Guille's PzCorps Support Base - Multipurpose Icons and more.

[guille1434]

I think you know, I have made an icon for the very cool MBV-2 armored draisine unit... Here is an improved version of it, in its basic icon form (it remains the mask to be done for it to be painted in soviet colors).

[uzbek2012]

Hi guys! You are not responsible for links so that you would understand that an online translator will not translate correctly )


"The "Zeppelin" armored car was made in a single copy, and was a unique technical object of the second world war.It is known for certain that it operated on the territory of Finland in 1941-43 (presumably on the Simola-Papsa branch)."
https://foto-history.livejournal.com/12843608.html

P.s.
guille1434 very cool MBV-2 !
https://en.topwar.ru/148016-rasskazy-ob ... dt-35.html

[cw58]

I like the new purchase icons; I think those will work very well. Also, your additional thoughts about the new equipment classes seem reasonable to me. And yes, I'm familiar with your concept of "heavy sea transport" and feel that those are also reasonable. And that is very cool-looking icon for the MBV-2. Well done!

The night fighter concept in-game was not an original concept by me but rather I found Phcas & Co.'s approach to the subject quite intriguing, so I borrowed it. I used most of his values and his idea of reconmove and tried to put night fighters into its own separate class. I was successful but it did not really have the effect that I wanted. I'll try to explain.

The only advantages to the separate class (a new #20 class) was in the purchase screen. All the night fighters were neatly grouped together. To make upgrades possible (like turning a Bf 110 into a NF), I would make a NF unit in class #8 (nopurchase IIRC) with a one-way switch to the night fighter class (#20). So you could take an existing Bf 110F in the tac bomber class and upgrade it to a Bf 110F-4 in the night fighter class. The same could be done with a Ju 88 from the strat bomber class or a fighter plane that became a night fighter. But that's about the extent of the positives with a separate class.

The one disadvantage is that you can only refuel and supply in the airfield hex only, similar to the problem Phcas has with his recon planes (class #2). And planes with reconmove will use half of their max movement points in fuel with every move. If your plane has a move of 12, you will use 6 fuel even if you move 1 hex. I have not yet tested Phcas' class #2 planes to see if it's the same.

So now my night fighters are back in the tac bomber class. I kept the bonuses that Phcas laid out in his mod (+2 air attack, +2 initiative, reconmove, IIRC) and removed all other attack capabilities. I think this still gives them a "realistic" feel; they are pretty good against bombers and that's about it.

You can get a "grouping" in the purchase screen by setting up your equipment file properly. I have a night fighter section in my eq file that comes after the tac bomber section. So all my night fighters show at the bottom of the purchase screen. But this type of change will only show when starting a new campaign.

TL;DR Icons: cool! Night fighters: *meh*

[cw58]

Ok, I ran the tests you asked for. I used the same unit (a 17cm rail gun) against the same unit in the same terrain. All values for the test were the same; I changed only the class type. No random dice.

These classes had the following results: 1 killed, 4 suppressed (30% miss, 54% suppression, 16% kills)
---artillery(4), structures(6), strat bombers(9), capital ships(12), armoured trains/siege artillery(18)
---all of the above units caused long-term suppression
---destroyers(11) had the same results but no long-term suppression

All the other classes (including transport classes) had 5-6 kills, 3 suppressed and no long-term suppression.

[uzbek2012]

Air Force Red Army against the Luftwaffe. Bombers.
https://en.topwar.ru/122221-vvs-rkka-pr ... ast-1.html

Nachtschlachtgruppe.

Combat "Owl" Luftwaffe
https://en.topwar.ru/90026-boevye-filin ... vaffe.html


The best Soviet night bomber
https://picturehistory.livejournal.com/2937730.html
https://id77.livejournal.com/21080.html
Try to catch it at night on a fighter when it can move over the ground at night )))

GERMAN BOMBERS AND ATTACK AIRCRAFT OF WORLD WAR II
http://pro-samolet.ru/samolety-germany- ... hturmoviki

Stormtroopers and bombers | USSR
https://wwii.space/shturmoviki-i-bombar ... hiki-sssr/

[guille1434]

Hello Cw!

Many thanks to for taking the job of making detailed tests of different classes of units! It is good to know that every unit capable of long term suppression use the same formula, giving exact final effect against targets. Also, is a good thing to know that structures and capital ships also has this trait (I was not aware of that fact).

I am happy to know you like and probably will use those small icons in your mod! I always feel good when I can help a creative modder to put his ideas in a new way to mod this game I like sooo much...

Night fighters: Without night turns (like Pacific General) or the "radar" trait (also present in Pacific General, which allowed fighter units to attack air targets during night turns) the concept of a night fighter is something difficult to "squeeze" into PzCorps game rules. The role you describe and Phcas imagined sounds to me more one of a daytime "Zerstorer" (heavy fighter): a long range heavily armed fighter effective against large and noy very maneuvrable targets like heavy bombers, but vulnerable to nimble single engine interceptors. The use of the "reconmove" trait doesn´t add much to the concept in my opinion, either. Whithout some kind of trait and rules as the ones described for Pacific General they cannot be sufficiently differentiated from heavy day fighters... Regretably.

Also, it is a pity that PzCorps rules don´t allow for unit upgrades between different unit classes...

So, I don´t know if it is worth to make a separate unit class for such as a "not-so-different" unit. May be one can just arrange units in the purchase screen by editing the order of units in the equipment file, which defines the order of unit appearance in the purchase screen. Bottom line: we can introduce this new class, but only if that space in the purchase screen is not necessary to create another more "useful" unit class to see in that screen.

Of course this is only an opinion...

[cw58]

Agreed. For me, the separate class was not worth it. I had already moved the units in the eq file back to the tac bomber class. And I just finished cleaning up the purchase file when I was adding in the rail guns for purchase.

[guille1434]

Hello Cw:

Very good, we are achieving the beginnings of an interesting "Railroad & Siege Artillery" mod...
In order to make testing work a little more fun, here is a unit pack with icons for the 28 cm K5(E) railway gun, in four color schemes: regular, desert, SE desert and SE camo. Each one with a "firing" and a separate "move/not fire" icon (with their gun barrels depressed to an horizontal position). With this, we have covered the two possible switches for this unit: one icon for the moving switch, and another for the firing unit. Because of the 148 pixel size which is the width limit for icons, I had to shorten a little the gun barrel...

Enjoy!!

[McGuba]

In the Battlefield: Europe mod, night fighters and bomber destroyers are pretty much the same, similar to what described here, typically higher air attack than what single engine figthers have, minimal, if any ground attack, lower initiative (but still a bit higher than what strategic bombers have), and relatively low air defense. Moreso as especially from mid 1944 German night fighters were often used as daytime bomber destroyers and also because the first night fighter units were converted from Bf 110 "Zerstörer" (daytime heavy fighter) units. So in fact the two were somewhat similar in their use and characteristics and within the obvious limitations of PzC (like no night turns), I think it is the best solution if anyone wants to add it.

As for night harassment bombers like U-2/Po-2 or the various German biplanes used as such from 1943, I gave them minimal ground attack stats, but fairly high air and ground defense so they can survive multiple fighter attack but can only cause minor damage - more of a nuisance, as intended in their historical role. So far I only made an icon for the Gothta Go 145, but there were a few others like the Arado Ar 66.

Go145.png (32.17 KiB) Viewed 3087 times

[guille1434]

Hello McGuba:

Indeed, there is no way to differentiate in a clear way day heavy fighters from nightfighters with the current PzCorps rules, except for the fact that heavy fighters could have a secondary role as fighter bombers (most of them could carry bombs or other air to ground weapons) and pure nightfighting aircraft should not have any Air to ground attack capability (we can assume that the load of different sensors and night flight equipment would prevent them to carry bombs)... The most important characteristic for those kind of units is to give an intermediate initiative value between medium/heavy bombers and single engine fighters. That way, we can make those heavy fighters effective on bomber type targets, but vulnerable to more nimble single engined fighters. Also, dedicated night-fighters, besides no ground attack values, can be given a large ammo load value to give them the ability to attack multiple air targets before landing in a base to reload. But, that's all I can think about this subject...

Another idea, that may be worthy to test is to put heavy night bombers in the structure unit class, by means of a switch, and give the nightfighters the "fortkiller" trait... With this, and giving the bomber higher AD value (to make them less vulnerable to day fighters, but to make them specially vulnerable to nightfighters with "fortkiller" trait), may be we can find a useful function niche for specialized night fighters. Besides, giving nightfighters no GA values, we prevent them becoming specialized bunker busters. On the other hand, night heavy bombers should only be able to refuel when switched back to its original aircraft type unit state after being positioned over an airfield. This would also cause a longer "turn around time" for reload ammo and refuel those heavy aircraft compared to other lighter air units (figters, fighter-bombers, light bombers, etc...) which, I think gives another strategy layer to the use of such type of units, making them heavy hitters, but with low ammo (short persistence over targets) and longer time between sorties. Just a "crazy" idea, but it sounds moderately interesting to test...

Also, I want to thank you very much for sharing the Go-145 icon. And, speaking of icons... I think that it was you (or someone regularly posting in the BE thread) that mentioned the idea to add British Mustang fighters to the mod´s unit roster. Because of that, I made some icons for bubble canopied Mustangs in British colors. Did you see them?

Greetings!!

[cw58]

Thank you for the icons, gentlemen! I'll make sure to put them to good use.

[guille1434]

Hello Cw! I´m glad you find those icons useful... I am sure you will put them to good use.

Another question: have you read my idea about a "system" for night fighters/night bombers? Any comments? Do you see anything useful in it?

Thanks!

[uzbek2012]

Hello Cw! I´m glad you find those icons useful... I am sure you will put them to good use.

Another question: have you read my idea about a "system" for night fighters/night bombers? Any comments? Do you see anything useful in it?

Thanks!

If there will be night aviation then you need searchlights ( you can also make cars a long-range detection station as well as a sound collector) !?


http://en.topwar.ru/81300-otechestvenny ... voyny.html

The searchlight can then still be used in Zhukov's attack on Berlin 1945 ! Extra light no one mods will not interfere )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsd58Gy ... atch_on_yt
P.s.
Here the developer tried to show the change of day (Day/Night) true in Cuba )
viewtopic.php?f=147&t=45470

[McGuba]

I think that it was you (or someone regularly posting in the BE thread) that mentioned the idea to add British Mustang fighters to the mod´s unit roster. Because of that, I made some icons for bubble canopied Mustangs in British colors. Did you see them?

Actually, I did not see yours, but I have already made two variations earlier, one for the later and presumably less numerous Mustang IV (basically P-51D) and another for the earlier Mustang III (basically P-51B but with Spitfire canopy) - needless to say both are based on original icons by bebro:

MustangIII.png (23 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

MustangIV.png (22.79 KiB) Viewed 3013 times

[cw58]

Hello Cw! I´m glad you find those icons useful... I am sure you will put them to good use.

Another question: have you read my idea about a "system" for night fighters/night bombers? Any comments? Do you see anything useful in it?

Thanks!

Between you and McGuba, there was a lot of info to process so I'll just try to touch on a few things that stood out to me. I agree that night fighters should have no ground/naval attack values but McGuba mentioned some night fighters were also used during the day. So it seems that a switch would be in order, not changing the class (keep it in #8) but changing stats; adding in ground attack values and adjusting the defense values. My opinion is that they should have higher defense values at night compared to daytime values as they are mainly going up against the defensive fire of bombers, whose gunners presumably couldn't see as well at night.

I'm not so sure about the idea of using the structures class for aircraft. It seems there are a lot of variables that would need testing; i.e. the structure class causes suppression, would aircraft cause suppression in other aircraft? If you give the 'fortkiller' trait to fighters, do they become bunker busters? It seems there are easier ways to model a night fighter even though imperfectly. But this is really based on how a person feels a night fighter should act in game. Very subjective.

You talked about resupply so I'll point this out, just in case you're not aware: any unit that uses the air movement mode (5) and does not belong to one of the plane (#7, 8 & 9) classes, can only resupply directly over an airfield, not the surrounding hexes. This includes units like the recon planes (class #2) in PAK-mod and even units switched to the air transport class (#15).

And lastly a word about McGuba's Go-145 and night harassment bombers in general. I borrowed his Go-145 for my mod and decided to give it a strat bomber switch. With low soft/hard attack values (I'm using 2/1), it does no damage and causes a small amount of suppression which seems to me to be the very definition of harassment. It seems to be more of a "flavor" unit rather than actually useful but it's still fun. If a unit could also attack during the day (Hs 46 comes to mind) then I would use the tac bomber mode instead.

[guille1434]

Cw:

Yes, it would be necessary to test if the fortkiller night fighetrs will cause suppression or not on bombers... In case we find this is the case, it would not be a necessarily negative result, because this can be "modded" as the ability of a night fighter of making the bomber change its course and make its accuracy over the target lower, even if the fighter attack does not cause de destruction of the bomber (may be can also be asumed that the bomber recieved damage which caused its efficiency to be lowered, but it was not downed).

Of course, as I said, night fighetrs would not be bunker busters because they will have 0 value ground attack. And about the bombers refuelling, being them long range aircraft units with high fuel value, the player would have no problem to use an airbase far from the front which would be not in use by other tactical aircraft that would make bases closer to the enemy lines crowded. This, in fact, could add some more "realism", because it would model that a regular air base hex can "house" and support with fuel and ammo several smaller aircraft units, but just one unit of big bombers wich take much more physical space on tarmac, hangars and demand more logistical and mainteinance personnel, vehicles, etc... to support them. In fact, historically speaking, after D-Day, the heavy night (and day) bombers where still based on big, permanent and well prepared bases on the British Isles, and only the tactical aircraft were moved to new or captured bases in the Europen mainland.

As I said, it looks like a rather convoluted way to model the night fighter role in the game, but I think it is an idea worth testing to make night fighter units effective against heavy night bombers, but very vulnerable to day flying air units.

PS: I find the implementing of the night harassing light aircraft role very clever. Just a question, with so low ground attack values, do they cause enough supression to target ground units?

Thanks for commenting!

[cw58]

Haha, no it does not cause much suppression. I checked against an infantry unit in forest terrain with entrenchment of 4. The Go 145 suppressed 1 point and reduced entrenchment by 1. So not very effective but IMO more "realistic" than the attack taking out 10% (1 sp) of the infantry unit. I also gave it reconmove so it could attack and then retreat in the same move as that seemed appropriate. As I said, adds "flavor" but not much "meat".

Edit: I did the same for the He 46. With its slightly higher attack values, I imagine it would get a little more suppression but probably still no damage.

[guille1434]

Indeed, just a little suppression and no damage (or may be just randomly 1 point damage from time to time) is what we can expect to take from a light aicraft throwing some light bombs at night to an unseen target. I think that if you had made the attack to an infantry unit in a less favorable terrain for entrenching, you would get more suppression but no damage.

I remember when I tested in game an early war recon variant of the Do-17, but decided to give it a swich with a little attack capacity (I think it also was 2 or 3 Soft Attack and 1 Hard Attack), playing with the assumption that the aircraft could change in base its photo cameras for a small bomb load. This was made by me mainly to give such a unit the possibilty to gain some little experience... But, regretably, with such low attack values it never caused any damage that I can remember (unfortunately I don´t remember the supression it caused) and so it never gained experience. Conclusion: the final result was to delete the attack switch for that aircraft, which was useless for that type of unit and it only added complexity for nothing.

I also suppose that your night harassment unit will not get much experince, either. On the other hand, I completely agree to give them reconmove, because it reflects the ability of such light aircraft to fly very low and use terrain features to avoid air interception and to some extent places guarded by anti air units. Besides, being classed as Strategic Bombers, I think that units with passive air attack (like Engineer units, for example) will not fire back when attacked by those little buggers, which is also a good thing, because if we make the assumption that they attack by night, the units attacked (other than specialized air defense units) cannot fire back to something they cannot see.

[guille1434]

More on British Mustags:

To McGuba: Of course, I also based my work on Bebro original work, why reinvent the wheel when his icons are the "standard" for air unit icons in PzCorps... In this posting, you will see more variations on the camouflaged versions of said aircraft:

- SE Mustang III (with D-Day stripes painted on the wings upper side)
- Mustang III (camouflaged).
- Mustang IV (P-51D version, with bubble canopy).

Besides, in my previous post I uploaded icons for a Mustang IV in bare metal finish wit and without invasion stripes (regular and SE versions).

[guille1434]

Another one of the "heavies"...

Here is the icon for the 52 cm Haubitze (E) 871(f), which was a heavy railroad howitzer captured by the Germans from the French in 1940. Two of them were manufactured in the WWI era, but only one survived to (so to speak) participate in the Second World War. Their history was not very fortunate, nor their combat effectiveness was impressive, because, quoting Wikipedia:

"The first howitzer was destroyed during firing trials at the range in Quiberon in July 1918 when a shell detonated prematurely in the barrel. The second gun was delivered in 1918, but didn't complete its firing trials before the war ended. It was placed in storage, but was not part of the French mobilization plans until after the war began so it needed to be refurbished before it could be committed to battle. It was captured in the Schneider workshops before it could fire a single round in anger in 1940.

The Germans placed it into service as the 52 cm Haubitze (E) 871(f) (French railroad howitzer) and it was assigned to Railroad Artillery Battery (Artillerie-Batterie (E.)) 686. It didn't participate in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, but arrived to the outskirts of Leningrad on 21 November 1941. It was destroyed when a shell detonated in the barrel on 5 January 1942. The abandoned wreckage was captured by the Soviets during Operation Iskra in 1943."