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Originally Posted by kapuhy
- Lysanders: I doubt these would fly far out into the sea, especially if they were army pilots rushed to coastal defense. These could be scripted like current air patrols over Bay of Biscay, except they'd fly up and down the coast, able to spot an U-Boat and raise alarm if you sail within sight from shore.
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- No. 4 Squadron is known to have complemented its coastal patrol role with Air-Sea Recue duties.
- No. 16 Squadron is said by one of my sources to have "operated as a reconnaissance squadron, first around the British coast, guarding against a German landing, then further out to sea" (http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/16_wwII.html).
- Talking about another Lysander squadron, No. 26, the same website states: "After the fall of France the squadron flew coastal patrols, especially over the potential German invasion ports" (http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/26_wwII.html).
Scripting those squadrons might be a good idea: the circular range of activity of base-spawned aircraft is probably not the best way to imitate in game some patrol courses that, in reality, had to be nearly parallel to the coastline. Nonetheless, going by the impression I got from the aforementioned facts, I would move Lysander's courses more to the sea side than to the land side (but indeed not too much) and I would privilege the areas near the major British ports. How mutch the patrol area of each Lysander squadron stretched over the coastline, and which harbour areas were more guarded by them, is an information we will discover once we find all of those squadrons and we plot their stations on map but, indeed, I expect the southern British shore to be the most hravily guarded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapuhy
- Hurricanes, Spitfires etc. in convoy protection: unless we're talking carrier-based, I strongly suspect that the convoys they were protecting were English Channel and South-East England coastal convoys, and "protection" in this case meant deterring Luftwaffe.
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- In May-June 1940, No. 19 Squadron covered the Dunkirk Evacuation with its Spitfires.
- No. 6 Squadron was based in Edku when, between December '42 and February '43 it was appointed to the protection of Allied shipping (probably in-/out-bound to/from the near port of Alexandria) with its Hurricanes.
- Between July '43 and April '44, when it was carrying out convoy escort patrols, No. 26 Squadron was based in Yorkshire (First at RAF Church Fenton and then at RAF Hutton Cranswick, both close to Port of Hull), with a detachment flying from RAF Ballyhalbert, Northern Ireland.
I am not 100% sure that those fighter squadrons would have ignored any other attacker than Axis aircraft, but I am reasonably confident that their primary mission was contrasting raids from the air.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapuhy
- Making convoy protection squadrons spawned from airbases in not that unrealistic. That's just my recollection from Clay Blair's book, but what seemed to happen is, because they didn't have aircraft to protect all convoys at all times (at least until late war), SOP was to saturate skies with aircraft over convoys that were under attack or expected imminent attack. More or less how spawning system works : when they learn you're in area, then they start sending planes.
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Okay, good to know, I rather thought that they were following up and down the route of convoys they were supposed to protect, but that's probably more correct for US blimps.
Going by your account, the best way to simulate in game the activity of RAF convoy escorts, is giving them the maximum realistic number of aircraft (24 for fighter and 12 for bomber squadrons) and making their max radius relatively wide.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapuhy
- Re "air raid" planes: I'd choose the option of scripting them in campaign. Leave base air groups for what they do best (reacting to detected threats/targets in airbase's range), and add an air group for every U-Boat base flying regular high altitude air raids (might be good to check how often these bases were really bombed).
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I totally agree with you that scripting is the best available method for simulating air raids against player bases. That would give us full control on air raids' aircraft composition, on their frequency, their altitude and the route they will follow. The scripted aircraft might still (irrealistically) divert from their mission and attack enemy vessels at sea if they meet with them, but that would be a much rarer eventuality than if the "U-boat bunker raiders" were left to spawn from air bases and to freely roam in the skies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kapuhy
It's a bit more predictable (experienced player might learn never to dock at Brest on Mondays and never leave Lorient on Thursdays - unless you can randomize frequency that is), but allows to retain more control over how these "special events" unfold. Relying on air wings might end up requiring much more work time playtesting and finetuning to work well than scripting those groups in.
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I wish we could randomize the frequency of recurring scripted (air) traffic, but I am a total ignorant on this respect. Is there any way to do that?