Effect of Defective Radios On Team Tactics
 

I have read that Japanese and Russian aircraft radios were notoriously unreliable during the Second World War. This must have greatly affected how pilots fought as individuals as well as overall unit effectiveness. I have read, in fact, that in some cases defective radios were actually removed from aircraft to reduce their weight. I wonder if simulating these communication problems would make the AI even more realistic offline - and I am not sure what to suggest about the online game.

Only if they could also simulate hand signals and gestures between the player and the AI, which were much used by pilots in RL during the war whose aircraft had dodgy radios. These were also pretty novel at the start of the war. The Germans didn't get VHF until 1942 or thereabouts from memory.

There is still no option if you're number two and number one has been shot down, to tell three and four who formate on the player to do anything at all, radios or not.

So can we have smoke from oil tanks in the aftermath to an explosion ?

Is it possible to have the P-40L?

From what I understand, if the P-40F were to be modelled then the P-40L could be as well with no visual changes (that I can tell) required. Just a slight change in FM with the reduction of some weight.

Apparently it made very little difference to overall performance.

Some charts on these types would probably be useful.

+1

There are at least 5 parts to this request, some of which are more difficult than others.

1) No ability to communicate with AI if you don't have a radio. Radio messages disabled and no ability to command AI unless you're within 50 meters or so of another plane (reflecting use of hand signals and signs), or you drop a flare and the other planes can see it.

The first part is fairly easy. A distance requirement is almost as easy. Getting AI to react to flares or other external signals is much trickier.

2) "No radio and radio masts" added as load-out option to reduce weight and slightly boost performance.

Probably reasonably easy to do.

3) Radio damage added to DM. Damage to radio usually results in "Radio Destroyed," but sometimes "send only" or "receive only."

Probably easy to do.

4) No "radio" for online players who are flying planes without radios. But, this would have to be implemented at the server level and would require that communications between players be run through the server, which would be very complex and might impact server speed. Also, it would be virtually impossible to prevent audio communication between players via third-party programs such as TeamSpeak.

A load of work, probably for no good purpose.

5) Changes in AI group tactics based on presence/absence of a radio on a particular plane.

A load of work, but would need to be fitted into progressive overhauls of AI performance.

6) Radio reliability. Radios fail randomly.

Easy to implement, but possibly part of a larger "random equipment failure" package.

7) Radio signals fade with range.

Probably not that hard to implement, but lots of data collection would be needed regarding ranges for historical radio equipment.

8) Radio jamming. Ground stations and/or ECM aircraft have the ability to jam radio communications. This was an important tactic during the war, especially for foiling ground-directed nightfighters. A related feature would be the problem of people "stepping on" a particular radio frequency - jamming up the airwaves so that other people using the same frequency can't communicate. Rookie pilots were particularly prone to causing this problem in combat.

A big project, requiring a lot of study of period radio technology and ECM/ECCM tactics. But, a welcome addition to any add-on which focuses on nightfighters and night-bombing.

9) Historical modeling of radio frequencies. Planes often carried several radios and had the ability to switch between multiple frequencies to communicate. Due to the limitations of the technology, however, not all frequencies were available using the same radio set.

Currently, IL2 only allows you to listen to all friendly or all enemy aircraft and only communicate with squadron-mates. It doesn't require you to mess around with radio dials to find the right frequency to communicate with different squadrons or listen in on specific enemy frequencies, nor does it allow you to communicate with the enemy. (Yes, this happened, most famously, when Greg Boyington spoiled a Japanese ambush by misreporting his squadron's actual altitude and position to a "friendly" but suspicious-sounding ground control station.)

A hell of a lot of work, requiring a lot of study of period radio technology and modeling radio equipment in every cockpit/navigator station in the game.

10) Intercom communication. Multi-crew planes had some sort of intercom system. Effective use of this system was an essential part of a bomber's defensive tactics. It was so important that loss of the intercom system was considered a legitimate reason for U.S. bomber crews to abort a mission.

Currently, IL2 only allows limited commands from the tailgunner to the pilot, but not between gunners, or from the pilot to other crew.

A hell of a lot of work, possibly requiring gunner stations to be reworked to include functional intercom controls, and revising (or writing code for) AI multi-crew plane behavior to reflect (lack of) communication between crew. New commands would also be needed from crew to pilot and vice-versa.

It almost sounds like it could be modeled as a load-out option rather than a different plane with its own FM, DM and slot.

Maybe. Not sure if that would do everything needed doing but maybe.

With the L and the N one armament option would be to remove two .50cals and ammo for even more light weight performance. This was commonly done although many were reverted back to 6 .50cal standard in the field.

Didn't the L have a reprofiled tail fin of larger area (plus a fillet?) in an attempt to mitigate some of the the stability issues of the 'short fuselage, big engine' P-40s? IIRC these stability issues were why they ultimately stretched the fuselage in the M & N. I'll dig up America's 100,000 and have a squiz tonight.

Since the P-40 is getting some love, it might also be worth checking whether there were any uniquely Soviet or British/Commonwealth load-outs.

Certainly, some of the early P-40/Hawk 81 series were armed with just British armament and ordinance. This might have been true for later ones as well. Also, I believe that it was typical for Soviet P-40s to be equipped with Soviet ordinance although they kept the U.S. guns.