External drop-tank fuel not accounted correctly.

[xvii-Dietrich]

Problem

 

In the DCS warehouse system, the external fuel for the FW 190 A8 is not accounted for correctly. What this means is that a drop tank fuel does not go into the warehouse on return, nor does it take from the warehouse fuel when it is fitted to the aircraft. It is always assumed to be full.

 

How to replicate

 

 

• Put an FW 190 A8 on an airfield, fitted with 100% fuel and 1 300L droptank.
  
• Set that airfield in the mission editor to have 1 drop tank, 1 FW 190 A8, and, say, 1t of gasoline. Note, there are three "300L tanks"... it is the 3rd one, which is used by the FW 190 A8. See attached image.
  
• Turn off the "unlimited supply" so that the quantities are accounted for.
  
• Start the mission and select the A8. Use F10 map and click on the airfield icon, then select resources. The fuel state will show 0.6t gasoline. That means that 0.4t went into the aircraft. That's good.
  
• Now, select the Rearm-refuel option. Set the fuel to 5%, but leave the drop tank on. Wait until this is done (use time acceleration to make this bearable!)
  
• Once done, switch on the external drop tank fuel pump. Again wait. Fuel will transfer from the external tank to the internal rear tank. You can select the rear-tank-fuel indicator to watch this transfer happen.
  
• Once done, Rearm-refuel again. The internal fuel will show 53% or so. Again drain this to 5%, but this time remove the external tank. Accept and wait.
  
• Rearm and refuel again, but with 5% and drop tank. And wait. A new full drop tank will be fitted. Even though you put an empty one back into the warehouse, the new one will NOT take fuel from the warehouse, but will simply be fitted to the aircraft completely full.
  

You can do this last couple of steps repeatedly to create fuel from nothing in the warehouse.

 

The mission I used to do this test is attached.

 

Why is this important?

 

In the latter stages of the war, fuel and trained pilots was more critical to the Luftwaffe than aircraft numbers or performance. While we cannot affect pilot training, we can affect fuel. In order to create missions that reflect this historical situation, having restricted fuel supplies at airfields is very important. When this mechanism does not work in DCS, this scenario breaks down.

 

Also...

 

I suspect this issue might affect all external fuel tanks in DCS. I tried the same thing with a Ka50 and in no time could create tons of fuel from nothing, just by equipping the tanks, defuelling-de-equipping them, and repeating.

 

 

Thank you.

test-fw190a8-fuel-tanks_v01.miz

[philstyle]

Or is this a Normandy map problem? (would not surprise me)

[xvii-Dietrich]

Or is this a Normandy map problem? (would not surprise me)

 

I've just tried it with the FW 190 A-8 on the Caucasus map. Same problem there too.