Tojo or Tony

[Klahn]

You beat me to the punch. While I wasn't sure what engine it used, I know it was a bomber engine and certainly not the same as the Zero or Oscar.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

Use M2 Zeros to escort your bombers. They have the longest range of anything resembling a fighter and 12 firepower to boot. I don't stop Oscar production either (until the Tojo is out anyway), after all they are better than the Nate, but neither will I expand it. From what I have seen of AE just intercepting a bombing strike greatly reduces its accuracy. Since the Tony is a maintenance hog, scatter them at level 1 and 2 airfields near where you want them to CAP (with adequate av support of course). You don't want to cluster a lot of planes at 1 airfield anyway, plus if you have rain at 1 field others will be open so you aren't risking an all or nothing CAP.

try escorting IJAAF bombers with IJNAF fighters. My opponent has tried to do that nearly two weeks in a row in Australia but fails day after day. All you see every day is "fighters failing to link up with the bombers" and then the fighters go in alone on a sweep to be followed by the bombers alone doing their bombing. If this is WAD I don´t know. If Navy fighters can´t escort Army bombers and vice versa then this perhaps would have been one major thing to note in the manual. Perhaps it´s in there, I haven´t seen it.

And I don´t know if it´s true for the Allied too.

[Who Cares]

Don't need the Zero to escort army bombers. Army bombers don't have a range of 14+ hexes like Nells/Bettys do.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I don't think you guys are paying attention to the service ratings. I think it is a big deal in AE and you should be looking at it in every plane you consider. Just ask any AFB about the trouble keeping brewster buffalos and P38 flying. It was not unusal for my early war carrier brewsters to have 20% of their compliment in the hangar after running 30-40% CAP for a few days. P-38 proves the same. It is not a great fighter to base at small front line bases-especially if the Japanese player has local air superiority. Tony, Frank, George, Jack all have a service rating of 3 (I think).

Tony vs Tojo, is a no brainer. I go for the Tojo. In my games it seems to handle hurricanes and P40s fairly well and it is about the only 2nd generation fighter that has a service rating of 1. Too bad about this as I think a lot of JFBs will opt for tojos and we won't see the tony much in our games. I sort of like the way the Tony looks.

Zero and Oscar soon become outclassed but it is hard to walk away from that 1 service rating. When Allied air power starts to crank up I don't think you want a bunch of broken planes sitting on the tarmac.[:-]

I´m using P-38s for two and a halve months already and have not had a problem with them. 50% Cap is no problem at all if there is enough air support. Same goes for my service rating 4 heavy bombers like the B-17, I keep them flying all the time. I have not had a problem with maintaining any of my (Allied aircraft). This may be different if you don´t have enough airsupport (surely a bigger problem for the Japanese). What killed my P-38 isn´t their service rating but the pilots that can´t fly 50% Cap over a longer period than two days without having their morale pummeled, but that´s a different story.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

Don't need the Zero to escort army bombers. Army bombers don't have a range of 14+ hexes like Nells/Bettys do.

well, I was answering to your statement: Use M2 Zeros to escort your bombers

[Who Cares]

No problem, but my statement was in response to Q Ball and he was talking about using Oscars to escort "Netties" (ie Navy bombers). An Allied game I have going right now the Jap player has been raiding Akyab on a regular basis with Sallys escorted by Zeros, so I'm not all together convinced you are right though about the army navy thing. I would guess you have other factors interfering with your escorts (like leader, morale, stacking, altitude or some such).

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

No problem, but my statement was in response to Q Ball and he was talking about using Oscars to escort "Netties" (ie Navy bombers). An Allied game I have going right now the Jap player has been raiding Akyab on a regular basis with Sallys escorted by Zeros, so I'm not all together convinced you are right though about the army navy thing. I would guess you have other factors interfering with your escorts (like leader, morale, stacking, altitude or some such).

not my escorts, my opponent´s ones. Alt seems not to be the factor though as escorts and bombers are at 6.000ft

[undercovergeek]

as long as AFBs are complaining Tojos are kicking their ass - then thats what im building - heard no tales of an uber Tony, only uber Tojo [:D]

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I don't think you guys are paying attention to the service ratings. I think it is a big deal in AE and you should be looking at it in every plane you consider. Just ask any AFB about the trouble keeping brewster buffalos and P38 flying. It was not unusal for my early war carrier brewsters to have 20% of their compliment in the hangar after running 30-40% CAP for a few days. P-38 proves the same. It is not a great fighter to base at small front line bases-especially if the Japanese player has local air superiority. Tony, Frank, George, Jack all have a service rating of 3 (I think).

Tony vs Tojo, is a no brainer. I go for the Tojo. In my games it seems to handle hurricanes and P40s fairly well and it is about the only 2nd generation fighter that has a service rating of 1. Too bad about this as I think a lot of JFBs will opt for tojos and we won't see the tony much in our games. I sort of like the way the Tony looks.

Zero and Oscar soon become outclassed but it is hard to walk away from that 1 service rating. When Allied air power starts to crank up I don't think you want a bunch of broken planes sitting on the tarmac.[:-]

I´m using P-38s for two and a halve months already and have not had a problem with them. 50% Cap is no problem at all if there is enough air support. Same goes for my service rating 4 heavy bombers like the B-17, I keep them flying all the time. I have not had a problem with maintaining any of my (Allied aircraft). This may be different if you don´t have enough airsupport (surely a bigger problem for the Japanese). What killed my P-38 isn´t their service rating but the pilots that can´t fly 50% Cap over a longer period than two days without having their morale pummeled, but that´s a different story.

Well, that sort of is my point. They are fine when you have great bases and support-and air superiority or at least parity. But when the 2nd generation fighters show up for Japan then any fighter with a service rating of 3 will be at a disadvantage due to Allied numbers. You know how it goes. High sweep with lightings, corsairs, or P 47s, rinse and repeat and then send in the heavies to close the airfield. Any damaged planes caught on the ground might never leave.

[CarnageINC]

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

as long as AFBs are complaining Tojos are kicking their ass - then thats what im building - heard no tales of an uber Tony, only uber Tojo [:D]

[:D] I'll go with you on that [:D]

[CarnageINC]

If you choose to build Tony's, which one do you go for?  It appears they show up within 4 months of each other at the start of Nov 43.  Is it worth R&D to try and make one of them appear sooner than the rest?