UK 1941 OoB - "Give us the tools and we'll finish the job!"

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The UK has trouble matching its historical performance in HoI. Again and again, you see India and the Middle East overrun by Japan and Italy while Germany often invades the UK itself and laughs at its strategic bomber offensive. Why is this? I thinks it's because of a consistent bias against the country. Here's a couple of outstanding examples from the 1941 scenario which I've been playing lately.

Firstly, this scenario gives the UK no naval transports while even minor countries like Argentina get one. This is so blatantly wrong that it must be classed as a bug.

Then we have air power - an area that the UK invested in heavily. In late 41 - the time that this scenario is set - the UK had more personnel in its air force than it did in its navy (767,000 vs 424,000 in Sept 41). But look at the country totals for air units in the game:

46 - Japan
45 - Germany
33 - Soviet Union
21 - USA
18 - Italy
16 - UK
13 - Spain
...

So, that's the scenario rating of the UK - between Italy and Spain. And this is the country that fought Germany to a standstill in the air and went on to rain death upon it from the skies.

I don't have an OoB for the RAF at my fingertips but here are aircraft production stats for the major countries in the relevant years. The figures are rounded thousands.

           1939  1940  1941
           ----  ----  ----
USA           6    13    26 
USSR         10    11    16
UK            8    15    20
CW            0     1     3
             --    --    --
Total        24    40    65

Germany       8    10    12
Japan         4     5     5
Italy         2     2     3
             --    --    --
Total        15    17    19

So, you can see that the UK produced more aircraft than the entire Axis in 1941. And yet it gets just 16 air units compared to their 109. And that's before you consider US production - much of which was sold to the UK in this period.

And it wasn't that UK aircraft were inferior to those of the Axis or that their organization and infrastructure was worse. The RAF and its planes were arguably the best air force in the world at this time, as the Battle of Britain showed in 1940.

So, something's badly wrong here. Please fix it.

Andrew

 

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For the sake of discussion, didn't GB have great problems in having sufficient numbers of trained pilots? A fighter without a trained pilot isn't really a fighter.

I don't have any figures or dates at hand, but I believe there also was a certain degree of red tape delaying the use of foreign pilots who had fled/retreated to GB.
I think, for example, that there were a substantial number of polish pilots that was both highly motivated and probably experienced that was kept in 'basic training' for a much too long time. I may be mistaken, but I think those experienced pilots was put into combat out of sheer desperation by the British, not by planning. Much to the dismayal of the foreign pilots I belive.
Sure, language, proper filling of forms, etc was probably a problem, but hey, these guys was probably the best to get when it come to hand-to-hand -uh- wing-to-wing (?) close and personal fighting.

Also, the ratio of personnel and actual combat units/planes may prove different things in terms of organisational set up and efficiency. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing in general against the Brittish and I am not saying they didn't were heroic defending there home islands, but the figures are worth discussion I think.

 

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For the sake of discussion, didn't GB have great problems in having sufficient numbers of trained pilots? A fighter without a trained pilot isn't really a fighter.

Yes and no. The British recognized this and created the massive British Empire Air Training Scheme (BEATS) in Dec 1939. This took a while to process the huge number of aircrew required - 18 months from initial tests to first operational sortie. But, with its many establishments in Canada, it had the volume to produce the huge number of aircrew required for all those aircraft. German and Japanese crew training infrastructure was comparatively poor.

So, trained pilots were certainly a limiting factor but the British excelled in addressing this as compared with the Axis. They were planning for total war while the Axis countries just crossed their fingers and hoped for a short war with minimal casualties.

As for the Polish squadrons, they did good work during the Battle of Britain. I live in west London which has a lot of Polish influence since that time and drive to work past the Polish war memorial at Northolt aerodrome from where their 303 Warszawa squadron shot down over 100 German planes. There ought to be an event to give the UK a Polish air unit when Poland falls. And this is another omission in the 41 OoB.

Andrew

 

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Okay, I think you are right.
Also, just checking on the RAF home page, history section, I gather that what the number of units in HOI by mid 41 represent, it is probably is far less than the actual real-life numbers at the time. It is not that easy to calculate though.


I was also starting to think about those foreign squadrons in terms of an event. Nice idea! Yes at least one unit could be added by allowing foreign pilots in operational service. Completed training program or not.

Ha! I hindsight is 20/20 but I still think many pilots gritted their teeth in waiting those 18 months you mention.
It was not only high motivation, some of them was among the best trained in the world and I have read about the polish squadrons (140+ Polish pilots in total?) getting both in first, second and third place in big RAF aerial gunnery competitions. It must have been a strange sight. All those rookies in the training squadrons and the competitions and then these highly trained guys, blasting away with deadly accuracy.

 

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And it wasn't that UK aircraft were inferior to those of the Axis or that their organization and infrastructure was worse. The RAF and its planes were arguably the best air force in the world at this time, as the Battle of Britain showed in 1940.


Andrew

Many would say that the Battle of Britain really showed what an outnumbered, highly motivated force could do when provided with superior detection technology

But I digress. If the OOB is wrong, fix it and let us know how it plays. We have the tools

 

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If the OOB is wrong, fix it and let us know how it plays.

The OOB is clearly wrong - the transports alone are evidence of this. As for fixing, testing and so forth - that's not my responsibility. If Paradox wish to put me in charge of the official 41 scenario then I expect I could do a reasonable job of fixing it. But my understanding is that there's a gang of guys like Vulture who are already do these things. I don't know how they are appointed, managed or organized but I'm not one of them.

Here's another detail for you. In late 1941, at the time of Crusader, the UK's Western Desert Air Force had air superiority, having about 1000 planes (62 squadrons). The 41 scenario gives the UK just two air units in Egypts - one fighter and one tactical. The Axis get twice as many air units in Africa and a whole host of air units in the central Med.

The problem seems to be that a British air Group is just considered to be one air unit. It was in fact equivalent to a German Fliegerkorps and so, like them, should consist of several units. To get something approaching the historical situation, each Group should consist of 2 or 3 units. And major concentrations like the WDAF even more.

It appears from the numbers that a HoI air unit = 100 front-line planes, right? I haven't found the exact figure for the UK in 41 yet but in 42-45 it varied between 6000 and 8000. I reckon it would be similar at the end of 41 and so the UK should have about 60 air units in total. This would make it a match for the German + Japanese airforces numerically and that's about right.

Andrew

 

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The UK to me seems to be a pushover. France is often more of a challenge if you're playing as Germany.

 

[Vulture]

Never claimed they were totally correct Anyone has correct data for the UK?

 

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Never claimed they were totally correct Anyone has correct data for the UK?

Please tell us how this works. I see one group of guys working on naval OOBs in one thread. I see another group of guys working on leaders and ministers in another thread. I see the CORE guys doing their thing in their threads. And so on. Is all this activity arbitrary and uncoordinated or what? I don't want to spend time researching something if someone is already doing it. It would be duplicate effort and you also get people problems, as with the clash between the CORE and Super AI guys. If there's a framework into which we can make contributions then please spell it out or point to an existing FAQ which explains the process.

That reminds me. I was in ValkyrieNet last night and someone popped into the HOI channel. He was looking for EU players but said that he was a HOI beta tester and bug forum moderator. I asked if there was any beta-testing taking place right now but he said that that there wasn't. Version 1.05c is a public beta and presumably that's all there is right now, right?

Andrew

 

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According the RAF home page, time line entry on 3rd of June 1940, "the first-line strength of Fighter Command stands at 331 Hurricanes and Spitfires with only 36 fighters in reserve".

 

[Vulture]

This is how this work... C.O.R.E and all other mods are usermade mods and have no relevance for the vanilla game itself.

The guys that are working on the naval OOB's are doing this at their own leisure time and I somewhat coordinate it to get it in the official game later on. Call it semi-official becoming official

The leader/minister updates are the same...

 

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Numbers, dont mean much by themselves..

Churchill was always complaining that his generals bragged about numbers but could not deliver..

In point of fact the UK could not conduct significant offensive land operations in more than one theater. That theater was North Africa till 1943 and Italy from 1943 onwards.. Only from 1944 was the UK significantly expanding its scope of operations , both in Europe (France) and Asia (Burma)..

In Asia the Japanese initially overcame British resistance with little difficulty, the japanes malaysian campaign being as successefull as Uk's own campaigns agains the italians in Africa... Later the japanese were stopped in Burma, but due more to logistics and the modest size of the forces they involved... At that time they were already facing the US in the Pacific and that was the priority for Japan.

In other words significatnly enhancing the UK offensive capabilities in HOI would probably not be correct. However, neither should they be a "walkover"... The right way might be to significantly improve UK defenses (give em much more AA and coastal forts in UK so that Sea Lion is not so easy, same in India so that Japan is kept from amphibious landing at will on the indian sub continent... consider giving the UK many more escorts so convoys are less of an issue) and an additional 20 militia with artillery brigades attached in the start OOB located in India/Malaysia...

Lets also remember that UK gets kicked in Asia in HOI because the Japanese usually quickly conquer China and therefore are able to hit UK with their full might. In real life most of the Japanese army was facing the chinese.

 

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Numbers, dont mean much by themselves... Churchill was always complaining that his generals bragged about numbers but could not deliver...In point of fact the UK could not conduct significant offensive land operations in more than one theater.

You're going off at a tangent. I have no complaint about the UK's land OOB in 41. It's the missing air units and naval transports that concern me. After the fall of France, the UK wasn't planning much in the way of offensive land operations. Its crushing defeat of Italy in the Western Desert was a counter-attack against an inept Italian offensive. Only in Italian East Africa did it really take the offensive and it overran the complete area by April 41.

To take the war to Germany, the two main arms were the navy and air force. The navy would blockade and the air force would bomb. This is where the bulk of the money (IC) went but it's not reflected in the game. To give the UK a smaller air force than Italy in 41 is as ridiculous as it would be to give it a smaller navy. I'll say it again. The UK built more planes than the entire Axis by itself and bought in lots from the USA too. Where are they?

From what Vulture says, the issue seems to be that, while there are semi-official groups researching the naval and leader OOBs, there is no equivalent for the air arm. Can we start a thread for air enthusiasts to contribute to and would it be used as input to improve the official scenarios?

Andrew

 

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Funny, I have had some trouble in finding really good facts on the net when it comes to RAF WW2 OOB. I did find one or two sites listing units OOB, but these didn't cover all three scenario starting years and didn't have good details on strength per unit. Obviously there is a large number of sites related to WW2 RAF, but they are covering an extremely wide range of different subjects...

I have a feeling there are good books to find on the subject, but I believe I don't have any myself.
Well, gathering facts is the first step, then comes the problem of translating these into balanced HOI gaming terms.


In my own experience it has been much easier to find Royal Navy WW2 OOB on the net.
Problem is to find anything useful on troop transports. I am pretty sure there were dedicated British troop transport ships, but I remember reading a several occasions when UK used more or less any ship at hand for troop transport. Some was used very temporarily and some on a more permanent basis. Wasn't Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth converted to military troop transports for example? Naval combat ships was surley used for troop transporting also.
I wouldn't be surprised if ships also were chartered; merchant ships, civilian liners etc. Admittedly, I am doing some guessing now.

I have no idea how the current number or HOI troop transports was calculated in the first place, so I can't even guess how any real numbers would translate in number of HOI transport units.
Maybe one should estimate general capacity in terms of available (generic-)divisional size transporting that was made? Using general transport shop tonnage stats? I have no idea.
Maybe the number of units are a very general and 'calculated guess' with game balancing mostly in focus?


On top of all this, isn't the Naval stuff in HOI being reworked for the upcomming new release? I think I remember reading some posts about this.
Was it only combat related issues that will be reworked? Anyone?

 

[Vulture]

Funny, I have had some trouble in finding really good facts on the net when it comes to RAF WW2 OOB. I did find one or two sites listing units OOB, but these didn't cover all three scenario starting years and didn't have good details on strength per unit. Obviously there is a large number of sites related to WW2 RAF, but they are covering an extremely wide range of different subjects...

I have a feeling there are good books to find on the subject, but I believe I don't have any myself.
Well, gathering facts is the first step, then comes the problem of translating these into balanced HOI gaming terms.


In my own experience it has been much easier to find Royal Navy WW2 OOB on the net.
Problem is to find anything useful on troop transports. I am pretty sure there were dedicated British troop transport ships, but I remember reading a several occasions when UK used more or less any ship at hand for troop transport. Some was used very temporarily and some on a more permanent basis. Wasn't Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth converted to military troop transports for example? Naval combat ships was surley used for troop transporting also.
I wouldn't be surprised if ships also were chartered; merchant ships, civilian liners etc. Admittedly, I am doing some guessing now.

I have no idea how the current number or HOI troop transports was calculated in the first place, so I can't even guess how any real numbers would translate in number of HOI transport units.
Maybe one should estimate general capacity in terms of available (generic-)divisional size transporting that was made? Using general transport shop tonnage stats? I have no idea.
Maybe the number of units are a very general and 'calculated guess' with game balancing mostly in focus?


On top of all this, isn't the Naval stuff in HOI being reworked for the upcomming new release? I think I remember reading some posts about this.
Was it only combat related issues that will be reworked? Anyone?

Johan has done some changes to the naval combat IIRC. Some users have edited the naval OOB's themselves. That's thread you prolly refer too.