Quote:
Originally Posted by gap
@ kapuhy
A little addition to our discussion on British fighters in the anti-shipping/shipping protection role:
So my doubt is, why diverting a squadron specialized in the ground-attack role from its regular duties and appointing it to the defense of convoys, if the main menace was air raids? Wouldn't they appoint a fighter squadron and equip it with interceptors, more adequate for this new role? My impression is that, in that case, No. 6 Squadron's Hurricanes were meant to contrast Italian torpedo boats that at the time were pestering Allied shipping in the Mediterranean.  |
I think you are right. This period of time is right after Allies have retaken Tobruk and Benghazi in the wake of 2nd El Alamein battle, and the shipping No.6 Squadron was meant to protect was probably moving supplies along the coast from Port Said/Alexandria to retaken ports. I doubt they were under much threat from Axis air forces (which were probably in rather poor shape after major defeat, and with frontline moving west it lost closest airbases), so Italian light naval units must have been main problem.
But fighters patrolling close to the coast, strafing or even bombing anything that tries to engage coastal sea traffic (including surfaced U-Boats if they happen to spot one), is not what I have problem with. It's the notion of planes like Hurricane, Spitfire or Mustang flying out several hundred kilometers (or miles? I'm not entirely sure what units are used for MaxRadius= in cfg files) hunting for enemy ships over open sea. This I doubt ever happened - but that's kinda how these planes are currently configured and I think an effort to accurately model air traffic in SH5 should include correcting this.
Edit: also, if
this map (showing combat radius of various fighters) is accurate, than fighter ranges in SH5 seem to be overestimated (Spitfire for example has MaxRadius=680, even if these are indeed kilometers it's still 422 miles)