BUFFs - Understanding their use and modelling in-game.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

This then borders on the whole production issue where people refuse to model something properly because the Allies don't get variable production while the Japanese do. I think this is not a valid position since you can't willingly limit the veracity of the combat model in order to compensate for a shortcoming in the logistics model. That just doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense. To argue for historical combat models, when the primary variable, the largest issue for combat planners--number of assets available--is ahistorical on its face, is illogical. If Allied air planners had faced unlimited Japanese aircraft throughout the war, aircraft which DID NOT BURN PETROLEUM PRODUCTS, they would have designed a much different air war and different mid- and late-war designs. Endlessly arguing over tweaking cannon vs. MG performance is whistling past the graveyard. The game isn't historic. The Japanese can easily wage an air war which isn't historic. Making it easier for Japanese to shoot down fixed numbers of 4E bombers isn't historic when measured against the relative asset pools. The rest is just noise.

Allied variable production would be nice, but we're not going to get it from the devs, at least under the announced patch philosophy. Adding it would so fundamentally change the game balance that they might as well start over and charge for the new version.

An interim solution is to use the editor and add some Allied production.

[Nemo121]

Well, we have a philosophical difference then.

I prefer to fix the air combat model and logistics model separately. You seek to fix the logistics model without fixing the air combat model - which will simply shift the amount of error in a different direction. I think that's not the best solution. I do trust that we can simply agree to differ.


As to variable production only being available via the developers. Not so, it can be modded in relatively easily once you approach it indirectly. I've explained, several times, how this can be done.

[oldman45]

If I am reading your post right, you are trying to get European results in the Pacific. I cannot claim to know all that much about the air-war in Europe other than the bombers suffered horribly. But, they were up against radar, ground controllers, and better armed planes. You just cannot compare the two theaters.

[Nemo121]

Oldman,

The comparison is valid if the situation is similar ( radar, better armed and armoured planes etc ). That mightn't have pertained in 1942 but particularly in the time period I am correcting this for ( late 45 ) at least some of these elements were present.

Anyways I think the situation comes down to me being interested in what might have been and you being much more interested in what was. With what was Europe is of little value. With what might have been it has some value.

That's fine, different strokes for different folks.

FWIW I'm posting the zip file containing the scenario to my Armageddon AAR.

I've run tests with B-17s, B-29-25s and B-29Bs

Even when facing 600+ fighters the 600 or so B29-25s suffer roughly 70 bombers downed. I don't find this difficult to believe given that they were up against many cannon-armed fighters. They took down about 45 enemy fighters with them ( again seems fairly reasonable given the lack of escorts etc ).

When B-29Bs went in they suffered horribly with the bomber groups suffering almost 50% losses ( the B29Bs only have a single rear-facing position ). So this shows the difference between having good defensive armament and nothing. Interestingly a statistically significant number of fighters made frontal passes on the B-29Bs especially when compared to the B29-25s. Whether this is intentionally coded to come in where the defensive armament cannot bear or whether it was just the result of B-29-25s beating off those attacks and thus the difference not being in attempted attacks but only in effective passes.

The B-17s did slightly worse thean the B29-25s as their defensive armament isn't as good but they still managed to fend off quite a few fighters and downed a few too. They went down easier too though.

[oldman45]

Your tests were just the late war jap fighters?

How did it work when the early war fighters went up against the B-17/B-24. The effects on the B-29's sounds about right. I would have to look up some numbers. I should have something on Sunday.

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

ORIGINAL: LoBaron




Service rating could help but I think that it produces an ahistorical downtime of bombers. As you said it is high already.

Just thought of another solution: If this is doable with the code, why not make something similar as AF overstacking penalty for 4E´s for air support also?
If you need, for example, 3 air support for every heavy bomber instead of 1 this could severely reduce the potential strike size and also
better reflect the higher maintenance cost for the big planes.

This will not fly (so to speak). As I understand it, if you have 250 aviation support, you can fly unlimited number of planes from that airfield (subject to stacking and administrative limits). For the allies, that is extremely easy. (For the Japanese it is practically impossible [:D])

I thought there was only a fly-everything bonuscard for lvl 10 airfields. I wonder what the reason was for implementing no-limit AS when it reaches 250. [X(]
Why not simply get rid of that unlimited thing? Worst thing that can happen is you have to stand down a couple of squads if you got so much you don´t know what to do with it.
That might aditionally help convincing the player to distribute his forces.

That 250 AS rule have been there since Uncommon Valor, so I doubt it's going to change... It's very weird rule IMO...

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: Puhis

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown



This will not fly (so to speak). As I understand it, if you have 250 aviation support, you can fly unlimited number of planes from that airfield (subject to stacking and administrative limits). For the allies, that is extremely easy. (For the Japanese it is practically impossible [:D])

I thought there was only a fly-everything bonuscard for lvl 10 airfields. I wonder what the reason was for implementing no-limit AS when it reaches 250. [X(]
Why not simply get rid of that unlimited thing? Worst thing that can happen is you have to stand down a couple of squads if you got so much you don´t know what to do with it.
That might aditionally help convincing the player to distribute his forces.

That 250 AS rule have been there since Uncommon Valor, so I doubt it's going to change... It's very weird rule IMO...

If you have less air support than required then level bomber missions (only) are reduced in size by 25%.

The overstacking rules are null for both level 9 and level 10 airbases, but that is a separate rule form the air support rule.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Puhis

ORIGINAL: LoBaron



I thought there was only a fly-everything bonuscard for lvl 10 airfields. I wonder what the reason was for implementing no-limit AS when it reaches 250. [X(]
Why not simply get rid of that unlimited thing? Worst thing that can happen is you have to stand down a couple of squads if you got so much you don´t know what to do with it.
That might aditionally help convincing the player to distribute his forces.

That 250 AS rule have been there since Uncommon Valor, so I doubt it's going to change... It's very weird rule IMO...

If you have less air support than required then level bomber missions (only) are reduced in size by 25%.

The overstacking rules are null for both level 9 and level 10 airbases, but that is a separate rule form the air support rule.

I did not get a fixed rule dating back to UV for how long? 8 years? Ouch! Thanks Puhis...


bradforkay: Ok just to be clear about why I was proposing this (and to sum up maybe)

It seems that our "ahistorical" loss rates when seonding IJ fighters against heavy bombers is due to the fact that the allied
player is able to send concentrated strikes with above average numbers of planes against minor targets beginning early in
the war while there are no advanced airframes around which could be able to shoot them down.
(and not due to the fact that bomber defensive armament is overpowered or too accurate)

At least this is the conclusion that is most plausable in my opinion.

So the solution (if we even can agree to any, which I currently doubt looking at the discussion) could be:
set an additional barrier for the Allied side to mass heavy bombers early in the war.

We discussed two options up to now:

Upping the service rating of heavies from 4 to 5:
This is very easy and fast, can be done via the editor IIRC and its done. My point against this solution is that it
further increases the downtime of heavies which is already on the upper limit of high and the simpel solution
for the Allied player would be, well, bring in more bombers.


Making heavy bombers consume more AS:
If we up the AS required for heavies from 1 to 2 or even 3, a heavy bomber unit would eat up AS and this could, most of all early in the
war limit the bombers that can be stationed at a single base with enough air support.
I am NOT proposing this to force the 25% reduction in strike size because there the same solution applies as in the above point.
I am proposing this because you need AS to repair damaged planes. An AF out of AS gets long delays repairing its aircraft. So the player is
absolutely able to send huge attacks from a base for 1 day, after that the ready AC number drops significantly because of damaged bombers
and the missing air support does the rest.

Its just an idea and as it seems crushed by the 250AS rule anyway but what the hell, interesting discussion up to now...

[Alfred]

LoBaron,

Further to your post #88, some additional approaches which are not usually identified are:

1. Increase considerably the consumption of supply be 4E (by increasing logistic requirements, the tempo and weight of operations could be affected and the alleged ill effects suffered by the Japanese thereby mitigated)

2. Increase considerably the VPs awarded for the destruction of 4E (currently 2 points per destroyed 4E, if increased to say 10 points per 4E, it would bring some compensation to Japanese players who play to win/not lose on VPs)

3. Introduce a time delay for any air unit transferred before it becomes operational at the new airbase (would make concentration of multiple 4E units into a flying circus and their easy relocation to new sectors to sequentially supress Japanese airbases more difficult)

Alfred

[PresterJohn001]

The suggestion that Japanese airframe production is overpowered has been asserted, but not evidenced. The only discussion i have seen seemed to show if anything Japanese airframes were being underproduced. The distribution is different but thats to be expected. Its also a red herring and irrelevant to whether the 4e bomber model works well. Allowing the Japanese control over airframe production but not the Allies is a game design decision.

I think the argument that bomber turrets should not be as accurate as fighter guns is a very good one, logical and in line with history. A careful tweak here could result in more historic results throughout the war and encourage more realistic use of the aircraft.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

LoBaron,

Further to your post #88, some additional approaches which are not usually identified are:

1. Increase considerably the consumption of supply be 4E (by increasing logistic requirements, the tempo and weight of operations could be affected and the alleged ill effects suffered by the Japanese thereby mitigated)

This is what I thought too in the first place but now I doubt that it would change the situation.
Heavies are limited to fly from larger bases anyway. Usually these bases are supplied by the Allies via larger convoys and have no issue with supply. It could
help on threatened islands because there the decision has to be made to either risk running out of supplies early or not use the heavies.

It does not have an effect on land bases where supplies will never be an issue. (India or Australia for example)

2. Increase considerably the VPs awarded for the destruction of 4E (currently 2 points per destroyed 4E, if increased to say 10 points per 4E, it would bring some compensation to Japanese players who play to win/not lose on VPs)

This is a point that could have an effect but I am not sure. The US would have never lost the war because of another Schweinfurt raid. Upping VP could produce a situation where high heavy bomber
losses could lead to an early Japanese victory, just because of that, which I would consider ahistorical. If on the other hand upping the VC points for heavies is not raised as high as to have the effect
described before, its close to have not an impact at all.

In general I am very careful with the current VC point system, its a huge abstraction of victory conditions I am not sure reflect any real situations.
For that reason I always feel like it can be either ignored or is an annoyance.
I consider any Japanese player a victor if he is able to duke it out past September ´45.

3. Introduce a time delay for any air unit transferred before it becomes operational at the new airbase (would make concentration of multiple 4E units into a flying circus and their easy relocation to new sectors to sequentially supress Japanese airbases more difficult)

Alfred

Thats an interesting point, but I think it would have the desired effect only in combination with other limitations.
Setting a base up for hevy bomber operation requires advance planning anyway, it is another obstacle to overcome but you don´t set a base up for a week and then leave again.
Your proposal would complicate the planning/preparation part but as soon as the operations are up and running the situation would be similar as before.


What I like about the increased AS for heavies is that the Allies can overcome this obstacle (as every other thrown in their way) but even they have no unlimited AS.
Combined with the base stacking limitation it could be enough that if a player wants heavy bomber fleets dimming out the sun, he can do it, but doing so
he would severely limit the available AS for other theatres.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ChezDaJez wrote:

"Brad has lost only 15 B-17s to air combat for the entire war despite near daily raids on my bases and shipping for the past few weeks. Ops losses account for 46 B-17s most likely due to lower their experience and higher fatigue from long range missions."

Chez' numbers are a little off... I have only lost 12 B17E's to A2A (though you can be sure that most of the 38 Ops losses were due to combat damage), but I've also lost 29 B17Ds to A2A combat (plus 10 more in Operational losses).

In Appendix B of Fortress against the Sun, Gene Salecker notes the fates of all PTO B-17's by serial number. While aspects of Saleckers work is seriously dodgy, I view him as broadly trustworthy on the US side of the fence.

Anyhu, Salecker notes a total of 22 B-17's all makes shot down throughout, 9 listed as MIA and 8 "fate unknowns".

[Nemo121]

Aye, B17s were extremely tough, B29s are even tougher.

The key issue here, as always, is that there are two camps... One group who seem to argue that we shouldn't see greater losses ( or greater numbers of planes or whatever ) than was historically the case and another which says "Well, if we did, this isn't the outcome I'm expecting". Those are different approaches to game play which aren't going to be reconciled by a mod.


With that said I want to point out a few errors in thinking in some of the latest posts....

1. If you send more B17s more will be lost....

Fighters have finite ammunition so far a given number of fighters ( y ) you will get ( y * ammo ) number of firing passes. Let's assume each fighter has enough ammo for 5 firing passes of 2 second each. Previously I did a few calculations using German documentation in which they had calculated the weight of firepower ( in Kg ) which was required to bring a B17 down ( on average ). They were then able to apply this to each of their fighters and eventually create planes like the Fw-190A8/R1 and others which could take down a bomber in a single 2 second firing pass. The Ki-43 IIIa, in comparison, needed 45 seconds of firing on target in order to achieve that same amount of "lead on target". This leaves aside the issue of cannons being more destructive than MG bullets on a weight for weight basis but I'm only making a very simple model for illustrative purposes here so bear with me.

If you have 100 Ki-43 IIIs vs 50 B-17s those 100 Ki43 IIIs will be able to generate 500 firing passes of 2 seconds each. That is 1,000 seconds of fire. Each Ki-43 needs 45 seconds of "on target" firing to down a B-17 so even without ANY defensive fire and PERFECT aim and co-ordination ( none of which was likely ) the Ki-43 IIIs will down a maximum of 22 B-17s. Once you start reducing the number of passes to account for inaccurate firing, fire which went into non-vital areas, Ki-43s damaged and forced out of the fight before they could fire all of their ammo and you quickly get into a real-world situation where 100 Ki-43 IIIs might only down 3 or 4 B-17s ( if that ) no matter how many firing passes they made ( with a large number of those B-17s being recorded as ops losses on the way home from the target area ).

Now, put those 100 Ki-43 IIIs vs 500 B-17s and those Ki-43 IIIs, even in the face of no defensive fire, will still only be able, with perfect aim and co-ordination, be able to down 22 B-17s. Bomber raids scale such that once you meet the maximum available enemy fighter force you can add more and more bombers without incurring any additional losses - with the end result that losses per sortie begins to fall. This "saturation of the defences" thinking lay behind the Bomber Command strategy in WW2 in which they accepted that German night fighters etc could deal with x bombers per hour and destroy them and they focussed on sending as many bombers through as possible so that "x per hour" was a loss rate which was acceptable to them. Overall losses remained the same but losses per sortie fell.

The various bomber command/ air theatres are very interesting to study from a statistical perspective. They really brought maths into warfare in a big way in terms of allowing the maths to impact actual real-world deployments.

[herwin]

On the other hand, yours truly did operations research professionally, and you know what people here think of me...

[Cyber Me]

There is an article in the airforce-magazine.com vol 76, No9 (Sept 1993).
That basically says that Luftwaffe officers examined the wrecks of B17s and B24s, they discovered that it took at least twenty hits from 20mm shells fired from the rear to bring them down . Armament experts studied combat camera footage, and determined that the average pilot could expect two per cent hit rates. To obtain twenty hits, the average pilot had to aim 1,000 20mm rounds at the bomber. But when the bombers were attacked from the front, its armour gave little protection, and only four or five hits from 20mm rounds were needed to shoot down the bomber. Also the bombers had fewer guns firing forward. The high closing speed made the fighters very difficult targets for the bombers. Of course the high closing speed gave the fighter pilot much less time to aim and fire, but needed a lot fewer hits.

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ChezDaJez wrote:

"Brad has lost only 15 B-17s to air combat for the entire war despite near daily raids on my bases and shipping for the past few weeks. Ops losses account for 46 B-17s most likely due to lower their experience and higher fatigue from long range missions."

Chez' numbers are a little off... I have only lost 12 B17E's to A2A (though you can be sure that most of the 38 Ops losses were due to combat damage), but I've also lost 29 B17Ds to A2A combat (plus 10 more in Operational losses).

In Appendix B of Fortress against the Sun, Gene Salecker notes the fates of all PTO B-17's by serial number. While aspects of Saleckers work is seriously dodgy, I view him as broadly trustworthy on the US side of the fence.

Anyhu, Salecker notes a total of 22 B-17's all makes shot down throughout, 9 listed as MIA and 8 "fate unknowns".

I think the real question is, what was the loss % per mission? For example 100 planes flying, on average how many planes was lost? 1 or 2 or 0,5 or 0,1?

[oldman45]

Nemo - While I feel comfortable with the results you showed with the B-29's and your numbers in post 92 look good, I believe the problem lies elsewhere. Changing how the fighters work to deal with the bombers could lead to problems when they engage other fighters. Testing would need to be done. I also get the impression that you are looking for European results and while we (players) want to be able to "change" history, somethings just cannot be done. Feel free to change my mind, I enjoy a good discussion.

You keep referencing Europe and in the case of post 92, using Bomber Commands bean counting in how they determined the number of planes and the expected results. That works fine there, but in the pacific, the commanders couldn't worry about that untill the bombing of Japan.

I really think this discussion should be about how to slow down the use of the 4E bomber. As I pointed out earlier, we are not constrained by the "facts" of 1942. There were plenty of bombers for the AAC to use in the pacific. They were sitting on the West Coast and PH. They were used as patrol planes in the South Pacific. The players would be screaming bloody murder if they were forced to do this. Another fact is the IJN/IJA fighter pilots did not know deal wih the bombers in 42 and their planes had a very hard time shooting them down. Now thats a fact and its something that should not be changed as far as the game mechanics go. Here is another fact, 1942 10th AF sent B-17's to India.
On paper there were 17 bombers, but the reality was it was closer to 8. Over the following months they were able to fly missions of 2 and 3 planes. and it could take up to a week to get that many in the air. They also flew at night...... Perhaps what we need to look at is changing how many planes a squadron can get into the air. On a side note, one day light raid of 2 planes was attacked by 10 fighters. Not sure the type but they could have been Oscars or even Nates. One of the planes was shot down the other badly damaged. Another mission 4 Bombers attacked shipping @3500 ft. Between AAA fire and fighter attacks 2 were damaged. It was almost 2 weeks before they could put 3 planes up for another raid. If I searched information about Kenny's AF I have a feeling I would find similar data. The point I am trying to make is instead of changing combat and all the problems it could lead to, change how the bombers are handled.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: oldman45
There were plenty of bombers for the AAC to use in the pacific. They were sitting on the West Coast and PH. They were used as patrol planes in the South Pacific. The players would be screaming bloody murder if they were forced to do this.

A very good point I did not consider.
We play with 20/20 hindsight here and the Allied player does not neccesarily need B17´s en masse to cover the backyard.
Although for the Allies its usually a wise thing to do if the opponent isnt totally predictable.


I definitely like this discussion.

[1EyedJacks]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

With that said I want to point out a few errors in thinking in some of the latest posts....

1. If you send more B17s more will be lost....

Fighters have finite ammunition so far a given number of fighters ( y ) you will get ( y * ammo ) number of firing passes. Let's assume each fighter has enough ammo for 5 firing passes of 2 second each. Previously I did a few calculations using German documentation in which they had calculated the weight of firepower ( in Kg ) which was required to bring a B17 down ( on average ). They were then able to apply this to each of their fighters and eventually create planes like the Fw-190A8/R1 and others which could take down a bomber in a single 2 second firing pass. The Ki-43 IIIa, in comparison, needed 45 seconds of firing on target in order to achieve that same amount of "lead on target". This leaves aside the issue of cannons being more destructive than MG bullets on a weight for weight basis but I'm only making a very simple model for illustrative purposes here so bear with me.

If you have 100 Ki-43 IIIs vs 50 B-17s those 100 Ki43 IIIs will be able to generate 500 firing passes of 2 seconds each. That is 1,000 seconds of fire. Each Ki-43 needs 45 seconds of "on target" firing to down a B-17 so even without ANY defensive fire and PERFECT aim and co-ordination ( none of which was likely ) the Ki-43 IIIs will down a maximum of 22 B-17s. Once you start reducing the number of passes to account for inaccurate firing, fire which went into non-vital areas, Ki-43s damaged and forced out of the fight before they could fire all of their ammo and you quickly get into a real-world situation where 100 Ki-43 IIIs might only down 3 or 4 B-17s ( if that ) no matter how many firing passes they made ( with a large number of those B-17s being recorded as ops losses on the way home from the target area ).

Now, put those 100 Ki-43 IIIs vs 500 B-17s and those Ki-43 IIIs, even in the face of no defensive fire, will still only be able, with perfect aim and co-ordination, be able to down 22 B-17s. Bomber raids scale such that once you meet the maximum available enemy fighter force you can add more and more bombers without incurring any additional losses - with the end result that losses per sortie begins to fall. This "saturation of the defences" thinking lay behind the Bomber Command strategy in WW2 in which they accepted that German night fighters etc could deal with x bombers per hour and destroy them and they focussed on sending as many bombers through as possible so that "x per hour" was a loss rate which was acceptable to them. Overall losses remained the same but losses per sortie fell.

The various bomber command/ air theatres are very interesting to study from a statistical perspective. They really brought maths into warfare in a big way in terms of allowing the maths to impact actual real-world deployments.

In the Scenario of sending 100 fighters against 50 4E wouldn't they have to hit those same 22 bombers - basically cull out 22 bombers from the herd of 50 and make concentrated attacks on them? [;)] That's the perfect coordination you are referring to - yes? [;)][;)]

I suppose you could just have a house rule that you can fly no more then X 4E bomber groups at single target per turn and then figure out what that "X" should be between the two players.

In the latter stages of the war can you use kamakazi planes against 4E bombers? If so then we could experiment with allowing kamakazi missions earlier in the war to compensate for an allied player that wants to use the big 4E hammer.

Has anyone ever seen a bomber run out of ammo? The B-17s had about 1 minute of ammo per gun (from what I've read). Is there a way to really establish an ammo limit for 4E bombers? At the early stages of the way If the Japanese player can achieve a 5:1 fighter/bomber ratio or so the defensive fire of those 4Es would tail off and give free attack passes for the fighters towards the end of the intercept - right? That would at least increase damage to the 4E attack, reduce their bombing effectiveness for that turn, and put a sizable chunk of 4E bombers in the shop for a few days...

It could also have the effect of the allied player waiting to hammer strongly defended targets with his 4E bombers until the long range escorts come into play...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding AAA - the more you put into a hex the more damage enemy bombers should take at low altitudes. As I interpret the game manual, the intent of AA seems more to force enemy bombers to a greater altitude to affect their bombing accuracy then to really shoot down the bombers. Flying against a target with really-really heavy AAA defensive fire *should* affect morale also...

I was sharing with Fionn by email that the heavy AA units in WWII didn't really "aim" their guns @ enemy aircraft but instead created "curtains" of fire. Basically they would target an approach point in the air at different altitudes to the airfield or port and then fire the equivelent of "priority fire missions" based on targets supplied by a firing officer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is my interest in this topic: For every strategy there is a counter. If swarms of 4E bombers dot the skies then Japan *should* have some kind of counter - Massing fighters - AA units - Kamakazi - air bombs - rockets - something - anything - to attempt a counter to the threat.

A house rule governing the number of B-17s that can engage a specific target per turn - I think - would be the simplest correction for many of the PBEM games. Bombing accuracy could I think be managed by setting a minimum altitude houes rule for 4E bombing. House rules are often discussed in this forum and seem to work well for many who play this game.

When I cut to the chase I want to find a way to stop 40-100+ 4E bombers from being able to close a base or port in 2 turns or less. Any suggestions are welcome from my perspective.

[bradfordkay]

AE has gone a long ways towards reducing the numbers of bombers the allies are able to put over an enemy base. The numbers of allied bombers are very restricted in the game already. It has taken until August of 1942 before I could even think about putting up a raid of 40 aircraft, and still (in September) none of my squadrons are anywhere near full strength.

Yes, I've been sending 40 plane raids on Noumea (a major base for my enemy), but in order to do so, I have had to concentrate my B17s into one location - okay, I have a few squadrons elsewhere. The allied player cannot commit 40 plane raids against multiple bases all over the board.

Should he be forced to commit 5-10 plane raids against enemy bases? I don't think so. While this may be what happened in the real war, we are dealing with a completely different animal in this game. Each player is going to try to use his assets to their best advantage. Forcing only one of the two players into a historical straitjacket is just wrong, IMO. If you want to try to tweak the gun ratings on the heavies, I can understand that - but I will disagree with the idea that I should be forced to send nickel and dime raids so that my aircraft can be eaten alive whilst performing no measurable result.

I personally feel that the crew that put together AE carefully considered the game balance when they made it. Both sides are restrained a good bit when compared to the original WITP, but are still able to new strategies within those constraints. Just my opinion...