Really interesting work.
A comment regarding armour spacing - at the beginning of WW2 many nations AFVs were
without radios , or with limited radio technology ( Russian , Japanese , French the most significant examples ).
This resulted in AFVs moving as a small group within visual contact of the group
( Troop/Platoon/Peleton/Section ) Leader.
I understand that the behaviour of AI Vehicles in IL2 may preclude accuracy in this department ,
and any improvement will likely be very well received.
A Question regarding the Technics.ini file.
If there is any way to reduce the accuracy/effect of ship based artillery on fixed and
fortified positions ( Bunkers and Entrenchements ) compared to land based Artillery firing
against ships it would go a long way towards improving realism for Naval vs Land Based Artillery
engagements.
Anyone who has tested this knows that naval gunfire is way overpowered in terms of its effects
on land based artillery/entrenchments/forts , and that land based artillery has very little effect on
most ships.
Naval vessels treated land based artillery with great respect for good reason , butone of IL2s
greatest failings is the absolute supremacy of ship gunfire against the land to the point of
being ridiculous.
I don't know if anything can be done to address this , but if there is it would be a massive step
forward in terms of accurate simulation.
Keep up the interesting work !
Kopfdorfer
You have identified most of the key issues here.
The closer together vehicles are the number of collisions at bottlenecks increases, so you have the situation where vehicles are rear-ending each other and the entire convoy stops until the individual vehicles sort themselves out. Of course this is fairly realistic when a convoy has been attacked and a knocked out vehicle is blocking things. Unfortunately this also occurs during normal travel as well i.e. at bridges, towns, or even when the road passes through trees. This can also happen on clear roads if large vehicles, especially with trailers, are close together (I earlier quoted the example of the Soviet missile columns I added to JTW in BAT 4.3). 20-30m spacing seems to address most of these problems reasonably effectively.
The default convoys in il2 also tend to have a large number of individual vehicles included, and this frequently leads to an entire convoy taking an age to even get moving in the game. I have found that 8-10 vehicles per convoy is about optimal, and this is reflected in the new convoys I added to JTW. Any more than that things get ridiculously unwieldy.
Regarding ships - indeed their power against land targets is verging on fantasy - a couple of cruisers in il2 could virtually wipe out a large town with a couple of salvos. This is compounded by ship-to-ship combat, which is precisely the opposite. For the most part naval actions go like this: miss by thousands of yards with shells falling all over the battle area, then suddenly find the target and wipe out a battleship with one well-placed salvo! Unfortunately I suspect that this behaviour is hard-coded - I see nothing in technics.ini which could address this.
Yours,
Clive