Defending the empire 1943, the allies attack - a Jap AAR

[Hortlund]

Some good news today. His B-26s impaled themselves on my KB CAP.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 09/11/42

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF at 17,31

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 191

Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 24

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 39 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-26B Marauder: 24 destroyed

Amazing. Two things amaze me.
1) I managed to shoot down bombers.
2) They did not turn back.

Their morale must have been extremely high since they kept coming until they were all shot down. These are the guys I have seen using 1000-pounders earlier...so I hope they were very experienced too. A nice surprise in this depressing India-adventure.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF at 19,31

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 40

Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 6

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-26B Marauder: 5 damaged

First sign of lower morale, they turn back after 5 damaged bombers.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF at 18,30


Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 6


No Allied losses

Japanese Ships
AP Saiho Maru, Bomb hits 3, on fire, heavy damage

Aircraft Attacking:
2 x B-26B Marauder bombing at 6000 feet
4 x B-26B Marauder bombing at 6000 feet

They manage to pick off a lone, damaged, straggler.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on TF at 16,31

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 10

Allied aircraft
B-26B Marauder x 3

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
B-26B Marauder: 1 damaged

And their once excellent morale seems to be in shambles...they turn back at the first sound of the guns.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

Bomber losses generally tended to be in the 1%-2% category for most raids flown during the war, and if a squadron lost 10% of its planes in a month it was considered combat ineffective for weeks.. Expecting to wipe out all attacking bombers with your fighters in one day is extremely unrealistic.

Marianas turkey shoot?

[Hortlund]

One interesting thing I just found out after looking at the operations report is that not a single pilot in the KB managed to shoot down 2 bombers today. 191 fighters on CAP, 25 kills, and no one with more than one kill.  

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund
Marianas turkey shoot?

The Marianas Turkey Shoot isn’t really a bombardment with large bombers. Rather it was lots of small naval strikes with obsolete Japanese planes opposed by massed modern US fighter planes.

The first strike had 68 Japanese planes, 25 were shot down. It was intercepted a second time and another 16 were shot down, the survivors then launched their ineffectual attacks.

The second raid consisted of 109 planes and 70 were shot down.

The third raid consisted of 47 planes, 7 were shot down.

The fourth raid consisted of 67 planes, 39 were shot down.

So out of a total of 291 aircraft flown in the four raids, 150 were lost in air to air combat (about 52%). A lot more were lost to flak, and are usually counted in the tallies to inflate the story.

Now there was lots of other fighting during the day that brought the total number of Japanese planes involved in the “Turkey Shoot” to 373 aircraft, but as far as offensive strikes go only 291 were in the four raids.

Were the planes flying the naval attacks medium or heavy bombers and not flimsy single engine obsolete air frames, I doubt half as many would have been lost, even to the vaunted Hellcats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... ippine_Sea

In the end, the examples of Schweinfurt and the MTS are extreme examples and nowhere near the average results. On average only 1%-2% of strike aircraft were lost during opposed raids, from all causes, not just air to air.

Jim

[bbbf]

IIRC, for some mysterious reason, flak units NOT in base hexes are far more effective than those at bases.
 
 

[witpqs]

Maybe because they are only covering units, not units plus facilities? Just guessing.

[Zebedee]

Not strictly relevant to this thread, but it might be of interest to those (like me) who gulp when they see bomber losses.

Bomber Command (flying at night in the main) flew 392137 sorties in WW2. It lost 10724 aircraft. ie roughly a 3% loss rate from all causes overall.  Losses from a raid were considered acceptable if they were under the 5% mark.

At least those Mitchells were flying unescorted and not low enough to evade CAP and skip-bomb!

I'm still trying to figure out how to shoot down 4 engines myself - the results against the KB are very encouraging though. In my games vs AI, B-17s flying at 18000 feet occasionally make horrid holes in my CVs because the chances are that they'll shoot down the zeros before the zeros shoot them down!

[Hortlund]

Another handful of turns has gone by. Nothing of particular interest has happened. A B-17 strike on Lae, but thats about it.
 
Parts of the 5th Div are still trapped on the beach at Trincomalee. I am torn whether I should try to save them or not. I think I must at least try, but on the other hand I am not particularily keen on putting the KB into harms way again.
 
The reason? The allied CVs. If they have been rushed to the area, they should be about a week away now. That means they could appear right in the middle of an evac operation. To have the KB caught between LBA from Ceylon and the allied CVs coming up from the Indian Ocean is a nightmare scenario.
 
I am torn on the question, but as things stand right now I believe I will keep my fleet safe under LBA protection.

[2ndACR]

Well, you could use fast transport TF's using some DD's to do the evac. That way they will scoot in at night and be out of LBA range at daybreak. Use 2-3 TF's of 6 DD's each and you can grab most of the remaining troops.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

Well, you could use fast transport TF's using some DD's to do the evac. That way they will scoot in at night and be out of LBA range at daybreak. Use 2-3 TF's of 6 DD's each and you can grab most of the remaining troops.

Wouldn't they be in range of B-26s out of Trincomalee? They have a range of 6, so those DD's would be vulnerable twice, on the inbound and outbound trip. And the way they are flying, I think they could cause some damage. I suppose you could LRCAP them from Port Blair, or from a CVE or two to take the edge off.

[Hortlund]

I could try a fast transport, but it would be suicide without CAP from the KB. Which brings me back to my reluctance to put the KB in any position outside friendly aircover.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

I could try a fast transport, but it would be suicide without CAP from the KB. Which brings me back to my reluctance to put the KB in any position outside friendly aircover.

You could LRCAP it without endangering KB, you only need to be within 12 hexes or so from Trincomalee to do that. But, even with a large CAP, some bombers would likely get through, and if they are carrying 1000lb bombs like a few are, one hit might be enough to sink a DD, or cripple it enough to be finished off next turn.

I would probably leave them, if you have the parent unit at least you can park it on Saipan or something so it rebuilds for later in the war.

[Hortlund]

Sendai just made it to port. This is her condition.

Rangoon is a lv6 port with 40k supplies, an AR and a naval HQ is present. Think she will make it?

[Q-Ball]

Oooh, close one. I am going to say YES, but you'll know next turn. The fires should be put out in port, and the float is barely enough to withstand another turn of flooding.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Yeah looks like 100s at least of heavy flak - a.k.a. the NE Indian Mobile Flak Army is comming to town!

(sorry for the bad advice - I let thoughts of reality get in my head waaaay too often - and also I haven't played NikMod in a full PBEM campaign either - in the GuadMod - we didn't have huge stacks like this)

Its possible to 'abuse' the change by uber-stacking. Players should decide if or what restrictions they want to do on stacking AA units , same as with air units.

That or try bombing at a higher altitude. 11k is rather low against a well defended target.

[Nikademus]

players should bear in mind too....that one of the main purposes of the increased flak potential was to disabuse players of the standard mass-low level attack so effective in stock. Usually from ultra low 6k. 11k is "higher", but still a tad low if attacking a well defended target. The only way to acheive such a discomfort is via loss and damage. Does this make flak guns a tad more effective in terms of actual "kills" in some situations? yes. Does it sometimes force more realistic air tactics? yes.

Can you uberstack? yes.

on the same token though, can you uberstack a CAP or bomber force or a fighter sweep into the hundreds of planes? yes.

Is flak's capablity fully represented in the code? no.

is the intimate relationship between fighter defence and flak fully represented? no.

Ultimately its a balance/compromise act. Overall though it does tend t slow the max-effort type strategies

[Gen.Hoepner]

I think the CHS nik's advanced experimental mod is the best compromise you've done Nik[;)]

[Nikademus]

well gosh...i'd take credit but the CHS "experimental" was actually done by Andrew Brown. He based it on alot of what i did and I provided some info/help/advice in regards to what tweaks what in the editor. Some stuff has been used for AE too. Its all good.


You can still send a coupon for a free Latte to me though if you like. Always need more cafeeeene. [:D]

[jwilkerson]

It would be nice if heavy flak being dragged down a jungle trail could not shoot with the same intensity as flak fully emplaced with deployed central battery directors and radar support.

Maybe the "AE Flak Team" can work on this issue!

Hey MichaelM hey Nik ... when is the next meeting!
[:D]

[witpqs]

You're gonna take a lotta flak for that one...