Allied fighters suck

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: DicedT

It's October '42, and I have a gaggle of P-38, P-40 and Hurricane squadrons in Burma. They are being shot out of the sky by Oscars, Tojos and a few Zeroes. I've tried flying at high altitudes. I've tried flying everyone at high altitude. I've tried flying the P-38s and Hurricane IICs at 30,000 feet, and the P-40s and Hurricane IIBs at 10,000 or 15,000 feet. Same results. The P-38s bounce the Oscars, and then the Oscars get on the tail of the P-38s and shoot them down. I won't even describe what happens to P-39s.

I know the P-38 wasn't a wonder plane, but it should have some capability to fight Oscars. This concerns me a lot because the Allies do not receive many advanced fighter aircraft until 1944. Until then, the older aircraft - plus P-38s and Spitfires - are all they have. Looking at the aircraft data, Japanese aircraft are always more maneuverable, which seems to be the only factor in the WITP air combat model. Which makes me wonder how the Allied air forces managed to win in real life.

One thing I have noticed is that Allied fighters die like flies when flying offensive fighter sweeps or bomber escort. They don't do quite as badly when flying CAP. Yet even on CAP, P-38s, P-40s and Hurricanes can only bounce bounce Oscars once before the Oscars get on their tail. The WITP air combat model doesn't seem to factor in dive-and-zoom tactics by heavier, faster Allied fighters.

I love playing WITP, but there is something badly wrong with the air combat system.

DicedT, the reason why your fighters get shot out of the sky is NOT because allied fighters suck as you put it but probably because you are using them in the wrong way/enviroment.

True, the P38 is not uber as it was in stock WitP but this is correct to historical.
Dive and Zoom tactics do work, but you have to calculate many other factors.

- Its a numbers game. Putting up a couple of P38´s against higher numbers of high experience Oscars/Zeroes/Tojos is dangerous, even in sweeps.
As long as the experience of allied pilots lower than the Japanese you will be happy to reach 1:2 kills.

- There are a couple of good tactics against high alt bounces: As an example, Rob, my PBEM opponent set a nice trap for my sweeping P38´s by combining high and lowlevel
CAP. He used the lowflyers to draw my bounces (Zeroes, and the suffered) and set high alt Oscar patrols to attack the bouncing Lightnings. While it was not clearly onesided
the tactic worked nicely, lots of damaged twintails. [:D]
When, afterwards, my close escorting P40´s arrived @ 6k they were ripped to pieces by the surviving CAP. Thats not bad allied planes, thats what is called a good counter.

- High experience pilots are able to draw lower exp pilots into their preffered style of A2A combat. Not forever, but they do. What you often see is Lightnings diving on a low flyer,
getting a kill or not depending on several factors and they try to pull away. They guy that makes a cool day hot for the P38 driver usually is a second Japanese fighter
who successfully initiates a turnfight.

- Range to target: the farther away the more your AC hurt.

And then you have, fatigue, morale, squad leader, weather,...

Don´t say A2A is bogged if you are not 100% sure you did take this all into account. [;)]

Theres no perfect tactic. Dont think that using P38´s is the solution to a well thoughtout defense. They are great planes and im sure Rob can confirm this (im trying to make them a
pita as much as possible) and they get home with more damage than any other fighter aircraft in the respective timeframe but if you need air superiority you have to beat your opponent with
numbers and well thought out tactics. If you don´t have one and are at least on par with the other you won´t get anywhere.

[Nemo121]

 if you need air superiority you have to beat your opponent with numbers and well thought out tactics

 
I think that this is correct as far as it goes but I believe that you are forgetting about the mental aspect of things. Sometimes you can get superiority at a point by playing the mental side of the game well enough to convince the opponent that a fight will onyl result in massive casualties to no benefit and thus force them to decline the fight - thus gaining aerial superiority without fighting.

[LoBaron]

Nemo121, good one.

But thats also what I´d call a well thought out tactic. And if you can´t back it up with numbers then you will have a hard time
convincing your oponent that "resistance is futile". [;)]
(except if he got some other important reasons not to engage)

[khyberbill]

hats why I believe that a Midway type battle for the allies is impossiable in this game.....A lot of things are ahistorical.

The US was very lucky at Midway. And sometimes in this game. I recall playing the old Avalon Hill board game for Midway and the US lost every single time. That is the only Avalon Hill board game that I tossed.

[khyberbill]

I'm curious how Khyberbill managed to clear the Burmese skies with Hurricanes. I haven't been able to do this in my PBEM, and I flown both fighter sweeps and bomber escorts.

I never try to contest Japan in the air until I am sure that I have numerical fighter superiority with the exception that I do try to sneak in an ambush now and then. I continuously pound the Rangoon (typical location of fighters) airfield with heavy bombers at night from 10k. While losses of planes destroyed on the ground is usually low, it does add up over time. Japan does not have any good night fighters this early in the war. In fact, I have a few B-17 aces and most of the planes they shot down were Tojos and Zeros at night. By the time the monsoon clears in late 42, I switch to escorted day light raids and 100 B17/24/25 and Wellies over Rangoon airfield can do a lot of damage in a few days. I dont use the lighter British bombers, they just die to easily.

I would like to say I sweep before an air raid, but my sweeps always seem to come in after the bombers, even though they are located closer to the target. I think the Murphy's law of AE is that bombers come in first, followed by escorts, then sweeps. This is especially true if the bombers home field is located the furthest from the target. I have gotten so used to this that it doesn't even frustrate me anymore, and I am especially pleased when it works the way it is planned.

[Nemo121]

LoBaron,
Not a tactic... It would have to operate on the strategic level really.
 

And if you can´t back it up with numbers then you will have a hard time convincing your oponent that "resistance is futile". [;)]

 
Hmm, the greater the number the less skill is needed to convince an opponent that resistance is futile. If you have 1000 excellent fighters vs 50 of his then convincing him resistance is futile needs NO skill on your part. If you have 10 to his 50 then it requires great skill.
 
I don't think that the presence of numbers is necessary to convince someone to decline battle. I do think that the presence of numbers removes the need for any skill on the player's part... and that's the way a lot of people here play.... They utterly outmass their opponent and then congratulate themselves on their "skill" in forcing him from the skies.
 
Whether it was "skill" that did that is very much open to question.

[HansBolter]

What all those who defend game designs that give huge advantages to the almighty "experienced" Japanese pilots seem to overlook time and time again is the simple equation that if the Japanese lost all those skilled pilots leading to the demise of Japan, it was those very same "underrated by every dev" inexperinced Allied pilots who shot down these same seemingly invincible Japanese "experienced" pilots.

If the experienced Allied pilots didn't come along until the Japanese had nothing but inexperienced pilots left than it couldn't have been anyone else but the inexperienced Allied pilots who shot down the experienced Japanese pilots. Not quite as invincible as the myth would seem to portray them to have been.

Any game that cannot model the experienced pilots being vanquished by the inexperienced pilots fails as a proper model.

[HMSWarspite]

I cant remember if sqd kills counter is subject to FOW, but your 68th FG has 425 kills so far... against 143 losses (if I can add). Dont seem to be doing too badly...

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

LoBaron,
Not a tactic... It would have to operate on the strategic level really.

And if you can´t back it up with numbers then you will have a hard time convincing your oponent that "resistance is futile". [;)]

Hmm, the greater the number the less skill is needed to convince an opponent that resistance is futile. If you have 1000 excellent fighters vs 50 of his then convincing him resistance is futile needs NO skill on your part. If you have 10 to his 50 then it requires great skill.

I don't think that the presence of numbers is necessary to convince someone to decline battle. I do think that the presence of numbers removes the need for any skill on the player's part... and that's the way a lot of people here play.... They utterly outmass their opponent and then congratulate themselves on their "skill" in forcing him from the skies.

Whether it was "skill" that did that is very much open to question.

The OP was referring to an issue with tactical situation, not a strategic one. If you involve strategic layers, naturally you are right,
but that is out of scope at least as the OP is concerned.

[Nemo121]

The strategic layer, operational and tactical layers don't exist in isolation from eachother... To attempt to examine one without taking into account the others is highly flawed especially if you are choosing to ignore higher layers which are superior and to which the lower layers should be suborned. The tactical is the least important layer with the least impact on the outcome of a game like AE ( something people often lose sight of ).
 
But, of course, if the OP (and others ) wish to have a discussion which such proscribed limits that it is a useless discussion then by all means go ahead.

[DTomato]

Some of you seem to feel a need to blame the player, just like the automakers who built defective cars and then claimed it was the driver's fault.

I can't say for sure that my tactics aren't the problem, though I have tried various techniques such as layering fighters. But I find it interesting that some of you recommend swamping the Japanese with Allied fighters, which makes you wonder why the Allies needed P-39s and P-47s when they should have built hordes of cheaper P-40s for an aerial human wave assault. Given expanded Japanese aircraft production and Allied replacement rates of 30 Hurricanes and P-38s a month, I'll be curious to see how the Allies swamp the opposition.

As for experience, the advantage of second-generation Allied fighters was that they could give mass-produced pilots a fighting chance. A less-experienced pilot in a better airplane should be able to hold his own against a more experienced pilot in an inferior aircraft. It's as if WITP bought Axis propaganda about the Cult of the Ace. Sorry, experience may be the most important factor, but it's not the only one.

In any event, I'm still waiting for someone to explain how the game models the dive-and-zoom tactics of Allied fighters. Has anyone seen messages that P-38s are diving, attacking, and then climbing back up altitude for another attac?

[LoBaron]

[8|]

Noone is saying that a player benefits by seperating tactical implications from strategic ones and vice versa.
But to answer a post theres no problem to limit an answer to a smaller focus.

The OP came to the conclusion that allied fighters are underrated in A2A combat.

ORIGINAL: DicedT

It's October '42, and I have a gaggle of P-38, P-40 and Hurricane squadrons in Burma. They are being shot out of the sky by Oscars, Tojos and a few Zeroes. I've tried flying at high altitudes. I've tried flying everyone at high altitude. I've tried flying the P-38s and Hurricane IICs at 30,000 feet, and the P-40s and Hurricane IIBs at 10,000 or 15,000 feet. Same results. The P-38s bounce the Oscars, and then the Oscars get on the tail of the P-38s and shoot them down. I won't even describe what happens to P-39s.

I wonder how to answer this misassumption by citing strategy.

setting CAP alt, assigning commanders, coordinating airstrikes, performance of AC and their respective advantages and disadvantages to other AC,... -> tactics

concentration of forces, managing supplies, airbase facilities and size, availability of reserves, assigning units to different theatres of operations,... -> strategy

You need both for a good game, no need to point anyones nose to the obvious. [;)]

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

[8|]

Noone is saying that a player benefits by seperating tactical implications from strategic ones and vice versa.
But to answer a post theres no problem to limit an answer to a smaller focus.

The OP came to the conclusion that allied fighters are underrated in A2A combat.

ORIGINAL: DicedT

It's October '42, and I have a gaggle of P-38, P-40 and Hurricane squadrons in Burma. They are being shot out of the sky by Oscars, Tojos and a few Zeroes. I've tried flying at high altitudes. I've tried flying everyone at high altitude. I've tried flying the P-38s and Hurricane IICs at 30,000 feet, and the P-40s and Hurricane IIBs at 10,000 or 15,000 feet. Same results. The P-38s bounce the Oscars, and then the Oscars get on the tail of the P-38s and shoot them down. I won't even describe what happens to P-39s.

I wonder how to answer this misassumption by citing strategy.

setting CAP alt, assigning commanders, coordinating airstrikes, performance of AC and their respective advantages and disadvantages to other AC,... -> tactics

concentration of forces, managing supplies, airbase facilities and size, availability of reserves, assigning units to different theatres of operations,... -> strategy

You need both for a good game, no need to point anyones nose to the obvious. [;)]

An excellent non sequitur. Thanks for your contribution.

[LoBaron]

youre welcome. [:D]

[DTomato]

Lobaron, I'm askng you a simple question: Have you, or have you not, seen evidence that Allied fighters are able to utilize their advantages in aerial combat? Japanese fighters are able to utilize their superior maneuverability in WITP. But have you seen P-38s use their superior speed to attack, break off, and reattack Oscars? Or dive on Oscars and then zoom back up into the fight? The most I see is a message that a P-40 is diving away, but it doesn't seem to come back into the fight.

[Nemo121]

Sir James Wolfe (18th Century British General - led forces on CONUSA etc ) once replied to another general who recommended that a particular junior officer be given command of an expedition as he had been on many campaigns that "If a donkey was on 20 campaigns it still wouldn't make it a general".
 
If some Allied players can defeat the Japanese air force over Burma and some Japanese players can defeat the Allied air force over Burma during the same time period it does appear that the difference is unlikely to be due to a bug borking one side's fighters and much more likely to do with the actual player competencies.
 
I would also suggest that the sort of player who does well is one who is open to learning and open to the fact that their performance is probably flawed. One who has other views is likely to remain at the level of that donkey, plodding along and uncomprehending why horses seem to move so much faster when, to outward appearances, they have the same number of legs.
 
 
I'll give you an example from the not-so-distant game design past...
Once upon a time during the development of the sequel to a game which won numerous Strategy Game of the Year awards from internet sites and magazines there was a desire to provide some really testing scenarios for players. These scenarios were fictional and designed from the ground up to have no margin for error and require multiple playthroughs for victory to be achieved as even small errors would have cascading effects.
 
In the first scenario a German tank force had to withstand a numerically superior Allied tank force on open terrain whilst in vastly inferior tanks. In the second a Battalion-sized Italian infantry force backed by 3 self-propelled guns had to hold a dispersed position in the face of an SMG-equipped Soviet regiment with requisite artillery support and over a company of tanks - each tank vastly superior to the Italian self-propelled guns which couldn't penetrate the frontal armour except at point blank range. In the last scenario a mechanised infantry force had to assault into a town defended by infantry with many rocket propelled grenades and several tanks. The roads were roadblocked and the attackers had no artillery. In addition there was a strict time limit.
 
In any case these scenarios were designed and play-tested. Over the course of the play testing the tank scenario was never won or drawn, the Italian scenario was never won or drawn and only 1 tester managed to draw the MOUT (Military operations Urban Terrain ) scenario. There was a bit of consternation and it was decided to dumb down the scenarios and give them to another player to see if he could win the dumbed down scenarios on a first play-through.
 
This player took a look at the dumbed down scenarios with reduced enemy forces and felt they were too easy. He asked for the enemy forces in each scenario to be increased above the original levels in spite of the strong advice from the designers and playtesters that even the dumbed down scenarios were extremely difficult and only just drawable and winnable by testers who'd played them to death numerous times. In any case this player got his wish only after promising to play the dumbed down versions "once you lose" the hardened versions.
 
In the tank scenario he managed to find microterrain and exploited it to lure the enemy into reverse slope infantry tank-killer teams and mobbing the surviving enemy with flanking mobs of tiny panzers. Major victory.
 
In the italian scenario he decided he had too few forces to effectively defend and decided to attack. He managed to push his Bn through the first two Bns of Soviet forces, killing all the enemy tanks with infantry teams in return for just one of his own before the arrival of the third enemy Bn "teleporting" into position in the midst of his own Bn caused havoc. This one ended in a slight win and a realisation by the game designer that he couldn't teleport units onto the middle of a map into positions he assumed the enemy would never reach. Instead he started designing some route march algorithms to allow formations to enter games from map edges and make their way, in a timely fashion, to where they were supposed to be at a given time.
 
In the MOUT scenario a massive dismounted assault with heavy tank support made headway while the exploitation of smoke and dust from destroyed buildings allowed the creation of ersatz smokescreens to screen lateral movement from enemy forces and massive concentration of force along a crucial axis. Again enemy reinforcements teleported into a "safe area" far behind their lines, deeper than any other player had reach, but right into the midst of the attacker's formations. In any case this one was still a clear win. The biggest thing which aided this win was the player's use of the purposeful destruction of buildings to "create" dust screens along a defended route which he then drive through while mounted before dismounting BEHIND the enemy front line and assaulting backwards into the back of the enemy front line, utterly destroying it.
 
 
Why do I give these examples? Simple....
Those scenarios were deemed unwinnable because no-one had won one despite massive amounts of testing. They were the Kobayashi Marus of that game. Yet, when given to a different player ( not necessarily the best player of that game but just one whose approach was very different than any of the developers or playtesters ) new strategems were thought of which not only yielded victory but yielded extremely decisive victories.
 
 
I understand the desire to think that one is competent at a lot of things and that any difference in outcome must be due to the game and not due to one's own failures and errors BUT the reality is that the majority of the time repeated failure is due to the player.
 
The best players ( of chess or any other strategy game ) are not those who don't make mistakes or who think they are amazing but those who utterly accept they are flawed and make mistakes and who, even after a significant victory, will examine what they did in order to find ANY mistakes. If an operation was a smashing success most people go "I'm awesome". This leads to mediocrity. Instead you should say" Well, I succeeded and got a 10 to 1 kill rate. Why didn't I do better?" and then ruthlessly examine where your losses came from, what missed opportunities you had and next time try to get 11 or 12 to 1.
 
 
Psychologically it is more comforting to blame the game but that doesn't mean it is realistic.

[Nemo121]

You need both for a good game, no need to point anyones nose to the obvious.

 
With the discourse here the obvious appears to be exceedingly non-obvious to many.... [8D]

[DTomato]

Amazing that we've had two big patches to fix major flaws like artillery Death Stars and pilot experience. But any suggestion that the air combat model might be flawed brings on innuendo that the player must be at fault.

For the first time, I understand the meaning of "fanboy".

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: DicedT

Lobaron, I'm askng you a simple question: Have you, or have you not, seen evidence that Allied fighters are able to utilize their advantages in aerial combat? Japanese fighters are able to utilize their superior maneuverability in WITP. But have you seen P-38s use their superior speed to attack, break off, and reattack Oscars? Or dive on Oscars and then zoom back up into the fight? The most I see is a message that a P-40 is diving away, but it doesn't seem to come back into the fight.

When you see the "bounce" information in the combat replay the attacker uses his superior altitude to engage. Since game machanics handle aircombat in a way that a pilot
after a successful bounce tries to regain altitude up to his initial level this can be repeated more than once with a single pilot during a single engagement.
And, yes, I have already seen this happen on many occasions.

What I cannot answer is how the A2A combat engine handles non successful bounces or how it calculates that a bouncing fighter is forced into a turn fight by another enemy
pilot.
But this happens.
Again, as I tried to point out in my earlier post, numbers are crucial here. Its much easier to be forced into a turn fight when the opponent has superior numbers.
Think of it as a wingman that engages the plane that tried to bounce the wing leader.

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

You need both for a good game, no need to point anyones nose to the obvious.

With the discourse here the obvious appears to be exceedingly non-obvious to many.... [8D]

True, no offense man. [:)]

[Nemo121]

LOL! I've been called a fanboy. Brilliant.

DicedT, next time before you post I suggest you actually know what you're talking about. I am a trenchant critic of areas where AE falls down. I also feel that portions of the team exhibit a major "Not Invented Here Syndrome" with suggestions for change coming from players. If a problem wasn't spotted by the team or a solution wasn't imagined by them then several members of the team ( but not all ) are more likely to shoot it down than to engage constructively with the poster and work constructively for improvement.


On the other hand... to say that the most common reason for poor outcome is poor play is simply objective reality. It is true for WiTP and every other aspect of life. If pointing out objective reality causes people who don't know any of the background to things to label one a fanboy then so be it.

I must admit though that you are so out of touch with the background here and so embarrassingly ill-informed with your name-throwing that it is impossible to take insult. Instead you gave me a good laugh.


Just to be clear:
I don't think the A2A model is not flawed. I think it still has great room for improvement. On the other hand that it is flawed doesn't mean that's the explanation for your inability to win the air war. The model is equally flawed for ALL players. Some players win the air war over Burma despite those flaws, some don't. Those who don't win the air war don't fail because of the flaws in the air model, they fail because of the flaws in their own play.

I didn't want to say it quite so directly but, unfortunately, you haven't seemed to be able to discern my point when it was any more oblique.

So, is the air model flawed? Yes.
Does it explain your individual failure to win the air war? No.