Can a plane's munitions be changed?

[Brian_]

Prior to a strike, can a plane's munitions be changed, say from torpedoes to bombs?

[GenChaos33]

Click on the armaments(bombs/fishes) right under each plane on the strike screen (see pic below)

[Brian_]

That only seems to arm the specified munitions....how does one actually change the type for each plane?

[RayWolfe]

Did high level bombers carry torpedoes? Think about what you are asking for.

[GenChaos33]

Maybe only torpedo planes can be changed from their normal fish load to contact bombs.

[Brian_]

ORIGINAL: RayWolfe

Did high level bombers carry torpedoes? Think about what you are asking for.

I wanted to change the torpedoes that were on a Betty to bombs so they could attack an airfield.

[random_rail]

If you select the airfield as your target, it will change it for you.  Just as further info, torpedo planes at maximum range will carry bombs rather than fish, I'm assuming due to their lighter weight.

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: random_rail

If you select the airfield as your target, it will change it for you. Just as further info, torpedo planes at maximum range will carry bombs rather than fish, I'm assuming due to their lighter weight.

Planes carry the optimum ordnance for their target type and range combination. This means that torpedo bombers will carry torps against all shipping targets, unless at extended range when they will carry bombs as torpedo was a big heavy weapon that was hard to lug around. They will always carry bombs when attacking airfields.

Gregor

[Brian_]

Why does it seem like raids against airfields accomplish so little? Even when I send a large, cohesive strike against a base, I rarely see anything more than slight damage achieved (the same goes for the enemy's attacks against mine).

My growing impression is that attacking anything other than ships in this sim amounts to little more than window dressing...is there any point in taking the time to set up these raids?[&:]

[random_rail]

Raid suppression is the primary reason.  If you're bombing the snot out of them, they won't come after you if you're aggressive enough about it.  It requires having several carrier groups, or several islands and a carrier group close to the air field you wish to beat down.

[travcrouse]

I've been playing the USN in the Phillipine Sea scenario the last few days. I generally spend June 16th and 17th maintaining a nearly continuous 'rolling thunder' of strikes against the Japanese bases on Guam, Tinian and the Jimas. By looking at the strike history I've seen a good distribution of heavy, moderate, and minor damage results against them. Usually Japanese land-based strikes against my TG's are substantially reduced by the afternoon of the 16th... My question is similar to Brian's: can enemy airfields be put completely out of commission? Is there a point where x, y , and z number of heavy, moderate and minor damages ensures that you don't need to worry about the airfield any longer? 

[random_rail]

Trav, I don't think so.  Doesn't seem fair, but really all that's needed to fix an airfield is a bulldozer and a little time.  The planes were also cannabalized and repaired fairly rapidly. 

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: travcrouse

I've been playing the USN in the Phillipine Sea scenario the last few days. I generally spend June 16th and 17th maintaining a nearly continuous 'rolling thunder' of strikes against the Japanese bases on Guam, Tinian and the Jimas. By looking at the strike history I've seen a good distribution of heavy, moderate, and minor damage results against them. Usually Japanese land-based strikes against my TG's are substantially reduced by the afternoon of the 16th... My question is similar to Brian's: can enemy airfields be put completely out of commission? Is there a point where x, y , and z number of heavy, moderate and minor damages ensures that you don't need to worry about the airfield any longer?

There is no way, in CAW, to completely destroy an airfield. Airfields in the Pacific tended to be pretty primitive affairs, which meant that after some planes came over and out some holes in them, it was an hour's work with a bulldozer to render them operational again. See the example of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal, which though bombed and shelled on a regular basis was always able to operate planes soon after things stopped blowing up.

What you can do, in CAW with enough planes, is to destroy or damage enough planes at the airbase to effectively remove it as a danger. The US in Philippine Sea does have the airpower to do this, as reported above. Henderson Field needed regular reinforcements of planes, to replace losses, but the field itself was never destroyed.

Suppression through attrition does take a lot of planes though. The secret to destruction in WWII was bomb size. Bigger bombs, even though you have less of them, do more damage. Single engined planes just can't carry the really big bombs you need for total destruction but if you fly enough sorties you will achieve much the same result, i.e. the removal of landbases as a credible threat to your fleet.

Note that we did improve the bombing damage algorithm, so please make sure you are using the latest version of the game.

Gregor

[travcrouse]

I've been getting a fair distribution of heavy damage results on land bases - I wasn't as exasperated as Brian above... [8D]

[Brian_]

Well, I guess during the period I prefer to simulate (1942), things were balanced enough that neither side could knock out the other side's relevant airbases...

That makes sense, historically, I guess. In the real world, it would have made sense to coordinate a "maximum effort" raid (or raids) in an attempt to defeat your enemy (if not by a knock out blow--then by attrition).

In the game however, my impression is that it seems like its not worth the effort.

[Gregor_SSG]

ORIGINAL: Brian_

Well, I guess during the period I prefer to simulate (1942), things were balanced enough that neither side could knock out the other side's relevant airbases...

That makes sense, historically, I guess. In the real world, it would have made sense to coordinate a "maximum effort" raid (or raids) in an attempt to defeat your enemy (if not by a knock out blow--then by attrition).

In the game however, my impression is that it seems like its not worth the effort.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'knock out'. If you mean completely obliterate such that the effort involved in repair is more or less the same as creating a new airfield on the old site, then carrier based aircraft are never going to be able to do the job. But nor should they. Don't forget that every carrier sortie has a much higher risk of attrition than a land based sortie. Pounding some pacific airfield flat is not an efficient use of scarce high value resources.

If you did want to pound it flat, you need heavy bombers, lots of them and repeated strikes (because most targets are in fact quite resilient, and the heavy bombers aren't that accurate. And good luck getting those away from the bomber boys, no matter how good the case was for their use. Witness the mostly successful campaign by 'Bomber' Harris to prevent the switch of Bomber Command's aircraft from their pointless bombing of the domestic housing and pastures of Germany to making a real contribution to the success of D-Day. Then there was Admiral King, who stonewalled the transfer of the handful of VLR Liberators that would have closed the air gap in the Atlantic and prevented the sinking of many allied ships and the loss of many lives.


By late 1943, the USN had sufficient air power and the Japanese had been so weakened that the USN could conduct carrier based air strikes on land bases. The attacks on places like Rabaul and Truk were not intended to destroy the airfields as such, but to render them untenable as ports and to write down their air defenses to the extent that they were no longer an immediate threat to USN operations in the area. They could then be safely ignored, unless the Japanese transferred in more aircraft, as happened at Truk, in which case they were attacked again and rendered more or less harmless.

Gregor

[Brian_]

Well said, Gregor.[;)]