Yee gads -- night bombing!

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: 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.

What HR are you using for night bombing?

[LoBaron]

Post #6 [;)]

[Mike Dixon]

Try well trained Bettys at night at 100'.

[Roger Neilson II]

Indeed, I was the recipient of that nasty!

Roger

[jeffs]

But did flak/cap chew into the bettys?
 
Clearly one huge problem with the game is the ridiculous hit rate bettys have with torpedoes.
 
Yes, they were good..But they were not automatic death to virtually every ship in range.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Post #6 [;)]

Thanks. missed that.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: jeffs
Clearly one huge problem with the game is the ridiculous hit rate bettys have with torpedoes.

Yes, they were good..But they were not automatic death to virtually every ship in range.

Only with your experienced pilots. those +70/70 guys. Once you start to lose those, your hit percentage really drops, at least that is my experience.

Also, I think most IJ players are more careful with their Netties then the IJ was IRL (one of the few areas), and so they can have these really good pilots still in play in late '42. But there always comes a time when you have a shot at the US CV's, and you have to take it, even knowing your Nettie losses will be high.

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: jeffs

But did flak/cap chew into the bettys?

Clearly one huge problem with the game is the ridiculous hit rate bettys have with torpedoes.

Yes, they were good..But they were not automatic death to virtually every ship in range.

I recently flew 90 G4M attacks on a British CL and they failed to score a single hit, losing 2 bombers to AAA... I needed dive bombers to hit it. [:)]

IMHO the night bombing is seriously screwed. Bombers always find the target... OK if its a city, but B-17 striking an airfield... I dont think theres a single real life examples of the attacks I suffer almost every night: dozen heavies to an airfield, min 7 planes torched, 0 losses to attackers despite radars and heavy flak being present, bombing altitude 10k. I dont fly against them as thats min 12 planes that WILL get torched if the B-17s come when its daylight.

[SuluSea]

Night bombing results are off kilter because it takes daytime DL and applies it at night. HRs wouldn't hurt.

[castor troy]

yeah, tactical night attacks seem to be in need of a hr, mostly limiting the number of bombers IMO. Against strategic targets, the hit rate seems to be so low that the effect isn´t really notable. Of course there are these days with full moonlight and clear sky when you take out 50% of the target but how often do you really get full moonlight and clear sky - while I wonder if moonlight isn´t even factored in for air attacks so it would come down to weather only but then how often do you really get perfect weather.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: jeffs
Clearly one huge problem with the game is the ridiculous hit rate bettys have with torpedoes.

Yes, they were good..But they were not automatic death to virtually every ship in range.

Only with your experienced pilots. those +70/70 guys. Once you start to lose those, your hit percentage really drops, at least that is my experience.

Also, I think most IJ players are more careful with their Netties then the IJ was IRL (one of the few areas), and so they can have these really good pilots still in play in late '42. But there always comes a time when you have a shot at the US CV's, and you have to take it, even knowing your Nettie losses will be high.

Exactly.

The Japanese players preserve their experten Betty pilots as long as possible. So when you first notice that a LBA airdropped torp hurts as bad as if it was launched by a Kate,
its those 80+ EXP drivers hitting home. [;)]

In real life they were wasted in every role you could think of and shot down in droves. Before the time of the allied invasion of Guadalcanal Saburo Sakai already told an anekdote about the honor of the bomber drivers
who went into battle, well aware they had only days to live.

These small differences in the capabilities and use of certain units should always be taken into account before critizising the values used in the game engine.

[Yakface]

ORIGINAL: 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.

Even if thery were to scramble, your fighters aren't going to help against 4E's at night. I've done a lot of in-game testing (unfortunately).

Numerous tries at intercepting (backed with Radar, best squadrons etc - no dedicated night fighters yet) and each time it goes like this:

Fighters hardly ever shoot at the bombers - bombers just as effective at night spotting and targeting fighters as they are during the day. Last time result was 13 fighters shot from the air, base bombed, planes destroyed on ground.......for a total of two damaged bombers neither of which turned into ops losses.

Night bombing routine completely borked

[treespider]

Granted its quite early in my game with witpqs but I find that a handful of fighters set to night Cap coupled with a moderate AA presence does "wonders" versus a raid of 20 some-odd B-17E's.

I say "wonders" because if I have no defense he would inflict some damage...whereas with a defense the damage is relatively minimal. So in my estimation an AA defense coupled with fighters does indeed affect accuracy of night bombing raids....and on occasion I've damage/destroyed some B-17's.

Fort Levels also seem play an important role as well, in regards to the amount of damage received and damage dished out by Flak.

Later in the war against large raids I'm not sure any defense will matter....but then again it doesn't seem that IRL the Japanese had a defense against large raids either....witness the obliteration of Hollandia on 30 March 1944.

[Rob Brennan UK]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Granted its quite early in my game with witpqs but I find that a handful of fighters set to night Cap coupled with a moderate AA presence does "wonders" versus a raid of 20 some-odd B-17E's.

I say "wonders" because if I have no defense he would inflict some damage...whereas with a defense the damage is relatively minimal. So in my estimation an AA defense coupled with fighters does indeed affect accuracy of night bombing raids....and on occasion I've damage/destroyed some B-17's.

Fort Levels also seem play an important role as well, in regards to the amount of damage received and damage dished out by Flak.

Later in the war against large raids I'm not sure any defense will matter....but then again it doesn't seem that IRL the Japanese had a defense against large raids either....witness the obliteration of Hollandia on 30 March 1944.

I'm only upto late 42 but any sort of fighter defense makes a difference even if its totally anemic in delivering damage to the incoming bombers. and thats vs allied raids of 50+ mixed a/c. Ops losses on night ops are seemingly higher too.

In a nutshell , anything on night defence can and most often will, make a differance in bomber accuracy even if none are shot down. Night AAA is utter rubbish however.

[witpqs]

Treespider and Rob are spot on. I also have a PBM with cap_and_gown in early '44 that has borne all that out over the long term.

[Mike Dixon]

ORIGINAL: jeffs

But did flak/cap chew into the bettys?

Clearly one huge problem with the game is the ridiculous hit rate bettys have with torpedoes.

Yes, they were good..But they were not automatic death to virtually every ship in range.

No CAP then (I'm sure there is now) and only one or two destroyed by flak. Not sure what you mean by ridiculous hit rate with torpedoes - mine always fail me leaving force Z intact etc.....