Bomber Command accuracy in .57

[Johntxic]

Is it just me, or are Bomber Command finding it much harder to locate their targets? Since the update, only about 1 in 8 are hitting the mark.

That's almost as bad as 1941.

[simovitch]

.57 actually fixed a bug that should help BC find their targets so I'm interested to see what others think.

[mark dolby]

I find now that BC LR targets such as Prague and Leipzig have a few more misses but short to medium targets are just as accurate before .

[Johntxic]

Here is the latest communique from the Air Ministry covering air operations on the night of 25th/26th January 1944:

i. 205 Gp Halifax II raid on Meidling. 16,500ft Weather clear. Absolute shambles - 178PFF on target, others miles away. 37 Sqn dropped its bombs to the west of Krems

ii. Mosquito BIV raid on Oberlahnstein - 23,500ft Weather clear - wizard prang

iii. 1 Gp Lancaster raid on BMW Barsdorf, led by 156Sqn PFF. 16,500ft Weather clear. Wizard prang.

iv. 3 Gp Stirling III raid on DB Genshagen, led by 97 Sqn. 16,500ft Weather clear. 97 Sqn missed the target, 90 & 149 bombed Berlin and 622 Templehof.

Better than my previous effort...

[Nimrod84]

I've found the BC and 205 missions to be noticeably less accurate and with less damage done (greater dispersion) but experience has been limited to three nights with units ranging from the Ruhr to Berlin and that city with the 60 rubber industry and slightly further south east. The lower accuracy seems true for both area & industry bombing and NI missions. 205 hasn't done a ton but its accuracy has seemed a little worse than average, but accuracy has always been low with them, but the NIs in the MED seem pretty solid on their routes.

Part of the lack in accuracy may be the relatively small sample size of three nights and bad rolls, but I highly suspect that my old unit ranking calculations aren't relevant anymore and it is thus a bit of user error on my part. I've been running 70+ xp and 70+ moral bombing units to reduce dispersion and plowing up fields. I'm guessing the new calculations would have a 79 xp 55 moral unit do better than a 70 xp 80 moral unit. My experience in the past was that 80+ moral and 16%+ moonlight was king for accuracy. In the .57 patch, 617 squadron with 84+ xp and moral has hit aluminum industry targets (by the 60 cap rubber industry) twice with low damage done (2% and I think 3% or 4%).

Time frame is mid October 43 with high levels of light (16-24%) and moderate to heavy cloud cover - about 30-50% of the time the weather seems to have been clear at the target site. Been running experiments pre and post .57 patch (per https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 9&t=370165) trying to get the Mossies to attack airfields and each night had two+ major bombing streams (starburst attacks per Kaybay) planned to get the Owls up, its been disappointing with only one airfield attack with no damage done. But the Mossie streams have gotten a few in the air / landing - so I'm still checking things out.

I really appreciate all the work you guys have done over the years, it sure is a great simulation. FYI - purchased once the production system interface was overhauled by HS and the team a few years ago and I own the Talonsoft BOB version of what is now Eagle Day.

[simovitch]

205 Group do not have oboe or gee and very limited H2S sets in 1943 so they don't do so well at accuracy without good moonlight. BC needs to operate within oboe and gee range from England until H2S/H2X is prevalent to improve accuracy.

Flying in some mossie bombers to light up the target at low altitude just ahead of the raid will help, and their speed will lower the FlaK losses at lower altitudes.

Keep up the reporting on night bombing, it is helpful.

[Nimrod84]

205 Group do not have oboe or gee and very limited H2S sets in 1943 so they don't do so well at accuracy without good moonlight. BC needs to operate within oboe and gee range from England until H2S/H2X is prevalent to improve accuracy.

Flying in some mossie bombers to light up the target at low altitude just ahead of the raid will help, and their speed will lower the FlaK losses at lower altitudes.

Keep up the reporting on night bombing, it is helpful.

Understood and thank you for the reply. Just to repeat, I think what I'm seeing is a different calculation system that will take me some time to get used to - so this isn't a complaint on my end, just a reporting of information.

I started a new game to test out 205 (1943). Pre-patch, if I didn't use their pathfinder Halifax I would normally get 1 or 2 groups to hit Turin with a mission run within the first 4 or so days (high light). In the patched game, they've whiffed on Rome twice with only one group hitting and weather, lighting were pretty good and their was little opposition.

The Mossies have been doing pretty well on their high altitude diversion raids on Hamburg and Berlin, so I'll keep your suggested usage in mind; have tried twice pre-patch but losses were heavier on the following bomber streams. Normal approach has been to run northern routes as diversion and NI over the airfields and the Ruhr, Berlin, Vienna triangle is the target zone.

BC I run with Strils and Wilms from the Ruhr out to the northern small cities with U-boat factories (distraction raids). They have been missing the Ruhr cities on several runs post-patch. With few bombs falling within city limits - fighter opposition and flak has been increasing but the last two runs the majority had been well rested with 90+ moral.

Lancs and Halifax's are always H2S lead. My last run of just under 200 Halifaxs on Cologne with a couple of Lancs star-bursting in the Ruhr resulted in plowed fields to the north and two groups nicking Tronsidorf to the south east. Cologne was totally missed; likely user error on my part as one of the path-finding Lanc groups (I think 405) dropped way west of the target and diverted the Halifaxs. Everyone missed, with 3 pathfinding H2S equipped squadrons and 80+ moral for all groups.

I'm also noticing a very wide dispersion on a handful of Mossie ELINT, Halifax ECMs and Wilm Window runners - every large ECM stream (i.e. running a couple of streams along with singletons at different times to cover a large BC stream) seems to have 1 or 2 of them that go 30ish miles away from the target location and the stream. The other ECM runners in the stream do well and stay in the anticipated 10 or so mile dispersion range. I think this is working as designed, as individual pilots xp is being used to calculate their routes. Historically, if the first NI went awry all NIs setup using the follow command would go to the same location. Image of this should be attached / below, white circle is the general target point.

Screenshot (127).png (416.51 KiB) Viewed 1149 times

Main raid was canceled due to weather, ECM missions were flown though so it was easy to discern the odd Halifax ECM (pretty sure it was a Halifax ECM as he didn't drop any bombs on the sight seeing tour).

For what ever reason, if I update the game I tend to lose the city damage visualizations and the ability to modify the replay (like adding or take away clouds in the post battle phase would carry over to the replay.).

[simovitch]

For what ever reason, if I update the game I tend to lose the city damage visualizations and the ability to modify the replay (like adding or take away clouds in the post battle phase would carry over to the replay.).

I don't think the original Matrix version was ever able to modify clouds or visualize city damage in replay. Can someone verify this? Worthy of a fix either way, but the replay code is certainly a different animal.

[Johntxic]

Ops 29th/30th January 1944. Weather clear over target areas

i. Siren raid on Geissen by 627 Sqn LNSF; 23,500ft; bombs on target

ii. 109 Sqn raid (BXVI) on Witten Ruhrstahl; 18,500ft; ditto

iii. 1 Gp raid on DB Genshagen EFAC, led by 7 Sqn PFF; 18,500ft; absolute shambles. PFF dropped their markers 20 miles south of the target; 460 Sqn and 550 Sqn dropped their bombs in the north of the city - only 103 & 625 hit the target.

iv. 6 Gp raid on Dornier Wismar AFAC, led by 405 Sqn PFF: even worse! 405 missed; 408 & 426 (Lancaster II) miles away; 427 & 428 (Halifax V) missed. No bombs on target. Hat on and no coffee meeting with Harry Staish in the morning!

[Johntxic]

Bomber Command Ops 30th/31st January 1944


i. 3 Gp raid on Mechernich; Mosquito BIV; 23,500ft; target obscured, but bombs on target.

ii. LNSF raid on GWF Werk Bremen with 139 Sqn Mossie BIV; 18,500ft. Target 15% obscured. Missed.

iii. 4 Gp raid on Leipzig, led by 35 Sqn PFF; 16,500ft; 100% obscured. 35 Sqn & 578 Sqn (Mk III) on target; 78 Sqn & 466 Sqn (both Mk II) miles away.

iv. 4 Gp raid on Bitterfeld Aluminium, led by 51 Sqn (Mk III); 16,500ft; target clear. 51, 77 & 158 (all Mk III) missed.

v. 4 Gp raid on Junkers Flugzeugbau, led by 640 Sqn (Mk III); 16,500ft; target 33% obscured. 640 & 102 (Mk II) on target.

Wizard prang by 68 Sqn Beaus at Sachau; 4 Ju88s shot down.

[mark dolby]

A tale from the other side, all these raids were launched by an Allied AI on the '44 scenario. There were more raids to the end of April but you get the idea. Note, successful bombing includes targets hit other than the main one. I did not include any results from 205 group.

1/4/44 827 bombers to targets around the Rhur and Bonn. 24 Sqds miss and 23 sqds hit targets.
2/4/44 793 bombers to targets around the Rhur and Heidleberg. 27 sqds miss and 19 sqds hit targets.
3/4/44 748 bombers to Rhur targets. 5 sqds miss and 35 sqds hit targets.
4/4/44 428 bombers to Rhur targets. 3 sqds miss and 28 sqds hit targets.
13/4/44 1004 bombers to Mainz and Ludswighafen. 38 sqds miss and 20 sqds hit targets.
14/4/44 397 bombers to Braunschweig. 19 sqds miss and 8 sqds hit targets.
15/4/44 788 bombers to Bremen and Mannheim. 10 sqds miss and 42 sqds hit targets.
17/8/44 1107 bombers to Augsburg and Nurnberg. 23 sqds miss and 32 sqds hit targets.
18/4/44 126 bombers to Darmstadt. 1 sqd misses and 7 sqds hit targets.
19/4/44 398 bombers to Berlin and Rheine. 11 sqds miss and 19 sqds hit targets.
21/4/22 1317 bombers to Hamburg, Prague and Ludswighafen. 22 sqds miss and 24 sqds hit targets. All sqds to Prague missed.
22/4/44 605 bombers to Prague. 28 sqds miss and 10 sqds hit targets.
23/4/44 471 bombers to Berlin. 4 sqds miss and 26 sqds hit targets.

Overall the terror score in April went from 15 to 18.

Mark.

[Nimrod84]

I don't think the original Matrix version was ever able to modify clouds or visualize city damage in replay. Can someone verify this? Worthy of a fix either way, but the replay code is certainly a different animal.

Sorry, I was wrong on clouds. Replay showing city damage is shown below. City damage in replay isn't dynamic or updated during the replay. However if you look at the first picture I posted on August 31 (that screen shot was taken after an update) you'll see that their is no city damage represented in the replay while it is in the below screenshot. Periodically after updating the game, the city damage won't show in the planning phase. The damage representation tends to come back after updating the game if revert back to the original map and facilities template from the backup files... Hence the legacy map in the images.

Screenshot (131).png (494.91 KiB) Viewed 1045 times

Raid on Frankfort resulted in negligible damage on a roughly 200 Lanc / Halifax raid. Lead got the port on the south west and only two other groups hit the port. The airfield to the south was hit however. XP was 70+ on all groups and high moral 80+ for the vast majority of groups - I think two were in the 70 moral range. Moon was supposed to be up, but raid arrived a little early.

Screenshot (130).png (1.75 MiB) Viewed 1045 times

Below is an image from the latest raid on Berlin with decent light and weather. Stream was made up of all usable Halifax and Lancs and amounted to about 628ish AC I believe all groups were 70+ xp with most having 80+ moral. Damage was better than I've been getting and 405 (lead / pathfinder) dropped on target; but three groups went north, two groups went very far south (101 was the first to go south they were the farthest from Berlin. Post mission 101 group had 72xp and I believe 84 moral) and two groups just clipped the south east of Berlin. Target was the armament plant just south of the chem plant. Also, I still had that one Halifax ECM going on a sight seeing tour to the south and another that went north east of the city (ECM target was west of Berlin and about level with the northern limits).

Screenshot (133).png (1.7 MiB) Viewed 1045 times

Stirlings did well on a northern decoy run, out of the five or six groups only one missed the target. The target was the port the city with the 14 and 15 cap U-boat factories. What is notable to me is that they had no fighters in the area due to a late start, but rather heavy flak and they hit their target. When they've gone after the Ruhr they've been missing cities but their have been fighters about... So for what its worth, I think BC is playing like it should and each pilot's experience and fatigue is being used for determining the route... The ECM guys that consistently go off for 30+ miles are the few pilots with low xp (50s and 60s xp) and fatigue is killing their navigation capabilities. Likewise the bomb groups might be having issues due to fatigue and the evasive maneuvers that come from fighter interceptions.

So my takeaway is to keep a keen eye on and target the night fighters during the next week or three of missions.

[simovitch]

Good thread here. A couple of things:
"The damage representation tends to come back after updating the game if revert back to the original map and facilities template from the backup files... Hence the legacy map in the images." I have to beg to differ here. The map and facilities templates are graphic bitmaps and can not possibly have any impact on how urban damage, which is binary game data, is displayed or represented.

100 Group RCM units had limited night navigation capabilities. They were used for jamming and intelligence gathering so they didn't need to rely on pin-point targeting. The game does have them targeting things (with no bombs) which is fixed in the next patch.