Sneer vs Raver , Banzaiiii!!!!

[Raverdave]

Well at least it was hit...........about time my subs started paying their way.  Pity she was sunk, but the captain will at least get a
posthumous Navy Cross.

[Sneer]

in last few days I punished subs for their concentration
3 next are sunk and 2 next damaged

and ss grayling 2 days later

[Sneer]

i have few minutes free and will post some data about stats and industries  for all interested in mid war japanese economy
this AAR suffers from my lack of time in last days as well as pace of PBEM
i think critical period will end within next 6 weeks and we will move fast again

[Sneer]

points situation on 11/10/43

[Sneer]

my highest exp pilots - note helen pilot with 1 kill [;)]

[Sneer]

air war losses in totals

[Sneer]

industrial info part 1

[Sneer]

industrial data part 2

[Sneer]

i know some data should be confidential but ...
soon i will be flooded with allied toys so with current A2A engine it doesn't matter
if anybody finds these data useful it was worth posting
as always additional data on request

[Nemo121]

It seems to me a simple matter of logistics...

You can produce 900 (roughly) fighters per month. You can adequately crew 30 of these from your pilot training pool. End result: You will suffer massive losses in any aerial battle due to inexperience of your pilots. If you try to fight the enemy on his terms you lose. Therefore, you must change tack in order to be succesful. If you can tie the enemy fighters up shooting down your fighters for long enough then even with the Allied ueberCAP you should be able to get some bombers through.


I've been observing the air model and since there is a limit to the number of engagements which are possible it is, theoretically, possible to force the Allied ueberCAP to waste its total number of engagements on the fighter component of a Japanese strike. I've looked into it and with the following assumptions it is possible to penetrate Allied CAP and/or simply exhaust their ability to sustain an offensive beyond land based air ( but only until 1944)....

1. Assume that Japanese fighter type and pilot quality do not matter ( except in the relatively small manner that better japanese fighters and pilots will cause the Allied CAP to have to make slightly more passes in killing them and will be able to inflict a very slightly higher loss level than exp 30 pilots... both of which help to reduce allied CAP passes during an A2A engagement).

2. Assume a limited ( although very large) number of passes are available to the ueberCAP.

3. Accept that any fighter passes made against fighters count against the total number of passes available to the ueberCAP. Thus the more ueberCAP passes you can force the Allies to make against your fighters the fewer passes they can make against your bombers.


The end result is that the actual PERFORMANCE of your escorts is, almost, irrelevant. All that matters is sending a large enough escort to "absorb" most of the ueberCAP passes ( the better they fight back the fewer escorts are needed. At this stage though they can't fight back well so you must use their airframes and bodies to absorb the passes instead of relying on them to shoot down the ueberCAP). With very few passes remaining after the escorts are destroyed most of the bombers should get through and be able to attack the fleet.


One thing this forces the Japanese player to accept is that they should husband their airpower for 1 large strike rather than sending in 3 or 4 medium-sized strikes.

Given your production I wouldn't be at all afraid of committing 900 fighters as cover for 400 or 500 bombers. Even vs a 500 fighter stock CAP most of those bombers should get through... I've tested this against Corsair CAP and when things go right I'm able to get bombers through even when my escorts are 30 Exp A6M2 pilots flying leftovers from 1941. It is damned costly - you can easily lose 600 or 700 planes in a day BUT if 300 Bettys get through to attack their carriers the result will be decisive and well worth the loss. It won't be decisive on that day but will be on later days as medium-sized follow-up strikes pick off the cripples.

One other thing that is essential is that the fighter units fly from a well-supplied ( more than 20,000 ton) base such that after they are almost entirely slaughtered in the first day they can be immediately brought back up to strength for further attacks on Day 3 ( they'll be repairing on Day 2 and not capable of flying effective strikes).

lastly, Oscar IIs. They fly up above enemy CAP, fly to long range and carry a good payload. They are excellent kamikazes and are useful in the approach phase of an invasion fleet where they don't cause much damage to CVs and BBs etc but do tend to destroy AAA weapons making your real strikes all the more effective. In my AI vs AI game I'm still building Oscar IIs even in 1945 for ONLY this reason. Every time the Allies come near one of my bases 10 Daitais hurl themselves at the Allied fleet every 2 days. By the time they are in range for a decisive engagement several DDs are limping back home and the CLs, CAs, BBs and CVs have lost a few AAA weapons and slowed down a bit, becoming more vulnerable to the large kami strikes which follow.


To give a numerical example. Let us suppose a Japanese defensive sector has 500 fighters and 500 bombers available and that an Allied ueberCAP has the capacity to shoot down 600 planes in one attack.

If the Japanese send in 2 attacks of 500 planes each all of their planes are shot down. If, OTOH, they send in a single 1,000 plane strike they will lose 500 fighters and 100 bombers to CAP but 400 other bombers get through.

In 1943 onward I really think the game boils down to a numbers game in which you must seek to simply exhaust the number of ueberCAP passes on the fighter component and then let your bomber component go to work. Since you have unlimited 20 and 30 Exp pilots and can produce a lot of obsolescent airframes this works out well.

[Capt. Harlock]

Very interesting numbers for air losses. Congrats on destroying over 400 Fortresses and 800+ Lightnings.

[Sneer]

Nemo - in this game such big strikes are rather teoretically possible  and they only happen against land targets - i have never seen anything like that against ships
PZB tried to do sth like that and he failed too with big strike
you will have 200 - 300 as biggest and such will be eaten by cap

[Nemo121]

Sneer,
 
Difficult but not impossible... I have found that just waiting patiently until the enemy is within range of up to 3 airbases ( 1 airbase for every 300 planes required)... When I got the Allies close to 3 airbases I put about 400 planes on each, generated a 900 plane strike and managed to swat ( over the course of 3 days) 2 Allied CVs, 3 CVEs and 2 BBs. This is in 1944.
 
It is DAMNED difficult to do and it can occur only when very specific criteria are met ( Allies operate beyond easy LBA range, Japanese have a large number of mutually supporting bases within a few hexes of eachother etc) but it is possible and you'd only need to achieve it once to force the Allied player to slow his offensives significantly for the rest of the war.
 
I do take your point though that it is likely that you may just get several 300 plane raids and lose them all but since that's the best you can manage with conventional attacks anyway why not try something different which, if it fails, does no worse than your current methods but if it succeeds does markedly better?
 
Anyways, back to the game . Sorry for hijacking the thread I've just been doing a lot of kami testing. Only about 1/3rd of the time does this work but when it does entire Allied TFs are just shattered so I thought I'd say it.

[Nemo121]

BTW, yeah the Lightning numers are very interesting. What would you put these high Lightning losses down to?

[Sneer]

lightings ....
p38g were used often - basicly allied air workhorse
tony/tojo with good pilots managed to get 1:1
p38j is diffrent story 1:2 is usual against them

as to big LBA attacks
airfields in pbems that are able to launch such attacks are often  within range of enemy 4e bombers what complicate it more than seriously
before frances and peggys you have only 400 bettys/nells
my probability for launching so big strike is estimated as below10-15% against experianced human opponent
so lots of luck is needed

[Sneer]

i see interest in total air loses so here it is 2 page of data

[Nemo121]

Sneer, Yes I had my "box trap" set when the Allies went for Tinian. I had Saipan and Guam and Iwo Jima for the long-range kamis. Also had a few bases holding the south edge of the box clear to Saipan.

[Sneer]

lets hope my knife will be sharp enough when Raverdave comes to me [8D]

[Sneer]

slow pace so opportunity to deliver more data
sub war is most absorbing just after air raids
Raverdave lost 71 subs to date
japan lost 29 to date
about 30 allied subs were sunk in port / manila and soerabaja/
out of 40 subs sunk in open waters less than 20 were sunk by DC from hunter-killer groups
and rest by bombs - with 5-6 killed by patrols from KB Helens scored over 15

[Sneer]

11/15/43
allied carriers again in action
200 miles from koepang
let's see where allied will dare to move


i would forget, british army in india is in offensive mode