We Need NikMod (AE)

[vettim89]

Getting the feeling the Nik lost any and all battles he may have had concerning the effectiveness of flak. Any chance we get a Flak Enhanced AE scenario?

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Getting the feeling the Nik lost any and all battles he may have had concerning the effectiveness of flak. Any chance we get a Flak Enhanced AE scenario?

I do agree that the Japanese flak needs to be upgraded a lot. And the Allied eliminated.[;)]

[Shark7]

I'm taking it that the Flak is even less effective in AE then?

[moonraker65]

I just want NikMod full stop for AE. Enjoyed all the NikMods in WiTP Vanilla.

[Nikademus]

I have one for Guadalcanal mostly built.....so its likely that would be floated out there first. A quasi GC mod has been created that addresses several issues. Will be spending some time playtesting that.

Right now i'm focused on the upcoming AE patches.

thx for the interest!

[steverodgers801]

Japanese ships did not have effective flak, due to a lack of coordination and it was not a concern until after Midway. I just finished reading "shattered sword" and the author discusses how ineffective Japanese flak was. Unlike America Japan did not have a good tacking system and solutions were manually done. Japanese flack cold not begin to target dive bombers until they had already started their dives.

[el cid again]

This isn't actually true. That is, it is misleading, incomplete, and not always true. Further, your source is flawed. It isn't respectful of Japanese sources - and that violates SLAM (Gen SLA Marshall's) dictim that you cannot know the truth if you don't listen to those who know it. Jim (the AE coordinator) warned me about that book, because it was so disrespectful of Saburo Sakai - someone with a very high repution in USN and among naval historians. But eventually I got hold of a copy - and although it is worth reading - it is often misleading because of what they omit (and probably don't know) - having not read extensively enough the available Japanese materials. For an English language discussion of the AA weapons and their associated fire control systems, see Naval Weapons of World War Two. This covers ALL navies, and is not biased toward any. For an English history of AAA, see On Air Defense. Again, it covers ALL nations, and isn't biased toward any - so when it credits the Japanese with something original - it is because they did something worth noting. By 1945 Japanese air defenses were formidable. Japanese air warning systems were sufficient to provide two hours warning to civilians to take shelter and other precautions. They were operating the longest range aircraft detection system on the planet - an electrostatic fence between Shanghai and Formosa - and hundreds of radars - many of them multi-static - that is - two to four recievers per transmitter at different locations - making the radiated power very efficient - the system hard to destroy - and permitting passive ranging of jammers. When the first B-29 raid (from India) went to Japan - it had a special plane set up to monitor possible enemy radar (based on radar we captured at Guadalcanal) - and without a comprehensive coverage of frequencies - it detected over a hundred active radar sites - and there was no doubt the group was tracked for a vast distance. And that was not in 1945, but 1943 if I recall properly.

The Japanese Navy actually had a number of innovations in AAA which were practical and effective. It was the first modern military service to devise complex AAA simulators - analog computers built along the lines of a planetarium - inside which operators trained in actual directors (control stations). They trained in all light conditions, and they trained against model targets which were the right size for the simulated range. The directors were identical to those on AAA ships, and these involved a complex form of fire control computers. USN and RN and others eventually used similar analog computers en mass, but the Japanese system was an independent and apparently earlier development. When the Pacific War began, the already designed and building AAA destroyers (which were derived from AA cruiser designs simplified to speed production and lower cost) had an actual AAA plotting room behind the bridge - something USN later adopted (and it was still the case in my 1960s vintage built destroyer). The best Japanese AA guns were superb - the two best cases being 1939 designs (a 76mm and a 100 mm, both using the same fire control system, but with different cams to account for the different trajectory of the shells) - which is to say - early enough to matter. A superb 127 mm only entered service in 1945 - but it was very much a Japanese 5 inch 51 - and more successful - and completed in time for the war (although not in time to matter). Derivitives of the USN 5 inch 51 attempted to make the beaste reliable until the 1980s, but never really got there. [My ship had two - and on the average - one was down.] Even poorer Japanese guns - for example long 5 inch destroyer guns - could be fatal in experienced hands. Captain Hara, on encountering a heretofor 100% effective skip bombing attack, managed not only to survive undamaged, but to kill his attacker - by simply not doing the Japanese SOP. Instead of turning sharply, he ordered his ship to a steady course, with two impacts: (a) the enemy bomber miscalculated the lead, causing a miss, because the lead assumed the ship would turn; (b) the ship became a stable gun platform, and its experienced gunners were perfectly able to hit a constant bearing, decreasing range non-maneuvering aircraft - and they did.

[RevRick]

Cid...
Good to see you again.
And I have a question...

Just what ship were you on? From your description, it sounds devastatingly close to the class I was on, completely down to the 5"54 mounts which seemed to take turns being CASREPT. We called Mt. 52 "Wonder Mount" - we wondered if the bloody thing would shoot!

[Mac Linehan]

EL CID

Welcome back! I am delighted that you have returned!

AAA forever!

Mac

[Mac Linehan]

Nik -

Nik Mod Lives! Can't wait till it comes out.

Mac