Yee gads -- night bombing!

[rader]

I always knew night bombing was broken, but this is a bit silly....

~80 B-29s come in over the Japanese airfield (2 nights):

2 ops losses to the B-29s

200 Japanese fighters destroyed on the ground + many damaged. [X(][8|] Ever heard of aircraft dispersal?

What's a good house rule to suggest? I think in my other game we are saying one airgroup per turn at night per side. I guess this would include naval attack which would favor the allies in compensation. Any other ideas? Maybe an altitude limit of over 25,000k ft?

[Raverdave]

Just a few questions to try and understand this:-

• How (over)stacked was the airfield?
• What was the height of the bomb run? 
• What was the size of the airfield?

[rader]

-Not overstacked but pretty close to full (around 350 a/c on a level 7).
-10K ft.
-level 7

[rader]

Part of the problem is that aicraft don't scramble unless set to night operations. If there are incomming bombers, even fighters set to day CAP should at least try to scramble some of the time.

I also find it hard to believe that you could reasonably count on finding and hitting a target like an airfield accurately at night. City bombing, ok. But airfields... not really. Were there instances of this happening (with success) during the war? I remember a few instances where there were such attempts, but they were pretty small and innefective if I remember correctly.

[PaxMondo]

Agreed.  Night bombing appears to be overly effective.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: rader

I always knew night bombing was broken, but this is a bit silly....

~80 B-29s come in over the Japanese airfield (2 nights):

2 ops losses to the B-29s

200 Japanese fighters destroyed on the ground + many damaged. [X(][8|] Ever heard of aircraft dispersal?

What's a good house rule to suggest? I think in my other game we are saying one airgroup per turn at night per side. I guess this would include naval attack which would favor the allies in compensation. Any other ideas? Maybe an altitude limit of over 25,000k ft?

In our PBEM we use the following HRs on night bombing, they seem to work well:

50% min rest levels, 10k min alt

70% moon can target anything inc specifying industry types (oil/factories etc)
50% moon can target non coastal cities
20% moon coastal cities and ports

[LoBaron]

OTOH, 80 B-29, well they are supposed to do quite some damage.

You did not engage them with CAP, right? Disruption by CAP makes a huge difference.

[Bradley7735]

My opinion? (not that it is really worth that much)

Full airfield.... 80 top line 4 E bombers. They should do some damage. Enough to make it hurt.

But, 200 destroyed planes? that's a bit too much. My gut feel is that 50 planes destroyed would be within normal limits (fewer destroyed could be a possibility, but not much chance of more).

Anyway, that's my opinion. It doesn't have any scientific background to justify, or historic examples to point to. It just seems 200 destroyed (60ish%) is too high for a night attack. 5% to 20% would seem more realistic.

[LoBaron]

Yeah, most threads where I read about night bombing losses have two things in common:

No CAP defense at night.
High number of airplanes stacked in range of heavy bombers.

While I agree that groud losses due to night attack are a bit on the heavier side they can
be minimised if you try to intercept the bombers and disperse your aircraft like it had
to be done in the real war...

[rader]

Yes, I agree about dispersal. But an AF (especially a big one) represents multiple seperate airfields spread out over the hex and standard practice was to cammo/disperse aircraft around the field. It's not like they are going to be sitting wing tip to wing tip in a single place. Aircraft in a hex are no all "in the same place".

As to the cap defense at night planes even stood down will scramble to attack incomming bombers. But they will only do so if set top night/day and your planes are set to the same. It would be nice if you had at least some chance of flying either night or day, depending on when the raid came in. It's pretty easy to imagine 'alert fighters' standing by to intercept ANY raid, be it night or day (albeit potentially at reduced effectiveness compared with ones set specifically night/day).

[LoBaron]

Both good points.

I agree on the AB abstraction to represent more than one base per hex, but this is
beyond the game engine to handle.

Concerning night fighters I doubt that many planes/pilots on alert at night would be on duty the following day
and vice versa.
Also you can emulate something simliar by splitting a squad into its sub components and assigning them to either day or night missions.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: rader

I always knew night bombing was broken, but this is a bit silly....

~80 B-29s come in over the Japanese airfield (2 nights):

2 ops losses to the B-29s

200 Japanese fighters destroyed on the ground + many damaged. [X(][8|] Ever heard of aircraft dispersal?

What's a good house rule to suggest? I think in my other game we are saying one airgroup per turn at night per side. I guess this would include naval attack which would favor the allies in compensation. Any other ideas? Maybe an altitude limit of over 25,000k ft?

no massed tactical attacks at night by strategic bombers, only strategic attacks. You will then find out that strategic attacks are by far not as effective as tactical attacks as it took me roughly 1000 B-29 sorties to get a size 100 engine plant down to 50%. Attacking at 10000ft but the main reason for not hitting anything is the anomaly of bad weather all the time we´re used to for all the years of WITP and AE.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Also you can emulate something simliar by splitting a squad into its sub components and assigning them to either day or night missions.

Do you see a significant reduction in damage with night CAP? EVen if the CAP doesn't hit anything, is just the presence of the CAP effective to reduce losses?

[jeffs]

In a game right now....
A. I have not quantified it buy clearly CAP helps.
B. CAP helps a little less against USN 4E (they seem to ignore it relative to the 2es of either side
C. Not sure they should be allowed (ie in the future it makes sense to have an HR on it) but 100 ft strafing runs can be brutally effective
especially if no CAP. Even with CAP...they can do surprising pain

[jeffk3510]

I didn't really read the entire post and replies...just the first. Why a house rule that only one squad can night bomb? Do you not think it is fair? Gamey? Or are you upset so many planes were lost...? Just curious...[&:]

Seems to me.. and I am not trying to open a can of worms... that house rules downgrade the Allies and help out the Japanese in this instance...Sorry B-29s destroy everything in sight and are hard to shoot down....seemed that way 70 years ago...

I do agree with certain house rules...the ones for 4e bombers, however, I do not agree with.

[Sredni]

I'm all for any changes that bring more realism and realistic outcomes to the game, so if night bombing is unrealistic I would be all for changes to it. Even if any bombing changes primarily effect the allies with the 4e bombers. And while 200 fighters destroyed does sound outside of the bounds of realism, I don't know enough to judge. 80 b-29's should do massive damage at whatever they're set to.

But 200 fighters... isn't that like a couple days production for the japanese? If you had put some of those 300 fighters on night cap you probably would have come out ahead in relative terms. As ever allied plane production is limited to historical.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Also you can emulate something simliar by splitting a squad into its sub components and assigning them to either day or night missions.

Do you see a significant reduction in damage with night CAP? EVen if the CAP doesn't hit anything, is just the presence of the CAP effective to reduce losses?

Based on our current PBEM, yes.
Day fighters are extremely ineffective in shooting down or even damaging incoming bombers at night - specifically unarmored Japanese fighters suffer
more losses than they even hit - but it does have a notable negative impact on bombing accuracy.

The other part is that ground losses increase drastically if there is more than a certain number of planes stationed on the targeted airfield.
My estimate would be around 50-70 for that threshold but this is a bit of a guess as there are other factors with influence as DL and weather which
both seem to have a greater impact than on daylight raids.

The results still get a bit off when the raid is set to low alt (e.g. 6k) and/or is very large but that is kept in check by our HRs.

[Marcus_Antonius]

Something is clearly amiss with the night bombing in general. And when the "counter" is to put single engine day fighters on CAP at night, the dynamic just gets stranger.

The idea that day fighters are going to disrupt a night raid is just as weird as the incredible effectiveness of night raids in the first place.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: a_gonatas

Something is clearly amiss with the night bombing in general. And when the "counter" is to put single engine day fighters on CAP at night, the dynamic just gets stranger.

The idea that day fighters are going to disrupt a night raid is just as weird as the incredible effectiveness of night raids in the first place.

Except that it was actually done and actually did.

[freeboy]

well, this is not the only thing that is "off" and I find night raids a needed counter to some other issues... so, no night raids equals imo a huge jap advantage.. yes to adjust them would be historical.. but to illiminate them will have me calling for HUGE a 2 a changes to losses for daylight jap planes... till my bombers and fighters start knocking down litely armored aircraft as was historical I will bomb airbases day and nite.. for what my opinion is worth...
what I not sayin gis its correct, what I am saying is its an uneasy balance to other issues...