What would be the result IRL?

[ChezDaJez]

This is not intended to start another massive debate over whether the game is right or wrong in the way it handles 4E combat. I am simply curious as to what players think the end result of this combat would have been had this occurred in real life. The B-17s came from Auckland I assume and the carriers were parked one hex north of Norfolk Island.


Morning Air attack on 144th Infantry Regiment, at 113,170 (Norfolk Island)

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 51



Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 7


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: ???


Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: ???

Aircraft Attacking:
7 x B-17E Fortress bombing from 12000 feet
Ground Attack: 8 x 500 lb GP Bomb

CAP engaged:
Akagi-1 with A6M2 Zero (16 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(16 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
16 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
Kaga-1 with A6M2 Zero (11 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(11 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
11 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
Hiryu-1 with A6M2 Zero (24 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
24 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead


Thanks in advance.

Chez

[LoBaron]

Hmmm didn´t something very very similar to this happen at Midway?
Cant check because I am at work now.
 
A couple of damaged Zeros, maybe 1 kill, and 1-2 downed B17s with the remainders sustaining different levels of damage?
And useless water splashes around the KB carriers naturally.
I think there was a pretty similar result except if I mix up things completely now. [8D]

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Hmmm didn´t something very very similar to this happen at Midway?
Cant check because I am at work now.

A couple of damaged Zeros, maybe 1 kill, and 1-2 downed B17s with the remainders sustaining different levels of damage?
And useless water splashes around the KB carriers naturally.
I think there was a pretty similar result except if I mix up things completely now. [8D]

I should probably state that the CAP from the CVs were on LRCAP over Norfolk Island. The B-17s were bombing my invading ground troops there.

Chez

[Erkki]

Real life result? If the Zeroes had fuel for more than 10min, every single B-17 down. Max 4 Zeroes down because they attacked from dead 6.

edit: moderate rains? 0 to 0 then...

[castor troy]

Asuming all 51 Zeroes would attack... and all would have full cannon ammo left. Leaving the Zeroes MGs aside, this would be 6120 20mm shells. What was the hit rate in real life against such targets with not so spectacular Japanese 20mm cannons? 3%? Would be 184 20mm hits then. How many 20mm hits did it take to down a B-17 on average? 20-30 German shells? 30-40 Japanese? More? Less?

As we´re talking about big bombers (which I assume would be easier to hit than a fighter) the hit rate probably was higher because otherwise the hit rate with 20mm cannons on fighters would have been only one or two shelss at best out of a fully armed Zero. [&:]

In real life I would guess 3 or 4 of the B-17 shot down with the rest being damaged. In the game, probably 1 or 2 shot down on average, in this case probably none lost? [;)] Now the question remains how many really attacked the bombers.

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Asuming all 51 Zeroes would attack... and all would have full cannon ammo left. Leaving the Zeroes MGs aside, this would be 6120 20mm shells. What was the hit rate in real life against such targets with not so spectacular Japanese 20mm cannons? 3%? Would be 184 20mm hits then. How many 20mm hits did it take to down a B-17 on average? 20-30 German shells? 30-40 Japanese? More? Less?

As we´re talking about big bombers (which I assume would be easier to hit than a fighter) the hit rate probably was higher because otherwise the hit rate with 20mm cannons on fighters would have been only one or two shelss at best out of a fully armed Zero. [&:]

In real life I would guess 3 or 4 of the B-17 shot down with the rest being damaged. In the game, probably 1 or 2 shot down on average, in this case probably none lost? [;)] Now the question remains how many really attacked the bombers.

Also 51,000 7,7 x 58mm cartridges. Makes 730 hits per B-17 even if the hit-ratio was just 1%. [:D]

[Puhis]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

This is not intended to start another massive debate over whether the game is right or wrong in the way it handles 4E combat. I am simply curious as to what players think the end result of this combat would have been had this occurred in real life. The B-17s came from Auckland I assume and the carriers were parked one hex north of Norfolk Island.


Morning Air attack on 144th Infantry Regiment, at 113,170 (Norfolk Island)

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 51



Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 7


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: ???


Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: ???

Aircraft Attacking:
7 x B-17E Fortress bombing from 12000 feet
Ground Attack: 8 x 500 lb GP Bomb

Don't know about the real life, but all 7 B-17s bombed so none was lost... I'm so surprized!! [:D]

[Ambassador]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Also 51,000 7,7 x 58mm cartridges. Makes 730 hits per B-17 even if the hit-ratio was just 1%. [:D]

I'm maybe nitpicking, but 1% of 51.000 is 510, so divided by 7 would only be 73 bullets per bomber. According to the table there : http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm , this would equate to maybe six 20mmx72 cannon rounds...

[Erkki]

Ahh yeah, very true. I suck at Maths, thats why I do Physics. [:D]

[anarchyintheuk]

It's surprising that the raid is detected 40m out on an island that you're invading. KB have radar?

I don't know of any instances of KB providing lrcap to ground troops irl so I don' think I can answer your question. If this was the first time that it was attempted, I'd imagine there would be few casualties on either side (especially on the ground). Organizing an lrcap system on the fly with admittedly spotty communications wouldn't be that easy.

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

It's surprising that the raid is detected 40m out on an island that you're invading. KB have radar?

I don't know of any instances of KB providing lrcap to ground troops irl so I don' think I can answer your question. If this was the first time that it was attempted, I'd imagine there would be few casualties on either side (especially on the ground). Organizing an lrcap system on the fly with admittedly spotty communications wouldn't be that easy.

That's an interesting observation. The KB was 40nm NW of Norfolk Island and I don't believe that Chez has any base forces with radar on the island. He did have surface ships in the Norfolk Island hex who probably had radar, but IRL they would not have been able to coordinate the LRCAP.

I believe that I should have lost all the B17s in that attack; instead, none went down (Chez the single B17E ops loss that day was from a different squadron, apparently).

[FatR]

Bomber altitude of only 12k, good early warning, enormous swarm of fighters? Well, in RL I would expect 50-75% outright losses, and remaining bombers severely damaged.

[bhawes]

You're also assuming CV command would allow 100% of their CAP coverage to go chasing off after 2 boxes of B-17s. I'd wager no where near 50 CAP planes would be allowed to intercept in hostile waters. I'd wager less than 12 would be asigned the task.

[darbycmcd]

How would the CAP even be routed to the raid, assuming they didn't have radios.... flak burst morse code?
When people are guessing very high losses for american bombers, does someone have an historical episode in mind? This size of raid occured fairly often, and I would guess against somewhat heavy air opposition, but I don't think I can remember a time when 50% of B17s were shot down, but I would be interested to read more about it if someone has a good source.

[spence]

IRL the IJN never developed much of anything in way of a Fighter Direction Center afloat. Their pilots often removed the already unreliable radios from their aircraft to save weight so FDC instructions might well be irrelevant anyways. Per IJN doctrine all carrier radio communications irrespective of tasking (CAP, scouts, ASW, strikes) were on the same frequency so the various squadrons' communications (such as they might exist in the first place) would likely be "stepping all over one another". The weather stinks so CAP depending on MkI, Mod 0 eyeballs are going to have a hard time picking out seven planes who might well be dodging in and out of the murk (nothing said about the quality of these seven bomber pilots/crews). Likewise the integrity of the CAP squadrons trying to hunt for those enemy bombers in the clouds would be likely to suffer as well; thus any attacks would probably be by one or two fighters at a time from directions that might well not be tactically advantageous. Again depending on the quality of the B-17 crews those one or two fighters might face concentrated defensive fire from several bombers. IRL even the KB's "First Team" held the B-17 in some esteem and tended to not press home their attacks to minimum range on them.

The absolutely least likely outcome IRL is that the 50 odd fighters simultaneously attack the bombers from tactically advantageous positions while the bombers blunder about in a loose or disrupted formation with everybody's head in the "up and locked" position. The likelihood that all the 50 fighters even see the bombers is pretty remote. That quite simply requires so many things to go perfectly driven by nothing more than pure luck as to be statistically impossible.

Certainly much more likely is the likelihood that the seven bombers dodge in and out of the clouds, drop their loads inaccurately in the vicinity of the island and escape unscathed.

If some contact is made then the losses would be a function of the number of 20 mm hits on the bombers which would likely depend on how many fighters made contact roughly simultaneously: that factor determining how the defensive fire was split up and how close the fighters pressed their attacks.

Overall I'd guess that RL would favor a result of one bomber and one fighter shot down.

[Erkki]

I'm perfectly OK with the low bomber losses myself. But what is still left is the 4Es' capability of shooting down fighters in droves and still be effective bombers.

I'd love to see someone mod in an Fw 190 A-8/R2 and see how well it would do against the B-17.. [;)]

[bradfordkay]

It was a squadron from the 11th BG, but I do not know which squadron as all four were tasked with the same orders and twenty more B17s from that group also attacked his ground troops but arrived after this fight. The 11th BG average low 50's for experience. 

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

This is not intended to start another massive debate over whether the game is right or wrong in the way it handles 4E combat. I am simply curious as to what players think the end result of this combat would have been had this occurred in real life. The B-17s came from Auckland I assume and the carriers were parked one hex north of Norfolk Island.


Morning Air attack on 144th Infantry Regiment, at 113,170 (Norfolk Island)

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 51



Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 7


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: ???


Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: ???

Aircraft Attacking:
7 x B-17E Fortress bombing from 12000 feet
Ground Attack: 8 x 500 lb GP Bomb

CAP engaged:
Akagi-1 with A6M2 Zero (16 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(16 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
16 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
Kaga-1 with A6M2 Zero (11 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(11 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
11 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
Hiryu-1 with A6M2 Zero (24 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
24 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead


Thanks in advance.

Chez

In the game, I say 6 damaged B17s, 1 OPS loss, 4 A6Ms lost

That makes 7.5 A6Ms from assumedly well trained pilots per Allied B17, a veritable shooting gallery. IRL the B17s would be fortunate to RTB. They would have myriad little holes throughout and probably significant crew injuries due to repeated perforations by rifle-caliber ammunition.

The Allied crew must have been scared spitless IRL. Literally they'd be shot to pieces. In the game, they're licking their chops carving claimed kill notches into their crewed MGs. [8|]

[ChezDaJez]

In the game, I say 6 damaged B17s, 1 OPS loss, 4 A6Ms lost

Pretty close. I thought one of the B-17s was an ops loss but Brad says it was a different squadron so none of the B-17s were lost. Every B-17 was damaged though and I did see several critical hits on the bombers so I assume some will have lengthy repairs. I lost 3 Zeros from the Hiryu and had twenty damaged from all units, enough to need repair of at least one day.

The fighters were directly assigned to LRCAP Norfolk Island. Brad had bombed the troops the day before so I assigned 3 carriers to cover my troops while the rest of KB provided fleet defence. KB does have radar as does several of the ships at Norfolk Island. As far as fighter direction goes, the pilots would have known the direction and approximate altitude from previous raids so probably would have been in good position to intercept before and after the attack. They did attack before and after the bomb drops. The bombers were harassed enough that they missed the target.

I did expect at least a couple of bombers to go down but am not upset or surprised at the lack of losses. I could see a result ranging from 0-7 bombers downed though realistically at least 1-2 of the bombers should have gone down. I don't believe my losses were excessive either. What did get me was that the vast majority of my attacks were driven off by defensive gunfire before the fighters could attack. I replayed the turn a couple of tiimes and estimate that about 75% of the attacks were turned away before the fighters fired. I might expect that from a lower experience / aggressive unit but KB has suffered very few losses int he war and each squadron maintains an average experience level above 70 with the best leaders assigned I can find.

According to my intel summary, Brad has lost 19 B-17Es to A-A and 63 to ops losses over the course of the game. The main reason for the low A-A is that I believe that the routine for deciding whether a fighter is driven off or not favors the bombers too much. I feel it needs to be toned down slightly. I think the durability of the bombers is about right. They should be tough to bring down but when faced with a swarm of highly experienced fighter pilots, there should be at least some losses.

I try to compare results like this to what may have happened if this raid occurred over France in late 1942 and they were met by the same number of ME-109s. I think most players would expect at least one bomber down.

Anyways, I don't want to get into a big debate over the game but I was curious what most would think the real life result would have been. Thanks for the replies.

Chez

[bhawes]

thanks, that was interesting