From airfield to airfield that you own or are allied with. How would you balance it?
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Should it be possible to move divisions using transport plane fleets?
- Thread starter Vapiritapiri
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No.
Either a completely useless feature, or completely breaks the game. And it would just be another air related thing the ai can't use.
Either a completely useless feature, or completely breaks the game. And it would just be another air related thing the ai can't use.
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What kind of balance could there be? It just has to be in the game and that's it. It is quite historical to transport troops from airfield to airfield, both on your own territory and on enemy territory. We know that Germany transferred non-airborne infantry to captured airfields, because landing infantry would take more ammunition with them. This is what they did in the USSR when an airborne battalion (400 - 600 paratroopers) captured an airfield and planes with the main troops were sent there. When the USSR first created the Airborne Forces in 1930 (they were relatively small troops and rather performed a special operations role), this was one of the main methods of action for the Airborne Forces.
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Yes you should be able to move small amounts of manpower and supply and even small/light equipment using them. Capturing Airbases (so you can fly stuff in) was one of the main uses of Transport aircraft and Paratroopers etc. You should also be able to evacuate Manpower using Transport aircraft.
In Stalingrad they used Transport aircraft a lot.
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The Germans used air transports over the Mediterranean from Italy and Greece to North Africa, from airfield to airfield. They did the same in the Eastern Front. Also, after paratroopers had been dropped in the Netherlands and in Crete, infantry was airlifted to airfields captured from the enemy. That's historical and it should be in game.
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Interesting. I do recall a evacuation scene in a Stalingrad movie (1993......?) but i didn't know it was 100% historical or if it was a movielogical thing.
The Axis got 25 to 35k troops out of Stalingrad, mostly wounded and sick. Moving proper artillery by air was a rare exception for the period though, despite some big ideas and occasional tests. If airmobile units were implemented you'd restrict it to inf and maybe support equipment units. Most air evacuation is covered already by casualty trickleback I think.
Before Stalingrad there was Demyansk. 96,000 people and 20,000 horses were in this pocket. Starting from February 20, 100-150 planes arrived in the pocket every day, delivering an average of about 265 tons of cargo per day and up to 22 reinforcements in almost every plane. During the existence of the pocket (from February 19 to May 18), German aircraft made 24,303 sorties, delivering 15,446 tons (an average of 273 tons per day) of cargo and evacuated 22,903 wounded.
This is another point that raised a question in my mind after the changes (or rather, lack of changes) to aviation in By Blood Alone. Why don't transport planes have a medical mission? Transport aircraft were simply ignored in this change in aviation.
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You'd want to do it as a small casualty trickleback bonus if you have air wings on supply duty in theater imo, maybe another small one for motorised transport?
Well, my thoughts on the medical mission for a transport aircraft were that transport aircraft could be attached to armies like a fighter or bomber. Then transport aircraft would add a bonus to replenishing losses for a given army in addition to the field hospital support company.
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I think the reason transport planes got no such extra functionality in BBA is similar to the one for exempting them from the designer:
Developer Diary | Plane Designer
Hello, and welcome back to another Dev Diary for the upcoming By Blood Alone DLC and accompanying Patch 1.12! The team has returned from the summer vacation, and we are now back fixing bugs and tweaking the balancing of the new features and focus...
Even the air supply mission received a serious nerf in the process first (until its power got partly restored with later patches); for me that indicates that there are serious concerns in regard to AI, balance and possible exploits.
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I think historically, there were a couple of occasions where divisions were moved by transport aircraft.
Though the only example I can think of offhand was in 1944 or 1945, where a UK infantry division moved the personnel between the Netherlands and the UK. just the personnel, not any of the equipment.
So I guess if you want to have divisions moved by air, they'd arrive with 100% manpower and 0% equipment, and would then have to be re-equipped and re-supplied.
Though the only example I can think of offhand was in 1944 or 1945, where a UK infantry division moved the personnel between the Netherlands and the UK. just the personnel, not any of the equipment.
So I guess if you want to have divisions moved by air, they'd arrive with 100% manpower and 0% equipment, and would then have to be re-equipped and re-supplied.
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No.
Even if it's not a tank division, how will you airlift divisional artillery? It's too heavy for a small transport like a Ju-52 or DC-3. Either you need specialized tranports, or you can't.
Both during the battle of Norway and the battle of Crete, the Germans flown in regular troops with air transports upon capturing airfields. For the latter, it was a mountain division.
It's hard to balance, though. And most importantly, its unclear how these niche options could come ahead of e.g. the Navy receiving its far more numerous and less balance-breaking ones first; it's not like the player has little incentives to use both land and air units as is.
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Yeah, but that's kind of more of a combat operation, and closer in principle to glider troops, rather than a strategic transport of units between theatres.
Well the Germans had some very large Transport aircraft and so did the Americans with the famous Spruce Goose. But the game is missing all of that. Still stuck with one crappy Transport model.
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Could it not be solved similarly to how the airdroppable (forgetting the name) stat is solved today? Given the same conditions as airborne (no heavy batalions) the division can be airlifted but if you add such battalions it can not.
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I think that this is a good thing that its not in the game. 3 types of additional equipment to mangage something that basically is abstracted by just the quantity of one type of existing transport plane. Its still a grand strategy game there is no more interesting strategic decision if you would add that to the game, contrary it would force you to micro meaningless stuff for the fun of none.
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The Germans air transported a Mountain Division to Crete by air, after the 7th Flieger Division paras had captured an airfield. They surely had more than 0 % of equipment, since they went straight to fight in the still ongoing battles.
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You are actually right and I am wrong.
You actually could deliver artillery or even tanks by transports, the problem is regular transport planes won't be applicable. You need something at the level of strategic bombers to do it, and it becomes prohibitively expensive.
In the game creating the option of transporting heavy armament with specialized planes will require special cargo aircraft to be developed, and that will collide with regular transport planes of the Ju-52 level.