BUFFs - Understanding their use and modelling in-game.

[John Lansford]

Comparing German anti-bomber results with Japanese efforts is like comparing apples and oranges.  German fighters were purpose built for destroying bombers, equipped with heavy cannon, armor and using sophisticated ground-air interception tactics.  The Japanese fighters were lightly built and armed with little to no advance detection ability, and no dedicated anti-bomber tactics like the Germans developed.  Plus, the Allies didn't fly huge bomber formations over Japanese targets until the B-29's vs Japanese home cities.  B-17 and B-24 sorties were more like a dozen or two bombers at one time.

[ChezDaJez]

I think one of the greatest roadblocks to getting this right in AE is that people continually try to use examples from the European Air War to justify their opinions. The two really aren't that similar.

In Europe, the Germans had radar coverage from the channel coast over most of SE England. They could watch the bomber raids forming up over their own bases, and have a good idea of the timing and direction of raids as soon as they began to move towards their targets. They had the bases and A/C available to intercept raids hundreds of miles from their targets, and maintain continuous attacks for several hours. This Air War was very extended and intense.

In the Pacific, most raids came "out of the blue" from over the ocean. Radar might provide enough warning to scramble interceptors over the target itself, but there really wasn't much possibility of the kind of hours-long air combats that occurred over Europe---even when the targets were in Japan itself.

Add to this the fact that the Germans fielded a much more capable range of aircraft for this kind of fighting (stronger construction, armor plate, better armament) than the Japanese had available..., and comparisons are almost meaningless.

I think we would be better off ignoring all examples based on Europe and considering only the numbers and examples from Pacific fighting.

I think much of what you said here is true however I would also argue that European results are germane because many players attempt to use the heavies as they were in Europe. If players were sending their B-17s out in raids of 3-10 aircraft due to very poor availability, then the European results could probably be ignored.

I think for the most part the heavies are fairly close to real life performance relatd to their bombing ability. Brad has been sending 30-40 B-17s against a couple of my bases and sometimes he smacks the base hard, sometimes he doesn't. Their inability to hit ships at sea from 10K+ altitudes is accurate. (We have a house rule limiting 4E attacks vs naval shipping below 10K until sometime in 1943).

My only reservation regarding the modeling of the heavies (or any bomber for that matter) is that I believe the defensive armament isn't modeled accurately. Various positions should reflect varying accuracies. Waist and radio gunners should be less accurate than tail or turret guns due to their limited field of fire. The Japanese bombers seem to be modeled this way but the allied bombers are not. A "one-accuracy-fits-all" seems to be the approach for allied bombers. (One exception to turret accuracy should be applied to the B-17Es equipped with the remotely operated Bendix belly turret. It was a dismal failure and soon replaced with the Sperry turret.)

I believe this should be modified to reflect this reality. However, if that caused a large scale increase in allied bomber losses then I would also be in favor of boosting the bomber's durability rating to bring the losses back down to more historical levels.

This should allow more allied bombers to be damaged but not necessrily shot down. Current servicability ratings would then reduce their availability for future missions. An increase to serviceability ratings might not be necessary if this were the case.

In Martin Bowman's book, "B-17 Flying Fortress Unit of the Pacific War", he talks about the number of bombers available for any one mission. On page 62 he states:

"In all, Rabaul was bombed 13 times in January 1943, but never by more than 12 aircraft. At this time, of the 55 B-17E/Fs in the 43rd BG, about 20 were usually under repair or maintenance, leaving 12-14 B-17s available for raids, while the best the B-24 could muster was about 15 Liberators from 60 in theater."

He doesn't say what the remaining 20 or so B-17s were doing though I suspect they were being used for naval search or awaiting spare parts.

In summation, I favor a more accurate modeling of the various gun positions plus a possible increase to durability to more accurately reflect reduced B-17 availability in the Pacific War.

Chez

[Nikademus]

adding to what Chez wrote, the majority of the "daylight" raids conducted by heavies out of Oz in 42 and early 43 were timed to reach their targets at dusk or dawn. In other words, the planners worked to minimize the unescorted bombers meeting enemy fighters. B-17's did not simply go whereever they wanted, whenever they wanted, discounting the threat of concentrated enemy interceptors.

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

adding to what Chez wrote, the majority of the "daylight" raids conducted by heavies out of Oz in 42 and early 43 were timed to reach their targets at dusk or dawn. In other words, the planners worked to minimize the unescorted bombers meeting enemy fighters. B-17's did not simply go whereever they wanted, whenever they wanted, discounting the threat of concentrated enemy interceptors.

BGEN Walker, commander of V Bomber Command, found this out the hard way. He explicitly ignored MGEN Kenney's orders to attack shipping at Rabaul at dawn on 5 January 1943. BGEN Walker decided a noon time on target at Rabaul would be better and launched his attack to arrive at that time. 6 B-17s and 6 B-24s were launched with a bombing altitude of 5000 feet. BGEN Walker rode as an observer in a B-17 piloted by Major Allan Lindberg, CO of 43rd BS. Lindberg's aircraft was shot down by Zeros and all onboard were killed including the general. Several others were badly damaged with one ditching off the coast of New guinea.

Chez

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

I always enjoy reading your posts Elf and appreciate your contributions to this game.

Just wondering about some of the shot down fighters people see and how the aggressiveness of the leader of the fighter unit and how that plays into pressing home the attack in the face of heavy defense by the HBs. Am I off base in thinking this?

Thanks!

See my post above. I have to sort through reasonable observations by reasonable players, and also the unreasonable observations from unreasonable players. Sometimes it is difficult to tell what is a true problem with the game, or just poor uninformed play stemming from high expectations.

Have 4E bombers have always been overpowered...? Probably. But not to the extent that I think some people on this thread might think. On one had I see reports that decry the routine as being broken, and the next post I see someone say, "I haven't seen that". So I have to filter through it all.

I think 4E bombers could be toned down a bit, both in terms of their availability (Op Tempo), and their lethality against CAP. How much? I really don't know. I am looking at it though.

Aggressive Fighter leaders will have the effect of exposing their unit to more 4E bomber defense than an non aggressive one. The desired effect of collective bomber defense is to see more fighters turn away due to effective fire than to see them shot down. In reality way more enemy fighters were claimed by bomber gunners than were ever shot down. It's a fact. It was also a morale issue. You WANTED your gunners to believe they were effective...

As said earlier, I can't argue that the Allied heavies are not a bit too effective in the game. However, I would be reluctant to see them nerfed some without a whole lot of other nerfing coming into play. You should be cautious about this as any fix might create another problem. I see them as the only real potent Allied offensive air threat until late 1943 when the Allied and produce enough mediums and escorts to protect them.

Let's face it, if you are talking about finding a historical balance for Allied bombers then at any given time 30-40% of Japanese aircraft located at forward based should be out of action due to lack of spare parts. It is hard to find a happy medium to suit all of the players. I just don't think the Allied big boys are so out of whack that they have an undue influence on the game and that would be my first criteria for making any changes.

I have played about 600 turns in my campaign and have lost enough heavies to Japanese defensive efforts that I still have to be careful about how I use them. And I have to stand them down for long periods to rest and recover strength. I just don't see a real problem here. Come 1944, I can see a real big leap in the effect that they will have. However, considering the toys that I get to play with at that time, It will be the least of the Japanese problems......[8D]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
As said earlier, I can't argue that the Allied heavies are not a bit too effective in the game. However, I would be reluctant to see them nerfed some without a whole lot of other nerfing coming into play.

Isn´t this thread another proof that the devs are still finetuning the game in different aspects?

You sound a bit like, no, lets not fix a problem because there are other problems too.

WitP evolves nicely I have to add, and this is because of a quite knowledgable community discussing and the devs playing their WitP AE themselves. You wont find that in many other places
involving entertainment software nowerdays crsutton.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

I think one of the greatest roadblocks to getting this right in AE is that people continually try to use examples from the European Air War to justify their opinions. The two really aren't that similar.

In Europe, the Germans had radar coverage from the channel coast over most of SE England. They could watch the bomber raids forming up over their own bases, and have a good idea of the timing and direction of raids as soon as they began to move towards their targets. They had the bases and A/C available to intercept raids hundreds of miles from their targets, and maintain continuous attacks for several hours. This Air War was very extended and intense.

In the Pacific, most raids came "out of the blue" from over the ocean. Radar might provide enough warning to scramble interceptors over the target itself, but there really wasn't much possibility of the kind of hours-long air combats that occurred over Europe---even when the targets were in Japan itself.

Add to this the fact that the Germans fielded a much more capable range of aircraft for this kind of fighting (stronger construction, armor plate, better armament) than the Japanese had available..., and comparisons are almost meaningless.

I think we would be better off ignoring all examples based on Europe and considering only the numbers and examples from Pacific fighting.

The voice of reason, I have to say I'm happy that Ian is looking into the 4E performance although I'd argue that all planes save the 38s are able to be used in a more up tempo manner, as mentioned earlier in the thread I do feel like an adjustment in fighters shot down could be made but the gap may not be as large as some may think. I still believe the Heavy Bomber modelling is close as to historical as one could expect.
Ask 10 players an opinion and you'll probably get 10 different answers, I will say I do find it humourous that some people that complain about the 4E performance insist on playing with PDUs on in which nothing about it is historical. Just an observation. [:)]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Sulu. Another interesting thing you'll see is players stating "when I fly my Sweeps at 45k' They rule the skies and take advantage of the sweep bonus...something isn't right about that. When they are told that they can see more historical results by flying more normal altitudes the totally ignore the obvious and continue to fly high altitude sweeps while complaining that the system is "broken"....

You can lead a horse to water....

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

There is a very strong tendency to always focus on what is being done to your own beloved pixeltruppen while not focusing enough on what you've done to your opponent. What you have done to your opponent is shrouded in the murk of the fog of war, while what is being done to you is painfully (literally) obvious.

Wise words indeed

P.S. "beloved pixeltruppen" - love it!

+1 [:D]

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: TheElf
You can lead a horse to water....

But he'll still produce nothing but horsesh-t.... [:D]

[oldman45]

Today I ran a couple of missions with 2 B-17E squadrons. I was hoping for the squadrons to fly together but I guess there was a problem in the O-club the night before so they insisted on flying as two seperate strikes. They were met by 36 Zero's and the results were just what I expected. The first strike of 7 lost 1 plane and the rest were damaged. The next strike lost 2 and the rest were damaged. By the way both strikes were intercepted by 36 fighters. So much for clearing the cap with B-17's. They lost no fighters and suffered 4 or 5 damaged. I ran the turn again to see if the same thing would happen and it did. The B-17's would not fly together and both strikes were hit by the exact same number of cap. My guess is, that if the strikes are run in a historical setting, there is a good chance you will see historical results. I don't know why large bombing missions would have a different result unless the engine has a problem with that many planes. I think it works just fine against the AI.

[Pascal_slith]

ORIGINAL: oldman45

Today I ran a couple of missions with 2 B-17E squadrons. I was hoping for the squadrons to fly together but I guess there was a problem in the O-club the night before so they insisted on flying as two seperate strikes. They were met by 36 Zero's and the results were just what I expected. The first strike of 7 lost 1 plane and the rest were damaged. The next strike lost 2 and the rest were damaged. By the way both strikes were intercepted by 36 fighters. So much for clearing the cap with B-17's. They lost no fighters and suffered 4 or 5 damaged. I ran the turn again to see if the same thing would happen and it did. The B-17's would not fly together and both strikes were hit by the exact same number of cap. My guess is, that if the strikes are run in a historical setting, there is a good chance you will see historical results. I don't know why large bombing missions would have a different result unless the engine has a problem with that many planes. I think it works just fine against the AI.

I seem to remember that you have to exit WitP to get a new series of pseudo-random numbers for results generation. Is this what you did?

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: oldman45
I don't know why large bombing missions would have a different result unless the engine has a problem with that many planes. I think it works just fine against the AI.

Bomber defence is better the more bombers there are, as they are assumed to be in a defensive formation, each able to help it's peers. Its very noticeable when you get 30-50 heavy bomber raids (the biggest I can manage, incidentally). They then become extremely hard to stop, especially given the (near mandatory) P38 sweeps that dilute the CAP somewhat as well.

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: Yakface

Hi Ian (The Elf)

Can I ask, is there a fire routine that is specific to 4E bombers that 2E bombers do not use, or do they both use entirely the same code, the only difference being due to the amount of weapons and other aircraft stats.

The reason I ask is that I often see the first 10 or 20 messages of combat between fighter and 4E being entirely populated with the fighters being shot at and damaged - seemingly without making passes. I don't see the same thing (not just less - do't see it at all) when large numbers of 2E bombers are intercepted. I appreciate that 4E have much heavier armaments however at the moment the gulf between 4E (which seem to damage/shoot down large numbers of fighters) and 2E (which seem to shoot down nothing, ever) seems enormous.

Bump

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: Yakface

ORIGINAL: Yakface

Hi Ian (The Elf)

Can I ask, is there a fire routine that is specific to 4E bombers that 2E bombers do not use, or do they both use entirely the same code, the only difference being due to the amount of weapons and other aircraft stats.

The reason I ask is that I often see the first 10 or 20 messages of combat between fighter and 4E being entirely populated with the fighters being shot at and damaged - seemingly without making passes. I don't see the same thing (not just less - do't see it at all) when large numbers of 2E bombers are intercepted. I appreciate that 4E have much heavier armaments however at the moment the gulf between 4E (which seem to damage/shoot down large numbers of fighters) and 2E (which seem to shoot down nothing, ever) seems enormous.

Bump

same code. What you may be seeing is the relative speed differential between 4E and 2E bombers. 2E bombers benefit from fewer attacks by fighters due to their higher cruise speeds.

[vicberg]

I'm sorry if I'm beating this to death.  I've shot down 70+ 4Es by mid-Feb in one PBEM (he's stopped attacking) and in my new PBEM, I've shot down 11 and it's first week. The zero bonus helps.  Palembang's been taken by me (japs)...i've moved HQ and Air support and lots o zeroes.  The 11 are from tracker.  The 4Es are trying to ding down the oil production in palembang.

Is it the game being borked or tactics?  Later war, the 4Es should be more powerful with greater numbers and pilot quality and shame on the japs if they don't account for this by having sufficient air bases, support and planes to defend.  And B-29s, well, they should be uber, but I would bet if the japs planned on B-29s in the HI (for example) with tons of fighters, it's not going to be quite as nice for the allies. 

I'm not convinced that 4Es are totally overpowered.  The case for increasing the service rating makes sense if the # of 4E strikes isn't in sync with reality, but these things can be shot down.

[ChezDaJez]

The zero bonus helps.

The Zero bonus was eliminated in AE.

Chez

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

I'm sorry if I'm beating this to death.  I've shot down 70+ 4Es by mid-Feb in one PBEM (he's stopped attacking) and in my new PBEM, I've shot down 11 and it's first week. The zero bonus helps.  Palembang's been taken by me (japs)...i've moved HQ and Air support and lots o zeroes.  The 11 are from tracker.  The 4Es are trying to ding down the oil production in palembang.

What models are you shooting down? There is a big difference with B-17D and B-17E/F. D-model is less durable and have inferior defencive guns.

Wait till you see 60 B-17s flying daily...

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

The zero bonus helps.

The Zero bonus was eliminated in AE.

Chez

funny, that was my thinking too when I read that comment... [:D] If you believe enough you can imagine a lot of things. [;)] I´m still praying for my fighter sweeps to coordinate at least a bit.

[1EyedJacks]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

The zero bonus helps.

The Zero bonus was eliminated in AE.

Chez

funny, that was my thinking too when I read that comment... [:D] If you believe enough you can imagine a lot of things. [;)] I´m still praying for my fighter sweeps to coordinate at least a bit.

Scenario #2 gives Japan a 6 month bonus according to the scenario write-up, where it says Japan will fight harder for the 1st 6 months... Is that a combat bonus of some type or is it just something on the order of better supplies/resources on hand @ the start of the war?

Regards,

Mike

[vonTirpitz]

Scenario 2 is an ahistorical/hypothetical game in which the Japanese player starts out with more industry and resources.

Additionally, there are several OOB changes (more LCU's, ships, squadrons, pilots, etc) that give the Japanese player a little more flexibility throughout the game.

Edit: All these are database modifications only.

ORIGINAL: 1EyedJacks

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez



The Zero bonus was eliminated in AE.

Chez

funny, that was my thinking too when I read that comment... [:D] If you believe enough you can imagine a lot of things. [;)] I´m still praying for my fighter sweeps to coordinate at least a bit.

Scenario #2 gives Japan a 6 month bonus according to the scenario write-up, where it says Japan will fight harder for the 1st 6 months... Is that a combat bonus of some type or is it just something on the order of better supplies/resources on hand @ the start of the war?

Regards,

Mike