High-Altitude bombing way too effective

[Rusty1961]

For altitudes over 33,000 feet, the B-17s are way too accurate.

I was able to erase Schwienfurt from the map from 33,000+ feet on the first turn of two of my PBEM games (one has since re-started).

This, IMHO, is a game-killer as the twin-engine German Day fighters are incapable of operating above 33K and the only German place that can hold its own is the ME 109G. And of course Flak can't touch the B17s at that altitude.

In USAAf doing the same raid would get you a 4% damage and that sounds a hell of a lot better!

[Erkki]

Yep, heavy bombers' ceilings are above the German heavy fighters', Bf-110 and Me-410. Anyone knows how high they could fly with fuel and bomb load? Of course all planes ceiling would drop when carrying payload, but  4 rockets and some ammo is not even in relative weight increase any close to B-17's load, is it?

How does the bomber's accuracy(hitting probability) drop with altitude, and is the bomber type, medium or heavy, a factor? Something like experience*a*(1-b*altitude^c)?

[harley]

Sometimes I let these conversations go to see what the community observations are. I'm going to do that here, too.

I will say that as altitude increases the accuracy drops more. ie, the accuracy drop between 3,000 and 4,000 might be 1% but between 10,000 and 11,000 it might be 5%. Or more. I'm not giving accurate figures, mostly because I do not like to, but partly because I do not have them to hand at the moment.

[kaybayray]

OK, I'll bite. [8D]

I dont know what the accuracy is for Allied Strikes at 33,000 feet because I have never launched a Strike at that altitude. I can say that at the maximum altitude I have launched at (28,000) the accuracy I have obtained is DISMAL. Yeah my post Strike Recon from the Strike Force shows huge damage percentage.... but a Recon mission shows little effect. For those reasons I have contained my Daylight Strategic Bombing to between 18,000 to 24,000. Within that I get what I consider acceptable results to extremely good results. The lower altitudes giving the better end of the results obtained.

However I must point out that I am running the 43 campaign and not discussing Strikes in early 45 where the Allies have a huge technical advantage plus numbers superiority.

I am curious, how many Strikes have you run at that altitude and at what target? I would like to see what kind of results obtained at the same target with perhaps 5 strikes at 30,000, 25,000 and 20,000. I am confident that you would find that your results are inversely proportional to the altitude of the strike. IE: the higher the altitude the lower the results, the lower the altitude the higher the results. The quinessential R&R study here.

Now, not knowing just exactly how things are modeled in the game, the relavent concepts are Accuracy and Concentration. With Sir Newton in the driver seat the higher the altitude of release the more dispersal will result upon impact with the ground. This would be the effect of Concentration. This is further diluted by the Accuracy, or lack of, at actually targeting the Aiming Point. The higher the altitude of aim, the more magnified any error in the accuracy of sighting the aiming point is. Thereby increasing the Deflection of the center of the concentration of ordnance upon impact. I believe Sir Galileo would be in the driver seat on the latter. I am not even bringing up the contribution of Bernoulli to yet a third dilution effect.

I am confident that all these effects are somehow modeled in this game. The level of accuracy of each may be debatable but my observations running the Allies in BTR over several years shows a strong correlation between the expected and obtained results with respect to this concept. However I have never embarked on a statistical study to determine the degree of accuracy of the modeled effects.

Just my thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. What say you Harley?

Later,
KayBay [8D]

[Nikademus]

lol....in USAAF I never bothered with high alt. Trick was simply to go in at 4,000 feet and blast every industry to smithereens. Flak and fighters be damned. Course the random generator error in the game helped immensly.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: kaybayray



I am curious, how many Strikes have you run at that altitude and at what target?

I was able to erase Schwienfurt from the map from 33,000+ feet on the first turn of two of my PBEM games (one has since re-started).

From my original post:

I was able to erase Schwienfurt from the map from 33,000+ feet on the first turn of two of my PBEM games (one has since re-started).

It's funny, every time I get some way out result, which seems to be the norm, the feeling I get is that my results are some sort of 3 or 4 standard deviations from the mean and things like this happen.

But twice? Let's make that three times given I experimented with the attack prior to both PBEM games.

Once I can understand, but twice or three times no. There is a bug in the game.

[:-]

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: harley

Sometimes I let these conversations go to see what the community observations are. I'm going to do that here, too.

I will say that as altitude increases the accuracy drops more. ie, the accuracy drop between 3,000 and 4,000 might be 1% but between 10,000 and 11,000 it might be 5%. Or more. I'm not giving accurate figures, mostly because I do not like to, but partly because I do not have them to hand at the moment.

So are you saying you don't see a problem here? Only the Me-109 can do battle at that altitude and the bombers can obliterate factories with no flak disruption?

Perhaps we should change your name to "Heisenburg" instead of Harley. [:D]

[harley]

Rusty - I was going to comment on your relative ceiling question, but it's not my domain. I do the code, Ron does the data. All aircraft performance is done by Ron.

I am happy to wait out other observations on high-alt bombing. I know how the code works, I know how Waynno fixed the old high-alt bug, and I know that it's fixed. Kaybay's observations are interesting - in a good way.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: harley

Rusty - I was going to comment on your relative ceiling question, but it's not my domain. I do the code, Ron does the data. All aircraft performance is done by Ron.

I am happy to wait out other observations on high-alt bombing. I know how the code works, I know how Waynno fixed the old high-alt bug, and I know that it's fixed. Kaybay's observations are interesting - in a good way.

Let's for just a second Harley forget about the accuracy of the bombing from 33,000 feet.

Erik brings up a play-balancing point. The only plane that can get to that altitude and fight "moderately" well is the 109G. The FW190 is trash up there and there are no twin engine planes that can get over that altitude. [:@]

Thus, it makes perfect sense for the American player to fly most of his long-range missions into Germany at above 33,000 feet. The American losses will be minuscule as the flak can't touch them and their losses from the Lufwaffe also will be slight given how few planes can now reach them.

Your 109Gs will also have to be rocket or gun-pod armed as they are the only real bomber attack planes the Germans have at that altitude. They also will be owned as they are the ones carrying the entire fight to the Americans and they won't be equipped to take on the hordes of 47s, 38s and 51s that will be pounding them.

Just some comments on play-balance that really need to be addressed.

[harley]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

ORIGINAL: harley

Rusty - I was going to comment on your relative ceiling question, but it's not my domain. I do the code, Ron does the data. All aircraft performance is done by Ron.

Erik brings up a play-balancing point. The only plane that can get to that altitude and fight "moderately" well is the 109G. The FW190 is trash up there and there are no twin engine planes that can get over that altitude.

Just some comments on play-balance that really need to be addressed.

Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Either way, my historical knowledge is insufficient to make a comment. The actual parameters are controlled by the data the game uses, now how the game uses the data. I don't do the data.

[Erkki]

Harley, what are the altitude bands and what do the positive and negative bonuses the planes have in them work, what do they effect?

In my PBEM games I have now 5 times experienced a situation where my interceptors at around 30,000ft(actually, twice at 20,000) and P-47s are 2000 to up to 6000ft below them. They fight for a while with no hits, and then P-47s get to bounce 109/190s(makes no difference). Anyone with any experience in WW2 flight sims knows that with that much altitude advantage it doesnt really matter what plane you fly, and you'd think 80+ planes getting bouncing would at least have some effect. Bf-109 also has phenomenal rate of climb - only Spitfire gets any close. P-47 was a pig. Heard the FW190 gets some sort of negative bonus at high alts - what does this affect? IRL it was speed, and while every plane's speed dropped above a certain altitude, FW's dropped worse than many others above roughly 25,000ft. It would still have the lunatic armament, rate of roll and many other qualities. What kind of negative bonuses do LF Spitfires get at high altitudes? Ie. LF V in rea llife was a killer below 7,000ft but above it even 109E's could easily outrun, climb and turn it.

It also seems that of successfull bounces the P47s kills it opponent about 50%+ of times, while my FWs and 109s bouncing P47s dont kill them more than 20-25% of times. I'd like to refer to the previous topic(s) this was discussed. FW190 had more than double the P47s absolute firepower, and 109 almost equal. I was told there are game mechanics things and the gunrate as shown in the weapons data doesnt tell it all, but to me it seems it does. And this is not the only plane performance statistic that is wrong with planes - no one has eyt replied to my post on Bf109s yet either. I have more to add to that list but theres no point in posting it - they wont egt changed anyways, as no one really cares.

[harley]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Harley, what are the altitude bands and what do the positive and negative bonuses the planes have in them work, what do they effect?

We are keeping the exact bands under the hood. We have more bands than WITP:AE does. It really only affects the manoeuvre rating, where manoeuvre is an amalgam of turn, roll, acceleration and visibility.

In my PBEM games I have now 5 times experienced a situation where my interceptors at around 30,000ft(actually, twice at 20,000) and P-47s are 2000 to up to 6000ft below them. They fight for a while with no hits, and then P-47s get to bounce 109/190s(makes no difference). Anyone with any experience in WW2 flight sims knows that with that much altitude advantage it doesnt really matter what plane you fly, and you'd think 80+ planes getting bouncing would at least have some effect. Bf-109 also has phenomenal rate of climb - only Spitfire gets any close. P-47 was a pig. Heard the FW190 gets some sort of negative bonus at high alts - what does this affect? IRL it was speed, and while every plane's speed dropped above a certain altitude, FW's dropped worse than many others above roughly 25,000ft. It would still have the lunatic armament, rate of roll and many other qualities. What kind of negative bonuses do LF Spitfires get at high altitudes? Ie. LF V in rea llife was a killer below 7,000ft but above it even 109E's could easily outrun, climb and turn it.

Hmmm... my admittedly limited knowledge on the subject is at odds with your views. The P-47 was more than a match for a 190 at higher alts, and the 190 wasn't just slower - it was less stable at the higher alts.

It also seems that of successfull bounces the P47s kills it opponent about 50%+ of times, while my FWs and 109s bouncing P47s dont kill them more than 20-25% of times. I'd like to refer to the previous topic(s) this was discussed. FW190 had more than double the P47s absolute firepower, and 109 almost equal. I was told there are game mechanics things and the gunrate as shown in the weapons data doesnt tell it all, but to me it seems it does. And this is not the only plane performance statistic that is wrong with planes - no one has eyt replied to my post on Bf109s yet either. I have more to add to that list but theres no point in posting it - they wont egt changed anyways, as no one really cares.

Again, I won't comment on the data, but every weapon has 2 ratings after effect - range and accuracy. If you're out of range, you're out of range. Cannons generally have a lower range. I think the cannon may be less accurate, too. Both of these come into your first point about the bounce. If the bounce is executed from far enough away the cannon may miss totally, and you won't see a report. There might be justification for me to look at the bounce code to ensure it's executed close. I don't have that to hand at present.


Anyway - we've run a long way off the bombing accuracy topic...

[Dobey455]

Rusty,

As Kaybay mentioned I have also found that the strike results reported by the bomber groups themselves can often be wildly inaccurate. The Bomber groups will report the targtet totally destroyed only for a follow up BDA Recon mission to reveal that in reality only light damage was done. And Vice Versa.

Has the damage done to the Shcweinfurt plant been confirmed by your opponent or follow on recon?
Also is this just the Schweinfurt one day campaign or the 1943 campaign game?

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: harley
Again, I won't comment on the data, but every weapon has 2 ratings after effect - range and accuracy. If you're out of range, you're out of range. Cannons generally have a lower range. I think the cannon may be less accurate, too. Both of these come into your first point about the bounce. If the bounce is executed from far enough away the cannon may miss totally, and you won't see a report. There might be justification for me to look at the bounce code to ensure it's executed close. I don't have that to hand at present.


Anyway - we've run a long way off the bombing accuracy topic...

I discuss these here because the topic has so far been ignored elsewhere. One thing about guns range... Why does is it there, and how much does it exactly matter; ie. what kind of role it plays? I must say again, that anyone who has played WW2 flight sims knows that the effective range itself matters very, very little in aerial combat thanks to the relative speeds and angles. "Spray & Pray" at long ranges might give a hit or two, but only ends in the pilot using his ammo before the fight even properly begins. It is only relevant when strafing or shooting heavies at their long 6(place you dont want to be in the first place). I wont even go to about the power, accuracy(whatever it exactly is) and penetration(how much it matters) that at least seem to be out of whack.

Why shouldnt the players know how the game works? Is this because the at least now apparent bias is wanted to be hidden behind excuses, is it the lousy planning of the game mechanics, or what? Or simply that no one really knows?

One more notice: <20,000ft is not exactly high alt to me. Yet FW190s get their asses handled by planes that did in real everything worse but running for mama in a 1000kmph dive. I dont mean the P-47 was a bad plane - it, especially later models, wasnt. However its strengths were in anything but dogfighting at the deck/medium alts, climb, armament or maneuverability.

The high alt bombing accuracy might be related to the BC ability to hit precision targets. We cant know, because the game mechanics are hidden. You have to run the game and deviate from results of different scenarios how the game works. So far I have been unable to get my planes, 109s or 190s, doesnt matter, bounce P47s from a higher altitude before their on their way home, but killing dozens of 109s from BELOW them, being a worse-climbing aircraft, in no problem for P47. On the other hand, Spitfires, usually lose the df and climbrace against 109s and 190s, even HF.IX, HF.VII and F.IX. To me, it seems theres more than the shown data hidden from the player.

P-47 and many other aircraft have all their guns in the wings too. I dont think the affect of this to the "guns range" and how they can hit is modelled. Only absolute firepower is, and even it is out of whack. [;)]

IMHO this "guns range", which by your post Harley seems to affect the combat by a lot, should be completely removed, or only give values changing 1-1,5x between different weapons. The practical differences between MG, HMG, cannons and MK108 low-muzzle speed cannons is not in range(heck, the targets almost never fly straight anyways, and if they do you go close, close, no, closer! as the guide went then, but seems its been forgotten), but in amount of lead they require to hit.



Anyhoo... to give my ungrateful post a final tune making myself a perfect example of a Luftwhiner, here a semi-politically incorrect vid honoring one of the greatest military aircraft ever built:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNuaWt7u ... re=related

[&o][&o][8D]


EDIT: a related topic: tm.asp?m=2258593

The same answer probably still apply. I see the similarity with this, that and a 3rd topic I began myself....

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Rusty,

As Kaybay mentioned I have also found that the strike results reported by the bomber groups themselves can often be wildly inaccurate. The Bomber groups will report the targtet totally destroyed only for a follow up BDA Recon mission to reveal that in reality only light damage was done. And Vice Versa.

Has the damage done to the Shcweinfurt plant been confirmed by your opponent or follow on recon?
Also is this just the Schweinfurt one day campaign or the 1943 campaign game?

Both my PBEM opponents confirmed the destruction of the ballbearing plant at Schwienfurt.

Thus, Kaybay's hypothesis has been disproven.

Both attacks were in the PBEM games and one "Test" attack.

There is a problem with the bombing routines and no one appears to want to address this.

[Rusty1961]

I have to agree with Erikki here:
&nbsp;
The high alt bombing accuracy might be related to the BC ability to hit precision targets. We cant know, because the game mechanics are hidden. You have to run the game and deviate from results of different scenarios how the game works. So far I have been unable to get my planes, 109s or 190s, doesnt matter, bounce P47s from a higher altitude before their on their way home, but killing dozens of 109s from BELOW them, being a worse-climbing aircraft, in no problem for P47. On the other hand, Spitfires, usually lose the df and climbrace against 109s and 190s, even HF.IX, HF.VII and F.IX. To me, it seems theres more than the shown data hidden from the player.
&nbsp;
We're in the first week of September of 1943 and I think in Air to air combat I've lost 2 P-47s in total.
&nbsp;
I frequently bounce him from lower altitudes.

[kaybayray]

Quote from RUsty1961
Both my PBEM opponents confirmed the destruction of the ballbearing plant at Schwienfurt.

Thus, Kaybay's hypothesis has been disproven.



You have not Disproven nor Proven anything my friend. What you have is three attacks on a facility at very high altitude with similar results. I am making the argument that you should test your conjecture with a legitmate test where the bombing effects are compared repeatedly over a range of altitudes. I am also not expressing "My" hypothesis, I am exressing some of the fundamental laws of Physics as described by Newton, Galileo and Bernoulli just to mention a few that are involved in what we are discussing.

The fundamental premise of a DOE (Design of Experiment) demands that Parameters be tested for High, Medium and Low values independant of each other and compare the results for effects and trends. If You were to do that, of if you could find the patience to allow some of us that are trying to investigate this to do this we might just learn something.

Many that have replied have asked very specific questions in an effort to try to understand but you are not answereing the questions. You are adding more conjectures to the list and diluting the process. I do not believe anybody is saying that you are not seeing what you are seeing. I also do not believe that there is no effort being made to try to deal with what you are bringing to this forum. In contrast, many of us are trying to look into this with what free time we have. Keep in mind none of the people that are trying to converse with you on this topic are Employees of Matrix. Those that are Matrix Staff are unpaid volunteers and those of us like I, are just interested enthusiasts of this game.

So I ask that you just give the community that is trying to assist you a chance to do so. We all have our own lives and careers going and this is just an escape for us.

Regards,
KayBay [8D]

[joliverlay]

Harley

This is my recollection. HS or some of the others can correct me if they think I am wrong. I think this observation/discussion is not new.

The original game had a bug at maximum altitude. I don't think it was because of aircraft statistics or performance values, I recall it was because of a rounding error or rolling over or something like that. Some folks reported house rules to deal with it in the old forum. This has been pointed out before, but I'll say it again, I am fairly certain the models for the game were optimized to simulate real world performance near the "historical" values not at the ends. The performance of aircraft in the game a zero altitude and at the maximum value permitted likely have very little to do with reality.

Anyway, the circular error probability for bombs falling on a target decreases rapidly with altitude (as does to bomb density). At very high altitude the probability of hitting a target decreases, probably more rapidly at extreme altitude.

Also, if the 8th AAF could have flown above the axis ME-110 and FW-190 service ceilings and conducted bombing raids they would have. You should be able to fly bombing missions at altitudes were the ME-109 was superior to the FW-190 in performance, the game allows that. But if you fly above the service maximum altitude of ME-110 and ME-410 you should: (a) suffer whatever real world penalty that altitude dictated with respect to bomber accuracy, speed, attrition, etc (suffocation or freezing?) or (b) it should not be allowed at all if the planes could not actually do it carrying their bomb load. However, the altitude should NOT (IMO) be restricted for play balance.

I vote for a model that reflects the real world limitations, not so much for play balance.

[harley]

The old code used a signed 16-bit integer for the altitude calculations. That left it with a maximum altitude of 32767, anything over that resulted in the code using 0 as the attacking alt. This was one of the first bugs we hunted down and killed.

As for Rusty's initial observation...

I took all the parameters from the code, and the 500lb bomb accuracy and effectiveness. I took the site details from one of the Kugelfischer sites...

The code does a unit check to see how accurate the lead bomber is. This is based on skill, cloud, morale, smoke, altitude, if it has a norden or not. This is then fed to the individual planes, which work out the accuracy per pilot based on similar factors...

I used the following parameters:

Code: Select all

 Unit XP  Pilot XP  Morale   Altitude    Norden?   Site Size
 70        70         70         33000       Yes       40
 

Then... and here's the fun part...

the code works out the accuracy per bomb dropped. Simming all this over 1000 iterations gave me the result of between 80% and 250% damage from 33000 feet. Now that looks like it justifies Rusty's issue, but...

With the destructive power of a 500lbs bomb, it takes only 7 or 8 hits to destroy the plant. So even with 250%, that's only 20 hits out of 1000 bombs.

Now this was all based on 0 cloud, 0 smoke, 0 unit disruption (no flak as Rusty pointed out). Add those figures in and things get better. But not a lot. On average the site was still destroyed.

So I think based on the raw figures, Rusty's symptom is valid - plants are too easy to destroy from High-Alt... I think the hypothesis is incorrect, as the accuracy is between 0.7% and 2.0%. I don't have an issue with that, but will listen if others have evidence one way or t'other...

For giggles I upped the size of the site. The results weren't much different. More hits, but less damage per hit. Destruction rates were similar.

Where I'd like to take this conversation now is around the power of the weapons, or more probably the resilience of the sites... 40 is just an arbitrary number. The question should be how many 500lbs bombs should hit site X or site Y to destroy it.

Discuss...

[harley]

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

Anyway, the circular error probability for bombs falling on a target decreases rapidly with altitude (as does to bomb density). At very high altitude the probability of hitting a target decreases, probably more rapidly at extreme altitude.

my tests above showed 2% hits from 33000, but 35% from under 10,000...

But if you fly above the service maximum altitude of ME-110 and ME-410 you should: (a) suffer whatever real world penalty that altitude dictated with respect to bomber accuracy, speed, attrition, etc (suffocation or freezing?) or (b) it should not be allowed at all if the planes could not actually do it carrying their bomb load.

Planes take icing/service damage about 30,000 at present. Just like planes at < 500 feet stand a chance to crash.

However, the altitude should NOT (IMO) be restricted for play balance.

You may remember way back when... this happened. Ron undid it.