goodbye heavy bomber force, your AAA defenders have deserted you

[castor troy]

Flak is totally pathetic in AE, I´ve got bases in Burma stacked with 200+ 3.7 inch flak guns and the attacking Japanese bombers at 11.000ft suffer 1.5 out of 50-70 bombers lost to flak on average. None of the smaller calibre guns can reach that alt but you could think that 200+ heavy flak guns would have some effect. Not much difference between stacking a base with flak guns and not having them, because you could also rely on die rolls for op losses...

of course, Japanese flak isn´t existing at all. As it is now, it´s the same as with artillery, I don´t care about it at all anymore, only takes up space on ships. Perhaps it´s worth it to use flak units in mid 44 again because the 90mm will change to DP so it would work against ships but by that time I doubt that I will face lots of Japanese counter invasions. Standard alt for bombing in my PBEM is 11000ft for the Japanese and 10000ft for the Allied. I (Allied) only use 10000ft because you could run into balloons going in at 6000ft but flak surely isn´t the reason why I don´t attack at 6000ft. 10 or 110000ft works perfectly anyway. I would really love to see 200+ 3.7 inch flak guns open fire at 70 IJAAF medium bombers at 11000ft.

[PzB74]

But it's not like 200 flak guns in one hex got the range to fire accross the hex and reach all attacking bombers either.
If there is a port, 6 airfields and a city to protect the guns need to cover all these locations.
 
I have no idea if the AA routines have been set up to take this into conisderation.

[spence]

But it's not like 200 flak guns in one hex got the range to fire accross the hex and reach all attacking bombers either.
If there is a port, 6 airfields and a city to protect the guns need to cover all these locations.

I have no idea if the AA routines have been set up to take this into conisderation.

The bombers pretty much have to go where the guns are to hit anything other than the lilies of the fields.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: PzB

But it's not like 200 flak guns in one hex got the range to fire accross the hex and reach all attacking bombers either.
If there is a port, 6 airfields and a city to protect the guns need to cover all these locations.

I have no idea if the AA routines have been set up to take this into conisderation.

probably not, if the only thing in the hex is a level 1 airfield and you put the 200 heavy flak guns there you won´t see a difference to a base with 9 port 9 airfield.

[PzB74]

That's true, but attacking the port would enable the ac to avoid the guns defending the airfields on the other side of the city or engaging the
ack ack guns defending the city centre itself.
 
As with most other aspects of AE I guess AA routines is an "abstraction" of reality [;)]
 
I think there should be a pre and a post phase for AA guns;
- In the pre phase all heavy-medium AA guns will fire at the approaching enemy ac
Then the strike will attack their target and engage the close range AA guns
- In the post phase the heavy-medium AA guns would fire a departing salute against the strike ac as they withdraw

[John Lansford]

I've had nearly a dozen dedicated AAA units at Chittagong, both heavy and light units, and the AI is sending hundreds of planes overhead with fewer than 10% a turn damaged.  Fortunately for me the bulk of them are fighters, but it's hard to accept all these guns available for so little return.
 
When I attack an enemy base, the same thing happens.  I'm losing more planes to hitting barrage balloons than I am to AAA fire.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

I've had nearly a dozen dedicated AAA units at Chittagong, both heavy and light units, and the AI is sending hundreds of planes overhead with fewer than 10% a turn damaged.  Fortunately for me the bulk of them are fighters, but it's hard to accept all these guns available for so little return.

When I attack an enemy base, the same thing happens.  I'm losing more planes to hitting barrage balloons than I am to AAA fire.

that´s why I said I´m flying my bombers at 10000ft standard attack alt. That´s above the balloons and the only time I care about flak is when attacking ships at 1000ft. Land based flak is non existent in my version of AE.

[Rainer79]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
that´s why I said I´m flying my bombers at 10000ft standard attack alt. That´s above the balloons and the only time I care about flak is when attacking ships at 1000ft. Land based flak is non existent in my version of AE.

That I can confirm. Out of ~4000 allied planes destroyed so far only about 100 have been lost due to flak.

And I guess a pretty significant share of those losses has been caused by naval guns. Not that those are much better. castor's favorite 1k feet naval attack altitude should - theoretically at least - be a good height for the many, many 25mm mounts to engage. Sadly practically they do fire only rarely (2-3 out of 36 ammo if I'm really lucky) if at all. Once in a while a 5" gun will get lucky though and even a 4E bomber can't ignore those.

[Puhis]

I just had carrier battle in my PBEM game. Japanese CV TF of 4 carriers, 2 battleships etc. met allied strike of 54 fighters, 118 dive bombers and 63 torpedo bombers. Japanese flak shot down one lousy TB. CAP of 82 zeros shot down zero bombers (yes, 0). That day I just didn't lose all the carriers, I lost every ship in that TF. Well not every ship, one DD is only moderately damaged. One Kongo class BB is still floating, but I think it's beoyd any hope...  [X(]

What a day, and it's only May 1942... [X(]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Rainer79

ORIGINAL: castor troy
that´s why I said I´m flying my bombers at 10000ft standard attack alt. That´s above the balloons and the only time I care about flak is when attacking ships at 1000ft. Land based flak is non existent in my version of AE.

That I can confirm. Out of ~4000 allied planes destroyed so far only about 100 have been lost due to flak.

And I guess a pretty significant share of those losses has been caused by naval guns. Not that those are much better. castor's favorite 1k feet naval attack altitude should - theoretically at least - be a good height for the many, many 25mm mounts to engage. Sadly practically they do fire only rarely (2-3 out of 36 ammo if I'm really lucky) if at all. Once in a while a 5" gun will get lucky though and even a 4E bomber can't ignore those.

compared to land based flak, your ship based flak is a "killer" [:D]

[JohnDillworth]

just had carrier battle in my PBEM game. Japanese CV TF of 4 carriers, 2 battleships etc. met allied strike of 54 fighters, 118 dive bombers and 63 torpedo bombers. Japanese flak shot down one lousy TB. CAP of 82 zeros shot down zero bombers (yes, 0).

I am of the opinion that naval flack is underpowered, at least for the Allies. I don't know what the actual percentage of flack losses to overall losses were historically, but most people that check their aircraft losses for the game are surprised that the percentage is so very low. I understand that planes hit by flack that don't fly again can be counted as operational losses so maybe thats it. The problem, however, becomes particularly acute when Kamikazes come into play. As previously stated I believe the flack calculation goes by number of engines and then maneuverability. Therefore fighters, particularly Japanese fighters, are pretty much immune from flack. In conventional attacks this is probably acceptable. But to never be able to hit a fighter plane on a Kamikaze run is just not correct. I believe flack should be tweaked, but I have not gotten much support.

[Nemo121]

Just as an aside.... the lethality of FlAK is determnined by a combination of numbers, effective ceiling and the level the enemy bombers fly at.

I've got lots of FlAK at Palembang and even at 11 or 12,000 feet I am destroying between 33% and over 50% of the IJNAF Betties. I'd expect to destroy far more than that if they sent in Vals or Kates.

I've got several other FlAK traps which also claim about 33% of the IJNAF or IJAAF planes committed against them.

Perhaps you guys need to look at the design of your FlAK traps?


As to naval FlAK... Hmm, i'm not convinced it is right either but land-based FlAK CAN be an utter killer if you plan it out properly. I would suggest the players here failing to achieve the results they want need to look at their planning and opponent's play and not the game.


I'm just waiting for anyone to actually have something go wrong and do something other than blame the game. Seriously, how can you expect to improve when that's your first port of call? [8|][8|][8|]

[Andy Mac]

My initial questions would be what mode were they in and how many decent guns did you have.

If all the AA units are in move/rest or strat mode forget it they wont fire

If they are in combat mode did they have anything heavier than an AA MG ?

You need lots of 40mm, 20mm or 3.7" (Assuming CW AA units) to have an impact in Comabt mode

I was shooting down a lot of Strings aircraft over Colombo to the extent he was picking his raids pretty carefully

[Nomad]

I brought up two AA units with 48 3.7" total to Cairns, and after losing a number of bombers in one turn my opponent quit sending bombers. [:)]

[Nemo121]

Also, FlAK ramps up logarithmically. 200 x 3.7 inch FlAK are a LOT more than twice as effective as 100 x 3.7 inch FlAK. The reason is that if the 100 FlAK create a lot of damaged planes then the next 100 turn a lot of those damaged planes into destroyed planes.

But, really, if you make a good plan and pick your FlAK units in order to deter the raids and raid altitudes your opponent uses then you should have success... If you pick the wrong mix of units and deploy them improperly then, yes, you will fail to have success... which is as it should be.

[oldman45]

I have not had much issue with land based flak and as Nemo pointed out, put the right mix in and the bombers will suffer. I am not impressed with the naval flak guns. Not sure that there is an easy fix because there are so many factors involved.

[wdolson]

What dates are you talking about for naval flak?  Early war naval flak was poor on both sides.  Allied flak didn't start to improve until the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and proximity fuses didn't come into use until 1944.  If you're expecting late 44 effectiveness in early 42, you're going to be disappointed.

Also an important thing for land units is what mode the units are in.  If anything other than Combat, they aren't going to fire.  So the question is not how many AA guns you have in your hex, but how many do you have in combat mode?  Some people are reporting very good success with land based flak and others not.  I suspect mode of the units is a factor for those who are getting poor effectiveness.

Bill

[spence]

quote:

just had carrier battle in my PBEM game. Japanese CV TF of 4 carriers, 2 battleships etc. met allied strike of 54 fighters, 118 dive bombers and 63 torpedo bombers. Japanese flak shot down one lousy TB. CAP of 82 zeros shot down zero bombers (yes, 0).


I am of the opinion that naval flack is underpowered, at least for the Allies. I don't know what the actual percentage of flack losses to overall losses were historically, but most people that check their aircraft losses for the game are surprised that the percentage is so very low. I understand that planes hit by flack that don't fly again can be counted as operational losses so maybe thats it. The problem, however, becomes particularly acute when Kamikazes come into play. As previously stated I believe the flack calculation goes by number of engines and then maneuverability. Therefore fighters, particularly Japanese fighters, are pretty much immune from flack. In conventional attacks this is probably acceptable. But to never be able to hit a fighter plane on a Kamikaze run is just not correct. I believe flack should be tweaked, but I have not gotten much support.

While the attack by the US planes on June 4 1942 at Midway was not as coordinated as the one in your example your results for your IJN force of the same approximate size as the KB that day is not far off in so far as the effectiveness of the IJN flak is concerned. The IJN flak was pretty ineffective (especially against dive bombers) in 1942.

The Zeros should have done better than they did though.

(The ineffectiveness of the undirected IJN CAP against the final, uncoordinated but nonetheless combined arms and multi-directional attack by the Enterprise SBDs and Yorktown Air Group does point out that IJN CAP doctrine was deeply flawed though. Sooner or later a disastrous defensive effort was inevitable).

Personally I find Allied Flak, especially Naval Flak, to be underrated and Japanese flak to be a bit overrated. I do think a tweak is needed but perhaps not the one you advocate.

[aprezto]

OK, I've looked at the turn properly now. One of the most important points appears to be that the infantry units were set to rest.

There was still quite a number of flak guns present, such that I'd still have expected to damage more than 3 and destroy more than 1 low-level kate, but a large share of the guns were resting.
 
Thanks for the insight folks.
 
And Nemo, must your responses always be so narcissistically superior? I asked advice of the forum, I did not blame the game, I purely wanted to know what the mechanism around the flak engine was in other's experience. I don't need waspish belittling comments included.

[Nemo121]

It wasn't directed at you BUT there are people ( who posted to the thread ) who routinely blame everything on the game engine and continuously shout throughout the forum that it must be broken etc etc ( from sweeps to the performance of FlAK to the performance of ASW etc ) and, yeah, I find that annoying after the nth time when it is clear that others who put the time and effort into proper force mixes ARE able to get reasonable results from their forces in-game.

Since my comment doesn't apply to you I wouldn't take it personally if I were you but, as ever, humans are strange creatures and often insist on taking personally that which isn't. Its your choice, I wouldn't dream of impinging on your right to take something personally which isn't. Personally though I hope you accept it wasn't aimed at you and move on... but when push comes to shove its up to you.