Slitherine

Should we not to allow the air units to be railed? I mean usually air units were transported by sea (with naval transports and sometimes in carrier units) and once in land they were rebased to new locations but I have my doubts about any air unit (I am referring to the whole air unit, e.g. a wing) being railed in the real war.

Vokt wrote:Should we not to allow the air units to be railed? I mean usually air units were transported by sea (with naval transports and sometimes in carrier units) and once in land they were rebased to new locations but I have my doubts about any air unit (I am referring to the whole air unit, e.g. a wing) being railed in the real war.

You need to remember its all the supporting ground based staff and material as well - that stuff would be railed, only the aircraft themselves would fly

richardsd wrote:

Vokt wrote:Should we not to allow the air units to be railed? I mean usually air units were transported by sea (with naval transports and sometimes in carrier units) and once in land they were rebased to new locations but I have my doubts about any air unit (I am referring to the whole air unit, e.g. a wing) being railed in the real war.

You need to remember its all the supporting ground based staff and material as well - that stuff would be railed, only the aircraft themselves would fly

I doubt this. Furthermore, I am referring to the fighting units not the support ones so the air unit once railed is available for combat in the very next turn. It would make some sense what you are saying if we have e.g. 2 turns for an air unit to be available after railing this meaning the necessary time for the general staff to be stablished, etc. If we are giving that much importance to the support part of the air units then we should consider again air units be available to hold cities as british bombers occupying Brest or Bourdeaux hexes after french surrender. Having the fighter units a 16 hexes movement allowance if we use the rail movement for this unit it would mean they can have a 40 hex movement.

TBH, in 20 days, air units should be able to get anywhere on map as long as it involves flying over friendly territory. Remember 20 days. Obviously, fighters wouldn't cross the Atlantic, but getting from Spain to Moscow should cause no problems (they can make stops on the way).

Cybvep wrote:TBH, in 20 days, air units should be able to get anywhere on map as long as it involves flying over friendly territory. Remember 20 days. Obviously, fighters wouldn't cross the Atlantic, but getting from Spain to Moscow should cause no problems (they can make stops on the way).

Any WW2 tank (30-40 km/h) was able to cover 100 kms/per day thus meaning 2000 km in 20 days if moving without no opposition. Tanks in CEAW have 6 movement factor meaning 300 km in 20 days pretty much less than their theorical movement capabilities. What I am bringing here is the fact that tanks and troops were possible to be railed but aircrafts weren´t.

Vokt wrote:Any WW2 tank (30-40 km/h) was able to cover 100 kms/per day thus meaning 2000 km in 20 days if moving without no opposition. Tanks in CEAW have 6 movement factor meaning 300 km in 20 days pretty much less than their theorical movement capabilities.

A 1940's unit which tried to move strategic distances on its wheels would probably need more than 20 days to repair the damage done to its vehicles, not to mention recovering the trail of break downs it would leave. Vehicles, even military ones, were not as reliable as those today, and the roads, especially the bridges, were much worse. And don't even think about running tanks on their tracks for any great distance. Tank transporters were used, but were not common, in WW2.

If we remove the ability to rail air units then we need to do something about the oil levels for the Axis. Prior to Barbarossa they will rail air units to each combat area to save fuel.

It's very easy to code so air units can't be railed. If we do then we need to think about the consequences. Maybe we could increase the starting Axis oil level by 50 because of that change. Each air unit burns about 3-4 oil in 1939-1941. So 50 oil means about use for about 15 rail moves. That seems about normal.

What do you think? Should we go through with that change?

Then movement rate of air units will need to be increased IMO. Also, check this:

viewtopic.php?f=133&t=41703

I am fine with increasing axis starting oil level by 50 in return for not allowing rail moves to air units. To forbid this rail moves makes sense I think.

Vokt wrote:I am fine with increasing axis starting oil level by 50 in return for not allowing rail moves to air units. To forbid this rail moves makes sense I think.

This change will only effect Axis . I don't think it is necessary . If it has to change , please give Axis more fuel .

I think we can see rail movement as strategic movement. It happens within friendly territory and the unit can't move or attack into enemy territory on the same turn.

So I'm fine with air units using the strategic movement option to rebase. The airplanes would fly and stop on several airbases before reaching the destination.

If we increase the air range in the game it means that you can actually rebase across the Atlantic earlier in the war. That's probably not what we want. If we don't increase the air range then it means air units rebasing will spend several turns to rebase from e. g. France to Russia, especially fighter units. So I'm fine with air units being able to rebase in 1 turn in friendly territory, i. e. a line of contiguous friendly hexes. That excludes across sea.

Air units have been able to rail since vanilla. Why change it now? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I think you open up a whole can of worms here if you change this. You have to play with Axis oil production and if you extend air movement then you have to deal with unintended consequences, i.e. people will find a way to use the extra air movement in unhistorical and undesirable ways. I don't feel that it's worth all the trouble for such a small alteration.

Totally agree with Borger & Joe ！

We can see railed air units as strategic redeployments. But still this is a little bit unrealistic because when we do that we are moving air units from usually two distant points with no waste of oil at all. Tanks when transported by rail did not waste oil at all but aircrafts would be moving from a considerable distance (max 40 hexes rail movement) with no oil burning? I would vote no for increasing air units movement allowances but vote yes for raising a little starting axis oil levels that anyway won´t unbalance the game at all.

Vokt wrote:We can see railed air units as strategic redeployments. But still this is a little bit unrealistic because when we do that we are moving air units from usually two distant points with no waste of oil at all. Tanks when transported by rail did not waste oil at all but aircrafts would be moving from a considerable distance (max 40 hexes rail movement) with no oil burning? I would vote no for increasing air units movement allowances but vote yes for raising a little starting axis oil levels that anyway won´t unbalance the game at all.

Actually ,one turn is twenty days , if a FTR has a dogfight or airsupport mission during this period , each plane will fly 15-30 times ,but if a FTR has a transfer mission , each only need to fly one time on way . So the cost of fuel is just 3-7percent of a fight mission . In our game ,a FTR move cost 3 fuel & 3-7 percent of it is only 0.09 to 0.21 point . So we can just ignore it .