a brigade attachment........this cannot be right.....surely???? 
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This is a new feature in Doomsday, should work better as in standard HOI2 (at least I hope so).
It is absolutely correct they are not independant unit types anymore.
It is written in the manual and has been written about many times in the Main forums page.
Corey
It is written in the manual and has been written about many times in the Main forums page.
Corey
It might have been discussed, but IMHO it isn't implemented all too well. Your air units get a range-malus of 150, regardless of which type they are (I think). While it does make sense to reduce the effective attack range of strategic or tactical bomber fleets accompanied by escort fighters, it does not regarding CAS or Interceptors (they woundn't even reach the adjacent provinces). You could get around this by removing the malus and increasing fuel consumption (escorts in long-range bomber fleets could take along extra fuel-tanks as pod-load) or by restricting these 'brigades' to strats/tacs only.
Or slap yourself in the head and say, "Doh! Why'd we change this when it was simply that players were overlooking the use of Escorts outside of escort duty like night fighters and long range sea cover. By the way, did we give the players anything to provide long range sea cover? No? Um...yeah, let's say it's WAD, and you just send escorted bombers out there!"
I haven't had a chance to get DD yet (marriage, gotta love it), but if this is the sign of what they've done to the air war, as well as the revamping of Interceptor stats, then I say they've f***ed the game up way too much for me. 1.3's overpowered bombers, I could take. This is getting a bit rediculous. BOTH moves were prompted by people who's idea of air power comes from "Memphis Belle", "Tora, Tora, Tora" and various other WWII movies, rather than history.....
I haven't had a chance to get DD yet (marriage, gotta love it), but if this is the sign of what they've done to the air war, as well as the revamping of Interceptor stats, then I say they've f***ed the game up way too much for me. 1.3's overpowered bombers, I could take. This is getting a bit rediculous. BOTH moves were prompted by people who's idea of air power comes from "Memphis Belle", "Tora, Tora, Tora" and various other WWII movies, rather than history.....
christophkk said:
I would have been tempted to set it as a 'range cap' rather than as a simple range penalty. While there's no way interceptors would be escorted by escort fighters, CAS certainly were.
The other issue with their implementation is that historical escort fightere development stopped in about 1945 once bomber range became very very long.
I still think this is a step up from their implementation is really-long-ranged independent fighter units though
TheLand said:I would have been tempted to set it as a 'range cap' rather than as a simple range penalty. While there's no way interceptors would be escorted by escort fighters, CAS certainly were.
The other issue with their implementation is that historical escort fightere development stopped in about 1945 once bomber range became very very long.
I still think this is a step up from their implementation is really-long-ranged independent fighter units though
How exactly is this a step up from the OTHER roles that the twin engine fighter played as well? Cut them out of the FIRST half of the game because they don't have a historical counterpart in the second? Certainly, there is NO dedicated escort fighter following WWII, agree completely on that. However, just stop the Escort advancement tree, or else put "Wild Weasles" in instead of Escort fighters in the "turbojet portion" of thier advancement tree.
Close escort didn't exist, but there were aircraft who's mission was to get the bombers safely through even after WWII.
mld0806 said:
Yeah right.
Escorts as was were basically nerfed fighters with longer legs.
I've been over this ground dozens of times before.
There were two types of unit modelled by the 'escort fighter'. Heavy fighters like the Me110 which started off being used in an escort role, but were quickly relegated or converted to night fighters. And conventional fighters with great combat performance which had long range, like the Mustang; which were as capable as anything in the day air-superiority role but which by and large weren't converted to night models.
Please tell me why representing these disparate models with he same unit type is more 'historical' than representing them separately.
mld0806 said:
Yes, I'd prefer that. I still think it would work better with a brigade implementation though.
I hope they fix the penalty and replace it with a limit to range. Otherwise I liked the idea. Puting Escort Fighters and Strategic Bombers in the same stack was kind of a nuisence, and the alternative (Air superiority in enemy territory) was unrealistic.
TheLand said:
The problem is calling it "Escort Fighter" rather than "Long Range Fighter" or "Heavy Fighter". The P-51 and P-47 were only long range due to the addition of drop tanks rather than their normal operational ranges.
Additionally, the Mustang and Thunderbolt did not perform well in a close escort role (actually, not much of anything did), but saw their effectiveness increase as they were untethered from the bomber streams and allowed to range in search of the enemy along the bomber path, much more akin to simultaneous Air Superiority missions with Fighters (which they are classed as) than the role of the pure "escort fighter".
By removing them as separate units, you remove them as from their other important roles. Night fighters, which the doctrine tree made them perfectly suited for, were one of the main things. Not just the ME-110, but the Beaufighter, the Mosquito variants, and even the Nakajima J1N.
The P-38 proved it's worth in both the Pacific and the Atlantic as a long range fighter, being one of the first aircraft to down an enemy in WWII (A FW-200 Condor convoy raider) as well as serving well in the Aelutians and throughout the Pacific. While it could not outmanuver the Zero, it could outclimb it, and it's speed allowed for it to escape if it did not want to fight. It's heavy armament proved deadly to the lightly armed Zero. The British long range fighters performed well in both theaters as well. Even the Me-110 saw some use in long range fighter applications with a convoy escort variant.
There is a definitive role for the twin-engine fighter in WWII apart from close escort duty (and in fact, the "successful" escort fighters weren't really successful until their leash was cut). Removing them from the game removes this application, and cuts out a major portion of their use. Stopping development after the WWII years, understandable, historical, and dead on. Removing them from the game entirely? Not good. The best solution, IMHO, would be that later aircraft SO outperform them, and they gimp the legs of later bombers so much, that they lose all value as a viable separate unit type. Not the removal of them and not the erasure of two strategically important roles for specialized aircraft in the WWII era.
How about implementing escorts the way light tanks were? Seperate units until '45, then an upgrade to mere brigades. (With the new features in DD you could even exclude them from upgrading, keeping them as seperate albeit obsolete units.)
Not to mention that they can't be destroyed (unless their "hosting unit" is destroyed) AND that they don't suffer ANY casulties in combat (since they are brigade)...
Absence of night fighters is another thing... Try playing MP as Germany and surviving when human UK player starts sending waves of STR on night raids...
Absence of night fighters is another thing... Try playing MP as Germany and surviving when human UK player starts sending waves of STR on night raids...
mld0806 said:
When you say that, does it mean that they were unsuccessful in shooting down enemy fighters, or unsuccessful in preventing casualties amongst friendly bombers?
The value of the old Escort Fighter unit, mixed into a bomber formation, was always more the latter.
Oh, absolutely. However, lumping the escort and night-fighter roles in one unit always seemed a bit odd to me. Last year's heavy fighters might have been converted to night fighters, but the two roles were markedly different. It would make sense for there to be a Night Fighter brigade attachment for interceptors!
The P-38 is probably the main counterexample to my line of argument.
Most American fighters seem to have longer range than their European counterparts - probbly for geographical reasons!
IIRC though there weren't any major engagements between (say) wings of P-38s and enemy aircraft over open ocean, which is the scale HoI2 works on. Personally I'd say that the role long-range fighters played is below the radar of the game.
That's a fantasitc idea!!! Anyone knows is it possible to implement? I mean, are there any brigade slots still free?TheLand said:
Spricar said:
It would be possible to delete one or two of the most advanced escort fighter brigades (a lot of people don't seem to like Improved Supersonic Turbojet Escort Fighters).
Not sure if the Night Combat modifiers are modifiable by brigades though. If someone wanted to play with the editor they could say for sure!
Lumping a night fighter brigade with interceptors would erase one of the advantages of having a night fighter unit in the first place, and that is allowing the interceptors time to rest and repair overnight.
Long range fighter cover, of convoys in the Atlantic and movements in the Pacific, was also an important role. The simple presence of long range fighters in the theater was important in limiting enemy operations to areas where they could be countered. As far as signifigance goes, the P-38 had a total of 1992 killed or possible killed enemy aircraft and 196 damaged enemy aircraft according to a 1985 book on the Pacific Theater.
Again, I say the problem is calling them "Escort" in the first place, which overall became a secondary role for twin engine fighters in WWII. They played an important strategic role in the war, but by calling them "Escort" in the game (which is historically correct) instead of "Heavy Fighter" or "Long Range Fighter" (which is also historically correct) has channeled interpretation more along your lines. Many times I've given my advice on using Escorts in vanilla as night fighters, and gotten the response, "You know, that's a great idea, I never thought of that". The twin engine fighter played a signifigant role, and was produced by every major belligerent with the exception of the USSR.
Long range fighter cover, of convoys in the Atlantic and movements in the Pacific, was also an important role. The simple presence of long range fighters in the theater was important in limiting enemy operations to areas where they could be countered. As far as signifigance goes, the P-38 had a total of 1992 killed or possible killed enemy aircraft and 196 damaged enemy aircraft according to a 1985 book on the Pacific Theater.
Again, I say the problem is calling them "Escort" in the first place, which overall became a secondary role for twin engine fighters in WWII. They played an important strategic role in the war, but by calling them "Escort" in the game (which is historically correct) instead of "Heavy Fighter" or "Long Range Fighter" (which is also historically correct) has channeled interpretation more along your lines. Many times I've given my advice on using Escorts in vanilla as night fighters, and gotten the response, "You know, that's a great idea, I never thought of that". The twin engine fighter played a signifigant role, and was produced by every major belligerent with the exception of the USSR.