Women in Aviation. Seriously?

[Pyramid_Head]

For 70 Hitler mana, you can have a great deal of cosmetic National Focus. Female portraits and a whooping 25 air experience.
At first I thought it was a joke, and there were hidden manpower modifier not listed in description. But then it turned that all it does is adding you tiny bit of air exp and a cosmetic change.
Alternatives are: faster doctrine research times, additional factories, armor tech discounts, research slots and other stuff.
And this. portraits.
It almost seems that devs placed it as a placeholder for later iteration and forgot to replace it with something useful.

 

[balmung60]

Ah, but you forgot the most important effect - it dramatically boosts the odds of the game playing "Night Witches" if you have Sabaton Soundtrack Vol. 1.

 

[safe-keeper]

If manpower was divided into different pools like "Troops", "Airmen", and "Sailors", the focus would have been useful if it had given you lots of pilots. As it is, yes, it's pretty expensive for a largelly cosmetic focus.

 

[permanently_afk]

I think we may see some more effects down the road of HOI4...probably.

 

[Louella]

it, and the australian national focus for the women's auxiliary australian air force, don't actually work properly in any case, they don't generate the right portraits, or use the correct pronouns.


Some mods, like @Sleight of Hand 's excellent Vanilla+ mod, change things, and create some female aces instead.

but the AI has a problem with aces, in that it occasionally deletes an air wing that has an ace, and then never ever reassigns that ace to a wing.

So, unless the Soviet Union and Australia are being played by humans, those national focuses are kinda broken.

 

[ringhloth]

I think that a manpower boost would be perfectly justified. 800,000 women served in the Soviet military. I think that adding in a 1% manpower boost would make it more competitive with Aviation cult, its counterpart in the other tree (it's a little disingenuous to say that this focus has to compete with an extra research slot, considering that picking this focus in no way locks you out of a research slot).

 

[Fawr]

I don't think extra manpower is justified.

There is certainly a quality argument that if you let the best person be a pilot (instead of the best man) then you should be replacing some of the worst male pilots with some of the best female pilots. But I don't buy the quantity argument because you are just moving people who were previously working on one part of the war effort to another part. I'm not sure if Aces are the best way to simulate quality (extra org? better stats? something else?).

Those 800k soviet women were women who were then no longer working on farms/factories (where they would have been replaced by men, or by other women who's previous jobs were replaced by men, or so on).

 

[hkrommel]

but the AI has a problem with aces, in that it occasionally deletes an air wing that has an ace, and then never ever reassigns that ace to a wing.

To be fair I accidentally do that all the time

 

[Cipher3]

Ah, but you forgot the most important effect - it dramatically boosts the odds of the game playing "Night Witches" if you have Sabaton Soundtrack Vol. 1.

This feels like a joke but I would love for it not to be.

 

[Celdur]

I don't think extra manpower is justified.

There is certainly a quality argument that if you let the best person be a pilot (instead of the best man) then you should be replacing some of the worst male pilots with some of the best female pilots. But I don't buy the quantity argument because you are just moving people who were previously working on one part of the war effort to another part. I'm not sure if Aces are the best way to simulate quality (extra org? better stats? something else?).

Those 800k soviet women were women who were then no longer working on farms/factories (where they would have been replaced by men, or by other women who's previous jobs were replaced by men, or so on).

What do you mean the worst male pilots are going to be replaced with the best female ones? they can also replace the best male pilots.

The advantage is that you have more men for the Land Army, which is why it should increase your manpower pool even if by a little bit, which is the same reason women went to work at the factories, to free more men to join the army, when handling machines Women have no disadvantage compared to men but as a Ground Soldier you need a lot of upper body strength to carry all the equipment so, more women taking jobs everywhere they can means more men for ground fighting.

 

[hkrommel]

What do you mean the worst male pilots are going to be replaced with the best female ones? they can also replace the best male pilots.

The original point actually makes sense because if you have a bad male pilot, a decent male pilot, and a good male pilot and you add in a good female pilot you'll replace the bad male pilot. You want the decent male pilot, good male pilot, and good female pilot instead of the bad male pilot, decent male pilot, and good female pilot which is effectively no change. You want to be changing the net skill of your pilots in a positive direction.

But I don't buy the quantity argument because you are just moving people who were previously working on one part of the war effort to another part.

Not necessarily. It's pulling people from farms and factories into the military, which increases the military manpower pool but decreases the industry pool (in-game this is abstracted in the penalties to industry for conscription whether or not the manpower is being used). The military receives a net gain and industry a net loss, hence the quantity gain, but the quantity loss for industry isn't modeled in this particular focus since we're not dealing in amounts that would make a difference. The males being replaced by females in the air force aren't returning to farms or factories, but going into other branches (or back into the air force if needed).

 

[balmung60]

This feels like a joke but I would love for it not to be.

No joke, it's for reals.

From sabatonsoundtrack.txt in the zip file in dlc013_sabaton

music = {
   song = "night_witches"
   
   chance = {
       factor = 1
       modifier = {
           factor = 0
           has_war = no
       }
       modifier = {
           factor = 0
           OR = {
               date < 1936.01.10
               AND = {
                   has_start_date > 1936.01.02
                   date < 1939.8.24
               }
           }
       }
       modifier = {
           factor = 1.5
           tag = SOV
       }
       modifier = {
           factor = 2
           tag = SOV
           has_completed_focus = SOV_women_pilots
       }
       modifier = {
           factor = 2
           has_war_with = SOV
           SOV = {
               has_completed_focus = SOV_women_pilots
           }
       }
   }
}

This means that, while at war and after the first few days of the game, Night Witches will play 1.5x as often if you're the USSR and further 2x as often if you have completed Women in Aviation. Alternatively, it will play twice as often as normal if you are fighting the USSR and they have completed Women in Aviation.

 

[Louella]

To be fair I accidentally do that all the time

yeah, lol. I do it a bit sometimes too, like when a carrier is sunk and the air wings evacuated. Sometimes I forget to put the aces into the air wings of new carriers entering service.

but the AI really has an issue with not assigning aces that are granted by event, or reassigning aces to new air wings when old wings are deleted.

Amelia Earhart for example, AI USA will never assign her to a wing, even if she survives her flight. Same for the female aces that are in the Vanilla+ mod, and my own mods. AI countries don't assign them to wings.

and yet, the female aces created by events, are the only ones which will use the correct pronouns in the news pop-ups, e.g. "Using herself as bait, White Rose drew the German fighters into a trap, and with one burst, sent 'Bubi' down in flames", and use the female ace portraits.

randomly generated aces default to male pronouns & portraits, which, when those focuses are ones that the AI will normally choose, is a bit of an issue.

I've bugreported it a couple times, vOv.

 

[Louella]

There is certainly a quality argument that if you let the best person be a pilot (instead of the best man) then you should be replacing some of the worst male pilots with some of the best female pilots. But I don't buy the quantity argument because you are just moving people who were previously working on one part of the war effort to another part. I'm not sure if Aces are the best way to simulate quality (extra org? better stats? something else?).

About this argument, there's a couple things that may be relevant here:

Allowing women pilots, in non-combat roles, allows them to perform roles such as factory test pilot, maintenance test pilot, and ferry pilot, allowing them to flight-test new aircraft, flight-test repaired aircraft, and deliver replacement aircraft to front-line units.

This would allow a (small) number of male pilots to be shifted from those roles into frontline roles. Enough to provide a meaningful effect on the manpower statistic ? I'm not sure, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary - 1200ish pilots total, including 160ish women pilots. Notable also, perhaps, is that one-eyed, or one-armed pilots were also employed by the ATA.

Allowing women pilots in combat roles, means that the best female pilots talents can be better used, instead of having them as ferry pilots.

This would have some effect on quality, by making the best use of the available personnel's talents.

So, a small increase in ace generation chance - 5%? is probably justifiable there.

 

[mergele]

Currently the focus is just not worth it, even continous foci are better.

 

[ringhloth]

What do you mean the worst male pilots are going to be replaced with the best female ones? they can also replace the best male pilots.

The advantage is that you have more men for the Land Army, which is why it should increase your manpower pool even if by a little bit, which is the same reason women went to work at the factories, to free more men to join the army, when handling machines Women have no disadvantage compared to men but as a Ground Soldier you need a lot of upper body strength to carry all the equipment so, more women taking jobs everywhere they can means more men for ground fighting.

There are plenty of roles for women in the military, regardless of strength (which, many of the stronger women are probably stronger than the types of people you draft when you're scraping the barrel). Women in WW2 served many roles on the backline, and did so admirably, with General MacArthur quoted as calling them his "best soldiers," and praising their discipline and work ethic (realistically, a factor of them being all volunteers, and likely the cream of the crop, so to speak). There were even proposals to draft 500,000 into the WAC, though obviously they did not go through. On the Soviet side, women performed admirably in frontline roles as pilots, drivers, snipers, and one women machine gunner even won the Hero of the Soviet Union award. It's ignorant to say that women in WW2 performed worse than men, because realistically speaking, there are a lot of women and a lot of men. Making generalizations such as women not being not useful in the army because of a lack of upper body strength ignores not only the fact that many women are stronger than many men, but also that there are plenty of roles in the army that do not require any strength at all. As an aside, this sort of discussion got the a very similar thread locked earlier in the year.

 

[Celdur]

There are plenty of roles for women in the military, regardless of strength (which, many of the stronger women are probably stronger than the types of people you draft when you're scraping the barrel). Women in WW2 served many roles on the backline, and did so admirably, with General MacArthur quoted as calling them his "best soldiers," and praising their discipline and work ethic (realistically, a factor of them being all volunteers, and likely the cream of the crop, so to speak). There were even proposals to draft 500,000 into the WAC, though obviously they did not go through. On the Soviet side, women performed admirably in frontline roles as pilots, drivers, snipers, and one women machine gunner even won the Hero of the Soviet Union award. It's ignorant to say that women in WW2 performed worse than men, because realistically speaking, there are a lot of women and a lot of men. Making generalizations such as women not being not useful in the army because of a lack of upper body strength ignores not only the fact that many women are stronger than many men, but also that there are plenty of roles in the army that do not require any strength at all. As an aside, this sort of discussion got the a very similar thread locked earlier in the year.

I agree 100% with you.

The upper body strength problem is an issue that can be dealt with, but not in the 1940's, it would be unrealistic to be able to set up a whole new army doctrine that specifically tailors women's strengths and weaknesses when it comes to equipment and such. Which is why they were not made front-line soldiers.

 

[Wilbry]

I agree 100% with you.

The upper body strength problem is an issue that can be dealt with, but not in the 1940's, it would be unrealistic to be able to set up a whole new army doctrine that specifically tailors women's strengths and weaknesses when it comes to equipment and such. Which is why they were not made front-line soldiers.

Errr....you are still out of step with your views mate...because that is completely wrong.

Russian women served as front line troops during wwii requiring no "doctrine accommodation for their special needs". It is simply wrong to state otherwise, and, I presume, insulting if you are female.

And none of that has much to do with why the National Focus is worthless.

I would suggest:
* Change the name of the Focus to something like "Heroes of the Soviet Union"
* add 3% manpower and
* generate female air aces.

That would balance it nicely with the other stream.

 

[Pyramid_Head]

I was not talking about usefulness of women during war time, I was talking about National focus being purely cosmetic and useless placeholder even when minimum effort could make it at least worth considering.

 

[Wilbry]

Yeah I get that, as a National Focus, "Women in Aviation" is purely cosmetic. I was suggesting a way to stay within the theme of Womens contribution to The Great Patriotic War through Aviation...but tying it in to the wholeknock-on effect that it had.

Those three initial air wings, lead to a million women volunteering, and being accepted, for general duties. So it really is more than just allowing women pilots.

My suggestions are all within the scope of the original NF and make it a more attractive choice.