How to combat the B-17

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Nemo, I am amazed at your patience. [:)]

+1

I can only imagine what the other side of the conversation looks like. Like sitting next to someone where you can only hear what they are saying ... kinda funny.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

As Nemo says, the only thing that I have had any success with is numbers. 2:1 minimum, 3:1 is better, 4:1 can really, really put the hurt on. Zeros better than Oscars, but numbers are most important.

Actually no. Numbers (beyond about 40-60 planes, at least with 1942-43 Japanese radar) are only important as far as they allow CAP to absorb damage (including planes out of fuel and ammo). That's because the lenght of engagement is limited by distance of detection, regardless of how many planes one has on CAP. Concentrate 300 Oscars on CAP, and the only result will be bigger losses on ground.

In my opinion, the only way to combat 4Es early in the game, at least if these aren't misused by the Allied player, is multi-stage planning aimed at attriting them. The defensive perimeter should include clusters of 2-3 closely positioned airbases where 4E threat is expected, as to enable fighter dispersion and make shutting them down more difficult (just accept operating with insufficient air support for now, all early-war Jap planes have good service ratings anyway), opportunities for counterbombing and naval bombardments of 4E airfields should be looked for, decent CAP, preferably, consisting of Zeros and Ki-45s should be combined with concentration of flak. Unless the Allied player is unusually patient, or plainly better at tactics, this can whittle down 4E numbers, and keep them at manageable levels, at least in 1942.

Actually the best way to combat them is to destroy them on the ground. However, a competent allied player is not going to make that easy. It really becomes a question of how many Betties are you willing to trade off to kill the B-17s?

I agree. Killing them on the ground is the best way. Sending in ground forces is by far the easiest way to kill them but getting the ground forces to the base is most difficult.

In response to the question - I'm not willing to trade any Betties to kill B-17s. They are far too valuable killing Allied ships. The IJAAF is made for airfield bombardment.

[Nemo121]

LoBaron, PaxMondo,
I know what you're saying but while I'm not perfect I do believe in always trying to give people an out and trying to find some common ground. Sometimes it isn't possible though. My patience is ended now.

mdiehl,
These cleverly veiled insults you see exist only in your mind, not in reality or in my words.

As to providing a quote to support a statement I didn't make and have explicitly stated I do not agree with - Well, I might as well complain that you won't provide a quote to support the contention that Elvis was an alien. You didn't say that either but that's what you are asking of me.

As to correlation. Sorry but I've had to do courses in this for my PhD since I'm crunching over 300,000 pieces of data as part of the write-up. I'll give you a definition to help you out and then apply the definition.

Correlation: A causal, complementary, parallel, or reciprocal relationship, especially a structural, functional, or qualitative correspondence between two comparable entities

Your statement was that there was a reciprocal relationship between FCS accuracy and bomber losses. Your statement was that if the FCS functioned as poorly as I said it was ( leaving aside that I didn't say it was as bad as you claimed I said it was ) then B29 losses would have been much higher - on the order of ETO losses. So, poor FCS performance correlated reciprocally with high B29 losses. THAT was a clear reciprocal relationship which, clearly, is a correlation. It also clearly isn't a parameterisation - which has precious little to do with such a simple reciprocal relationship.

As to the rest. Honestly you are perceiving things I amn't writing and you are seeing insults that aren't there. Furthermore you seem to be unable to accept simple statements like: "I didn't say they were worse." and just keep insisting that's what I said.

In terms of delusional perception: A delusional perception is a normal perception which is interpreted in a delusional manner. Delusional = not in keeping with reality.
I must assume you can read what I write ( thus you have a normal perception ). But you interpret what I ( and others ) write in a manner not in keeping with reality leading you to insist we say things we didn't say and to insist there are insults which don't exist. It doesn't mean you are psychotic obviously but it does provide a framework for recognising what is happening here. In psychiatry we always train students that once a delusional perception or thought pattern is established then there's no point trying to argue anyone around etc. I'm not saying you are psychotic but neither do I believe you are amenable to a discussion grounded in the objective reality of the written word, statistics and suchlike. I believe you will continue to believe that others have hidden meanings in what they write and/or are somehow insulting you in complex, veiled hidden ways.

I'm not interested in getting more involved in such a process with you at this time.

So, bottom line, I think the B29 turrets and FCS were superior to B17 or B24 turrets but I think the range estimation and convergence zone issue rendered their firing solutions less accurate than incoming fighters' firing solutions. Accordingly I didn't give bombers the same accuracy for turret-mounted guns as centreline mounted guns on fighters. I did give B29s the best rating among all the bombers though.

If you choose to interpret giving B29s the best rating for fire control among all bombers as somehow saying they were useless then, well, that's your issue and misinterpretation to deal with. I can't be any clearer - not that I think any amount of clarity will shift your thinking.

[mc3744]

If I may.
I found reading this thread very interesting.
Obviously some of you have a lot of experience on the topic.

It is however a pity when adults, professionals (it would seem) let themselves be dragged into an useless and unpleasant written confrontation.
From where I stand, an adult player with no professional knowledge of air warfare, it seems like a waste of your knowledge and a bit of an embarrassment (although we've all been there, who has never measured his size with friends and foes raise his hand [;)]).
It's very interesting and you are all clearly very knowledgeable. Kindly continue entertaining and educating those of us with other professions without dropping too low, if at all possible.

I hope I'm not offending anyone, not my intention. Just hoping for this interesting conversation to get back on track. The confrontation it has turned into seems like a waste of your intellect.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli



In response to the question - I'm not willing to trade any Betties to kill B-17s. They are far too valuable killing Allied ships. The IJAAF is made for airfield bombardment.

Mike, while I agree philosophically with you, practically this is pretty tall order.

IJA bombers have a range of 12/13. B17/B24's are double that. So, your IJA bases are in real jeopardy if you try to hit the 4E bases with Sally/Helens. Nettie's have approximately the same range as the 4E's.

I also encourage you to read PzB/Andy's threads. Look at the hit rates for the allied bombers, 4E's in particular. Same altitude, they are going to hit you ~2x harder per bomb dropped (not bomb load which is of course much higher) on average (at least that's what my rough estimates have arrived at using their AAR data). +60% bomb hit rates are common for allies. 20% hit rates are tough to attain for IJ. Lotta reasons for that, and they are covered above (flak, fightter interdiction, etc.) Nevertheless, the result is what is observed which requires to be dealt with.

In the recent AAR's, it has been rare to see the IJ hurt the 4E's via bombing. Naval bombardments, yes. Air bombing ... happens, but just rare.

[Mike Solli]

Pax, I never said it was practical, just my philosophy. [:D] I agree with you that the IJAAF can't really damage an air field. It just doesn't happen. The IJAAF can't really damage much of anything. I use them early to hit fleeing Allied merchant ships. The get an occasional lucky strike on fleeing Allied troops (emphasis on occasional). Once the battle lines stabilize (meaning little or no more forward Japanese movement), I begin to withdraw them (obsolete first) and they become ASW platforms or bombers in China or trainers. The IJAAF just never can amount to much. [:(]

[mc3744]

In an April '42 PBEM the IJA/IJN combined airpower has shut down my Palembang airfield (4) in four turns (service+airstrip).
The amount of bombers involved was very high (I did not count all the various raids), I'd say above two hundreds bombers/turn. A combination of Sally, Lily, Betty and Nell.
Granted, short range from enemy airfields (Malaya and Borneo) and lots of bombers.
Still Palembang has (at least according to the base info) quite some AAA and lots of engineers.

Hence I'd say that Jap bombers can do some damage to airfields. I also lost in the first couple of the bombing runs (before evac) quite some Dutch 2E bombers and 1E fighters on the ground.

I'm not saying Jap bombers are great at shutting down airports, but it seems they can achieve some decent results.

[Nemo121]

mc3744,

I hear but with all due respect I think that the issue here isn't intelligence. mdiehl is obviously smart. The problem is that he insists on reading a sentence which goes, "I think x was pretty good just not as good as y" as " X is terrible and the worst thing ever" .

Its difficult to have a discussion when someone tells you you are saying something utterly different than you are actually saying. Try it sometime. The question is the reason behind this failure. It could either be out of his control ( a delusional process, anger etc ) or it is in his control ( he willfully wishes to misrepresent things ). I don't think he is properly psychotic so I, personally, think it is his choice to view/misrepresent things that way. Either way you aren't going to make much progress - which is sad because having a good debate about how much better than B-17/24 defensive fire the B29s were and how much worse their accuracy should be than centre-line armament on fighters is actually an important debate to have in order to clarify an issue which has a real in-game impact on the modelling of four-engined bombers.



As to the IJAAF not damaging an airfield: Let me let you gentlemen into a little trick.... IJAAF ( or even IJAAF bombers ) with as large a number of bombs as possible ( better 10 x 50 KG bombs than 2 x 250 Kg bombs ) flying at night at 100 feet with high aggression COs ( to prevent turn-arounds ). Throw 200 of them at an airfield and you will find it closed the next day with moderate losses to FlAK and almost no losses to fighters. Even better you will find that you can achieve these results ( multiple hits per attacking bomber ) with very low skill pilots ( 30 to 40 Low Ground bombing skill ).

You'll have to build lots of airframes and be comfortable losing 50 or 60 a night BUT if you lose 60 a night and pick the right airfield you might destroy 200 or 300 on the ground. I've never understood why people remain wedded to 6,000 to 11,000 feet and daytime bombing raids. Vary it up, try the unexpected, beat his CAP traps by going in at night, beat his night-fighters and medium and heavy flak by going in low ( beneath the lower limit of the FlAK ) and maximise the effect of your inexperienced pilots.

Try it, with the right amount of recon preceding the raid it is devastating.

[mdiehl]

Its difficult to have a discussion when someone tells you you are saying something utterly different than you are actually saying. Try it sometime. The question is the reason behind this failure. It could either be out of his control ( a delusional process, anger etc ) or it is in his control ( he willfully wishes to misrepresent things ).

The third possibility that you overlooked is that you set the conversation going the wrong way when you either out of delusion or intent misrepresented the things that I said.

More to the point, if you're going to make an argument like "If the device needed user input to correct any initial error then it was basically the same as a B-17 turret's targeting system" then you have to accept the fact that you made the claim. If you didn't mean that, you should not have brought it up. If you raised it as an objection to my analysis, it's only fair to point out that the objection only has relevance if I'd said the B-29s FCS offered a perfect targeting solution from the first bullet fired. Which I did not.

Claiming that user input may be required to correct initial error rebuts my position is incorrect because I never stated that user input wasn't required or that the device always provided a perfect solution from the first shot.

Objectively, you have made other errors as well. YOu have, for example, claimed that the aiming process for an interceptor was in effect a simpler process because of momentum imparted to bullets fired for a.c. with multiple hortizontal vector components at any given instant. Yes, the bomber gunners had that problem. So did the fighters/interceptors. That's why ALLIED (and, as I recall, German) fighters had gyroscopic reflector gun sights that placed an "apparent" gunsight on the canopy to compensate for momentum (away from the alignment of the guns) imparted to the bullets by the maneuvering a.c.

And, frankly, if you want the discussion to be civil, pronouncements of delusion or malevolent intent suggest that you are supremely full of yoruself or else you have no real knowledge of human behavior. If you don't believe me, try talking that way to someone face to face, some time, and see what results from that.

So state your position. It seems like you have claimed that the B-29 FCS did not work as well as the designers hoped or advertised. You've suggested (without providing any backup citations) that the two B-29 FCOs I met must have been exceptional. That claim implies you think you have some notion of what was typical. Please offer a reference.

You have suggested that, based on your experience with analog devices, the device could not have worked as well as advertised. Your supporting evidence seems to be the claim that the B-29 engines had problems with fires. Were I you, I would call that a "flawed correlation." The B-29 engine fire problemt is commonly mentioned in every operational history of the B-29, and in every history of the B-29 campaign against Japan. In contrast, your claim that the B-29 FCS did not work as well as intended is not mentioned in ANY of the histories that I have read.

So unless your assessment that the B-29 FCS did not work well, or as well as intended, is merely your opinion based on nothing (or, at best, on flawed analogies), then you will (if you wish to have any credibility) provide a reference for that claim.

[mdiehl]

I can't be any clearer - not that I think any amount of clarity will shift your thinking.

You'd have to have some internal clarity in order to make a clear claim. You seem to lack it. You're all over the map on this. In one sentence you claim that the need for user input basically made it the same as a B-17 targeting system. In the next sentence you're walking away from your claim and making transparent ad hominem remarks.

Grow up.

[mdiehl]

THAT was a clear reciprocal relationship which, clearly, is a correlation.

That is incorrect. A correlation is a statement of degree of relationship with an associated probability of confidence in the assessment.

As to the rest. Honestly you are perceiving things I amn't writing and you are seeing insults that aren't there.

I am not aware of any non-insulting way to call someone delusional, or accuse them of distorting your claims, or of speculating about their cognitive state or capabilities, that would not come off as insulting. You have been deliberately insulting, and now you're trying to walk way from that.

If you wish to apologize I can accept that. But calling me potentially delusional and then claiming you did not insult me is malevolent sophistry of the worst asshat kind.

Furthermore you seem to be unable to accept simple statements like: "I didn't say they were worse." and just keep insisting that's what I said.

Worse than what? You said they were little more useful than the B-17 gunners' sighting systems because the B-29 FCS was not without error and might require operator input to correct initial error. If you didn't mean that, why in heavens name would you even bring up the B-17 case? You were just chatting idly about something, in this conversation, that had no bearing on the discussion at all?

In terms of delusional perception: A delusional perception is a normal perception which is interpreted in a delusional manner. Delusional = not in keeping with reality.

And calling someone delusional and expecting them not to be insulted by that is definitely an expectation that is not in keeping with reality. Therefore.... &c.

I must assume you can read what I write ( thus you have a normal perception ). But you interpret what I ( and others ) write in a manner not in keeping with reality leading you to insist we say things we didn't say and to insist there are insults which don't exist.

The use of words like "delusional" and, what was the other, "infantile" would be taken by anyone as an insult. Claiming now that you meant no insult is revisionism. Apparently you are so self-infatuated that any admission of wrongdoing that would be apparent to anyone else is beyond you.

It doesn't mean you are psychotic obviously but it does provide a framework for recognising what is happening here. In psychiatry we always train

You are so profoundly full of sh*t that it's astonishing that anyone anywhere takes you seriously. For a guy with a claim to knowledge of psychiatry, the idea that you can call a person several names and then walk away claiming you meant no insult is grounds for suspicion of complete incompetence.

I'm not interested in getting more involved in such a process with you at this time.

I can only suggest that you seek medical treatment.

So, bottom line, I think the B29 turrets and FCS were superior to B17 or B24 turrets but I think the range estimation and convergence zone issue rendered their firing solutions less accurate than incoming fighters' firing solutions.

Based on WHAT SOURCE? Do you have a reference for that or is this "thought" of yours just something you believe with all your heart?

[Erkki]

I can only suggest that you seek medical treatment.

Green button.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Nemo, I am amazed at your patience. [:)]

If pointless given the recipiant. I have to give Nemo points though for the analogy to requiring a citation of Elvis being an alien however. As Darkseid would say...."Well Played" [:)] Even seeing only one half of the argument.....that was funny.

[mc3744]

Hello Nemo
First of all I'd like to underline why I felt the need to post.
When I started reading your comments and subsequently mdhel ones I was amazed and very interested. As I have no knowledge of flight but I'm a WWII history fan I found the thread (and many other) very interesting.
Once it started turning into something different I though: "what a pity". Especially since we all obviously share a number of unusual interests which should bring us together rather than the opposite.
Having said that I'll try to comment with whatever "wisdom" I can
I'm literally not able to judge the merit of the discussion, nor would I want to.
However if what you say is true (from your other posts you seem a very rational fellow!), my question would be: why indulge the provocation? If provocation is indeed.
If he is intentionally provoking you, don't bite the bait. If not, then someone used to say: "never discuss with an idiot, other people might not notice the difference" . I'm not saying anyone is an idiot (I'm actually sure no one on this forum is, this game is just too difficult for idiots )), but the same concept can be applied to different situations.
Bottom line: kids be nice! we are all part of the same weird family if you think about it. How many people do you know in "real life" with our hobbies?

Game related question now. Would you find the tactic you just explained to me gamey?
I'm asking because I don't really know if something like that could happen in real life.

I'd like to take the opportunity thank you and all the veteran forum members for their invaluable contribution to this forum and my personal fun and knowledge.

[mdiehl]

Oh yes. Because we all know that providing a reference for an unusual, controversial, or novel claim is beyond the capabilities of most of the people who write in dismissal of allied technological achievements. That's rational. [8|]

[obvert]

mdiehl-

Can you take this complaint elsewhere? This isn't the place for it. I was just enjoying getting back to learning something.

Nemo -

Thanks for the heads up on low night bombing. I've tried low, and I've tried night, but never together. I've often wondered as well abut small bombs being more effective on airfields.

[mdiehl]

If he is intentionally provoking you, don't bite the bait.

I'm not. But I am retaliating against his provocation.

[mdiehl]

Can you take this complaint elsewhere? This isn't the place for it. I was just enjoying getting back to learning something.

I don't have a complaint. I have a request that someone who claimed that the B-29 FCS did not work as advertised provide a credible source, or just state that he doesn't have a source for the claim. It's not all that complicated a request.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

I can only suggest that you seek medical treatment.

Green button.

Makes for an interesting experience in this thread. [;)]

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Nemo, I am amazed at your patience. [:)]

If pointless given the recipiant. I have to give Nemo points though for the analogy to requiring a citation of Elvis being an alien however. As Darkseid would say...."Well Played" [:)] Even seeing only one half of the argument.....that was funny.

+1