Air transport

[Ruisert]

OK, this is something I suspect I already know the answer to, but...

Long before people got the idea of throwing troops out of perfectly good airplanes, the old fashioned way was to actually land those planes in an airport and let the troops just walk off. Radical concept, I know, but it doesn't appear to have occurred to PI that this could be done, except for the abstracted "Franco flies to Seville" event. And, as I said, I suspect this is hard-coded in the game. But in case I'm wrong, is it possible to mod the game to allow infantry units to be air-transported? Realistically, only infantry with little heavy weapons would be eligible.
Any ideas, hints, or suggestions if it is actually possible to mod this?

Also, along these lines, didn't Lufthansa's JU 52's get nationalized at the start of the war? If so, I think a mod to allow Germany a squadron or three of transports would be in order.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

AFAIK it is impossible to allow "air Transport" of units. As you've noted, the actual capability to carry heavy weapons this way is really limited so it really wouldn't be realistic anyways.

mm

 

[Ruisert]

Hi,

AFAIK it is impossible to allow "air Transport" of units. As you've noted, the actual capability to carry heavy weapons this way is really limited so it really wouldn't be realistic anyways.

mm

Yes, as I suspected. Another glaring oversight, IMO. (Kiel canal, or the lack thereof, being a biggie).
I have to disagree with you about the realistic bit though. As I mentioned, but didn't detail, this should be something available only to infantry type units (not motorized, though) with infantry type brigades only. No armor brigades, no engineers (bulldozers, etc.), SPA. Regular Arty and AA are reasonable, though, since those could be dismantled and distributed in a way to not overload the A/C.

I recall that during the initial invasion of Norway, at least one airbase was taken by landing transports and having the passengers take control from the landing field, allowing fighters and TAC to land shortly thereafter.

I suspect that the code only looks for one 'paradroppable' flag, but I think it could be re-written to have a 'loadable' flag and a 'droppable' flag. Para units would have both flags, while Inf would have just the one 'loadable' flag. I don't think this would require a major overhaul of the code, but it might freak out the AI...

Ah, well. Another fine fantasy shot to hell.

 

[unmerged(108953)]

Hi,

AFAIK it is impossible to allow "air Transport" of units. As you've noted, the actual capability to carry heavy weapons this way is really limited so it really wouldn't be realistic anyways.

mm

Actually, during the battle of Imphal, Slim airlifted entire Indian 5th Infantry division with all of its heavy equipment to reinforce and stall Japanese attack. So it was possible in real life too.

 

[dec152000]

Hi,

The Indian units are probablly looking more like RES than INF in the CORE unit system. This makes them very light on heavy equipment and with almost no vehicles. So the only way this really works is the fact that England had enough transport aircraft to move an extremly "light" TO&E Indian formation. I'd venture that England could not have done the same with one of it's own infantry type divisions due to a much heavier TO&E. The in game ability to do this would grossly overrepresnt reality until VERY late in the game.

mm

 

[Ruisert]

I don't have the specifics as to what this unit would equate to in game terms (although you might notice the mention of its heavy equipment as well), and really, it's not that important. It just illustrates the shocking concept that transport a/c could actually transport something other than para's.