unrealistic air combat...

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Been busy at work lately with little time to post, but I'm enjoying watching DEB................give a fool enough rope.....

I see you have not disagreed the comments I made to Tocaff, or even entered the general disscussion. I wonder why.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

ORIGINAL: Ike99



You´re speaking of attacking ships at sea, at night.

Without radar, or perhaps even with the radar they had at the time, it would have been extremely difficult to just find an enemy task force in open sea much less attack it with a carrier strike.

I'm also speaking about finding their own carrier at night and landing on pitching decks after the attack if you read earlier in the thread .
The USN practiced night landings on the USS Langley in 1925, that doesn't mean they were night capable even some 16 years later.

But, "we" are talking attacks against bases, NOT ships.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Finding specific night operational information would be more difficult for the Japanese side because of the language barrier but it is know they practiced and trained for night operations as well. I´m sure some information good be found by digging deep enough though.

According to the Combined Fleet website, finding any information about WW2 is more to do with the Japanese not covering that period of their history much. They keep away from it.

Ahem...how much rope have you got Hans?

Enough for most of the posters here I hope.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: ILCK


Yes but the example you gave of of Allied craft equipped with radar, the Feb 16-17 raid on Truk was 1944 and so outside the time of UCV. There's clearly no evidence of the IJN or any other Japanese force being able to mount large scale effective night raids as opposed to one off strikes by some Betty pilots and in fact there's precious little evidence of ANYONE mounting consistently effective night operations in WWII until planes became radar equipped.

I for one have never said that ANYONE mounted consistently effective night operations in WWII during 1942/3. Only that night raids on bases by Carrier based aircraft were POSSIBLE even if not really sane.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I still haven't seen anyone provide or even find in my research any successful night attack by IJN air. I believe Erik Rutins said it best so I'll quote him from a different thread regarding the same subject.

However, I think that since this is a historical game, most players will not be happy about repeated use of tactics that were not historically possible.

But thats just my point ( which you continue to fail to grasp ).
IT IS POSSIBLE; not practicable, sane, useful, or anything else you lot wish to throw at "us", just POSSIBLE. Read the link I put in !!

By the way, those little Blue boxes have now appeared, so I guess you changed some of your settings.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

ORIGINAL: barkhorn45

"I still haven't seen anyone provide or even find in my research any successful night attack by IJN air"
I think I documented successful night attacks by IJN air units if your reference is to IJN carrier night ops I wish you would specifiy this in your post as it is it makes a blanket statement which i have refuted in that the IJN DID successfully attack at night do I need to repeat my references

I made clear in my many posts in this thread I was refering to carrier operations, which just so happens to be the topic of discussion posted by the thread starter.

Of your many posts, I beg to differ. Reference to Carrier OPS has been missing from several, as I have pointed out a few times.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

even at static and big targets like kassel and other cities in germany, the hit ratio of the RAF bomber command was more then bad in 1942. and remember: we are talking about big cities and not a comparatively small target like PM AND we talk about the royal air force, which was way ahead in electronic warfare compared to the japanese.

How does WW2 Radar help you find a city/town?
By your sirmise, why does the game have night raids at all?

air-surface radar (the british HS and the US HSX) were in development at the beginning of 1942 and not ready for action. the japs even did not developd such a radar in WW2.

Is anyone disputing that? We are talking using navigation skills here.

so when large 4E bombers of a leading nation in electronic warfare had such a huge problems in 1942 to find a huge germany city at night, then tiny carrier aircrafts of a underdeveloped nation (in radar technique) were more then ever unable to find a small allied base in south pacific at night, attack it precice (killing 600 men and causing 100-150 hits on the AF) and fly back to their carriers and land safety.

I thought your problems were: The raiders were from Carriers & The lack of losses.

and although i could not see ikes reals OP-loses, they were low for sure, because he was able to repeat this attacks very often with nearly exactly the same number of AC.

Are you sure?, Ike said the OPS losses were high and only sustainable as you had already lost your Carrier's and Carrier Aircraft. Perhaps he used additional aircraft / squadrons to give you a false impression.

If he caused that much damage then maybe the night OPS raids do do too much damage, but that does not detract from the fact that Night raids from Carriers are possible for the Japs.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

Uh huh, and your facts are from where?  Don't ignore this question like you do to all of the others.  I want to read these "facts" of yours from the source, not on your say so.

Fairs fair Tocaff, let's see your sources too!!

Land based airfields were small in comparison to cities.  Many airfields in the area covered by UV were nothing more than a small area carved out of a jungle, not like an airport serving cities of today.  I offer up Henderson on Guadalcanal as an example of this.  It was used by single engine planes (small) because it was small at first.  Facilities at Henderson were non existent at first, example: refueling was done from 55 gallon drums with a hand pump. 

Makes you wonder how ANY bombing got done successfully, let alone night raids. Do you plan to make Non carrier night raids gamey too. How about ALL bombing raids as the results seem so "overstated".

Moving targets are the ships you referred to, or did you forget?

If you have some means to see the target, it can't be that much harder than it is at day time!

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

So specially trained and radar carrying planes made the attack that you talk about.  The dateline here is 1944 while UV doesn't cover anything later than 1943.  The planes were USN and not IJN or IJA.

All this shows me is what I already knew. 

The point was that Rader played No factor in the ability of the planes to hit their target. Some people here think it does. READ the posts, understand the disscussion!!

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: DEB

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Been busy at work lately with little time to post, but I'm enjoying watching DEB................give a fool enough rope.....

I see you have not disagreed the comments I made to Tocaff, or even entered the general disscussion. I wonder why.

Probably beacuse I am tired of this:

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warrio ... butter.htm

If the shoe fits.......



That is, of course, the tongue-in-cheek reason. The reeal reason is just as I stated. My days of heavy posting activity here were a result of boredom at work that lasted for about 6 months as the architecture business has been slow. I had a new whirlwind project dumped in my lap last week (command breifing center at Command Forward Headquaters in Qatar for the four start general in command of CENTCOM) that I have only two months to produce. My posting on all forums here has dropped off to the "merely occasional" level. Right now I don't have the mental energy to waste on efforts to educate people like you.

[tocaff]

Would you consider what a B-29 crew member told me about the "accuracy" of the Norden bomb sight as a good source?

I'm not arguing that both sides could've struck at night, though returning & then actually finding their ships is a bit more than difficult.

Radar during the time frame of our game was new to the USN and virtually unknown to the IJN (except for very few ships).  Aircraft (carrier based) didn't attack at night until after the time frame of our game.  Based on this I question a person who proclaims historical settings and then acts totally different during a game.

If you want to play the game with great flexibility then do so, but don't hold people to historical and then dash it in their faces while playing.

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: DEB

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I still haven't seen anyone provide or even find in my research any successful night attack by IJN air. I believe Erik Rutins said it best so I'll quote him from a different thread regarding the same subject.

However, I think that since this is a historical game, most players will not be happy about repeated use of tactics that were not historically possible.

But thats just my point ( which you continue to fail to grasp ).
IT IS POSSIBLE; not practicable, sane, useful, or anything else you lot wish to throw at "us", just POSSIBLE. Read the link I put in !!

By the way, those little Blue boxes have now appeared, so I guess you changed some of your settings.

Change my settings??? LOL, assuredly you have a much higher opinion of yourself than I have of you.

Night Carrier Ops would have been mass suicide for the pilots embarking on the mission. No commander worth his salt would have given the order to attack in that manner, not to mention the damage inflicted would have been minimal. If the IJN Carriers was capable they wouldn't have waited to just before dawn to launch their attacks in the carrier engagements. Strange you fail to be able to figure that out for yourself.

I've made all my points in this thread so I'll bow out and you can have the last word.[:)]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: DEB

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I still haven't seen anyone provide or even find in my research any successful night attack by IJN air. I believe Erik Rutins said it best so I'll quote him from a different thread regarding the same subject.

However, I think that since this is a historical game, most players will not be happy about repeated use of tactics that were not historically possible.

But thats just my point ( which you continue to fail to grasp ).
IT IS POSSIBLE; not practicable, sane, useful, or anything else you lot wish to throw at "us", just POSSIBLE. Read the link I put in !!

By the way, those little Blue boxes have now appeared, so I guess you changed some of your settings.

What you persist in demonstrating a failure to grasp is that what is "possible" is not what matters in a historical depiction that examines historical alternatives. What matters is what is "resonably plausible".

It's "possible" the sun could explode today. It's NOT reasonably plausible as we know enough about the sun to be realitively assured it will continue to burn on the main sequence for another 4-5 billion years before going into the red giant phase.

Was it "possible" for either side to engage in night carrier actions in the time period covered by the game. The obvious answer is yes. Is it "reasonably plausible" that either side would have? The obvious answer is absolutely not.

A realatively simple equation that doesn't even come close to rocket science. There continues to be no reasonable excuse for why you and Ike continue to fail to grasp it.

[Ike99]

What you persist in demonstrating a failure to grasp is that what is "possible" is not what matters in a historical depiction that examines historical alternatives. What matters is what is "resonably plausible".

Ahh...we are making progress. So now you admit a night carrier strike against a base was possible.

Was it plausible? Must have been or they wouldn´t have considered using them on several different occasions. And actually did use them in early 44´with the decision to use them made in 43´

All this shows me is what I already knew.

Well if you knew my facts were correct then why did you ask for source? Now answer me this Mr tocaff and do not avoid the question...

It was no design error to include the night mission button on carriers. That was a concious choice by Gary Grisby and 2by3 games. If such mission were impossible or not plausible as you believe then why did they include it? We don´t see other impossible or not plausible buttons there.

[tocaff]

I don't argue the possibility of such a strike, just that the losses would be devastating on the strike force so as to make it something that's not modeled properly.  If you find the fleet, in the dark, you still have to find a deck to land on and then do it.  No mean feat.  Remember a late returning strike was saved by MM's famous "light 'em up" order.

[Ike99]

If you find the fleet, in the dark, you still have to find a deck to land on and then do it. No mean feat. Remember a late returning strike was saved by MM's famous "light 'em up" order.

I looked that up. After the order to turn on lights not a single American plane crashed during landing on their carriers at night time.

[mdiehl]

You're still talking AIR to AIR & Air to Ship, We are discussing Air to Base.

The same observations apply. You have not listed a single instance of a Japanese cv-based night raid on an airbase or indeed a single instance of any Japanese cv-based raid on any kind of target at all. That is because the Japanese had no ability to conduct such raids.

Indeed, why waste the time. It was surely possible to exclude Carrier based Aircraft from night missions. So why did they ( the game designers ) NOT do it?

My answer would be that the game designers erred. Very few powers developed any capability in it at all, during WW2, and the UK started out with the first and best capability both from CVs and lba, and the USAAF and USN quickly learned from and in some ways improved on the technique. The Japanese, in contrast, had no capability for night attacks from cv based planes and very little capability from land based mult-engine types.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Ike99


It was no design error to include the night mission button on carriers. That was a concious choice by Gary Grisby and 2by3 games. If such mission were impossible or not plausible as you believe then why did they include it? We don´t see other impossible or not plausible buttons there.

Ike, you never cease to amaze me with your ability to distort reality and bend it to your warped interpretation.
The only thing you are correct about is that it was no error.
It was a lack of desire to engage in the effort necessary to write the additional code necessary to create an entirely separate interface for carrier air operations.
A perfectly plausible explanation for what you see that does not distort reality in order to support your perception.


Oh my, what happened? You no longer claim to be the spawn of Tojo's loins??? Things do seem to be a bit unsettled in your neck of the woods. I hope all goes well for you (and I'm not being facetious).

[mdiehl]

Night Carrier Ops would have been mass suicide for the pilots embarking on the mission. No commander worth his salt would have given the order to attack in that manner, not to mention the damage inflicted would have been minimal.

Exactly. A good consim would probably let the Japanese player attempt a night raid from KB, automatically reward him with very high ops losses, result in no effect on the target, and then lock the Japanese player out of the game and hand over management of his assets to the AI for two or three months to simulate the reorganization period as the current "cic and staff" is removed from office, shot, replaced with a new cic and staff, and they gear up to figure out how to run the war properly.

[Ike99]

The only thing you are correct about is that it was no error.

It was a lack of desire to engage in the effort necessary to write the additional code necessary to create an entirely separate interface for carrier air operations.

Send them an email and ask them. Joel Billings is active on these forums and has commented on design issues before here.

Things do seem to be a bit unsettled in your neck of the woods. I hope all goes well for you (and I'm not being facetious).

No, they lifted the road blockings today. If things get too bad I´m sure Tocaff will have no problems smuggling petrol across the border through angry people with sticks, guns and knives for me!

[:D][:D][:D]