NavB, NavS and ASW Skill Relations & PBY Op Losses

[Chad Harrison]

Hi all

Playing Scen 1 as the Allies, using latest Beta. Two questions:

1. What is the relation between NavB, NavS and ASW skills? My understanding, is NavS is your ability to spot/engage ships, ASW is your ability to spot/engage subs, and then NavB is your ability to actually hit them with your ordanance. *OR* is the ASW skill a single package deal: in other words, the ASW skill is what determines your ability to spot, engage and hit a sub.

To cut to the chase, if you want good skills for ASW duty, I have been training up NavS, ASW and NavB. Do I need all those? Or just ASW?

2. I am getting very high OP losses for my PBY's. I am averaging about 1 or 2 a day in early 1942. I am running them about 60 search/40 rest, random arcs, 12 range. That does not seem unreasonable. I am running my B-17's at 70/30, 14 range and only get a few OP losses in a month. Is there something that causes higher OP losses for PBY's? What settings do you use?

Thanks in advance

Chad

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

2. I am getting very high OP losses for my PBY's. I am averaging about 1 or 2 a day in early 1942. I am running them about 60 search/40 rest, random arcs, 12 range. That does not seem unreasonable. I am running my B-17's at 70/30, 14 range and only get a few OP losses in a month. Is there something that causes higher OP losses for PBY's? What settings do you use?

Thanks in advance

Chad

If you are only using one mission (in this case search), you don't need to bother setting the 'rest' percentage. It is useful in cases like you have the PBY group doing recon on a specific base, set search percentage, and want some of the group to rest (then you might set "Recon Truk, Search 50%, Rest 40%" just for example).

50% is a good baseline for those search planes, although often you can get away with more, doing so will often increases ops losses. Look at pilot fatigue and use settings that keep it low. Single digits is best if you can.

Pilot Experience is a big factor in ops losses, more experienced pilots have fewer ops losses. Fatigue already mentioned. Weather is another. If the weather is really bad you can consider standing down a group in that area, but do you really want to stand down search or just risk it? Either way, weather is a big factor but hard to control. Damage from enemy action is another big factor. If your search arcs have them going over a strongly CAPed base, some search planes might be shot down and some might get damaged and become ops losses upon returning to base and trying to land. Range is another factor. Longer range missions have better chances for ops losses.

Hope this helps.

[crsutton]

Like witpqs says.

I use 40% search and nothing else. Never set them to search past normal range and keep them at higher altitudes (10,000-15,000)-especially if they are searching over well capped bases. I have plenty of cats in my pools.

Early in the war you should be using a lot of your B17s for search as well. Exp and nav S are the only thing you need to stay alive with patrol planes.

If you are doing ASW then ASW is the skill you want for killing subs. I suppose low nav helps but don't think it matters much. Frankly, for the first two years, I did not train ASW much. Use the patrol planes to search for subs and keep the DL high, and sink them with surface ships. By late 42 your surface ship get very good at sub killing. By late 43 Japanese subs should not be much bother. I really don't train my aircrews in ASW after 42. Sometimes the carrier avengers when they are out of danger get trained up but that is about it.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Chad Harrison

2. I am getting very high OP losses for my PBY's. I am averaging about 1 or 2 a day in early 1942. I am running them about 60 search/40 rest, random arcs, 12 range. That does not seem unreasonable. I am running my B-17's at 70/30, 14 range and only get a few OP losses in a month. Is there something that causes higher OP losses for PBY's? What settings do you use?

Thanks in advance

Chad

If you are only using one mission (in this case search), you don't need to bother setting the 'rest' percentage. It is useful in cases like you have the PBY group doing recon on a specific base, set search percentage, and want some of the group to rest (then you might set "Recon Truk, Search 50%, Rest 40%" just for example).

50% is a good baseline for those search planes, although often you can get away with more, doing so will often increases ops losses. Look at pilot fatigue and use settings that keep it low. Single digits is best if you can.

Pilot Experience is a big factor in ops losses, more experienced pilots have fewer ops losses. Fatigue already mentioned. Weather is another. If the weather is really bad you can consider standing down a group in that area, but do you really want to stand down search or just risk it? Either way, weather is a big factor but hard to control. Damage from enemy action is another big factor. If your search arcs have them going over a strongly CAPed base, some search planes might be shot down and some might get damaged and become ops losses upon returning to base and trying to land. Range is another factor. Longer range missions have better chances for ops losses.

Hope this helps.

Unless Michaelm changed that I can really confirm planes resting is really important [:)]

This issue was raised like 2 years ago. Castor Troy was involved as well. We were losing (both Castor Troy and myself) like 14 PBY Catalinas per month. Settings: only 50% Search.

Then someone said 50% search + 50% rest would do the trick. I did that and since that date I only lose 3 or 4 PBY Catalinas per month.

So as you can see the rest thing makes a HUGE difference.

Cheers [8D]

[witpqs]

TD,

When you have only one mission type being flown 50%, the other 50% rest automatically, so you don't have to explicitly command them to rest. That's all I meant.

[TulliusDetritus]

Not necessarily [:)] There are two search phases. So maybe at the end of the day (example) the 80% of the squadron flied missions. If you order the 50% to rest they will not fly, no matter what. Believe me, the numbers were contundent. I mean the operational losses. From 14 to 4 per month [8D]

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

Not necessarily [:)] There are two search phases. So maybe at the end of the day (example) the 80% of the squadron flied missions. If you order the 50% to rest they will not fly, no matter what. Believe me, the numbers were contundent. I mean the operational losses. From 14 to 4 per month [8D]

I never use rest, but as said only set my squadrons to 40% search. Like I said, I have plenty of cats in the pools. Nothing wrong with setting to rest but I have seen no difference. I should add if I can get two search phases out of my planes rather than one then that is a good thing as far as I can see I want my planes looking for the enemy. Planes on rest are not going to spot anything. It is a matter of preference. One method is not necessarily better as long as you are satisfied with the results.

[cohimbra]

I agree with TulliusDetritus; I have 18 H6K4Mavis(FP) located at Babeldaob, I set the plane with
50% search (alt.6000,range25) and after 5 turns I have 6 airplane in maintenance (10-16days), 
the average pilot fatigue is 25 and the airplane fatigue is +/- 30. If I set 50% search + 20% rest
(alt.6000,range25) after 5 turns I have 2 planes in maintenance (8-10 days) with pilot fatigue +/- 11
and plane fatigue +/- 18. Maybe is casual, maybe not. I always set a percentage in rest (for bomber
and fighter 10%, for float and patrol 20-30%).
I never stood down my sendai/chutai, engine is always ON.

[Knyvet]

cohimbra

Note that the Mavis's service rating is aweful = more downtime (i.e., not a good plane to judge impact of other factors).

[cohimbra]

#Knyvet

You're right, I don't consider this parameter.