notes_bases

Groups, Stations & Squadrons

If a Group is operating a mixture of aircraft types, its serviceability is reduced: multiply the FA0 probability by the square root of the largest fraction (e.g. if a Group has 64 Lancs and 36 Stirlings, pFA0 for both is scaled by 80%).  Note that Halifax I and III are considered different types (mainly on account of the engines).

Stations mostly start out as grass strips and are only later paved.  Heavy bombers need concrete airfields to carry their full load — otherwise capwt and range are both reduced (to 75% and 80% respectively).  Also, unpaved airfields can operate in a narrower range of weather conditions (if the weather model ever gets good enough to support a feature like that).  If a Station is operating a mixture of aircraft types, its serviceability is reduced: multiply the FA0 probability by the square root of the largest fraction (e.g. if a Station has 20 Lancs and 16 Stirlings, pFA0 for both is scaled by 74.5%, on top of the Group penalty).  A Station can support a maximum of 40 aircraft (four flights, two squadrons).

Paving a station can only be done while it is unoccupied.  From 17 Sep 1940, the player can start selecting stations to be upgraded to Wartime Design standard (concrete hardstandings, runways and perimeter track), taking 48 days per station.

Squadrons can have either two or three flights (of nominally 10 aircraft each).  A new two-flight squadron can be formed by splitting off the C flight of an existing three-flight squadron and posting in sprogs to fill it up (the new squadron will take 7 days to work up); a two-flight squadron can be grown to three flights.  A squadron may be disbanded, causing its crews to be pooled for the Group's replacements (instead of sprogs).  A squadron may be remustered (moved) to another airfield, which will take it out of the front line for 7 days if staying in the same Group, 14 days otherwise.  A squadron may not operate a mixture of aircraft types; it must switch all at once to the new type, which will take it out of the front line for 21 days (28 if the new type is HEAVY; 14 if the new type is related to the old).  While a squadron is out of the front line, its aircrews will train with their aircraft, albeit more slowly than on dedicated Training Units.

Squadrons receive a number, purely for UI purposes and fluff.  Numbers are randomly selected from the range 1-699, with a preference for reforming previously disbanded squadrons.  (Implementation note: a stack, shuffled at start of game and with the startpoint's used numbers removed.)

Aircraft and crews are laid out against flights' nominal establishments; normally, neither moves once it has a home unless pushed (squadron disbanded or, for aircraft, squadron converted or aircraft sent to Training Unit) in which case aircraft may move anywhere but crews only within the group.  (This replaces the previous behaviour where crews could get re-assigned to aircraft any time that was necessary to add an aircraft to a raid.)

Crews can be 'pulled' from an unserviceable aircraft to another (serviceable) aircraft within a squadron, in one of two ways.  Members of an incomplete crew may be pilfered to fill gaps; whereas a complete crew will stay intact and the entire crew will swap aircraft.  (This ensures that complete crews will generally remain together until members become tour-expired.)

Extended plans:
* Track morale of Groups and individual Squadrons based on their loss records.  (Re-equipping a Squadron with a new type can somewhat perk up low morale.  TODO figure out a way to determine if they should think the new type is 'better', so you can't just switch back and forth between two obsolete types and keep the aircrews happy.)
* Add a reserve aircraft to each flight (that is, the nominal establishment of airframes is one more than that of aircrews), to account for serviceability.