ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
30th oct, sweep of 32 P40B and 35 brand new P-38 on Moulmein, where the jap has come back with his planes.
For 21 japs planes, 3 P40B and 21 P-38 are downed . 21 ?????????? WTF ??? This planes is supposed to be good. Don't talk about exp, with 7500 planes lost since beginning of war japs exp should be awful, but NO; my exp was around 62; so what ? I supposed that Sweep were the best missions !!! ALL THIS IS ONLY CRAP AND BULLSHIT !!
At what range were you conducting your sweep? And, do you know if the Japanese have radar at their base??
And what is the experience of the Japanese? If they are in the high 80's, you are going to take really bad losses.
One thing i've found that most newer players don't quite get: if you are flying aircraft at something near maximum range, you will take disproportionate losses...
i've had 2 Japanese players try attacking at near maximum range (in CHS, where air losses are markedly decreased) into fairly stiff opposition with their crack pilots, and they (the Japanese) were uniformly slaughtered... i used to make the same mistake frequently in my first game... hopefully i make the mistake less often now.
If you as the Allies are flying at more than about 3 hexes, you are going to be at a severe disadvantage (at least for the 1st year or so of the war).
Bob, you are still reading my crap ??[X(]; i think i should make efforts to seem less pathetic then !
Thanks for the info, i was not aware that the distance of a sweep could work on the results. And that is a pain, because if i want to launch offensive, i must go and seek him where he is, thus far away of my bases.
Building advance base is a pain (Akyab is a good example, as was Luganville 3 months ago): i need to send supplies for the engineers to build the base, and the japs is really good at sinking many AK with his raids, that i am unable to really harm [:(]. It cost me a lot in number of ships and victory point.
Bringing warships to counter his raiders seems stupid: it will be in betty range, and my CAP cover would be not enough.
Previous japs air raid has show that the bombers ALWAYS get through ( so Signore Douet was right), even if the fighters pay an heavy toll. So loosing a few AK by torps is a pain, but loosing Warships would be really hard.
Mines ? I had spread a lot, no japs warship seem willing to hit one.
Subs ? They don't catch anything (when not going to repair yard after several hits by japs patrol planes) even if my own patrol planes spot the japs TF.
QUESTION ? Will the upgrade of october 42, giving US subs a SJ Radar improve the contact rate, or is this just useless feature ?
Don't know about radar in jap base : i must assume every base have one.
Distance was 6 hex, between Akyab and Moulmein on stock map.
There is nothing shorter because usually the jap try to avoid being to close to my 4E; although after having evacuated base for months, he is now coming closer to the fronts, because he have new fighters having good results (Tojo and Tony; there are no more crappy Oscar in front of me, what a pity).
Finding targets at 3 of range seem pretty impossible.
About exp of the japs pilots: during summer, there was some terrible results for the japs, and i thought it was the lack of experience of his pilots, but it seem he has manage somehow to raise the exp of many squadrons by now. And i am unable to guess where are the crack pilots and the rookies. Except for AVG/A and 2 Spitfire squadron, most of my fighters units have around 62 exp.
My bombers have higher exp but this seem not enough to achieve results on anything ???? [&:][:(];
Also, does someone know a cast or a prayer to the gods of weather ??
India and Burma seem stucked in Thunderstorms since weeks (now in november, is it the real weather of this season ? ), and the rate of flying mission is pretty low. Thus, bombing of the japs in Pagan, or intercepting incoming japs ships is too often impossible.
And when flying missions, i don't have the same result rate as the japs. I had already seen bunch of 6 to 8 bettys or Nells achieving 2 or 3 (and sometime 4 ) hits on my ships; when i have the same number of planes, they achieve roughly 5% hit rate (thus needing 15 planes to have one hit). (and as i previously said, my bombers exp is in the high 70).
GENERAL STRATEGIC THINKING OF MY OWN
Should i wait for better time ? When ?
Does the Corsair make a difference ? Should i really rely on this plane to change the course of the war ? This seem a bit hard to me. Others planes like P-47 come in too much time; P-51D only come in late 44; so i must think of doing something before 1944 but this seem LONG and WRONG to me.
BUT without air cover and good planes, each move is at high risk (read on the hit rates of japs bombers and the fact they always get through higher in this post);
just imagine i send an invasion somewhere. Look at the map (there should be one somewhere in the June or July report, and nothing has really change since). There is nothing close to my support. Each invasion should have a long travel time (long is anything higher than 1 day). No invasion could go secret with the range of his patrol planes. OK, imagine i have long range fighters: there are only the P-38 right now and until a long time. With a rate of production of 100 there are not enough to convert all my squadrons. And it is not a perfect planes (although the stats of this planes made me think it could have been).
Still, i decide to launch an offensive, covered by P-38 and CV ( well, only if they manage to repair, and they don't); the risk would me too huge and the cost will certainly be awful.
To detter this risk, i must close the closest japs airbase, so send my 4E, covered by long range fighters....and the P-38 is not good enough and in too few numbers
=> THIS IS THE SNAKE THAT EAT HIS TAIL ;
seem to be impossible to go forward.
And i don't even speak of China. In 6 months, Jan would be knocking on heaven's door (sorry , this joke was too easy); i mean i will be knocking at the door of Yunan, and then of Burma.....
Long post, but too many question right now, and i seem in a impossible situation.
[:o]
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