EMG more realistic flak environment example missions

[kraut1]

19 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

 

Yep I understood. Unfortunately, I don't see anything like that in the lua files for flak guns. Closest you get for artillery pieces (which include flak) are the references to the bots you see running away when the gun becomes critically damaged or destroyed. Even there no co-ordinates are given just the bots are nominated. I can only assume the crew positions are part of the 3d model of the gun and its animation.

 

 

I found another solution: I created a new flak43_attach. The commander and loader of the Flak43 are a bit closer to the gun axis.

I have to optimize the gun position a little bit.

Here a AAA and anti ship test: (next thing I will do is a test of your newest AAA mod in a bomber career mission)

 

Edited August 20, 2024 by kraut1

[Stonehouse]

4 hours ago, kraut1 said:

I found another solution: I created a new flak43_attach. The commander and loader of the Flak43 are a bit closer to the gun axis.

I have to optimize the gun position a little bit.

Here a AAA and anti ship test: (next thing I will do is a test of your newest AAA mod in a bomber career mission)

 

That's really good! One thing we really need is more Kriegsmarine units.

[kraut1]

Hello @Stonehouse,

Today I flew (AI controlled) my first 2 Bomber Career missions:

-Kuban

-He111

-Medium Air / AAA density

-parity

-the targets were close to the front line, only few heavy AAA.

-But the few heavy AAA guns with the higher rate of fire of your mod worked well

Next time I will change to a highter density.

[Stonehouse]

19 hours ago, kraut1 said:

I found another solution: I created a new flak43_attach. The commander and loader of the Flak43 are a bit closer to the gun axis.

I have to optimize the gun position a little bit.

Here a AAA and anti ship test: (next thing I will do is a test of your newest AAA mod in a bomber career mission)

 

 

Something else I forgot to mention that would work for both Eastern and Western fronts are Kreigmarine Vorpostenboots. So converted trawlers and steamers modified to become flak ships. Possible candidates in no particular order are probably: liberty ship, lst, fdt, bayfield and landboata. The large tanker ships perhaps could be used but they only have two turret positions. The landboata also only has two weapon positions but could perhaps be lighter flak boats. LSTs and Liberty ships are probably the best fit.

 

Obviously, any of these would need to be up gunned accordingly with the right weapons and some reskinning needed if only for flags.

 

eg Friedrich Busse very post war

 

Edited August 21, 2024 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

2 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

 

Something else I forgot to mention that would work for both Eastern and Western fronts are Kreigmarine Vorpostenboots. So converted trawlers and steamers modified to become flak ships. Possible candidates in no particular order are probably: liberty ship, lst, fdt, bayfield and landboata. The large tanker ships perhaps could be used but they only have two turret positions. The landboata also only has two weapon positions but could perhaps be lighter flak boats. LSTs and Liberty ships are probably the best fit.

 

Obviously, any of these would need to be up gunned accordingly with the right weapons and some reskinning needed if only for flags.

 

eg Friedrich Busse very post war

 

Hi Stonehouse,

Thanks,

I have already modified the largetanker_us with alternative german AAA.

And I have modified the fdt with german AAA. I will use it as a ship for radar / air control. The german navy had at least 1 or 2 of these ships in the baltic sea.

The general historical situation in the baltic sea was 1944/45:

The whole rest of the german Kriegsmarine had retreated to the baltic sea.

The still available bigger russian surface ships in the baltic sea were still "blocked" by the huge mine fields.

The russian Navy was very active only with smaller gun boats / fast torpedo boats and with submarines.

The german supply / evacuation convois were in first line attacked by the red airforce and by submarines.

I have already defined some close to coast EMG patrol ships that are already working.

And my german convois have already sufficient fire power:

1 or 2 german destroyers and at least 2 large tankers with AAA.

 

Here an example for EMG automaticly generated patrol boat naval action near Riga (with additional EMG target objective_patrol_ship)

@SYN_Vander

 

 

 

[Stonehouse]

They apparently used them quite a lot in the North Sea and Channel. Besides general info from googling I have several RAF pilot biographies that talk about attacking or photographing flak ships. If we had something that was a cross between a landboata and an LST you could model the German Flak lighters. The LST sort of looks like one but is a bit too ship like. It does have the equivalent flak positions a lighter had.

 

The Vorpostenboote were used quite a bit for convoy defense around the coast of France, Netherlands and Germany from what I have read. Also, they laid mines (which makes them a good EMG objective) to protect friendly port entrances and did anti sub work. Hope you release the Kriegsmarine FDT mod at some point. 

 

<edit> I thought I also read somewhere that 2 or 3 of them covered a retreat by the German army somewhere on the Eastern Front. May not be covered by the maps we have though.

Edited August 21, 2024 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

Hi @Stonehouse,

I tested your AAA mod for Careers / PWCG with a US P51 Mustang career escort mission with high density.

It works well in general.

I could not test very long, because my AI controlled P51 was shot down by a BF109.

The rate of fire and the volume of aaa explosions was good.

For the human player's flight and for AI escort flight the effectiveness is well.

But it has an effect (casulties) on not so intelligent ambient AI bomber / transport flights

Because of that I suggest to reduce the accuracy by ca. 30%.

[kraut1]

@StonehouseMy suggestion to reduce the accuracy by ca. 30% is of course only a rough estimation and my personal point of view.

[Stonehouse]

17 hours ago, kraut1 said:

@StonehouseMy suggestion to reduce the accuracy by ca. 30% is of course only a rough estimation and my personal point of view.

 

Just curious - can you recall if the losses were from direct hits or damage from explosions near the aircraft. 

 

Reason for asking - if direct hits I would very likely go with a custom bot reducing accuracy but if the losses were mostly shockwave/shrapnel damage I'd probably try to balance things via a custom munition. If you can't recall no problem, I'll sort something out anyway, but it would be handy to know. 

[kraut1]

1 hour ago, Stonehouse said:

 

Just curious - can you recall if the losses were from direct hits or damage from explosions near the aircraft. 

 

Reason for asking - if direct hits I would very likely go with a custom bot reducing accuracy but if the losses were mostly shockwave/shrapnel damage I'd probably try to balance things via a custom munition. If you can't recall no problem, I'll sort something out anyway, but it would be handy to know. 

Sorry, the career missions are much more difficult to observe than the EMG ones with "near target".

And I was simultaneously working.

I think 1 C47 medium damage indirect hit (engine smokin) and 1 B26 serious hit, maybe direct hit.

In general it seemed to me the hits occured after a comparable short time, but I am not 100% sure.

I searched the mission reports for flak with wingrep:

Here all reports of the mission:

mission-report.zip

 

[Stonehouse]

23 hours ago, kraut1 said:

@StonehouseMy suggestion to reduce the accuracy by ca. 30% is of course only a rough estimation and my personal point of view.

 

OK accuracy reduced.....possibly a bit too much but see what you think when you can.

 

Now using a custom bot file so there is no dependency on the AAA mod. This can be used over stock or the AAA mod.

 

 

Simulated flak fields for PWCG and Career-install after AAAmod.zip

[kraut1]

37 minutes ago, Stonehouse said:

 

OK accuracy reduced.....possibly a bit too much but see what you think when you can.

 

Now using a custom bot file so there is no dependency on the AAA mod. This can be used over stock or the AAA mod.

 

 

Simulated flak fields for PWCG and Career-install after AAAmod.zip 9.48 kB · 0 downloads

Thanks, I will use this next time.

 

[kraut1]

On 8/22/2024 at 12:08 PM, kraut1 said:

Thanks, I will use this next time.

I tried a P47 Normandy career with AAA mod and the newest mod for career.

Artillery attack near front line, at the target no heavy AAA.

After that I flew to Caen: some, but no many heavy AAA. The high rate of fire was okay. But altogether seen I was only engaged for short time.

In general it seems to be okay, playable.

Question: how is the range of the guns in comparison with the generators?

On 8/22/2024 at 11:30 AM, Stonehouse said:

 

OK accuracy reduced.....possibly a bit too much but see what you think when you can.

 

Now using a custom bot file so there is no dependency on the AAA mod. This can be used over stock or the AAA mod.

 

 

Simulated flak fields for PWCG and Career-install after AAAmod.zip 9.48 kB · 4 downloads

I tried a P47 Normandy career with AAA mod and the newest mod for career.

Artillery attack near front line, at the target no heavy AAA.

After that I flew to Caen: some, but no many heavy AAA. The high rate of fire was okay. But altogether seen I was only engaged for short time.

In general it seems to be okay, playable.

Question: how is the range of the guns in comparison with the generators?

[Stonehouse]

8 hours ago, kraut1 said:

Question: how is the range of the guns in comparison with the generators?

Should be the same but the mission itself influences things as the activation and attack range MCUs are often much less than the real-life effective range of heavy AAA.

 

As it sounds like you know I do supply a AQMB & career mod to alter the activation and attack range to 10000m for heavy AAA, you can find it in the AAA mod thread. PWCG has a hardcoded range of something like 5000-6000m. I have on occasion suggested to Pat to make this a campaign preference, but he has either forgotten or isn't keen to make the change and declined to do so, which is of course his right.

 

Perhaps open the mission in the editor (it's the _gen one if you haven't hit next day or done a QMB since flying the career mission) and see what the activation range and attack range is for the guns - possibly I missed something in the career mod, it does involve a huge number of files. Or post the mission file and I can do it if you are short of time.

Edited August 28, 2024 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

4 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

Should be the same but the mission itself influences things as the activation and attack range MCUs are often much less than the real-life effective range of heavy AAA.

 

As it sounds like you know I do supply a AQMB & career mod to alter the activation and attack range to 10000m for heavy AAA, you can find it in the AAA mod thread. PWCG has a hardcoded range of something like 5000-6000m. I have on occasion suggested to Pat to make this a campaign preference, but he has either forgotten or isn't keen to make the change and declined to do so, which is of course his right.

 

Perhaps open the mission in the editor (it's the _gen one if you haven't hit next day or done a QMB since flying the career mission) and see what the activation range and attack range is for the guns - possibly I missed something in the career mod, it does involve a huge number of files. Or post the mission file and I can do it if you are short of time.

Thanks very much for your explenations.

Now I understand that for these missions the main reason for the limitation of the AAA ranges is the mission design.

When I tested the career mission yesterday, I used medium density and for both sides parity (no one inferior).

 

The P47 planes were engaged only a comparable short time (you have explained why).

You have mentined that the accuracy could be now to low: No, I have observed the flak explosions and they were stille close to the targets.

So maybe, the current settings are good, but it is not so easy to test career missions because in contrast to EMG you can`t influence the mission generation directly.

 

Note:

From now I will fly 2 careers:

-My Me262 Fighter Bomber IL-2 GB Bodenplatte Pilot Career (I will use your mods and report)

-And I have started flying a Scripted Campaign with my new Kurland (Courland Pocket) GUI Map Mod / EMG Mod.

Here I am currently at the limit in respect of FPS, so I will stay for some time with the default AAA fire density. 

 

[Stonehouse]

26 minutes ago, kraut1 said:

Here I am currently at the limit in respect of FPS, so I will stay for some time with the default AAA fire density.

I understand but so far my testing has indicated that the increased rate of fire does not noticeably impact FPS as it is more the number of units active that causes FPS loss.

 

I guess my point is that the reasoning behind both the mod you are currently testing and the flak generators is to increase flak field density without impacting FPS.  

 

IE If possible and if it won't inconvenience you, please do test this career & PWCG flak mod (not the flak generators as this requires EMG template changes or specific mission editing) on your Kurland campaign and see how it goes. From what I have seen so far, I think it will increase flak to a more realistic level but not impact your FPS.

 

I think this mod could become a general purpose mod to improve immersion for QMB, career, PWCG and scripted campaigns and all non-flak generator template-based EMG generated missions without impacting FPS.

 

As always, much appreciate your help in testing this to sanity check my changes.

Edited August 28, 2024 by Stonehouse

[kraut1]

On 8/28/2024 at 8:06 AM, Stonehouse said:

I understand but so far my testing has indicated that the increased rate of fire does not noticeably impact FPS as it is more the number of units active that causes FPS loss.

 

I guess my point is that the reasoning behind both the mod you are currently testing and the flak generators is to increase flak field density without impacting FPS.  

 

IE If possible and if it won't inconvenience you, please do test this career & PWCG flak mod (not the flak generators as this requires EMG template changes or specific mission editing) on your Kurland campaign and see how it goes. From what I have seen so far, I think it will increase flak to a more realistic level but not impact your FPS.

 

I think this mod could become a general purpose mod to improve immersion for QMB, career, PWCG and scripted campaigns and all non-flak generator template-based EMG generated missions without impacting FPS.

 

As always, much appreciate your help in testing this to sanity check my changes.

Today I flew my second Courland Pocket Campaign mission with your Mods activated.

A FW190-A8 ground attack mission.

While circling and attacking over the target area we were frequently engaged by heavy AAA, volume of explosions was good and comparable accurate. Looked interesting with VR. But because we were flying not straight on no losses. Worked well.

[Stonehouse]

7 hours ago, kraut1 said:

Today I flew my second Courland Pocket Campaign mission with your Mods activated.

A FW190-A8 ground attack mission.

While circling and attacking over the target area we were frequently engaged by heavy AAA, volume of explosions was good and comparable accurate. Looked interesting with VR. But because we were flying not straight on no losses. Worked well.

 

Thanks, I think I will release the mod as it stands since you don't seem to be finding any more issues than I have. Thank you again for your help, suggestions and feedback.