What planest do you expect/hope to see from the Solomons expansion?

[Squeaky]

As a Brit I am sadly ignorant of the Pacific air war but always eager to learn and fly some often overlooked aircraft. Google is failing me so what do you hope to see in the Solomons expansion? How about the collector planes that Jason mentioned they are looking at?

[Major Lee]

The Corsair and variants, will be extremely important there. 

[Boba Fett]

In addition to the likely Midway lineup, you will need to add, at a glance;

On the Allied side you will need F4U-1 and 1A's, P400's (P-39), P-38's, TBF Avengers, and more Wildcats. On the Japanese side you will need A6m2-m5's, G4M Betty's, and a variety of seaplanes. Depending on the scope of the map and time period you could add Commonwealth aircraft and Ki-61's if New Guinea is included.

Plus a variety of multi-engine bombers, transports, and auxiliary aircraft.

[PabloSniper]

I only have 3 letters to show. AVG ☺️

[Mysticpuma]

B-25

[Props]

46 minutes ago, PabloSniper said:

I only have 3 letters to show. AVG ☺️

Sorry, wrong combat theater. That would be Burma and a long way off in the grand scheme of things here I would imagine. Not that it wouldn't be fun, but I wager we'll get a PNG set before than and then we'll get to fly plenty of P-40s.

 

[bangat]

P-38 would be great. just building a cockpit for it, and I plan to make it a small limited series of 50, hoping Combat pilot will have P-38 as well.

Everything will be FFB (even the throttle quadrant).

[Sobilak]

F4;

- F-4

- U-1A

[Mysticpuma]

If we don't get it for the initial release of CP, I really hope the Solomon's have a flyable B-25. Bombing, skip bombing and strafing were all carried out by that aircraft, and if there is a possibility of it being multi-player/multi crew that would be exceptional.

BUT....this sim will need a B-25 and I can't wait for that to happen 🙂

 

https://www.thearmorylife.com/b-25-mitchell/

https://www.asisbiz.com/il2/B-25/PTO.html

 

 

[Feldgrün]

Edited December 3, 2024 by Feldgrün

[Feldgrün]

[GrungyMonkey]

The model 22 gets so little attention, but from what I've read the increased performance, firing time, and range gave much needed breathing room to the pilots at Guadalcanal

[HBPencil]

On 10/19/2024 at 4:33 AM, Squeaky said:

As a Brit I am sadly ignorant of the Pacific air war but always eager to learn and fly some often overlooked aircraft. Google is failing me so what do you hope to see in the Solomons expansion? How about the collector planes that Jason mentioned they are looking at?

The Solomons campaign ran from August '42 right to the end of the war (if one counts Bougainville as part of the Solomons theatre even though it's technically part of PNG) so the plane set really depends on what time frame the expansion covers, although it'll likely never be any later than February '44 when the Japanese pulled their air forces out of Rabaul.
However a good rule of thumb is that both sides used all major types of maritime aircraft, whether they be carrier capable or not, including seaplanes. The army air forces of both sides also operated in the Solomons but it differed in that for the IJA it was relatively limited while the USAAF effort was large and sustained. The RNZAF saw lots of of action in the Solomons even though their numbers were tiny compared to what the US and Japan were fielding, needless to say I'd love to be able to fly a Kiwi P-40 campaign! 😀 Also late in the war the RAAF was active over Bougainville with the Boomerang and Wirraway army co-operation aircraft.

If the devs go with the most famous period of the campaign (in the west at least) during the battle for Guadalcanal with the Cactus Air Force as the outnumbered plucky underdogs then they could use most(?) of the aircraft from the Midway base game and then add some extras/collectors as they see fit, however the map may be a limitation as at that time there were few airfields in the theatre so the Japanese were flying huge distances from Rabaul and Buka which I suspect would not translate to engaging game play. A mid-late 1943 expansion would provide a lot more aircraft types and airfields but would be less famous (so less marketable I assume?) and mean more work for the devs.

[Boom]

Solomons is a very interesting area of operations. Depending on the time period (which ranges from December 1941 to late 1944) a unique number of types flew missions in the Chain. The usual characters are the A6M2, A6M3, A6M5, F4F, F6F, F4U, SBD, Val, G4M, P-38, P-40 (NZ) TBM and P-39.

Less well known, but highly interesting are the CAC Wirraway and Boomerang, Ki-43, A5M, PBY (both RAAF and US), B-17, B-25, Hudson and Ventura bombers, C-47, OS2U,C5M, A6M2-N, H6k, H8K  and almost all other Japan float planes at one time or another.

[Cloyd]

F4F-3 please?

[Gambit21]

Catalina, J2F Duck, Mavis, Emily, Rufe, Pete

[TP_Sparky]

On 12/4/2024 at 5:09 PM, Boom said:

Solomons is a very interesting area of operations. Depending on the time period (which ranges from December 1941 to late 1944) a unique number of types flew missions in the Chain. The usual characters are the A6M2, A6M3, A6M5, F4F, F6F, F4U, SBD, Val, G4M, P-38, P-40 (NZ) TBM and P-39.

Less well known, but highly interesting are the CAC Wirraway and Boomerang, Ki-43, A5M, PBY (both RAAF and US), B-17, B-25, Hudson and Ventura bombers, C-47, OS2U,C5M, A6M2-N, H6k, H8K  and almost all other Japan float planes at one time or another.

Operating prominently in the Solomons early on was the P-400, the P-39 derivative produced for the Brits but instead incorporated into the USAAF. Aside from different gauge markings, the P-400 had the British oxygen system, incompatible with US equipment, so pilots flew, IIRC, without supplemental oxygen, which was a handicap at anything but low level.

 

Edited December 7, 2024 by TP_Sparky

[Calos_01]

On 12/7/2024 at 6:08 AM, TP_Sparky said:

Aside from different gauge markings

It reminds me of: "British and Americans, separated by a common language" 🙂 (I´m looking at it from the continental perspective :-))

[Ken Stallings]

On 12/6/2024 at 7:13 PM, Gambit21 said:

Catalina, J2F Duck, Mavis, Emily, Rufe, Pete

The PBY Catalina is often overlooked, but objective analysis shows that in terms of total ship tonnage sank, the Cat was the most effective (lethal) Allied aircraft flown in the PTO.  The famous Black Cats performed a truly deadly mission to interdict the Tokyo Express resupply sorties sailed out of Rabaul.  Using onboard radar, the Cats would fly at around 5,000 feet in an aircraft painted matte black.  The radar would acquire the ships and the pilots would throttle back to idle and dive down silently.  Given they were over the ocean, the altitude indicated on the altimeter was all that was needed to determine height above the ship that the radar operator vectored the pilot on.  At the optimal altitude and distance, a high intensity forward aimed searchlight was turned on, and almost always the ship was positively ID'd, leading within seconds to bombs being released with a fusillade of machine gun fire.

The attacks were almost always successful because the Japanese on the ships could not hear the Cats and so the first warning they got was the searchlight blinding them, followed by the machine gun fire that flayed the deck, and then the roar of the two engines as the pilot cobbed full power to pull out of the shallow dive, release the bomb, and fly away.  When the bomb detonated, the ships were often destroyed and the crews rarely even got an accurate shot off.

[Mysticpuma]

29 minutes ago, Ken Stallings said:

The PBY Catalina is often overlooked, but objective analysis shows that in terms of total ship tonnage sank, the Cat was the most effective (lethal) Allied aircraft flown in the PTO.  The famous Black Cats performed a truly deadly mission to interdict the Tokyo Express resupply sorties sailed out of Rabaul.  Using onboard radar, the Cats would fly at around 5,000 feet in an aircraft painted matte black.  The radar would acquire the ships and the pilots would throttle back to idle and dive down silently.  Given they were over the ocean, the altitude indicated on the altimeter was all that was needed to determine height above the ship that the radar operator vectored the pilot on.  At the optimal altitude and distance, a high intensity forward aimed searchlight was turned on, and almost always the ship was positively ID'd, leading within seconds to bombs being released with a fusillade of machine gun fire.

The attacks were almost always successful because the Japanese on the ships could not hear the Cats and so the first warning they got was the searchlight blinding them, followed by the machine gun fire that flayed the deck, and then the roar of the two engines as the pilot cobbed full power to pull out of the shallow dive, release the bomb, and fly away.  When the bomb detonated, the ships were often destroyed and the crews rarely even got an accurate shot off.

Have a read through this DD thread. There were a lot of good suggestions made about Catalina missions 👍