Who needs B-17s when you have the P-70A???

kbullard · Post by **kbullard** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 8:38 pm

Having a great time with UV 2.20 (preparing for PBEM play). It's April 1942 and I have my 2 P-70A squadrons. For some reason, they've proven to be devastating on low-level, night airfield atttacks -- way more than B-17s under any circumstances (day/night; high/low altitude; etc). Here's the high-point, on 23 April:

***************************
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 04/23/43

Weather: Partly Cloudy

[KB - Ki-48 Lily attack on Gasmata deleted]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Shortland Island , at 29,34

Allied aircraft
P-70A Havoc x 3

Allied aircraft losses
P-70A Havoc x 3 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 194
Guns lost 2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Nadzab , at 8,33

Allied aircraft
P-40E Kittyhawk x 13
P-70A Havoc x 10

no losses

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 749
Guns lost 3
***************************

I kept Combat Results files for April 23-28. The P-70s (sometimes with escort, as above) claimed 3,837 Japanese men and 12 guns over the six day period. Is this expected and reasonable, or is something amiss? I feel like I'm watching B-17s in release 1.10....

Kurt

The Gnome · Post by **The Gnome** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 8:41 pm

Hah, reminds me of PacWar where my P-61s were the ultimate weapon.

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:23 pm

I'm curious whether the victory points showed troop losses at the same level?

I have run massive bombing campaigns against Lae reducing the port and airfield to 100% damaged. Each time I killed a few hundred troops.

After all the damage and destruction (3 weeks around the clock bombing) with 2-4 attacks per day, thats average 200 troops x average 3 attacks x 21 days = 12,600 dead troops.

Actually located there: 624 Infantry, 92 Guns, 5304 Second Line Troops

As you can see, those fly boys certainly tell tall tales!

panda124c · Post by **panda124c** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 1:33 am

Originally posted by Mr.Frag

As you can see, those fly boys certainly tell tall tales!

And at night too.

GunRange · Post by **GunRange** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 4:12 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Rabaul , at 21,28

Allied aircraft
B-24D Liberator x 15

no losses

Japanese Ships
DD Oyashio, Bomb hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CA Tone, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Port hits 2

Attacking Level Bombers:
5 x B-24D Liberator at 6000 feet
4 x B-24D Liberator at 6000 feet
3 x B-24D Liberator at 6000 feet
3 x B-24D Liberator at 6000 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Rabaul , at 21,28

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 10

no losses

Japanese Ships
CA Tone, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 20

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
4 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 6000 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Rabaul , at 21,28

Japanese aircraft

Allied aircraft
Beaufighter VIC x 24
P-38G Lightning x 48
B-25J Mitchell x 83

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 12 destroyed
A6M2 Zero x 5 damaged
A6M3 Zero x 3 destroyed
A6M3 Zero x 4 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 1 destroyed
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 6 damaged
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 9 destroyed
H6K Mavis x 1 destroyed
H6K Mavis x 1 damaged
A6M2-N Rufe x 2 destroyed
A6M2-N Rufe x 1 damaged
J1N1-R Irving x 1 destroyed
E13A1 Jake x 1 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 2143
Guns lost 9

Airbase hits 10
Runway hits 72

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
2 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
7 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
10 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
8 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
12 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Being doing this against AI for 2 weeks and at the best effect was over 4000 dead. nothing have been flying from there in a week.

GunRange · Post by **GunRange** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 6:45 am

Story continues. So after bombing raids. F-5's confirmed that Rabaul WAS losing people at unbelivable speed. So to an ad hoc amphbious landind. Troops intended for reinforce Lae were sent directly to rabaul. Mid stream. CV TF for good measure and alternative save slot. Now computer don't know how to attack, but it's decent defender. I landed this rag-tag group to Rabaul, The Main Man, The Fort, it included a Para Rgt, and pieces of two armored rgt's + some SeeBees:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Rabaul

Allied Shock attack

Attacking force 6141 troops, 28 guns, 119 vehicles

Defending force 18371 troops, 197 guns, 0 vehicles

Allied assault odds: 15 to 1 (fort level 6)

Allied forces CAPTURE Rabaul base !!!

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 1577
Guns lost 19

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They didn't stand a change.

Anybody, but me thinking that this game needs a bombshelter?

Nikademus · Post by **Nikademus** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 6:58 am

Originally posted by kbullard
I kept Combat Results files for April 23-28. The P-70s (sometimes with escort, as above) claimed 3,837 Japanese men and 12 guns over the six day period. Is this expected and reasonable, or is something amiss? I feel like I'm watching B-17s in release 1.10....

Kurt [/B]

Heh, in a word.......NO

There was a reason why Rabaul and many other strongly held bases in the SoPac theater were bypassed to wither on the vine. Airpower gives you control of a region strategically and operationally, but it cant clean out your infestation problem, more so if the infestation has gone to ground and entrenched.

Closest you get to airpower winning alone was Desert Storm in 1991.

Havn't used my P-70's for anything other than what they were advertised for as of yet, i.e. "Night Fighters" since the AI is fond of staging night nusance raids on me. Sounds to me like that radar set on the plane is leading to wacky results when attacking ground targets

GunRange · Post by **GunRange** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 7:09 am

Yes, but having 4000 dead from about 100 planes flying in deck is little steep! After all that means that everyone of those planes (Air-Raid sirens wailing all over the place) Killed 40 men. So in oder to kill a comppany of men you need 3 planes?

Doesn't sound right!

As plane types go: Beaufighters are about THE best in low level bombing. In recent encounter 20 of them put down a whole FT-TF. One DD was hit with 80+ shells. And they are armed with 20mm.

kbullard · Post by **kbullard** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 2:40 am

Thanks for all of the feedback. My limited results have variability similar to what GunRange reports: over just a 6-day period, a high of 749 and low of 401 Japanese soldiers reported lost due to the same raid.

The key variables seem to be low altitude for a good medium bomber, probably against a hex with little or no AAA, and everything else (supply, fatigue, morale, maybe intelligence, units not entrenched, etc) reasonably positive.

Per Mr. Frag, I'm definitely seeing some VP movment for Japanese ground losses, but it's hard to isolate to this attack. And per Nikademus, this may be about right: lots of destruction if I devote the resources, but I won't win the war this way -- just soften it up for the land attack.

Kurt

GunRange · Post by **GunRange** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 6:39 am

It seems to me, that amount of guns firing foward, as well as bomb load, is key when flying at 100ft.

Beaufighter has 4x20mm Hispano canons and 6x.303 Brownings. B-25J has 8x.50 cals and Havoc's, both A-20 and P-70 versions have 6x.50 cals as do Invaders.

In a PBEM game I have going, I used Havocs in similar manner, and resault was 120 dead in first run in almost empty Lae.

Yamamoto · Post by **Yamamoto** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 8:22 pm

While we're on this topic...

How many dead guys does it take to equal one victory point? How do other things like vehicles and guns count?

Yamamoto

kbullard · Post by **kbullard** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 8:44 pm

How many dead guys does it take to equal one victory point? How do other things like vehicles and guns count?

Yamamoto

I had the same question. The 2.0 manual says:

"Japanese ground unit squad,vehicle or gun - 1 VP for every 6 items destroyed"

So guns and vehicles are easy, but I have no idea how to translate dead guys to squads. Does one squad equal 10 guys? 12 guys? Are casualties from an air attack distributed among squads present? If so, squad destruction would be relatively rare. I think we need an expert -- maybe somebody from Matrix.

Kurt

P.S. - Seems alot easier to eliminate Japanese ground units when they're in transports.

Apollo11 · Post by **Apollo11** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:23 pm

Hi all,

In thread "Current significant bugs in UV v2.20 (that I know of)...":

showthread.php?s=&threadid=30854

I mention excessive looses from A2G.

Rick "Kid" said that he put 3 out of my 5 bugs/issues from my
message into UV list while other 2 (those about casualties)
he said that Matrix/2By3 people should look into.

Let's hope that they do that. I, as always, have high confidence in them...

Leo "Apollo11"

GunRange · Post by **GunRange** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:36 pm

Thank you Apollo, this is starting to get ridiculous:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Kavieng , at 18,24

Japanese aircraft

Allied aircraft
F4U-1 Corsair x 12
B-25J Mitchell x 39

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-57-I Topsy x 1 destroyed
D3A Val x 1 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 3350
Guns lost 4
Vehicles lost 1

Airbase hits 1
Runway hits 44

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
9 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
5 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
4 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet
3 x B-25J Mitchell at 100 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Wood · Post by **Mike Wood** » Thu Jan 09, 2003 2:47 pm

Hello...

There are NOT too many men being killed by air attacks. There may be too many men CLAIMED killed during air attacks. Do not believe your pilots.

Bye...

Michael Wood

Poindexter · Post by **Poindexter** » Thu Jan 09, 2003 10:54 pm

"There are NOT too many men being killed by air attacks. There may be too many men CLAIMED killed during air attacks. Do not believe your pilots."

That leads me to ask a question.

Do the kill claims vary both ways? By that I mean if a combat report says "500 killed" could it actually be less or more than that? Or is it always less (or more)?

CynicAl · Post by **CynicAl** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:21 am

Originally posted by Poindexter
That leads me to ask a question.

Do the kill claims vary both ways? By that I mean if a combat report says "500 killed" could it actually be less or more than that? Or is it always less (or more)?

Well, I suppose it would be physically possible for your pilots to kill something without even realizing it. But pilots being what they are, and air combat (even air to ground combat) begin what it is, I'd have to say it's just about as likely that I'll sprout wings out of my back and fly to work in the morning. I would never bet on pilots underclaiming.

Mike Wood · Post by **Mike Wood** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 3:36 pm

Hello...

Pilots claim a kill for every man who falls down, when they are strafing or bombing. Not all who fall down are killed. Some are just smart. And, they can only estimate the number of men, even then. The claims made are always too high and include squads that are disabled or seriously disrupted.

Gun and vehicle claims are a bit more accurate, as the pilots can see explosions of secondary explosions when these targets are hit.

Have Fun...

Michael Wood
__________________________________________________

Originally posted by Poindexter
"There are NOT too many men being killed by air attacks. There may be too many men CLAIMED killed during air attacks. Do not believe your pilots."

That leads me to ask a question.

Do the kill claims vary both ways? By that I mean if a combat report says "500 killed" could it actually be less or more than that? Or is it always less (or more)?

Poindexter · Post by **Poindexter** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 8:34 pm

Thanks for the clarification Mike. I appreciate it.

"Have Fun..."

Believe me, I am thoroughly enjoying this game. Great work.

The Gnome · Post by **The Gnome** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 8:55 pm

Mike, with fog of war off are the numbers reported accurate?

Who needs B-17s when you have the P-70A???

Who needs B-17s when you have the P-70A???

Re: Who needs B-17s when you have the P-70A???

Bugs are already reported...

Cool