Developer Diary 271 - Discussion

[IckyATLAS]

I hope that for BON the ships will have gunners behind the guns, and that it will be the occasion to also update the Kuban ships at the same time.

 

I remember with IL2 Pacific Fighters at release nobody was behind the guns and then you had an option in the setup file where you could activate the gunners.

We should have the same approach with a custom selection with or without gunners. Weak systems would not set them and powerful system would have them.

Seems right that way.?

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by IckyATLAS

[356thFS_Melonfish]

Neat stuff! They'll look very nice in thw sights of the PIV that's for sure.

I'll echo others, it would be amazing to be able to play about in the 222, but I suppose that'd be a collector vehicle or something part of TC2 perhaps. Who knows? 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

1 hour ago, II/JG17_HerrMurf said:

 

You're missing the point. The D Day armada had 5000 ships 

 

HerrMurf, I'm not saying that we need 5000 ships, far from it.  I am painfully aware of the restrictive limitations of this game engine's ability to portray anything above squad level numbers of AI.  But we will need some representative examples of naval assets used at the time of the invasion, or the whole thing will look as sterile as the Arras map, which I fear it may anyway.  I hope the team can find some way around this issue, but if not, even one correct warship out there will help some.

[buster_dee]

Beautiful. Would you consider VK-62B? I believe they were fairly common at British fields.

[Denum]

10 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

 

HerrMurf, I'm not saying that we need 5000 ships, far from it.  I am painfully aware of the restrictive limitations of this game engine's ability to portray anything above squad level numbers of AI.  But we will need some representative examples of naval assets used at the time of the invasion, or the whole thing will look as sterile as the Arras map, which I fear it may anyway.  I hope the team can find some way around this issue, but if not, even one correct warship out there will help some.

Man I really, quite literally desperately hope they can find a way to fix that...

[ShamrockOneFive]

A couple of destroyers, perhaps a larger capital ship, a couple of support ships and a bunch of landing craft (maybe a dozen) and I'd be happy with that representing a "slice" of the D-Day effort.

[LuftManu]

1 minute ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

A couple of destroyers, perhaps a larger capital ship, a couple of support ships and a bunch of landing craft (maybe a dozen) and I'd be happy with that representing a "slice" of the D-Day effort.

This!

It's more how it's portrayed rather than how much do we have to do it (whit a limit, of course.) I am sure a good "scene" will make wonders even without hundreds of ship types.

[Juri_JS]

17 minutes ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

A couple of destroyers, perhaps a larger capital ship, a couple of support ships and a bunch of landing craft (maybe a dozen) and I'd be happy with that representing a "slice" of the D-Day effort.

If we also get static versions of these ships without AI you could have many more in a mission without much decrease in performance. Only ships that need to move and fire would have to be none static.

[unreasonable]

Just now, Juri_JS said:

If we also get static versions of these ships without AI you could have many more in a mission without much decrease in performance. Only ships that need to move and fire would have to be none static.

 

Right: and a large proportion of the ships very near the invasion beaches would be landing craft, lighters, transports etc most of which would have had no significant armament anyway. Floating buildings from the pov of a ground attacker. (And barrage balloons).  So you could have a largish number of these plus a destroyer offshore and a some land based light AA guns.

Plus huge quantities of crates and static vehicles. 

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, LF_Gallahad said:

This!

It's more how it's portrayed rather than how much do we have to do it (whit a limit, of course.) I am sure a good "scene" will make wonders even without hundreds of ship types.

 

The problem is that - from the air - it is possible to see much further than in a typical movie.

 

1 hour ago, Juri_JS said:

If we also get static versions of these ships without AI you could have many more in a mission without much decrease in performance. Only ships that need to move and fire would have to be none static.

 

That might work for the Allies... obviously the Luftwaffe couldn't be flown on day one though - as most of the targets would be unsinkable and would lack anti-aircraft guns... One would also end up giving the impression that there was much less activity on subsequent days (which is inaccurate, but acceptable I suppose).

 

58 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

Right: and a large proportion of the ships very near the invasion beaches would be landing craft, lighters, transports etc most of which would have had no significant armament anyway. Floating buildings from the pov of a ground attacker. (And barrage balloons).  So you could have a largish number of these plus a destroyer offshore and a some land based light AA guns.

Plus huge quantities of crates and static vehicles. 

 

LCTs would have had two 20mm or two 40mm anti-aircraft guns, the rest would have had two anti-aircraft machine guns. That amounts to approximately 8000 anti-aircraft guns on the landing-craft themselves...

 

Further out the LST would have had 10-18 anti-aircraft guns each.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Avimimus

[=FEW=Hauggy]

21 hours ago, NIK14 said:

 

Fair enough...

May I ask if you can please update us on your plans for the highly questionable performance of the .50 cals? 

Nice try, pretty sure you're now on his ignore list now ?

[unreasonable]

Just now, Avimimus said:

 

LCTs would have had two 20mm or two 40mm anti-aircraft guns, the rest would have had two anti-aircraft machine guns. That amounts to approximately 8000 anti-aircraft guns on the landing-craft themselves...

 

Further out the LST would have had 10-18 anti-aircraft guns each.

 

I am not suggesting that you place 4000 LCTs or such like!  Just a few.  Anyway, in reality a significant proportion of guns would not be manned and ready: quite possibly none of them, since the crew had so many things to do. See wiki page for LST for an example!  

 

A sneak attack with one pass would only be fired on by a fraction of the available guns on the first run in - the Bodenplatte raids were another good example of that.  There is a record somewhere of JG26 strafing the beaches on D Day, IIRC AA fire was very light before land based LAA had been set up, but perhaps someone can find that account. 

 

No doubt that whatever is done, it will be hard to create the illusion of a busy beachhead. Still better than having completely empty beaches.

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

5 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

A couple of destroyers, perhaps a larger capital ship, a couple of support ships and a bunch of landing craft (maybe a dozen) and I'd be happy with that representing a "slice" of the D-Day effort.

 

This is along the idea of what I expect. On the other hand, the team usually exceeds my expectations and it will probably be two or three times that in the end.

[DD_Arthur]

If we’re going to get some sort of invasion fleet then we’ll surely need at least one sort of battle wagon to pound the beaches.

 

Question; were there any US Navy capital ships that participated in the Normandy landings and also served in the Pacific?

 

 

[6FG_Big_Al]

28 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

If we’re going to get some sort of invasion fleet then we’ll surely need at least one sort of battle wagon to pound the beaches.

 

Question; were there any US Navy capital ships that participated in the Normandy landings and also served in the Pacific?

 

 

I see you're asking the important questions ?

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

45 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

If we’re going to get some sort of invasion fleet then we’ll surely need at least one sort of battle wagon to pound the beaches.

 

Question; were there any US Navy capital ships that participated in the Normandy landings and also served in the Pacific?

 

 

 

Some of the D Day battlehships were on hand for Iwo Jima and late Pacific operations. I'm sure someone more versed than I can provide accounts for other classes of ships in both theaters.

[BlitzPig_EL]

USS Texas and USS Arkansas both transitioned to the Pacific and took part the the bombardment of Japanese held islands.  Texas also served in the Med providing shore bombardment during the landings on the French Riviera.

 

An interesting tidbit about the Texas during her assignment with the bombardment group covering the Normandy landings.  As time progressed enemy targets were moving out of the range of her rifles, so the captain had the sea side anti torpedo bulge flooded with sea water, which gave the old battleship a  pronounced list, thus giving her guns more elevation which increased her range.  Gotta love it.

Edited February 7, 2021 by BlitzPig_EL

[Avimimus]

I don't think we'll see capital ships... a single Battleship had enough guns on it by 1944 to approach the limits for the maximum number of gunners in this sim.

 

Also - is there really any point to modelling D-Day itself?

 

If I recall correctly - allied air attacks were against targets further in land (to avoid fratricide). The German response in the days after the landing was to send bombers against ships at night and to send some fighter-bomber attacks against bridges during the day - none of which was very successful.

 

So there wasn't any real air-combat (or ground attack) happening over the beaches during the day. Thoughts?

[Dakpilot]

I thought they already said BoN will be covering pre and post invasion.. 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[BMA_FlyingShark]

47 minutes ago, Avimimus said:

So there wasn't any real air-combat (or ground attack) happening over the beaches during the day. Thoughts?

I think this too.

What's interesting for us is what happened in the sky before and after D-Day, there was no significant air-combat during that day itself as far as I know.

 

Have a nice day.

 

[Avimimus]

Just now, FlyingShark said:

I think this too.

What's interesting for us is what happened in the sky before and after D-Day, there was no significant air-combat during that day itself as far as I know.

 

Have a nice day.

 

 

Yeah... definitely... I'd love some type of low-altitude recon gameplay where one gets to monitor (and help map out) the Atlantic Wall... also the various decoy raids on Calais... etc. It should be quite exciting enough.

 

Part of me does think that having some low-detail transport ships to bomb at night in the week after the landings would be neat too... there was so much going on which we don't see in the movies.

 

That said, it'd be great to have a motor gun boat for use in replicating the earlier Dieppe raid... it was much smaller and there was much more air-combat over it... so having assets for that would be great (even if we are missing the Do-217E or the right Spit IX, Typhoon, and Mustang variants)!

[DD_Arthur]

3 hours ago, 6FG_Big_Al said:

I see you're asking the important questions ?

 

And I'm getting some good answers.   I should mention that HMS Warspite - a British battlewagon - was also present at Normandy and during the invasion of Italy the previous year. 

 

So we could have ships created for the Normandy scenerio that could also be useful in other theatres that have yet to be created..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

[=621=Samikatz]

57 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

And I'm getting some good answers.   I should mention that HMS Warspite - a British battlewagon - was also present at Normandy and during the invasion of Italy the previous year.

 

Not to mention present at the previous war!

[Denum]

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

And I'm getting some good answers.   I should mention that HMS Warspite - a British battlewagon - was also present at Normandy and during the invasion of Italy the previous year. 

 

So we could have ships created for the Normandy scenerio that could also be useful in other theatres that have yet to be created..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a piece of K-444 in my front garden

 

It was at D-Day 

Ended its life being sunk as a break water in Oyster Bay!

 

 

 

 

[Feathered_IV]

12 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

A couple of destroyers, perhaps a larger capital ship, a couple of support ships and a bunch of landing craft (maybe a dozen) and I'd be happy with that representing a "slice" of the D-Day effort.

Id be perfectly happy with filling out the armada with a bunch of static ship groups, rather like the city block objects that save so many fps over the cities and towns.  

[unreasonable]

6 hours ago, Avimimus said:

I don't think we'll see capital ships... a single Battleship had enough guns on it by 1944 to approach the limits for the maximum number of gunners in this sim.

 

Also - is there really any point to modelling D-Day itself?

 

If I recall correctly - allied air attacks were against targets further in land (to avoid fratricide). The German response in the days after the landing was to send bombers against ships at night and to send some fighter-bomber attacks against bridges during the day - none of which was very successful.

 

So there wasn't any real air-combat (or ground attack) happening over the beaches during the day. Thoughts?

 

We already know D-Day is out, but the Allies were still unloading nearly all of their supplies and reinforcements over the beaches in Normandy until well after they had reached Paris, IIRC, what with all the ports being heavily damaged and mined.   So it would have been a good target for long after D-Day, if the GAF had been capable of reaching it.  Few or no warships but many transports, freighters, lighters and land supply dumps. The equivalent of a port city - or cities. 

 

The question for builders of missions or the career generator is how closely do you give the GAF the actual conditions under which they operated, or do you allow some leeway to make the GAF side more interesting? I would be happy with either.

Edited February 8, 2021 by unreasonable

[Gambit21]

16 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

We already know D-Day is out, but the Allies were still unloading nearly all of their supplies and reinforcements over the beaches in Normandy until well after they had reached Paris, IIRC, what with all the ports being heavily damaged and mined.   So it would have been a good target for long after D-Day, if the GAF had been capable of reaching it.  Few or no warships but many transports, freighters, lighters and land supply dumps. The equivalent of a port city - or cities. 

 

The question for builders of missions or the career generator is how closely do you give the GAF the actual conditions under which they operated, or do you allow some leeway to make the GAF side more interesting? I would be happy with either.

 

I’m not dealing with Normandy/D-Day missions at this juncture, however from my perspective D-Day is a “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” equation from a historical/aviation, mission building perspective. (“Oooh....ahhhh....look at all those ships” aside)

 

The flying, the fighting, the ground pounding, the CAS all happened progressively further and further from the beach with each day. From the Luftwaffe perspective, historically speaking...you’re nowhere close to the beach ever (for the most part)

 

If I was doing a Hellhawks prequel (I’m not) I’d have no choice but to deal with it since the 365th was stationed for a time right there at A1. Good on whomever constructs the massive Overlord armada - won’t be me.

 

[Blitzen]

The new vehicles are nice & all that & it will be good to see them intermingled in various columns of vehicles , but I'll tell you it would ba alot more interesting to see sherman fireflys & King Tigers as AI vehicles & perhaps later introduced in Tank Crew as drivables on the new Normandy map when it becomes available...just saying...

I am still wondering about something else that I have pre-purchased :the German flakwagon and how they are going to put me a a normandy road junction or bridge crossingand then have C-47's or Typhoons fly over the same place while I man the guns trying my best to knock them out of the sky..

Edited February 8, 2021 by Blitzen

[PatrickAWlson]

On 2/7/2021 at 4:15 PM, Avimimus said:

I don't think we'll see capital ships... a single Battleship had enough guns on it by 1944 to approach the limits for the maximum number of gunners in this sim.

 

Also - is there really any point to modelling D-Day itself?

 

If I recall correctly - allied air attacks were against targets further in land (to avoid fratricide). The German response in the days after the landing was to send bombers against ships at night and to send some fighter-bomber attacks against bridges during the day - none of which was very successful.

 

So there wasn't any real air-combat (or ground attack) happening over the beaches during the day. Thoughts?

 

Don't let reality get too much in the way of a good game  

[Boomerang]

Impressive to say the least ?

[BlackSix]

On 2/8/2021 at 12:28 AM, Dakpilot said:

I thought they already said BoN will be covering pre and post invasion..

We plan to start BoN career on April 15 and finish it on August 22, 1944 after the end of the battle in the Falaise pocket and the last Luftwaffe units leave the borders of our map.

[Sandmarken]

57 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

We plan to start BoN career on April 15 and finish it on August 22, 1944 after the end of the battle in the Falaise pocket and the last Luftwaffe units leave the borders of our map.

I just cant wait for the map ??

[=LD=dhyran]

if we can have a ship modell of the Schrnhorst, we can play the channel dash (Operation Cerberus) of the battlesships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst with huge cover of 109, 190s

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash

 

Really looking forward to the map ?

[BlitzPig_EL]

Well dhyran, the channel dash is, and will be utterly impossible in this game engine simply because it cannot support the numbers of AI that would be on one battleship alone, not counting all the escort vessels, British shore batteries, not to mention all the aircraft that both sides put up.  Oh, we also don't have the Swordfish, much less droppable torpedoes.  

 

Maybe sometime in the distant future of the Great Battles Series, but not anytime soon.

[Avimimus]

1 hour ago, =LD=dhyran said:

if we can have a ship modell of the Schrnhorst, we can play the channel dash (Operation Cerberus) of the battlesships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst with huge cover of 109, 190s

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash

 

Really looking forward to the map ?

 

I see the appeal. I saw the appeal enough to count the number of anti-aircraft guns in that flotilla... and then create a mission using land based anti-aircraft guns arranged in the shape of ships.

 

One has to remove a few to stay within the object limits, and even then only a quarter of the anti-aircraft guns will fire at a time (because most of them are turned off due to the active turret limit'). So basically, they face the same issues as getting B-17 and B-24 formations in game... and unless there is a technical breakthrough it'll not come about.

 

That said - a lot of the RAF units found out about the Channel Dash when it was already too late... so I guess they could simulate that? ? Realism!

 

10 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Don't let reality get too much in the way of a good game  

 

I'll be disappointed if I'm not outnumbered by at least 50/1 or 100/1 if I fly as the Luftwaffe...

I expect that lack of realism... but I'll still find it disappointing.

[Diggun]

14 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

the channel dash is, and will be utterly impossible in this game engine

For an accurate simulation of most RAF pilot experience during the channel dash, no German ships are needed, just take off, stooge about in thick cloud until you're dangerously short of fuel, then try to find your way home. Job done.

[Boomerang]

May be a little off topic.. Something else to be excited about tho regarding this wonderful Sim, (besides the good news we read consistently about past and present), is...... Drum Roll!

There's a Sale on at the moment, for those who may of missed it.. Link at the bottom of the image.

 

Store Link: https://il2sturmovik.com/

 

Edited February 14, 2021 by Boomerang

[vonGraf]

I have bought everything.

[Chief_Mouser]

On 2/9/2021 at 3:31 PM, Diggun said:

For an accurate simulation of most RAF pilot experience during the channel dash, no German ships are needed, just take off, stooge about in thick cloud until you're dangerously short of fuel, then try to find your way home. Job done.

 

I realise that you said 'most' but the Swordfish crews would probably have taken that outcome, or indeed Arthur Aldridge in his Beaufort who dropped through the cloud and found themselves flying alongside the Gneisenau...

[BlitzPig_EL]

I've always found it curious that the British were seemingly caught flat-footed by the Germans in this operation.  Britain had the largest navy in Europe, and the largest, though stationary, aircraft carrier in the world that was equipped with the entire RAF and FAA, yet the German fleet just sailed right on by, like a boss.

 

What a lost opportunity.