CAP benefit from Radar

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Does CAP benefit from radar in any way?

So far, I can see none.

I expect IJN strike a/c to penetrate the CAP and get good hits in the 1942 scenarios, but I also expect the strike a/c to take moderate to severe losses in the process. All of this of course is relative to the size and quality of the strike and the CAP itself. Radar ought to be something of an equalizer. Thus far, however, all I see the Allies rolling in this regard is snake-eyes.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[themattcurtis]

Does the game allow a RADAR equipped TG to spit incoming planes sooner than if it didn't have that kit? At which point the AI bumps CAP up to 100%? RADAR allowed ships with the time they needed to get fighters in the air to intercept the Japanese. But by 1942, controllers were NOT very good by then at directing their Wildcats towards the incoming Japanese. That came later. At least from the books I've read. So the only advantage was they were able to get something in the air.

Can you target inbound planes with a strike comprised of fighters? IE --a long range interception? I don't imagine you can, but until tonight I won't even had a chance to play the game.

[CTB123]

Radar and improved fighter control is represented in the game, though I believe it is lumped into one single variable.  Early in the war, CAP is not that effective outside the immediate hex your carrier is in.  If you are relying on Emergency CAP to protect your fleet, you are in trouble as you usually will not be given enough time to get your fighters up and into position before the strike hits you. 

CAP can intercept up to two hexes away, and with radar and improved fighter control, is much more effective latter in the war at those extended ranges. 

Tony

[Prince of Eckmühl]

I'm not so much curious about effective fighter direction in 1942, as I am about the extra ten minutes, or so, of warning that the U.S. fighters would have to launch and reach altitude before the enemy strike arrived. The practical affect of this SHOULD be that a higher percentage of their a/c assigned to CAP would be in a position to effectively challenge the incoming enemy than would be the case for the IJN when similarly situated.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

Does CAP benefit from radar in any way?

So far, I can see none.

I expect IJN strike a/c to penetrate the CAP and get good hits in the 1942 scenarios, but I also expect the strike a/c to take moderate to severe losses in the process. All of this of course is relative to the size and quality of the strike and the CAP itself. Radar ought to be something of an equalizer. Thus far, however, all I see the Allies rolling in this regard is snake-eyes.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

Radar will give you more warning of incoming strikes. More warning equals more emergency CAP fighters in the air. Better radar equals intercepts further away from the TG, so your CAP can protect other TGs up to 3 hexes away. We all roll snake-eyes from time to time.

Remember, although it feels good to kill aircraft, damage is 95% as good. Damaged planes don't bomb, and some damaged planes don't make it back to their base but splash along the way anyway. While damaged planes can be repaired, if you are trading blows between carrier TGs then the decisive action could easily be over before very many damaged planes are back in action.

Gregor

[themattcurtis]

I have no complaint re: US CAP after my 2nd attempt at the Wake scenario. It's spelled out in more detail in my AAR, but I saw multiple Japanese attacks end with four planes shot down by my CAP, with addt'l kills going to my AA. As far as I can tell, it worked just fine.

[kkoovvoo]

[/quote]

Remember, although it feels good to kill aircraft, damage is 95% as good. Damaged planes don't bomb, and some damaged planes don't make it back to their base but splash along the way anyway. While damaged planes can be repaired, if you are trading blows between carrier TGs then the decisive action could easily be over before very many damaged planes are back in action.

Gregor
[/quote]

This is a feature I dont understand - why damaged planes (including those with light damage) dont bomb? If there was a dice roll whether they bomb or not and if they had a lower chance to hit target I would say ok. But none of them bomb...I think IRL pilot of damaged plane would try to attack in most cases.

Also, the game doesnt take into account whether AC is hit after of before attack - and that was factor IRL. For game purposes, very aircraft is consiedered hit before attack (and doesnt release its weapon)

WITP, which has much greater scale, models these aspects better.



Dont let yourself confuse with criticism, I am enjoying this game [;)], but I think that game with level of details like CAW should model those situations better.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Well, here's another one, from Midway again. The Allied CAP was 52, strong, all pre-designated for TG defense, and scored no kills against the incoming strike a/c.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[themattcurtis]

That's too bad. But I think it's the luck of the draw. CAP in my Wake Island, which was a lot smaller in scale, performed just fine.

[NimitsTexan]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

Well, here's another one, from Midway again. The Allied CAP was 52, strong, all pre-designated for TG defense, and scored no kills against the incoming strike a/c.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

Well, tell your fighter pilots to stop cluttering up the radios with useless chatter and actually pay attention to what the FDO is telling them . . .

[themattcurtis]

I have to play Midway myself before I comment on CAP in that scenario. It's worked fine for me in other scenarios so far.

I just read a book (offers the IJN view of the battle) where an IJN strike was able to break through Midway Island's air coverage without suffering any losses. And Midway had RADAR. So I won't sweat occasional incidents where CAP fails to inflict losses. If I see it pop up as a matter of routine in my games, though, I'll start to whinge.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: themattcurtis
I just read a book (offers the IJN view of the battle) where an IJN strike was able to break through Midway Island's air coverage without suffering any losses.

The IJN records of the 0430 launch against Midway do not support that conclusion.

Depending on who you read, you should find the following CAP related losses:

Akagi: 0 or 1
Hiryu: 3
Soryu: 5 or 6
Kaga: 1

Five or six strike a/c were lost to AA, and perhaps twelve more were damaged badly enough to be relegated to hangar-queen status for the rest of the battle. Given that the losses came at the hands of green USMC pilots, the majority of whom were flying the Brewster Buffalo, the Japanese losses are really quite impressive. No doubt, the fact that they received early warning from radar aided them in this regard. It only follows that a Kido Butai strike confronted by fifty two Wildcats, manned by far more experienced USN pilots, would have suffered much more severely.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[themattcurtis]

"A savage air battle ensued from 645 to 710, but the tactical superiority of the Zero fighter again proved itself and the enemy challenge was successfully repulsed. Thanks to the effective protection of Lieutenant Suganami's fighters, every one of our level bombers and 36 dive bombers arrived safely over the target."

Midway, the Battle That Doomed Japan
Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya.

Regardless, I'm not gonna get in a running argument. All I've said is that I have not seen a problem with CAP yet in my games. In fact, I've seen the U.S. CAP in my Wake scenarios to date (3 tries at the game now, shoot down a healthy number of Japanese fighters). And if I see a strike get through without CAP losses, there's precedence according to at least one book I have in my piddly little collection.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: themattcurtis

"A savage air battle ensued from 645 to 710, but the tactical superiority of the Zero fighter again proved itself and the enemy challenge was successfully repulsed. Thanks to the effective protection of Lieutenant Suganami's fighters, every one of our level bombers and 36 dive bombers arrived safely over the target."

Midway, the Battle That Doomed Japan
Mitsuo Fuchida and Masatake Okumiya.

Thanks for your comments. [:)]

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[themattcurtis]

You probably know way more about this than I do. [:)] I just haven't seen any problems myself yet. If I do, folks will here about it. I tend to spout off.[;)]

Matt

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Well, I think that I figured this one out. All or part of the CAP is not being launched. It doesn't matter what I set the slider to. While a portion of the assigned fighters may go to the CAP section of the flight deck screen, eventually they land, and then they don't appear to go back up, and this is all occuring in the middle of the day. This aspect of the game appears to be completely broken.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[NefariousKoel]

I thought that half your specified CAP would be up at any time... Rest & Maintenance?

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: NefariousKoel
I thought that half your specified CAP would be up at any time... Rest & Maintenance?

Playing from the flight deck screen, what I've observed is that ALL of the CAP gets launched at once, so long as the arm button isn't depressed. Having fueled and armed a/c present disrupts the CAP cycle. CAP that are airborne when the button's depressed can land, but can't take back off until any a/c that are fueled and armed are launched or disarmed. This may be by design. Who knows?

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Gregor_SSG]

As the manual says, you can only expect about half the aircraft allocated to normal CAP to be in the air at any one time. Emergency CAP tries to get as many aircraft in the air as possible and the slider goes to 100% to show that, but that is no guarantee that they'll all make it up in time. Our CAP routines have been tested out in previous versions of the game, and they seem to work pretty well.

Gregor

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

As the manual says, you can only expect about half the aircraft allocated to normal CAP to be in the air at any one time. Emergency CAP tries to get as many aircraft in the air as possible and the slider goes to 100% to show that, but that is no guarantee that they'll all make it up in time. Our CAP routines have been tested out in previous versions of the game, and they seem to work pretty well.

Gregor

A number of a/c equal to the number assigned with the slider-bar appear in the CAP box of the flight deck display and remain there until there is combat or they begin to run low on fuel. Subsequently, the number will vary as a/c are recovered and then relaunched, but its way on the high side of fifty-percent. That's what's observable in this regard.

What's also observable is that fueling and arming a/c disrupts the whole process. If there are a/c in the fuel and launch section, CAP will land, but not take off again until the fuel and arm a/c are either launched or disarmed. This suggests that fueling and arming is done on the flight deck and its that activity that disrupts the normal CAP cycle.

[From a historical standpoint, handling this aspect of the game would be difficult. The Japanese armed their torpedo and fighter a/c below-deck, while the VB were normally armed on-deck. However, their use of deck-load strikes meant that the flight-deck would be tied up for a considerable period of time, anyway, essentially closing it to CAP while the strike a/c were spotted, warmed-up and launched, regardless of the fact that all or some arrived on deck fueled and armed.

The U.S. situation is somewhat more complex in that their a/c were normally armed on deck, but launched in smaller groups than those of their adversaries. This would leave intervals between launches during which the CAP could be cycled. IMO, this calls into question the whole concept of "fueling and arming" in the game. It's an all or nothing proposition. The player is called upon to arm all his a/c, or none.

Those points made, it's obvious that attempting to incorporate mechanics into the game that might account for these differences would be a headache and a half. As I've suggested in another thread, the one change that MIGHT make sense would be to shut down the CAP cycle to a carrier that's launching a COHESIVE strike, the logic being that one of these would tie up the flight deck for a longer period of time. For non-cohesive strikes, I'd suggest allowing the CAP cycle to continue.]

In terms of PLAYING THE GAME, this is pretty darn tricky. If a TG's CAP hits bingo ten or twenty minutes before he receives an air-raid, and he's got a/c in "fuel and arm," the player is gonna be in real trouble. The CAP slider bar will indicate that there are a/c on station, but this will not be the case. Only by checking the CAP box on the flight deck screen will he know what's actually out there to greet the enemy. This is something that'll require constant monitoring.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)