Reluctant Admiral Feedback

[bigred]

Results are in.
As of mar 10, 1042.
In senario 70 VS DirtyHarry, for every 7 lost jap planes, there are 10 downed allied planes.
In senario 2 VS P.Hausser, for every 9.15 lost jap planes, there are 10 downed allied planes.

So what is your ratios???

[John 3rd]

I am not yet a month into my game with Adm Nelson so I don't really have much to say yet.

Thank you for the Stats Sir. They are much appreciated.

[dirtyharry500]

As Bigred said,i'm operating my P40s and Banshees squadrons from PM to bombing and straffing on gasmata and Buna !
so, never mind the aircraft downed, just training my pilotes on real conditions !
American industry will bring me brand new fighters and bombers soon!!
this the way i'm [8D]and japs will have pay back!
all the different Allies players have different ways to fight the Japs.
unfortunately, i had big losses during the christmas island and palmyra battle, the effect of Reluctant Admiral ! IJN is every where.

this is the real official losses for the pacific and southeast asia theatre for 1941-1942 OPNAV-P-23V NO. A129
17 JUNE 1946
OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
NAVY DEPARTMENT

carrier based

action sorties :2364

Japs aircrafts destroyed
in combat: 359
on ground:262

land based

action sorties : 3267

japs aircrafts destroyed
in combat :479
on ground:9

US losses on action sorties to ennemy

carrier based

by AA : 36
by aircraft :90
operational : 68

land based

by AA: 37
by aircraft : 157
operational : 37

just compare the activity in the game and in realty !

[bigred]

This report is from my current turn.
Senario 2-Pdavis vs ggiles(who volunteered to take over for p.Hausser)
dec42.

[bigred]

It is interesting to note the above post is way above the actual casualties in the war.

In sen 2, dec42 the loss ratio is:
1.13 japs to every 1 allied plane.


I bet this just gets better for the allied player.

Also note the sorties flown. For every sortie the japs fly they will lose 1.5 planes.

[John 3rd]

That is a rather sad number!

Thanks for the input guys. When I reach 30 days with my campaign I will throw it out for some comparing.

[yubari]

ORIGINAL: bigred


I would comment that if yubari quits his game dont give out the password as I would be interested in taking his place.

Who said anything about quitting?[:D]

Useful statistics bigred. Have you noticed what happened in any large scale fights between Zeroes and the early 1942 top-line fighters, i.e. P-39s and P-40s? As these planes have performed for me far better than the Wildcats, I think that I shall not even try to advance over sea until I get the Hellcats, the Wildcats would not stand a chance

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: bigred

It is interesting to note the above post is way above the actual casualties in the war.

In sen 2, dec42 the loss ratio is:
1.13 japs to every 1 allied plane.


I bet this just gets better for the allied player.

Also note the sorties flown. For every sortie the japs fly they will lose 1.5 planes.

I believe you mixed up daily and campaign sorties.

I wonder where so much Betties were lost in that campaign... Losses to flak are particularly massive.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: yubari
Who said anything about quitting?[:D]

Useful statistics bigred. Have you noticed what happened in any large scale fights between Zeroes and the early 1942 top-line fighters, i.e. P-39s and P-40s? As these planes have performed for me far better than the Wildcats, I think that I shall not even try to advance over sea until I get the Hellcats, the Wildcats would not stand a chance

I won't say whether this coincides with my estimation of Allied chances in a carrier battle or not, as our game is difficult enough already)).

[bigred]

I must admit I also am amazed at the ij losses in my sen2 game.

I have thought the f4f-4 was doing a good job against the IJN carrier zero's...I suspect the early losses may have caused long term problems for the experience level of the entire jap air fleet.
I am concerned about my ops losses as the jap player and starting to think to use the zero only on sweep missions. Leave the Oscar for escort duty.

[bigred]

I wonder where so much Betties were lost in that campaign... Losses to flak are particularly massive.

Senario 2.


There where days after the japs invaded NZ where the betties would fly from NC unescorted and run into p39s.

[John 3rd]

I put the strength of the Japanese in RA roughly halfway between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2. With no Army changes to speak of the focus is just the Fleet. Makes for something in between I think...

HATE seeing unescorted Japanese bombers tangle with any sort of Allied fighter. VERY BAD!

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: bigred

Anyway, I am interested in your ratios also so I can judge myself as a player. I am concerned about my ops losses as the jap player and starting to think to use the zero only on sweep missions. Leave the Oscar for escort duty.

Sorry for not answering this earlier. I'm posting loss figures in my AAR at the beginning of every game month.

[John 3rd]

Op Losses on the Japanese side is always terrible. I hate seeing it when they are simply flying from base-to-base.

[FatR]

Any more feedback about Japanese fighter performance?

John, if you want, I can send you the corrected description of aircraft changes, so that you can edit the initial post.

One more moment. At the present, the lists of devices on ships look ugly, due to new devices on upgraded versions added to the tail end of the list, even if the ship already has devices of the same type, but on a different mounts (for example, different versions of 25mm guns). It's a gigantic work, but if you wish, I can try to go through the lists and fix the device placement, so that it will appear in a more readable form. This will sure take a long time, though.

Also, are you keeping track of various proposals for the future versions of the mod? I might have a few. For example, stuff I read since then indicates that early versions of Mitsubishi Ha-33 (used on Dinah) suffered usual Japanese difficulties with field maintenance, so increasing the service rating of the newly-added pre-1944 plane models that use this engine to 2 might be warranted.


And about ops losses - unless the situation is absolutely critical, I always rest squadrons before moving them between distant bases.

[John 3rd]

Stanislav--Sorry that I didn't see this Post until just now. Been working bunches at the Hotel. You Post some interesting thoughts to ponder. Let me do that and I'll comment more in the morning.

Would like to see a Posting on the corrected description of aircraft changes. This would be quite helpful I think.

Have to admit that I'm not too excited about doing any immediate work on the Scenario, however, there is appeal to cleaning things up some. Will think on that a bit...

[FatR]

I've sent you the amended air changes text.

Also, I and Yubari decided to dial back Japanese fighters stats for our game (changing the database for an ongoing PBEM can be accomplished through the button at the bottom of the "Preferences" screen - didn't know this before), but this somehow caused a bug in US battleships upgrades... Once the game is fixed an resumed, we'll see if this will influence the air combat significantly.

[John 3rd]

Got the email.

What did you do with the Fighters? Am curious and would like to know the results of the changes.

Didn't know you could do changes DURING a game! Are you sure about that?

[John 3rd]

Reluctant Admiral
Scenario 70
Comprehensive Aerial Changes

This scenario assumes that with Admiral Yamamoto taking the position of Aeronautics Department's head in 1936 and becoming the Naval Minister later, he intensifies Japanese naval aviation development a bit, and attempts to optimize the utilization of limited engineering and production resources. Chief engineers of aircraft design teams are given slightly greater input in formulating development directions and cooperation between various aircraft manufacturers is assumed to be somewhat improved.

In particular, the concept of new, dedicated land-based interceptor is abandoned and the Mitshubishi fighter design team under Jiro Horikoshi remains free to concentrate all of its efforts on modifying A6M and creating its successor A7M. Horikoshi's proposal to install the more powerful Mitsubishi Kinsei engine on Zero is approved in 1942, instead of late 1944, and A7M is developed to use Mitsubishi Ha-43 engine, as he desired, from the beginning. A6M3 is developed into a whole line of Zeros that sacrifice range in favor of superior armament and pilot protection, and eventually are officially designated as pure land-based models. Meanwhile, the development of standard Zero versions goes much more smoothly than in RL, resulting in their early availability.

IJN maintains the policy of sticking to just one single-engine fighter airframe, until Kawanishi team develops N1K1-J Shiden as a private initiative (this happens slightly earlier than in RL, because alternate projects of land-based interceptors, that tied Kawanishi resourses, do not exist). It is adopted as a stopgap measure until availability of A7M.

As a side effect of greater effort put into development and production of Mitsubishi Kinsei (Ha-33) and Mitsubishi Ha-43 engines, several planes that historically used these engines are added to the mod (if they existed only as prototypes by the war's end), or become available earlier, reflecting earlier focus on development of these engines. Ki-100, similar in concept to Ha-33 Zero, receives the biggest push forward (6 months).

This scenario also assumes mild overall boost to Japanese aircraft industry (at the cost of reduction in starting resources). As a result, several planes that historically faced severe problems with transition from prototypes to mass production, such as B6N, D4Y and G4M2, become available a bit earlier. G8N1, the Japanese 4E bomber that was successfully tested but not mass-produced in real life, becomes available in 1945.

Aircraft weapon development is streamlined, with a push for unification with IJAAF in this area (historically, IJN and IJA did cooperate in aircraft weapon production in this scenario their cooperation becomes much broader). Instead of attempts to produce licensed German machine guns, that ultimately failed to provide the fleet with sufficient numbers of them, IJN switches to the more powerful Army 7.7 cartridge and eventually adopts 12.7 Ho-103, the first aircraft HMG developed in Japan. This allows for improved armament on some planes, mostly 2E bombers.

In addition, there are many minor tweaks to various aircraft, intended to make their statblocks and performance closer to historical. The changes that can affect gameplay most noticeably include:

1. All Zeros, Oscars and Franks have their speed increased by 7-20 knots. This is a disputed change, that was discussed in early stages of Mod development, due to perceived understatting of these planes by the game, rejected on the ground of possible consequences to the game balance, but it appears that someone entered it into the database and forgot to remove.

Player feedback about its effects is welcome as it may need to be changed back in a different version of the Mod.

2. Some of early Japanese fighters (Ha-35 Zeros and some of Ki-43s) have their high-altitude MVR reduced. Ki-43 gets slower drop of low-altitude MVR on mid- and late-war modifications in return.

3. G4M has slightly better durability, G3M sligtly worse, to give G4M an edge over the older plane it historically had.

4. E16A1 Paul no longer has artificially reduced normal range.

5. Ki-44 uses Nakakima Ha-34 engine, instead of Ha-35, for historical accuracy.

6. Late Ki-61 versions are slightly-to-moderately improved (slightly better MVR, Ki-61-II KAI uses the better one of its historical armament configurations). Ki-100s are significantly improved (much better MVR). In RL they were supposed to be good, particularly Ki-100, but in AE they are very underwhelming.

7. Ki-84b has improved service rating of 2, reflecting historical fixes to its engine problems.

8. Ki-67-Ib does not lose the ability to carry torpedos.

9. Old Russian fighters no longer have unparalelled MVR. Their a-historical superiority to Nate is gone.


Following aircraft were added to this scenario (all but new Zeros and G3M4-Q existed in RL as prototypes or even production models):

A. A6M3b Zero. Replaces A6M3a and emphasized armor and weapons instead of range.

B. A6M4, A6M4-J, A6M8-J. Successors to A6M3b that follow the same design philosopshy but use Mitshubishi Ha-33 engine.

C. A7M3. The historical successor to A7M2. Carrier-capable and features 6x20mm armament. A7M2 factory upgrades to it, instead of A7M3-J.

D. B7A3. The historical armored successor to B7M2. Uses Mitsubishi Ha-43 engine.

E. D4Y5. Mitsubishi Ha-43, armor. D4Y3 upgrades to it. (D4Y4 was a kamikaze plane in RL.)
F. G3M4-Q. ASW patrol version of Nell.

G. G8N1. Fast, tough, long-ranged 4E bomber.

H. J6M1. IJN version of Ki-83.

I. N1K4-A. Carrier-capable Shiden.

J. N1K5-J. High-altitude interceptor Shiden. Uses Mitsubishi Ha-43 engine.

K. Yasukuni. IJN version of Ki-67. "Yasukuni" might actually be the name of the naval unit, that employed these bombers in RL, but I can't find any other designation for them.


CREDIT: Stanislav (FatR), BK, Juan, and John (Red Lancer) for their contributions in this area of the Mod.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Got the email.

What did you do with the Fighters?

Dialed the speed on Zeros, Oscars and Franks back to Scen 1 values (or projections from them for new models).

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Didn't know you could do changes DURING a game! Are you sure about that?

Considering the result, looks like this is not advised.