Major Fenrirs P-38 Campaign - Testing

[Sid]

1 hour ago, delta7 said:

proposed settings prior to take off and not go full tilt. 

Engine management in GBS has been a learning process since it came out and I think we are now getting the hang of it.

What has been happening for some months now is that when asked for engine settings the reply has been to use the 'Cruise' figures quoted in the Pilot's Notes found here. The figures contained in the Notes have been replicated on the crib sheet mod found in the cockpit (the one that replaces the tottie picture). An example of this would be 2,600 RPM and 44 inches on the Manifold pressure dial on the P38, these dials being found on the right of the instrument panel at the top on this aircraft. Whilst on some aircraft this may work out as what we knew as '80 - 80' in the '46 days unfortunately this no longer applies for optimum performance at cruise settings. I know these RPM and Manifold pressure figures as the 'Standard' settings. The majority of German aircraft have only the 'ata' pressure gauge that needs to be monitored...this is usually running at 1.15 for cruise but does differ.

What has been happening recently is that, as the P38 is being used more intimately, these standard cruise settings aren't always used. I have noticed that when climbing out and awaiting the formation to assemble over the airfield these settings are reduced to 2,300 RPM and 30 inches to allow for a gentle steady climb and to give pilots towards the rear the opportunity to use the standard settings, or a little bit more in accordance with the crib sheet, to catch up. Fen and Painless are used to these settings and call them out when making changes so in conjunction with Fen's method of cutting the corner he mentioned above hopefully we can all pick up on this and adjust our settings for catching up.

With the P38, for optimal setting, mixture can be set at 70% when on the ground and generally left there.

Hope that helps.

[FoolTrottel]

Indeed good show over all.

Our coms do need attention, setup the use of whispers... 

Have created to sub channels on our TS server for this Campaign: 402nd and 485th. (Would still need to set up individual whispers, and not to a channel me thinks? Hm, should be able to assign a channel-leader? Oh well, let's keep it simple)

And a bit radio discipline: For this campaign, once you're out of the cockpit, one should not talk on radio, as one is not close enough to it  (Not too sure whether it did occur this session, but it's an immersion killer for me to hear a dead/crashed/landed pilot on the radio, using external views to tell another pilot 'he's on your six' .... )

It is a good idea to do this as a regular on a Sunday, was funny to see everybody dragged into the Red channel  Well, except for Artie who left TS. Still, I'm always gonna be a bit concerned we are leaving people out, who then have to fly a coop on their own...

Now should we make this a regular or semi regular event, do we need to set a start time to go for? Not sure if that is possible, but would be good.

[Painless]

I know Tomski cannot guarantee always being available on a Sunday evening for GBS because the selfish bugger wants to be a good husband and father plus fly DCS whenever he can...... unbelievable I know !!! 
🤣

[DD_Fenrir]

1 hour ago, Sid said:

... when asked for engine settings the reply has been to use the 'Cruise' figures quoted in the Pilot's Notes found here. The figures contained in the Notes have been replicated on the crib sheet mod found in the cockpit (the one that replaces the tottie picture). An example of this would be 2,600 RPM and 44 inches on the Manifold pressure dial on the P38, these dials being found on the right of the instrument panel at the top on this aircraft.

What has been happening recently is that, as the P38 is being used more intimately, these standard cruise settings aren't always used. I have noticed that when climbing out and awaiting the formation to assemble over the airfield these settings are reduced to 2,300 RPM and 30 inches to allow for a gentle steady climb and to give pilots towards the rear the opportunity to use the standard settings, or a little bit more in accordance with the crib sheet, to catch up. Fen and Painless are used to these settings and call them out when making changes so in conjunction with Fen's method of cutting the corner he mentioned above hopefully we can all pick up on this and adjust our settings for catching up.

'Cruise' is something of a misnomer here - and not Siddly's fault either I should add.

The fact is it is better to generally interpret WW2 engines to have these discrete power bands:

 

War Emergency Power - Max everything! Generally a very tight limit of time use. In the P-38J this is 3,000 RPM and 60" with a 5 minute limit

Combat - a sustained high power output that even in best circumstances generates more heat than the cooling system will be able to dissipate but  has been calculated to provide sufficient for typical time periods of combat. In the P-38J this is 3,000 RPM and 54" with a 15 minute limit

Max Continuous - the maximal power that you can run the engines at for indefinitely - or as long as you have fuel. In the P-38J this is 2,700 RPM and 46" with no time limit

Cruise - a power setting reduced from the above that combines the best compromise between fuel consumption and airspeed. In the P-38J this is around 2,200-2,400 RPM and 35" with no time limit

Economy Cruise - a power setting much reduced that priorities fuel economy above all other considerations.  In the P-38J this is around 1,800-2,000 RPM and 30" with no time limit

 

The setting Sid quotes of 2,600 @ 44" is more a maximum continuous setting (As an aside you will find you can actually run the P-38 at 2,700 and 46" and not break into combat power, hence the figures I give you above).

Now, as single players (non-fomating) that's fine you can cruise at that setting as long as you like. No one to follow, no-one following you. Easy!

However, as a flight lead or formation pilot, if you stayed at that no bugger could catch you unless they went to Combat Power. And then, when you eventually did find some trouble, all your wingmen would be buggering off with damaged engines because those time limits are hard in GBS.

What this means is, if you use your engine in Combat mode for 14 minutes catching up to your leader, even if you throttle back, you do not get any recovery on that engine. You will therefore have only 1 whole minute using it in actual combat before you suffer some engine damage and are forced to withdraw.

Leaders, when cruising to or from target in flight you MUST avoid going to full cruise mode - you NEED to give your wingmen some RPM and Throttle "headroom" to make adjustments without having to resort to combat power.

Wingmen, avoid going into Combat Power to catch your leaders at all costs. Use Max Continuous (2,700RPM @46") at the most.

[rox]

Had a great experience yesterday, everything went smoothly apart from a few barely noticeable stutters/rubber banding spikes. Radio was a bit chaotic at times but I've seen worse. If we get shot down during the mission to the extent that we need to consolidate comms into one channel, I'm sure someone can move us around in teamspeak. The game minimizes really well for me and I don'0t have VR, for me it would literally be a matter of 4-5 seconds.

 

Thanks for the links Tom.

[DD_Fenrir]

Some interesting footage from the real P-38s of the 370th FG:

 

[DD_Fenrir]

This chap flew with 401st Squadron:

 

[Painless]

What an amazing escape he had , wow !

[Crash]

PWCG 8.8.0 now available and it looks like some bugs have been fixed

Lots of good stuff for coop in this one.  

 

PWCG 8.8.0
Consolidated coop mode
- No more split modes with different capabilities
- Can now do anything in one mode
- Improved briefing to allow complete switching between player flights
- Updated AAR to allow either with or without claims for coop
Added out of mission victory tab to AAR
Now allowed to reduce fuel to 40%
Set fuel in air starts by aircraft type
Spread time between missions for historical activity/inactivity
Reduced weight in bombers/ground attack to use lighter loads
Bugs
- Fixed pilots in mission missing from AAR
- Fixed duplicate planes lost report in AAR
- Fixed no artillery when simple ground config is high
- Fixed missions flown doubling
- Fixed issue that could cause flight not to generate if no opposition found for Ai slight
- Changed P40 skin config to not use other than winter

[DD_Fenrir]

Hello Dave, saw this and updated earlier. Ran a test mission for myself and an AI and all was well. AAR pushed through cleanly and went to next day, so looking positive. Will try a multiplayer test tomorrow eve.

[Crash]

Jolly good show

[Painless]

Up for that Major Tom.

[Friar]

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Picked up this hefty tome, arrived Thursday:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/370TH-FIGHTER-GROUP-WORLD-WAR/dp/0764317792

Some seriously eye opening stuff regards tactical fighter bomber operations in the ETO. The losses are sobering yet there are also stories of incredible bravery, downright recklessness and stories of monumental luck, both good and bad.

One little gem of note that was of particular interest to me was the discovery of the radio callsigns for our respective campaign squadrons:

402 - "Leakage"

485 - "Zenith"

Think you got the better deal on that one Mick!

[Painless]

My guys are double glazed over and your’s have rising damp ? 🙄 That should put the wind up them Teutonic/ Suebian/ Gothic types 🤗

[DD_Arthur]

Enjoyed tonight very, very much indeed Tom.   Thank you for all your hard work in putting this together.  I got the plane back okay but seem to have written my trousers off over the target

 

[DD_Fenrir]

6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Enjoyed tonight very, very much indeed Tom.   Thank you for all your hard work in putting this together.  I got the plane back okay but seem to have written my trousers off over the target

 

Christ on a bike mate, I nearly shat myself just watching the play back! 

[Friar]

@Arthur is your game that dark? I did stay above the clouds where it was lighter but would it make that difference?

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, Friar said:

@Arthur is your game that dark? I did stay above the clouds where it was lighter but would it make that difference?

In my headset it's fine but in replays that have been uploaded to Youtube it can seem darker than it actually was.  I think it's a gamma setting thing.  

[Crash]

Did the mission AAR run ok? I really must not fly into the ground at a great rate of knots. My new pilot will be Joe Walsh, and when he is dead I will be James Hendrix, followed by John Mayer

[Painless]

Great fun Tom !
We are getting a little better each time so that needs to stop before we end up looking competent. 

[DD_Fenrir]

Alas it did not Crash.

Couple of settings I need to change - currently the maximum injury a co-op pilot can receive is "serious injury" so despite lawn darting PWCG claims you survived, albeit in a pretty poor state. I know where to address this and will change so that should the worst happen to your virtual pilot, it will be reflected accordingly in PWCG and a new personae required to be adopted.

As for the claims - it all appeared to be going well, better than the previous attempts as I was able to assign the appropriate type kills to those who claimed this time. However, whilst all air-to-ground kills were logged successfully all of our air-to-air claims were denied by PWCG! 

I suspect this is a procedural error on my part and there a questions regarding when the mission log files are created, finalised, referenced by PWCG and whether they get deleted as soon as my server rotates to the next mission. I'm investigating.

I flew another test mission after as a solo human with a few AIs, changing the way I went about the logging procedure mission finish and it seemed happier. Another test required with more multiplayer participants!

I have reset the campaign and all participant details, so no deaths or scores were carried over from last night. 

On a plus note my new 401st FS to allow for Thor, Hunter, Ovy and TOADs participation has seemed to have taken this time around and at the airfield adjacent Micks 485th Airfield at Le Culot, so some positives from doing this.

[DD_Fenrir]

Generic skins for all available squadrons, here:

I have made the 401st and 485th Squadron skins myself; for now you guys have just a Natural Metal version. Will get to Olive Drab variants of these at a later date.

You will need all of these, not just those of your squadron.

[Crash]

Thank you

[FoolTrottel]

They are in ChkSkins now as well  - three of them were already, two have been added just now.

11-05-20 17:40:00 Added to upload list: >P38J25\P38J25_401st_FS.dds<
11-05-20 17:40:00 Added to upload list: >P38J25\P38J25_485th_FS.dds<