Another Night Intruder thing

[zoul310]

Hi all,

After maybe 20 turns I only got only one interception from night intruders. I'm not talking about shooting down aircrafts on landing. They do it very well.
Issue is while escorting the bomber stream.
I have numerous radar contacts or sighting but no intercept. This with different types NFII, XII, XIII. At different alt from Stream and in single or multiple mode.
What is your success rate in general ?

[harley]

NI in the stream is the hardest way to get a kill. Your pilot needs to detect a NJ, speed up and not lose him. He's got about 3 to 5 minutes to do it. You need many, many contacts to make a kill. 

[zoul310]

I understand that but we are not in 1940 during the Blitz but in 1944. I expect a Mosquito NFXIII to actually kill something after 20 nights or so of operations. In real life they did
Or I will just decide to stay over LW airfields and count...

[Hard Sarge]

I get kills, from what I read, KB gets kills, Golden Bear gets kills

maybe you not doing something the same way the rest of us are ?

[zoul310]

Please Sarge... Help ?

What I do :
Arrival 5 minutes before TOT then every 2 minutes.
Same altitude and 2000 feet over.
Some in single mode and some in multiple at the end.

[Hard Sarge]

I tend to fly in streams, I have a bigger gap in the TOT then the bombers (I not worried about the lead group, I want to be flying with the followers)

I also tend to fly under the bombers, a lot of the LW NF have Jazz Music hooked up, so they want to be under the bombers

plus it is luck

[zoul310]

I was afraid of the flak. Will try. Thanks.

[Jeldren]

My Nightbombingraids use the same inbound & outbound flightpath.
e.g. all my raids fly to delemenhorst radar  station & then spilt up to
their real target. My night interceptors fly to delemenhorst radar  station
at the same altitude as the bombers or up to 2000 feet below.

[kaybayray]

With respect to BTR.

As far as successful intercepts in the bomber stream....

If you use single aircraft they will fly to their Target Destination and orbit that point until low on fuel then RTB. So that does not work.

I select multiple aircraft and bring them down to groups of 3. I set their altitude to 2000 feet Above the Bomber stream. I set their time interval to 5 minute separation with the first group TOT 10 minutes before the first strike is scheduled.

I also place an array of single aircraft in the area of the strike at 2000 feet above the bombers. Please see my post in The War Room. I describe in detail how I build and run a Night Bombing Raid. I will be adding more to that post soon. I am learning the new version at the moment.

I must point out that getting kills in and around the Bomber stream has a very low rate of success. If your Night Fighter AC are limited I would advise you use them to CAP enemy Airfields and maintain a prolonged coverage of each airfield. This is much more successful.

Regards,
KayBay [8D]

[zoul310]

Thx Jeldren, kayBay,
I have very good success with CAP above NJ airfields with many aces. Prince Lippe something... the german ace of aces of NJ, has already been shot down 3 times and bailed out each time.
I'm going to try the altitude below the stream to see if there is a change. Tonight is the night for a big one. And forget the single aircraft when in stream.
KayBay your tactic is fantastic if you only do a Night Campaign. Too many missions otherwise and too few left for day missions.

G.

[kaybayray]

Zoul,
It works quite well with the Daylight Precision Bombing as well. You will be hard pressed to consistantly run Maximum Efforts across Europe both Day and Night sumultaneously due to Fatigue, Morale, Replacements and most of all the Weather.

So running a Rotation of sorts between the two will work very well. As I say many times in my posts, they are not to be considered "The Only Way", "The Best Way" but merely the "KayBay Way".

You can greatly reduce your overall mission count by combining the various Bomber Squadrons for the Night Strikes into Single Strike Groups. But I dont prefer to do it that way. My Daylight Strikes tend to only take up a few mission slots with the bulk of daylight missions being Recon. All things factored in it is really not an issue just an annoyance dealing with the Mission Count Cap.

Once you get well into 44 and have some real Bomb Groups and Long Range Escort capability then you will have to dance a bit. But that is part of the fun for me.

Later,
KayBay [8D]

[zoul310]

I'm with you.
Maximum effort is not for everyday. I alternate my groups to have them have one day of rest (for daylight) and more for BC.
Recon takes most of the missions ! Ahhhh....