BACK IN BUSINESS - PzB goes East again(st) Andy Mac

[crsutton]

PzB,
 
In defense of the 4E problem. They may be a little too strong but they are about all the Allies have. I have pretty much found that allied mediums, lights, attack bombers and fighter bombers are fairly useless in game and get slaughtered in mass, so the 4Es are about the only effective offensive plane that we AFBs have. The tojo is an excellent fighter vs all Allied fighter aircraft and is very adept at killing medium bombers. If there would be a call to nerf 4Es then I would have to say that the tojo itselt (a very mediocre aircraft in reality) should be nerfed as well.
 
In addition, the Allies get such a paltry flow of 4Es that they really do not become such a threat until 2/43 when sufficient numbers start to come on line. In my scen #2 game it is just turning 2/43 and I would have to say that I have about a dozen or more HB units that are still flying bolos, B17D, or mostly nothing at all due to no aircraft. Many of these units have been around since the first month of the war. Of my operational units, most are at about 1/2 to 2/3rd strength. This shortage of bombers of all types hinders training as well as units without airplanes train only very slowly, so there is a shortage of bomber pilots as well.  Andy is right, the loss of 4 HB to any means is big and not sustainable until production changes.
 
I know it is a bitch for a Japanese player but as the game is now designed (read tojos) here. Japan can maintain air superiority or parity through mid 1943, and put up a good fight through 1944. Talk about out of whack. In the end, which would you prefer, realistic B17s or a realistic Japanese airforce. You pick.[;)] 
 
One last note. Japanese pilots were very poorly trained in formation fighting and rarely could put together the group formation tactics necessary to bring down heavy bombers. Part of the problem was training and doctrine and more serious was the lack of radios which in itself greatly hindered any sort of formation tactics. I suppose they adopted formation tactics later in the war but by then lack of overall training would have made the situation worse. Your inability to shoot down heavies is really not too far off base IMHO. Japanese fighters lacked both the firepower, doctrine and training to shoot down heavies.

[PzB74]

I do understand that the Allies have their own concerns; ideally I would like to see both the Tojo as well as the 4Es "adjusted" to historical levels.

Guess playing without PDU's on would be a good start to achieve more historical play...but only after 4E's have been modified.
- Playing scenario 2 which simulates increased Jap pilot training is also a player made choice that will affect how much you can judge a game with real life experiences.

My experience is that it's plenty difficult to shoot down B-25s; B-26's a bit easier and most British mediums are very vulnerable.
But should the Allied player send his 2 and 4Es on offensive missions without sufficient escorts and sweepers?

I think it's the feeling of being helpless that is the worst part; in 42 when Japan is supposed to have the upper hand it's quite devastating to watch 120 4Es pave the way and demolish
any of your largest bases, no matter how many defensive fighters there are around. Charters Towers was the first base to suffer this fate; in Burma I can't base bombers within 4E range
cause they will be nuked; so my offensive air power becomes extremely limited. Only fighters on CAP that will take to the air before the place is hit is acceptable in Mandalay to Magwe.

Andy is very fearful about letting his 4Es go in without escorts and sweepers, but when it happens he usually get away with it without loosing more than 4-5 bombers.
If he released his wrath upon Rangoon the place would go up in smoke; that's why I can't use it efficiently as a port...it can be nuked any day. Everything within normal 4E range is in jeopardy.

All of this would be easier to accept in 44 when numbers and quality Allied 2 and 4Es and long range Allied fighters made such tactics and results realistic and possible.
In my first game it was easier to accept the hard times from 44-46 because I had my fun in 42-43. Now I find it very hard even to enjoy 42, if I don't uberdo my deployment I'll get kicked out of Burma before Christmas!

[witpqs]

PzB,

A couple things. Probably a bit too early in your game to matter, but a bug is newly discovered that causes Attack Bombers (most all of the USAAF mediums after the B-25C) to forgo bombing and strafe only. Second, as cap_and_gown (my opponent) pointed out, you can do better against 4EB - even B-17's. But don't expect Luftwaffe performance.

[Nemo121]

I really don't think the B-17s are too strong. If you look at what Germany ended up putting in the air as bomber destroyers in 1943 and 44 you'll find the following:

1. Minimum armament which was considered effective was 4 x 20mm cannon or 2 x 30mm cannon. The reason for this was that only high speed slashing attacks or direct frontal attacks were considered safe for German fighters facing bomber boxes and, as such, they needed a tremendous rate of firepower being projected per second to enable enough damage to be done in the 1 to 2 seconds of clear, close-range firing they had at the cockpits or engines.

One of the best sites for a basic overview of this issues is listed following : [url] http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm [/b]

Looking at these figures an IJAAF fighter equipped with 2 x 12.7mm MGs would have a "gunpower" of 90 per second. A German fighter equipped for bomber-busting duties in 1944 ( the typical Fw-190A4/R8 would have had a gunpower of 1608 per second). In essence the FW-190A4/R8 would have been able to inflict as much damage on a B-17 in one second as a Ki-44 with 2 x 12.7mm MGs could have inflicted in 17.9 seconds.

In aerial combat the ability to down a bomber with a 2 second burst is one thing, being able to down it after 36 seconds of fire pretty much guarantees bomber survival and the defending fighter being damaged during its multiple firing passes. It also requires very different tactics which increase the lighter fighter's vulnerability since, to get 18 x 2 second firing passes you do NOT have time to set up for 18 end runs ( frontal firing pass before extending past the bomber, racing to get a mile or two in front of it again and then turning into a nose-on attack position again for another head to head pass). No, instead you go for multiple swooping attacks from on high or below, precisely the sorts of attacks the B-17Es and other early bombers were designed to deal with and punish.


So, really, fighters with such weak armaments face a double whammy of:
1. Not having enough firepower per second to enable them to take down bombers quickly and
2. having to therefore utilise tactics which require multiple firing passes and play to the bomber's strengths and don't capitalise on their weaknesses.


Even nothwithstanding the German air force's concentration on anti-bomber armament ( via bolt-on 20mm and 30mm weapons packs ) they still ended up losing a fighter per bomber and didn't generally turn the raids back. Admittedly the raids were much stronger than in AE but there you go.

I'd be quite willing to bet that 100 Fw-190A8/R8s targetting 50 unescorted B-17Es or Fs would see those B-17s downed well short of the target...

[PzB74]

Hopefully there'll be a fix for that bug soon witpqs!

Yes I agree that Tojo armament is rather unsuited for dealing with B-17s.
Even the Nick's ain't very formidable gun platforms.

It's possible to understand that large formations of Forts pose a formidable challenge to these Jap fighters, but I can't say that a flight of 6 B-17's should be able to
withstand 30+ fighters. As bombers were damaged they broke out of formation and as soon as a box formation got broken up the single bombers could be picked off one by one.

Maybe the results achieved by 4Es in 42 is caused more by the fact that these ac can actually be put to a use which they never were used for?
- Bombing airfields and troops was scondary and tertiary targets for B-17s that usually went after strategic targets. The fact that a formation of 100 B-17s can cause such massive damage against
tactical targets like airfields, ports and troops is perhaps more of a problem than how vulnerable they are? If bombing accuracy was + / - 4-5 clicks it shouldn't be possible to achieve as much as you can in AE, especially not when the weather is anything else than clear.

Does this make sense?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: PzB

Maybe the results achieved by 4Es in 42 is caused more by the fact that these ac can actually be put to a use which they never were used for?
- Bombing airfields and troops was scondary and tertiary targets for B-17s that usually went after strategic targets. The fact that a formation of 100 B-17s can cause such massive damage against
tactical targets like airfields, ports and troops is perhaps more of a problem than how vulnerable they are? If bombing accuracy was + / - 4-5 clicks it shouldn't be possible to achieve as much as you can in AE, especially not when the weather is anything else than clear.

Does this make sense?

No. Because in Europe they faced much tougher flak defenses and had to bomb from a higher altitude. Even at night the flak was tougher because of the German's integrated defenses (mostly talking against British Bomber Command at night, USAAF in daytime).

I think also the tougher fighter opposition in Europe probably had an impact on accuracy too, with more damaged bombers, etc.

[PzB74]

I'm not so sure this was the case in 42 and 43 when B-17s first started bombing targets in France..!?
- Those first raids in 42 and 43 I have read about struggled to achieve much even against targets close to the coast without much protection.

Bombing missions in very cloudy or poor weather was regularly cancelled as well.
As I see it it was the large number of bombers that made them so devastating later in the war.

[Nemo121]

PzB,

If you look at some of the early raids over Europe in 1942 - shallow penetrations over France where B-17s didn't face very strongly armed German fighters ( a couple of 12.7mm MGs and a 20mm cannon ) then B-17 losses ( for even small raids ) weren't huge. Higher than in this example but the difference between facing an Oscar or early model Tojo vs a Bf-109 or Fw-190A4 could be a quadrupling of the per second "gunpower" being projected.

\Let us not forget that the Germans also figured that if you attacked frontally you needed 4 to 5 x 20mm cannon hits ( or 1 x 30mm cannon hit ) to achieve a B-17 kill but 5 times those hits if you were attacking from the rear or side ( since then cannon hits were "wasted" on the tail, fuselage etc where they weren't instantly fatal.)

Chuck this into the Oscar/Tojo situation and you have another reason why the poorer armament actually led to expontentially increasing difficulty shooting B-17s down. With that said, just mod in some Fw-190A8/R8s into a test and see how they work. I'm sure they'd work just fine in-game. The problem here is that a Tojo with 2 x 12.7mm MGs is not just 4 or 5 times worse as a B-17 killer than a plane with a couple of 20mm cannons. It is probably on the order of a minimum of 20 times worse as a B-17 killer by dint of their actual firepower and the different tactics this forces them to employ which means poorer-armed fighters need even more hits to acheive a critical hit than well-armed fighters which can attack from the front. The Germans found the Bf-109Fs to have by far insufficient firepower to bring down B-17s. Gunpower of the 109Fs on the aforementioned page comes out at 226 ( 2.3 times that of a Tojo with 2 x 12.7mm ) and the FW-190A4 ( with a firepower rating of 666 - some 7 times more than the Tojo ) comes out at 666.

The Germans found the 109F to be hopeless at going against B-17s and the 190-A4 to be barely adequate and whenever possible they brought these planes into action vs bombers only when they had additional underwing gun packs.

So, really, the Germans had planes with 3 to 7 times the firepower the firepower during the same time period vs the same bombers and found it extremely difficult to get kills to the point that unofficially they reckoned a four-engined kill was a special thing to be recognised in a separate category of a pilot's kill listing. Even with planes with 7 times the firepower of the Tojo they went on to try to double and eventually almost quadruple that firewpower ( with the late-war bomber-killing configuration of four nose-mounted 30mm Mk108s ).

So, with 3 to 7 times the firepower the Germans found it very difficult to shoot them down and decided to uparm their fighters. I don't see why we should expect Japanese minnows to be shooting these B-17s down even when unescorted. It didn't happen historically that way. Again though, if you got good fighters multiple nose-mounted cannons ( 4 x 20mm or 2 x 30mm ) per plane then I think those B-17s would go down pretty easily ( just as was found over Germany ).

Also, don't forget that "gunpower" etc misses some crucial components. Being hit with 10 x 12.7mm bullets which pass through a crewmember and some fuselage - while a human loss - doesn't actually impair the plane much. Hell, even 10 x 12.7mm bullets through the middle of the wing might lose a bit of fuel but generally that'll seal and even if one or two were incendiary fire extinguishers might be able to put out the fire. Being hit by a single 20mm cannon shell in the wing might cause damage to both engines, major controls elsewhere through the wings etc...

It all gets very complicated but the bottom line is that vs something as "big" as a B-17 a few bullets have very little chance of hitting something which will cause enough damage to force them out of formation. I've watched lots of movies of the damaged B-17s returning to base because I got fascinated by their ability to sustain damage when Il-2 came out and I will say that the B-17 is one of the most impressive and durable planes I've ever seen. Its ability to return back to base when in an utterly irreparable condition ( and often one would judge unflyable condition ) is amazing.


I'm the first to call the developers on some errors they've made but AE is a huge leap forward and the air team deserve kudos for their work. Hell, one of the biggest problems with AE as it stands is that there is so little wrong with the tactical side anymore that a lot of the workarounds from EA aren't needed anymore . I understand why you might be sore about the B-17s but in real life the Japanese did swarm them with hordes of Oscars and achieved very little. That's what seems to be happening here. Essentially you are using planes armed with 2 medium or heavy machineguns to take down the most heavily armoured and rugged bomber anyone in the world would design until the mid-40s. A bomber which was renowned for making it home after being rammed ( multiple occasions of this ), taking direct hits from FlAK, losing entire control surfaces, entire turret positions, the bombardier position and large chunks of the fuselage ---- all of which cause damage many times greater than anything which could be done by 12.7mm non-explosive rounds. I just don't see why we should expect the B-17s to go down easily.

I seem to remember you saying you shot four down. In your shoes I'd count that a good day at the office and just count the days till I got a fighter or fighter-bomber with cannon-armament and could send it into the air vs the B-17s ---- ideally you want 4 x 20mm cannon as they are much more than twice as good as 2 x 20mm cannons vs heavy bombers. It is all logarithmic which is why so often it doesn't scale well with people since people are unused to reasoning logarithmically since most of the natural world doesn't quite work that way ( at least not at the level where our survival instincts were developed etc ).




As to effectiveness vs tactical targets... Well that's certainly a different thing. Personally I think it would all depend on entrenchment level. With what would seem to equate to Level 5 or 6 entrenchments in Normandy various German forces were able to survive even massive B-17 bombing raids somewhat intact ( not in great shape but good shape considering how many hundred heavy bombers had just unloaded on them ). But vs a regiment in simple slit trenches of Level 1 to 2 entrenchments I would expect B-17s, if they could drop on the centre of mass of the regiment, to cause absolutely massive casualties and disruption.

So, unless they are dug in I'd expect massive casualties... To be honest with you from what I see in my game air attacks seem to cause too few casualties, not too many but I don't have a huge number of data points for that so it is a very subjective finding.

[witpqs]

Nemo,

Note that PzB included airfields and ports as tactical targets and expects poor bombing results against them.

[Nemo121]

witpqs,

Thanks, I had glossed over that....

My take on that is that a tactical target is something which moves. An airfield or port in Rangoon has all the same characteristics as a collection of houses/factories in Tokyo... It has a fixed location, a fixed size and since it can't move your accuracy is a function of the accuracy of your intelligence ( detection level ), weather ( which is, I'm certain accounted for in the code ) and lead bombardier experience ( which is, abstractly, accounted for by the squadron commander's land attack skill - I've checked this and found it to be true in-game ).

So, hitting a 1km x 1km grid containing an airfield is no more or less difficulty than hitting a 1km x 1km grid containing any other stationary target ( port, factories, people's homes ). I don't think the game differentiates and I don't think bombs do either. Just cause B-17s were rarely used to do something doesn't mean they couldn't have and one of the great arguments of the war was whether B-17s would have been better used to hit more ports and airfields etc nearer the front lines than in Germany so that shows that there really was a possibility of them being used this way during the war. Just because a given 1km x 1km grid contains an airfield or port is, I think, no reason to add a special modifier to decrease the effectiveness of attacks against it. It was a stationary target and if your DL is good, your bombardier good and the weather right then you can plaster it.

IN my game vs Mike I killed something like 60 IJNAF and IJAAF planes on the ground with a 60 B-17 raid. Now I had a DL of 10 on the day of the raid and went in at 6,000 feet. Do I find that result unreasonable? No, I had maximised my DL, hit during clear weather and had spent about 100 PP making sure I had the best land attack values possible for all of the B-17 squadron leaders. All of those things came together and I got good results. I think that's perfectly acceptable.

When you see B-17s misused you often find them doing much more poorly than this and that's, also, perfectly fine. The trick is to model them properly. So far while it is tough for you that they are pounding you I don't see that the model is wrong...

Can I ask you what have you done to ensure you:
a) recon the B-17 home airfields
b bomb the B-17 home airfields? ( even if only at night )
c) bring cannon-armed fighters into the air over Burma to let them have a go at the B-17s
d) capitalise on the lack of B-17s on other fronts. It seems like his use of what looks like all his B-17s here in Burma SHOULD be giving you opportunities elsewhere as you'd only be facing medium bombers there?
e) done what you can to bring really heavy FlAK to bear on the places the B-17s hit? The IJA has a few seriously good FlAK units which can wreak havoc on B-17s, are they in-theatre?

I've had success with all of the above and also the sixth option of just letting him bomb, accept the losses, refuse the attrition of my pilots and just say that if he can wreck a division a month that I'll commit an extra division to the theatre, rotate it into the front and let the others rebuild. Hell, if he's bombing your bases to prevent supply flow just let the damage get to 100, remove the engineers and no matter how much he bombs the situation can't get worse. You'll have, passively, created a situation in which his effort ( and B-17 losses ) are wasted effort.

Sometimes you DO win by not fighting but allowing the enemy to exhaust himself. Fortunately for you B-17s are an easily exhausted asset. Unfortunately for you Andy babies his airgroups and troops and likes to keep ample reserves etc.

If I was in your shoes I would simply withdraw from the area for a week, assemble every fighter I had on-map in Malaysia and Vietnam and then fly them into Burma for a day. Aim to shred ONE B-17 raid utterly with 250 or 300 fighters and watch what happens. I'd be happy to bet that Andy would stand them down for a month or two while he rebuilds. I think there are many ways to approach this, are you sure you've explored them all??? Maybe you need to focus less on "breaking" the B-17s and more on "breaking" your opponent's faith in them? I would suggest that it may be much easier for you to beat Andy than to beat the B-17s and that what you need to do is provide a sharp shock which is psychologically calibrated to be delivered after a period in which he comes to feel he has broken your resolve and is growing in confidence. Breaking his will then will be much easier than breaking it when he still feels he is in a closely-matched fight.

Show weakness, then unexpected strength and he will break. That's my read of Andy after playing him. I did it in-game to him and it worked. If you do it properly I think you can eschew all of the in-game ways of beating the B-17s ( all of which would work if you tried them IMO ) using strength and direct and indirect approaches within the game system and could just focus on beating Andy through use of the game and external factors and, by doing so, beating his use of B-17s in-game.

It is up to you of course but the option is, I believe, there.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: PzB

Maybe the results achieved by 4Es in 42 is caused more by the fact that these ac can actually be put to a use which they never were used for?
- Bombing airfields and troops was scondary and tertiary targets for B-17s that usually went after strategic targets. The fact that a formation of 100 B-17s can cause such massive damage against
tactical targets like airfields, ports and troops is perhaps more of a problem than how vulnerable they are? If bombing accuracy was + / - 4-5 clicks it shouldn't be possible to achieve as much as you can in AE, especially not when the weather is anything else than clear.

Does this make sense?

Not so sure that B-17s weren't used for airfield suppression in the Pacific in 1942-43 at least. There weren't many strategic targets they could reach and I have seen pics of heavily cratered Japanese airfields like the one at Buna [near Kolombangara in the Solomons] that must have been subjected to heavy bomber raids. I don't think the precious SBDs on Guadalcanal would have been risked on airfield bombing. I think the B-17s came from Noumea or possibly PNG [although I can't imagine MacArthur helping out Nimitz like that].

[CapAndGown]

I am also disheartened by the "uberness" of the allied 4E bombers, but I don't actually think anything should be changed in this regard. I think it is working as well as it ever will.

Nemo is right about the Tojo. Those 2 12.7mm's are really wimpy. I just shot up a bunch of Hellcats with Tojo's and the normal result was a damage hit rather than a kill. If a Tojo cannot take down a Hellcat, it is certainly not going to find it easy to take down a 4E bomber. Surprisingly, the Zero, with its 2 20mm cannon is a more deadly fighter than the Tojo is some ways. The problem with the Zero is its very low durability.

What you need are some Nicks. Not great, but they stay in the fight longer (because of their armor and higher durability) and they pack a greater punch. Too bad there are only two squadrons not tied to the Home Islands which can upgrade to the Nick. I suppose that is for the best, otherwise us JFB's would probably upgrade everyone to the Nick! [:D][:D]

[PzB74]

To a large extent I agree with you Nemo; 4E's were tough customers.
- I still think they were vulnerable when flying in small formations and attacked by large number of fighters manned by veteran pilots.

I didn't say I shot down 4 B-17's in my previous posts, actually 4 B-17s were reported as OP losses and that includes not only the 2x6 ac raids, but also the big 60 ac raid that didn't meet any opposition.
The 4 OP losses can therefore not be positively traced back to our attacks on the 2x6 B-17s flights. Most likely 1 or 2 Forts from the main formation were lost in landing / take off accidents while another couple were lost returning to base after being damaged by our fighters.

In total 17 out of 90 B-17 losses have been credited to fighter attacks thus far in the game, the rest are flak, ground and OPS losses.

Based on this I think it would be logical to look at the damage inflicted on tactical targets by B-17s.

Quote: "Tactical bombing uses aircraft to attack troops and military equipment in the battle zone. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, which attacks an enemy's cities and factories to debilitate the enemy's capacity to wage war as well as the civilian population's will to continue the war."

In my definition a tactical target would include ships in ports and aircraft on airfields.
- Strategic targets most usually targetted by 4Es would be railroad stations / junctions, submarine pens, bridges, power plants, cities etc.

Being able to positively close down a major Japanese base with one attack by 100 4Es is a bit in excess.
Being able to hit ground targets in a hex with strategic bombers would also be very difficult unless a) the number of bombers is very high b) the troops are moving on open roads and not hidden or entrenched. There is also nothing like collateral damage in AE; I would expect friendly losses in most instances when bombing enemy troops in a contested hex.

Didn't the USAAF conclude themselfe that only one percent of their bombs hit their targets?
- I also don't think that the box formation was "invented" until late? 43!...let me look up that;
"A 1943 survey by the Air Corps found that over half the bombers shot down by the Germans had left the protection of the main formation.
To address this problem, the United States developed the bomb-group formation, which evolved into the staggered combat box formation where all the B-17s could safely cover any others in their formation with their machine guns, making a formation of the bombers a dangerous target to engage by enemy fighters".

4E formations should therefore be more vulnerable before the introduction of "box formations".

You know, it's very difficult to run an Evil Empire when the Benign Empires is equiped with better Uber weapons even early in the conflict [:-] [;)]

Shortly I'll be leaving for a 2 week vacation to Rhodes to scorch my delicate white skin as the missus demands an uberdose of deadly sun radiation at least once each year!
I'll try to drop in to repudiate the worst AFB claims now and then; Empire building is a 24x7x365 job you know

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: PzB

I'll try to drop in to repudiate the worst AFB claims now and then; Empire building is a 24x7x365 job you know

Oh well - at least you get one day off every four years ...

[PzB74]

A quick reply to the last posts:

Yep, the 2 Nick groups are stationed at Rangoon to deter 4E attacks.
I try to use them for LRCAP but then they usually have to face enemy sweeps and never get to the 4Es.

- As you can read from my last pot Nemo I did attack Dacca and destroyed a B-17 on the ground.
I know were to find them, I have recon'ed the base but don't have anything to hit them with expect a few Sally's at extreme range.
Was considering sending my Nells and Betties but decided against it as they are to valuable in their naval attack role to risk.

Andy's offensive in Northern Oz has collapsed; I'm suppressing Tennant Creek and he can't bring in the heavies needed to strike back against me.
Port Moresby is also left alone and I don't have to worry about long range 4E naval search and bombers in the Central Pacific; that's about it.

Yep, I've hauled most heavy flak guns in the Empire to Burma. They achieve fine little, even got 10.5cm guns in place.

Misunderstand me correctly; I don't intend a few 4Es to topple the Empire and I've already threatened to chase Andy back to Scotland [:D]
Andy is handling his SEAC operation very well and I don't enjoy the way things play out in Burma; especially not that it's possible to supply 200k troops without roads.
The around the clock bombardments from the air is just another nuisance we have to live with.

Essentially my wish is that Japan's ability to fight and advance should be rather high throughout 42 and that the Allies ability to retaliate should slowly increase and finally turning into
a fury by 1944-45. It's a bit skewed now, but I also see great improvements from stock and we shouldn't take these achievements away from the dev team that has done a tremendous job! [&o]
- I still feel some tweaking is needed and maybe our discussions will one day influence some positive changes! [:)]

[janh]

Nemo121, for 1944-45 I concur with your analysis of Luftwaffe performance and the fighter-bomber loss correlation.  However, for the earlier US daylight raids with 4E heavy bombers into Germany, I do not agree.   Surely the Luftwaffe realized quickly that the armament of the Bf109E/F was entirely insufficient.  The FW190A4 was just barely satisfactory with the 2x20mm cannons with low cadence to deal with B-17E and F by rear attacks. 

In late 1942 and 43, the primary daylight tactic of LW one-engined fighters against 4E bombers was the attack from the upper rear if I recall correctly.  Only late in 43 the paradigm shifted to frontal high speed passes.  In 1942, the Luftwaffe was also unexperienced in fighting 4E bomber formation effectively, but the 4E formations were also substantially looser and wider than later in the war.  Probably the LW training was much superior to IJAAF's, but the latter were surely also not total newbies and "uninventive".

More importantly, the disastrous double-raid by USAAF 8th against Schweinfurt and Regensburg on 8/17/43 was countered by mostly BF109G and FW190A4.  Approximately 400 German fighters engaged 376 4EB on their way in and out (with a refueling break) and downed 60 bombers directly above the Reich and Belgium, which was the only space during the mission where ca 350 allied fighter could perform escort duties.  Operational losses amounted to another 87 bombers.  All this was achieved for a loss of 40 LW fighters! 

Of course this was the worst example, but many of the raids prior to this without long-range escorts incurred also substantial losses.  So it does leave a weired feeling that in PzB's case >6= fighters engage 2x6 B-17F, and only cause 4 operational losses.  Maybe it was bad luck, bad weather, bad coordination, bad training etc in this case.  But PzB is right that this wasn't a singular experience in his game so far (not to mention other AARs that reported similarly "excellent" perfomance of 4Es).   For sure the result can't be far off, but I would concur with PzB that the 4E (as much as the Tojo) überperform very well.   Maybe 4 additional direct losses would have made this seem more balanced. 
With this performance one is left to wonder why the USAAF bombers performed historically so "badly" and ended up as an unimportant side-notice until about 1944?  The US should perhaps have been able to shut down Rabaul from Australia and PM already by mid 1942 prior to the Solomon campaign?

Also 1km x 1km grid containing an airfield is unlike a 1km x 1km grid containing factories and buildings.   For both, the density of crucial target points would count.  An airfield contains a lot of open space besides runways, hangars (or none), maintenance and supply facilities and crew, command&control installations.   Hits on an airfield thus likely have a much larger chance to end up just kicking up dust, in contrast to  a denser area with factory buildings, resource storage, process heat plants etc.  However, I am not sure whether there is really any issue with this in AE; rather tuning the Tojo and B17 might resolve the issue of allied air being able to shut down any Japanese airport throughout the entire war.

[Cribtop]

There is little risk to the Netties if they bomb at night. Might be worth setting one or two 36 plane Nell groups to 11K night raids.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: PzB

Hopefully there'll be a fix for that bug soon witpqs!

Yes I agree that Tojo armament is rather unsuited for dealing with B-17s.
Even the Nick's ain't very formidable gun platforms.

It's possible to understand that large formations of Forts pose a formidable challenge to these Jap fighters, but I can't say that a flight of 6 B-17's should be able to
withstand 30+ fighters. As bombers were damaged they broke out of formation and as soon as a box formation got broken up the single bombers could be picked off one by one.

Maybe the results achieved by 4Es in 42 is caused more by the fact that these ac can actually be put to a use which they never were used for?
- Bombing airfields and troops was scondary and tertiary targets for B-17s that usually went after strategic targets. The fact that a formation of 100 B-17s can cause such massive damage against
tactical targets like airfields, ports and troops is perhaps more of a problem than how vulnerable they are? If bombing accuracy was + / - 4-5 clicks it shouldn't be possible to achieve as much as you can in AE, especially not when the weather is anything else than clear.

Does this make sense?

Well, in fact this is an excellent point and needs to be addressed. It is better than WITP but still an issue. We players love to mass our aircraft into "big wing" operations when in the Pacific a bomber attack of 30 or 40 planes by either side was about the biggest you would normally see. (until say 44 when the Allies were in a better position. This is not just an Allied issue as I am playing scen #2 and my Japanese opponent always uses the big hammer. They need to improve coordination in general but should actually make it much worse for mass attacks in 42 and 43. But this problem is not just with the Allied heavies, but goes all across the board. Sweeps, super CAP, and so on. We just have too much ability to put a lot of planes in the air.

As an aside, once again, your situation is not ahistorical. By early 1943, if the Allies had enough resourses in range, they could and did close down Japanese bases at will. They could it do in 43 and it just got worse for Japan in 44 and 45. Once Guadacanal became secure, the Allies pretty much systematically shut down Japansese LBA in the Solomons. And I am not positive but the B17s in 42 really were used to hit airbases and ports. Not too many strategic targets were in range.

[vicberg]

PZB,

I've enjoyed your AAR and feel compelled to post.

Crsutton, i totally agree about too many planes in the air. I also agree that the allies should be able to shut down where they want. I believe though that shutting something down should come at a cost. Even B-29s had a 30% loss by end of war (roughly 10% per raid). B-24s and B17s had a higher rate of loss. Most AARs say the same thing. The 4Es are unstoppable against fighters and don't seem to suffer the operational losses. If unescorted bombers are outnumbered 10-1, one would think some damage would be done.

The supply bug is definately there. There's no way that 200,000 troops can be supplied accross 120 miles of jungle between India and Burma and a major river with no bridge, not without massive air transport that I highly doubt the aliies have in 42.

I ran accross the same problem playing as Jap in China. I had all of southern China from Hangchow to Kanhsien, plus controlled the bridges accross the major river running south of Nanchang. I isolated Chuhsien expecting them to be out of supply. For 3 weeks, my opponent told me that his base had zero supplies, but his troops were fully supplied, in spite of daily bombardments, bombings and repeated attacks. Closet chinese supply base was 240 miles away(!) and supplies were able to move overland, accross a major river, rough terrain, enemy controlled territory, without impedment. That's a bug.

Japanese strength lies in air power and naval power in 42-43. The massive land attack negates japanese naval power and the 4E issue negates japanese air power.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

PZB,

I've enjoyed your AAR and feel compelled to post.

Crsutton, i totally agree about too many planes in the air. I also agree that the allies should be able to shut down where they want. I believe though that shutting something down should come at a cost. Even B-29s had a 30% loss by end of war (roughly 10% per raid). B-24s and B17s had a higher rate of loss. Most AARs say the same thing. The 4Es are unstoppable against fighters and don't seem to suffer the operational losses. If unescorted bombers are outnumbered 10-1, one would think some damage would be done.

The supply bug is definately there. There's no way that 200,000 troops can be supplied accross 120 miles of jungle between India and Burma and a major river with no bridge, not without massive air transport that I highly doubt the aliies have in 42.

I ran accross the same problem playing as Jap in China. I had all of southern China from Hangchow to Kanhsien, plus controlled the bridges accross the major river running south of Nanchang. I isolated Chuhsien expecting them to be out of supply. For 3 weeks, my opponent told me that his base had zero supplies, but his troops were fully supplied, in spite of daily bombardments, bombings and repeated attacks. Closet chinese supply base was 240 miles away(!) and supplies were able to move overland, accross a major river, rough terrain, enemy controlled territory, without impedment. That's a bug.

Japanese strength lies in air power and naval power in 42-43. The massive land attack negates japanese naval power and the 4E issue negates japanese air power.

10% loss rate for the B-29 really doesn't sound right. I'm searching the net now - can you say where you got that statistic?