Sweep vs Escorts

[Miller]

Earlier today I ran a turn in my game vs Canoerebel. I wont bore you with all the details but basically I sent a load of strikes against a base with very heavy CAP, I had about 3/4 of my fighter sqds set to escort and the other 1/4 to Sweep.

I lost about 1:3 overall in numbers. When I opened the turn to check the fighter sqds involved, all the ones on sweep had lost maybe 1 or 2 planes (out of a sqd of 49) whilst the sqds on escort had lost between 20 to 30 (again out of 49). Im assuming the bulk of the killls were also scored by the sweepers.

Why is there such a performance penalty for escorts?? They went in at the same height, and mostly at the same time as the sweepers..........

[LoBaron]

You are aware that looking at the combat report without knowing anything else or without watching the combat replay tells you
exactly nothing about the battle?
No offense but your post is not really providing any information that could shed light into what you were experiencing.

Can be something as simple as different numbers of planes on CAP when sweep and raid arrived, different early detection or a hundred of other reasons
that explain such a result easily...

[Bradley7735]

Everyone knows the "sweep bonus" is a bit rediculous. Even dev's have commented on it. It would be nice if sweeping fighters were first subjected to flak, then entered combat with the opposing CAP.

The game rarely, if ever, kills fighters with flak. I think the only way to lose a fighter to flak is putting them on airfield or naval attack. IRL, both sides lost fighters to flak, even when they were not attacking with bombs.

Realistically, fighters 'sweeping' an enemy airfield do not hang out 40k yards waiting for the enemy CAP to come over and fight. They come over the base, looking for planes to shoot down. During that time, they should be subjected to flak.

anyway, it's not a big deal to me. The AI never assigns sweep missions, and I don't have to game the routine with sweeps to get an advantage over the AI.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

Everyone knows the "sweep bonus" is a bit rediculous. Even dev's have commented on it. It would be nice if sweeping fighters were first subjected to flak, then entered combat with the opposing CAP.

You are streching the term "everyone" a bit far for my taste. What most, who complain about the sweep bonus, do not get is that they are mostly facing multiple problems and threats created by
the attacker and try to identify the reason with a very one-dimensional approach.
Usually they get clobbered by superiour numbers, more advanced airframes, better pilots, sweep bonus and enemy altitude advantage, if unlucky and against a half-decent opponent they face this all at once.
Complaining about the sweep bonus is completely off without taking the other facts into account.

If encountered by such or a similar situation this is exactly the point where you´d have to change something. Either get creative or pull back. To stay, die and whine that this situation is untenable
is laughable.

Ever tried sweeping a P40 base with half the enemies number in planes, 50exp pilots, using Nates? Try to find out where the sweep bonus gets you... [;)]

The game rarely, if ever, kills fighters with flak. I think the only way to lose a fighter to flak is putting them on airfield or naval attack. IRL, both sides lost fighters to flak, even when they were not attacking with bombs.

Well I have seen 30k sweeps on enemy AB that went down to strafe in case AAA was low. I agree that AAA played a bigger role in A2A engagements than is represented in the game, but this is the point where we´d have
to include friendly fire and the decision was not to try that (whether it was because the impact on the source code was too high, or they didn´t want to include yet another feature where everyone can whine about disregarding
of whether he has an idea what hes talking about or not, I don´t know).

Realistically, fighters 'sweeping' an enemy airfield do not hang out 40k yards waiting for the enemy CAP to come over and fight. They come over the base, looking for planes to shoot down. During that time, they should be subjected to flak.

See above. Also thsi happens, sometimes at least.

anyway, it's not a big deal to me. The AI never assigns sweep missions, and I don't have to game the routine with sweeps to get an advantage over the AI.

Thats why most who complain come from the PBEM departement. [;)]

[topeverest]

Miller,

If I recall correctly, you are pretty early on in your game. If I had a 'buffalo' nickel, I would bet it is mostly pilot skill / experience, commamders, and airframes. Coordination probably also had an effect. When the Empire squares in 1-1 A2A early on, it is rarely a good outcome for the Allies. I'd check it anyway.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: topeverest

Miller,

If I recall correctly, you are pretty early on in your game. If I had a 'buffalo' nickel, I would bet it is mostly pilot skill / experience, commamders, and airframes. Coordination probably also had an effect. When the Empire squares in 1-1 A2A early on, it is rarely a good outcome for the Allies. I'd check it anyway.

Miller´s game against Canoerebel is sometime in mid/late 44, he knows what he´s talking about.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Miller´s game against Canoerebel is sometime in mid/late 44, he knows what he´s talking about.

Yeah. No offence to the naysayers but all this doubting, basically apparently based on accusations that the people reporting it are being thick, is kinda tiresome.

I know very well that there's often very great inertia on forums when issues are pointed out, especially when the devs need convincing there is a problem, but that doesn't mean to say the issues are not there.

I know that Ageods WW1 Gold had multiplayer so flaky it was unplayable. I reported this on their forums, and got given the runaround, which basically revolved around how it was my router or some such which was broken. Uh, no, it really wasn't. Eventually the fact that it was boned was acknowledged when other people who the devs trusted noticed the same issues, but for a good long while everything was peachy and if something was up it was my fault. (No offence to Ageod, it wasn't that long a delay and it's fixed/being fixed further right now. And it is a very good game that I highly recommend. And this is just the way it is, some random pleb on a forum doesn't hold much gravitas compared to official testers and developers.).

Sometimes acknowledgment of issues can take a long time. It doesn't mean the reporters are being clueless. Really, this bone has been gnawed on at such length now that I feel those who are encountering it have done their research by now, it's not a few one offs and people aren't blind to mitigating factors.

Either the air massacres are really how it is intended to work, in which case I guess I have to put up with it, or they aren't but people are denying it's happening, or perhaps people are not aware of the scale of the air massacres and therefore assume everything is peachy when it isn't, or... really, the possibilities are endless.

[EUBanana]

Just picked an AAR totally at random, and top of the page is...

The pull out begins removing all air as his sweeps are killing me 10 plane shot down per sweep = (NO Chance)

His sweeps are coming in at max alt my defenders are spread across 2 - 3 alt's and still he kills almost all planes in the air without loss.

Well, there you go. [;)]

Admittedly they look like P47s doing that... But its the old max altitude thing.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

Just picked an AAR totally at random, and top of the page is...

The pull out begins removing all air as his sweeps are killing me 10 plane shot down per sweep = (NO Chance)

His sweeps are coming in at max alt my defenders are spread across 2 - 3 alt's and still he kills almost all planes in the air without loss.

Well, there you go. [;)]

Admittedly they look like P47s doing that... But its the old max altitude thing.

THIS:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
If encountered by such or a similar situation this is exactly the point where you´d have to change something. Either get creative or pull back. To stay, die and whine that this situation is untenable
is laughable.

Wrote that just a few post further up. And I bet the Allies felt similar frustration 41, while the Japanese got this nagging feeling that they slowly are getting outclassed after late 42.
I wonder what is so hard to understand about situations where you cannot compete. We are playing a wargame ladies. [;)]

If you want a fair situation I recommend chess.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
I wonder what is so hard to understand about situations where you cannot compete. We are playing a wargame ladies. [;)]

If you want a fair situation I recommend chess.

I'm not looking for fair, I'm looking for not broken. I find the air combat results to be ridiculous more often than not. It is inaccurate to have every single fighter battle happen at 30,000 feet minimum.

Really, once again you seem to be skirting ad hominem all the time. This is what made me post in the first place. No, I'm not thick. Yes, there really is a problem IMHO. No, I'm not crying about fairness, hell, I'm the one flying the P38s at 39,000' and sweeping all effortlessly before me, just to set things straight as you seem to think I am a JFB or something now ([:D]).

Do not assume base motives or ignorance in those who are flagging this up.

[Nemo121]

You know, interestingly enough in March 1942 the last time the Japanese tried to sweep me at Ponape they lost 14 Zeroes in return for 1 P-40B. So, that's a 14:1 exchange rate in favour of the CAP side ( vs the sweeping side ). In addition these kills were scored by P40Bs and P39s and P400s in the main. Each plane type got about 4 kills while a squadron of P38s got 2 kills. Oh and before anyone wonders about 2/3rds of my fighters were in at a lower altitude than the Zeroes. So altitude wasn't the cause.

So, it wasn't as though I had a host of ueber-planes doing all the killing.

It is statistically impossible that I can randomly get such different results consistently vs enemy sweeps unless I'm actually doing something differently and the results aren't random but merely a result of better strategic, operational and tactical employment.


In March 1942 Zeroes and Oscars no longer sweep my airbases as, when they do, they go down fairly easily. I'm managing an averaging of about 3 to 1 exchange rate in favour of P40Es on CAP vs sweeping Zeroes and Oscars.



As to why escorts do so poorly vs sweep... You should think of escort as an order to "close escort" bombers... In real life this DID make fighters terribly vulnerable just as it does in-game. There is no middle-ground of "high escort" in-game so you need to compensate by sweeping for several days before sending the bombers in. Once you do that you can achieve the results and exchange rates you want. People seem to choose not to do this and then act as though there's no solution possible. The reality, however, is that they simply chose not to enact the correct solution.

LoBaron's sweep co-ordination is another solution but I'm a bit more conservative in my play style and prefer to sweep on days preceding the raid.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

You know, interestingly enough in March 1942 the last time the Japanese tried to sweep me at Ponape they lost 14 Zeroes in return for 1 P-40B. So, that's a 14:1 exchange rate in favour of the CAP side ( vs the sweeping side ).

In about July 1942 some Zeroes swept some Hurricanes and India and had their ass handed to them, completely. I'm not sure what the loss ratio was but it was about 14:1 I think. It was such a surprise, specially as they were noddy, half trained Hurricanes, that I asked my honourable opponent if those guys were trainees or something. Apparently not, they were skilled pilots.

That experience is why it seems to me that

a) fatigue from long flights really does matter, as they flew a hell of a long way on that sweep, all the way from Bengal deep into the Indian interior
b) it's not sweeps that are broken - the Hurricanes had the altitude advantage... and thats all she wrote for the Zero!

[crsutton]

LoBaron, you sound a lot like BuOrd in 1942 defending the MkIV topedo..[:D]

Well, I am not doing extensive tests but am well enough into my games to say that yes, sweeps are very deadly especially when the altitiude advantage is held. Numbers is important as most of the time sweepers go in one unit at a time so a lot of CAP will deal with a sweep OK, but Japanese can send 48 plane sweeps and the Allies max of 25 so there is an advantage there. The problem as I see it is that height virtually always gives the jump and the jump is deadly. Height should give the jump sometimes but not always.

Escorts are usually getting hammered, to the point where in a lot of situations I do not use escorts. Usually because my bombers go in at about 10,000 feet and CAP is always sitting up at 29,000 feet and gets the jump. I never escort my heavies so that says something.

My opponent and I have agreed to no flights above 29k feet, which has evened out combat in air to air, (not for escorts though) But of course, it seems a silly solution and gets a bit tedious but we just could not come up with anything else.

So yes, Im with Miller and a lot of other posters here. There is a problem, and I would love it if it is looked at again. I am not slamming. There are many things working well with the air system but I think he is right about the escort thing.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: crsutton


Escorts are usually getting hammered, to the point where in a lot of situations I do not use escorts.

They do seem to protect the bombers though - with their lives, admittedly - and sometimes thats what you want.

For the Japanese it might be that that is what you want most of the time in fact. Certainly with Betties attacking ships, you probably want to expend some lives to make sure that they live long enough to drop their torpedoes.

[crsutton]

Yes, I will admit that they do take the heat off of the bombers-espeically the mediums.

I know in WWII there was some controversy over close escort vs free ranging escort. Fighter pilots hated close escort because it bound them tactically to the slow bombers and created many problems. Perhaps that is the idea the designers had in the game that the fighters are bound to close escort.

But really, I think it is just more the height and bounce thing more than anything else. I personally feel that if they can just get it so that height does not always translate into a bounce, a lot of the other problems in air combat will work themselves out.

[LoBaron]

crsutton: It is a no brainer that an abstraction can never represent reality in all circumstances. There is nothing astounding about this,
its just the nature of an abstraction. The game does everything based on abstracted formulas that try to emulate something resembling physical realities.

As TheElf said there is no air in this game.

Every possible solution that shifts the balance of any feature in AE to one direction has the potential to create problems on other circumstances.

Want examples?

Nerf the sweep bonus by implementing high fatigue loss for high altitudes.

-> result: alternate between two squadrons on sweep, after a player adapts, not much of a change
except that the air battles will again be more brutal because the player planning an offense has to mass more forces to do so. New and riduculous tactics like conquering a base 2 hexes away
from the target base to minimize fatigue losses for high alt sweeps would be used with the result that everybody complains about inaccurate use of P38´s climbing 30k feet in 80 miles.
Also, welcome back to the old times where 200AC were shot down in one battle.
Basically doesn´t help.

Increase fatigue loss for high altitudes to compensate for the issues created by the first example:

-> result: high alt sweeps get ahistorically difficult or impossible and the concept of alt bands loses its purpose for A2A.

Completely eliminate the sweep bonus:

-> result: the concept of offensive A2A warfare loses a significant and historically interesting part because amassed CAP will be almost impossible to overcome.
(You are faceing multiple altitude bands when trying to coordinate sweeps and every plane shot down overy the enemy base is gone)

Leave the sweep bonus alone but implement different max ranges for different altitude bands:

-> result: basically the same as above, CAP will become extremely strong bacause now you
are facing altitude stacked CAP with planes at similar alt or, for example have to accept that the P51 cannot be used as a P51 anymore. Additionaly create micro management hell for everybody who
tries to find out the correct altitude setting for a required range, no thanks, my life is already short enough for a game like that.

Come up with an idea that works and is a brilliant solution without producing more issues than it solves and then I will be the the first to be intrigued by such an idea.
I am not against changes that are thought through end-to-end and as a result enable the game to better represent reality.

EUBanana: I am not supecting base motives or ignorance in what people wish for or regard as imperfect. I am suspecting though that theres a LOT of loudmouths out there
who think that providing a solution to issues caused by sideffects in a highly interactive and complex system is as easy as exchanging a 1 with a 2 and everythings fine. These are the things
that, sorry, often make me grin.
The air model is a surprizingly balanced part of the game where 1000´s of values are finetuned to each other. Its so close to real that as long as you keep to
some basic principles (one of them is pulling back when its too hot btw.) it works like a charm.


In case you want to know, and have difficulties to believe that Nemo121 is not the only shining exception from the suffering majority:
Rob Brennan raped my sweeping Zeke elite over Port Moresby more than once, using P39´s and P40´s in wonderful combination. He hurt my Daitais so bad that I had to stop sweeping.
I know how he did it and it was a beautiful display of defensive tactics.
So I changed tacics. Some worked, some didn´t. Thats war.

[treespider]

Take a month off (and likely more as my wife is expecting surgery imminently)...but I digress...I see things haven't changed around here.

LoBaron is spot on...for those who haven't found it...I highly suggest reading The Air Campaign.

Of note on page 68 in Chapter 5 "Limited Options"

In the sweep option, the fighters precede the bombers and engage enemy air found enroute or on the flanks. In the close escort option, fighters stay very close to the bombers and attempt to drive off the enemy when he attacks. The latter has a long history of failure: the Luftwaffe against Britain in 1940; the US Army Air Forces against Germany in 1944; and the US Air Force against the Chinese in Korea and against the North Vietnamese in Indochina. Some future war, however, may reveal that close escort will be the proper approach.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
Every possible solution that shifts the balance of any feature in AE to one direction has the potential to create problems on other circumstances.

Just... reduce the casualties caused by high altitude flying? It's been done to artillery. It's been done to ships. Why not bounces?

Increase fatigue loss for high altitudes to compensate for the issues created by the first example:

-> result: high alt sweeps get ahistorically difficult or impossible and the concept of alt bands loses its purpose for A2A.

Uh. My main gripe is that alt bands are irrelevant in the system right now as it stands. Every fighter squadron I have on the entire map, with the exception of those I wish to offer up as sacrificial lambs as bomber escorts, is set to maximum altitude. I don't even bother looking at maneuver ratings anymore.

By all means, I would like alt bands to matter. Problem is, right now they do not.

Completely eliminate the sweep bonus:

Why not just... tone it done? Like artillery. Like ships. Why do you need to bring up straw men that are not advocated? Plenty of things have been found to be overpowered and needed toning down. "Reduced tempo" is practically AE's guiding slogan.

Same deal. Really, nothing radical is being proposed.

Come up with an idea that works and is a brilliant solution without producing more issues than it solves and then I will be the the first to be intrigued by such an idea.

Well, you know, simply reducing casualties would suit me. It has been done all over the engine compared to the old WITP days.

EUBanana: I am not supecting base motives or ignorance in what people wish for or regard as imperfect. I am suspecting though that theres a LOT of loudmouths out there
who think that providing a solution to issues caused by sideffects in a highly interactive and complex system is as easy as exchanging a 1 with a 2 and everythings fine. These are the things
that, sorry, often make me grin.

Unlike some people I don't put PhDs in my sigline but like I said, it doesn't mean I'm thick.

The air model is a surprizingly balanced part of the game where 1000´s of values are finetuned to each other. Its so close to real that as long as you keep to
some basic principles (one of them is pulling back when its too hot btw.) it works like a charm.

Well, the overall result isn't so bad as what is sauce for the goose is what is sauce for the gander - but on the other hand, more and more people are finding out that the way to play the game is simply to jam every single fighter squadron you have up to maximum altitude except from when you are escorting bombers.

Don't you find that a little odd?

So I changed tacics. Some worked, some didn´t. Thats war.

You are hardly unique in this regard. After all, on turn 1 I was under the delusion that P40Es should be kept at 10,000' or lower for best results. By late 1942 I had been very much disabused of that notion, and know the altitude at which the P40 performs best - in fact I know it off by heart.

29,000'.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Take a month off (and likely more as my wife is expecting surgery imminently)...but I digress...I see things haven't changed around here.

LoBaron is spot on...for those who haven't found it...I highly suggest reading The Air Campaign.

Of note on page 68 in Chapter 5 "Limited Options"

In the sweep option, the fighters precede the bombers and engage enemy air found enroute or on the flanks. In the close escort option, fighters stay very close to the bombers and attempt to drive off the enemy when he attacks. The latter has a long history of failure: the Luftwaffe against Britain in 1940; the US Army Air Forces against Germany in 1944; and the US Air Force against the Chinese in Korea and against the North Vietnamese in Indochina. Some future war, however, may reveal that close escort will be the proper approach.

I do not disagree at all.

[LoBaron]

treespider best of luck to you and your wife. Hope everything turns out well, and don´t worry about this place. Were just the usual guys having a bit of fun. [:D]