Most of my air groups aren't participating in combat

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: rader

ORIGINAL: hades1001

Saipan to Tokyo TEST 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on Tokyo , at 114,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 22,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 126
N1K1-J George x 359
Ki-43-IIIa Oscar x 33
Ki-43-IV Oscar x 118
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 14
Ki-61-Ib Tony x 2
Ki-61-Ic Tony x 44
Ki-84b Frank x 49
Ki-84r Frank x 49
Ki-201 Karyu x 42



Allied aircraft
B-29-25 Superfort x 168


Japanese aircraft losses
N1K1-J George: 2 destroyed
Ki-43-IIIa Oscar: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IV Oscar: 1 destroyed
Ki-84r Frank: 1 destroyed on ground
A6M7 Zero: 3 destroyed on ground
G4M2 Betty: 3 destroyed on ground
Ki-67-Ib Peggy: 4 destroyed on ground
Ki-9 Spruce: 2 destroyed on ground
P1Y1 Frances: 6 destroyed on ground
S1A1 Denko: 2 destroyed on ground
Ki-45 KAIc Nick: 1 destroyed on ground
Ki-51 Sonia: 1 destroyed on ground
Ki-46-III Dinah: 1 destroyed on ground

Allied aircraft losses
B-29-25 Superfort: 26 destroyed, 88 damaged
B-29-25 Superfort: 2 destroyed by flak



Airbase hits 14
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 34

Aircraft Attacking:
28 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
27 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
25 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
15 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
16 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
10 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb
11 x B-29-25 Superfort bombing from 20000 feet *
Airfield Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb

That seems like quite a few B-29s shot down, but try adding 50 or so escorts and I'd be curious what happens. I'd wager a significant drop in B-29 loss.

I'll try to do the turn late tonight Greyjoy... Jen is keeping me busy

Don't even think about getting married before we finish our game

And yes.... Add some 50 p38s an those fortress won't go down that easy

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

For what it's worth...i 100% agree with what Nemo said. Both about the Analysis of the problem and the suggested solutions. ... I think we should all work togheder to help the devs instead of bitching each other in a fanboysm contest

+1

(except for the spelling and typo's) [:D]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

michaelm,

I'm not sure if there's a hard limit on the number of fighter rounds or not but if there is I just thought I'd suggest moving away from a hard limit and moving to a limit based solely on the number of fighters available and the time available for them to make their firing passes.

The reason being that a hard limit on the number of fighter passes would actually have the result of, effectively, imposing a limit on the effective CAP which can be placed over a base or TF irrespective of the number of planes available.

Here's an example to illustrate what I mean:
1. Assume that there's a hard limit of 300 fighter passes in any combat no matter how many fighters or how long a time could pass from spotting the raid.

2. Assume that with a raid spotted 50 minutes out any fighter on CAP could make 5 firing passes on an unescorted bomber stream. One pass every 10 minutes.

3. So, spotting a raid 50 minutes out would mean that even with 500 fighters on CAP ( say over Tokyo or over a massive CV TF ) only 60 would actually engage, with the other 440 just circling around watching combat. Why? Simple, 60 fighters making 1 pass every 10 minutes can, over 50 minutes generate 300 firing passes.

Obviously, in the game more than 60 of these fighters would engage since they'd have to reach the enemy bombers ( and that would take time, limiting the amount of time available for firing passes once interception was made ) and some would be damaged by defensive fire such that others would take their place to continue making passes until the hard limit was reached.


Effectively a hard limit would mean that for raids detected at long range ( e.g by USN radars ) only a small amount of the CAP would actually engage but that portion of CAP would engage very decisively - which seems to be mirroring what we are seeing reported in late-war games. I've certainly noted situations where only a few of my USN squadrons or USAAF squadrons engage an incoming raid ( as shown by a few of the squadrons on CAP getting huge increases in the numbers of kills while others have no increase in kills at all ).

Obviously I'm not sure if there is a hard limit on number of firing passes but logically a hard limit would disproportionately penalise the side with the larger number of fighters on CAP and the better radar ( IOW, the USN CV TFs ) and might explain some of what we're seeing - where fighters engage opposing fighters, seem to use up most of their firing passes on the enemy fighters and then have so few passes left that they don't effectively engage and disrupt the bombers, allowing them to achieve outsize results vs USN CV TFs.

The best solution would be, IMO, to enable a toggle to set fighters to preferentially engage other fighters or enemy bombers ( and this would allow twin-engined zerstoerer types to be used much more historically ( as opposed to wasting themselves dogfighting with nimble single-engined opponents as currently happens ) ) but if there is a hard limit removing it and replacing it with a "number of firing passes per fighter per minute vs other fighters" and " number of firing passes per fighter per minute vs bombers" might go some way to remedying the situation and prevent the current situation where huge CAPs relatively frequently intercept but don't decisively engage enemy bomber formations.

Hi Nemo! I agree with your proposal, considering Michael´s posts in this thread
seem to hint that a similar system is already used with the air combat model - though
maybe on a more granular scale than you are suggesting.

Michael made two posts here that support my assumption:

ORIGINAL: michaelm
I can increase the number of combat rounds when there is a large number of fighters in CAP.

This increases the dogfights without making a lopsided change.

ORIGINAL: michaelm

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Michael, just out of interest, would this increase combat rounds with short detection
ranges as well?

If I understand this correctly, the amount of combat rounds is a factor of detection range
and # and attributes of a/c involved. So basically you are increasing the cap on maximum combat rounds possible?

Only if the CAP is large. And a larger initial rounds due to the higher 'cap', would then be lowered if detection range is low.

And a higher 'cap' to the rounds wont necessarily mean a bloodier battle, as it still needs dice rolls for plane detection, interception, attack, defend, etc.

This seems to hint that there already is a (granular) threshold present, depending on total ammount of CAP fighters
available, modified by detection range, and the result further influenced by "dice rolls for plane detection, interception,
attack, defend, etc.".

So the proper approach could be to reduce the granularity and to increase the hard CAP at the upper end of
the scale. This might be a good solution depending on whether the game engine can handle such a change.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121
The best solution would be, IMO, to enable a toggle to set fighters to preferentially engage other fighters or enemy bombers ( and this would allow twin-engined zerstoerer types to be used much more historically ( as opposed to wasting themselves dogfighting with nimble single-engined opponents as currently happens ) ) but if there is a hard limit removing it and replacing it with a "number of firing passes per fighter per minute vs other fighters" and " number of firing passes per fighter per minute vs bombers" might go some way to remedying the situation and prevent the current situation where huge CAPs relatively frequently intercept but don't decisively engage enemy bomber formations.

I´d like to point out that close escort (which is represented by the escort mission in WitP AE) seems to show the effect it had
historically.

A good example is the Battle of Britain: To minimize the initially high bomber losses the Luftwaffe ordered their fighter
escorts to close escort the bombers, instead of flying high cover as was initially preferred (by the fighter pilots obviousely).

These changes had two immediate results:

- Bomber losses dropped dramatically as long as they were escorted by sufficient numbers. The reason this is not
immediately obvious from statistics was that the effect was clearly reduced by the low range of the BF109E models
and so their ability to engage CAP and afterwards return to escort duty.

- German escort losses increased to an (for the BoB terms) unbearable level, because they were attacked in
a tactical inferior position as the British pilots engaged them first and only after dispatching some percentage
of fighters burned through to the bombers.


What this implies to the game is clear:

Escort mission is close escort. In large engagements it should bear the brunt of the losses but while doing so
keep engaging CAP formations from engaging bombers until the escorts are dispatched as a threat.
(Result: high escort losses, low bomber losses)

Sweep (in this specific situation) would represent traditional high cover. It has an advantage over CAP in direct
engagements, but is unable to prevent a dedicated attack on bombers.
(Result: high CAP losses, high bomber losses)

In fact I like it that to evaluate which setup to prefer is a decision available to attacker when planning a bombing run.
Which does not suggest everyone does it, or even agrees with my POV. [;)]

[michaelm75au]

There was initially talk of being able to specify 'tactics' to some of the missions, such as for the CAP,
'Bounce bombers' more fighters held back to attack bombers, but at disadvantage if escorts overcome existing CAP fighters,
'Bounce fighters' CAP concentrates more on escorts with only those not engaged fully being sent against bombers.

There wasn't time to flesh this out although I have indirectly made use of the idea - see in combat report the message " xx planes vectored on to bombers "

[LoBaron]

You mean this one? "3 planes vectored on to bombers"
Sure [;)]

Wow, how far did you get with this project? I guess its currently governed by
some random dice roll?

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

A last suggestion: This discussion is also not about the abilityy of the Japanese player to field 100% modern late war planes.
We want historical.


So it should be made sure that at least half of the attacking IJN/IJA groups have planes which are outdated, such as old Zero versions,
one or the other Oscar, and a whole lot of Kates.


It is still not an exact recreation of history, but with such setups we could start making comparisions to scenarios that happened in WWII.




Is it understandable where this is leading to?

Your test was well executed, but I am in no way surprized at the results. But I am not because I am aware that it is not a recreation
of history. It puts a US CV taskforce in the range of an air army with high skill pilots, late war equipment and numbers to back it up.
This did never happen in WWII. If it did, the result would have been a bloodbath.

I think this is a valid point. Although, we are not talking about the same kind of numbers, in 1942 when the forces were evenly matched and both using relatively high quality pilots, the bombers got though and the carriers suffered.

[Nemo121]

michaelm,

Re: "x planes vectored onto bombers" - Would it be possible to "force" twin-engined planes labelled as fighter-bombers to have much, much higher chances of being the planes vectored onto bombers? Historically this would mean that planes like the Ki-45s would have a higher likelihood of performing in their historical role.


November 1st 1945: 1st day using the BETA posted by Michael in this thread.

Only 4 raids on either side attacked places with CAP - not counting night raids but since these went in against places where only non-radar equipped day fighters were on CAP I don't think looking at their intercept rate would be of much help since it was, and should have been, abysmally low.


Raid 1: 300+ B-29s attacking a Japanese port: 30 A6M7s showed as being in the air as the B-29s were spotted 37nm and 11 minutes away. None intercepted. No firing passes, no defensive fire.

Raid 2: 100+ B-29s attacked the same port. The 30 A6M7s were still in the air and the B-29s were spotted 37nm and 11 minutes away. None intercepted. No firing passes, no defensive fire.

Confounders for raids 1 and 2. About 10 fighters were in the air over the port with about 20 being diverted from neighbouring hexes so you can immediately discard 2/3rds of the fighters which could nominally intercept as having been too far away to do so. The other 10 is too small a sample and may just have been randomly placed over the other side of the hex and thus out of position also.


Raid 3: This is a weird one. 4 x G4M1 kamikazes flew to Legaspi and were ordered to make their attack run at 100 feet ( to avoid radar ). CAP was 1 x FM1 Wildcat. Despite being flown at 100 feet to avoid radar they were detected at 60nm, 21 minutes out and their estimated altitude was 8,000 feet. I know there's some randomness in the estimated altitude etc but the huge distance at which they were spotted makes me wonder if incoming raid altitude is being randomised again? The last time I saw raids at 100 feet being reported at more than 6000 feet and reported it you found a bug which had been randomising the attack altitude Michael.

There were no firing passes or interception. To be fair it said that it would take 17 minutes for the FM-1 to intercept so I assume it was just too out of position to intercept.


Raid 4: 4 x Ki-74 kamikazes attacked the US fleet off Aparri.
Approach altitude 40,000 feet. Spotted at 145nm and 40 minutes out.
Allied CAP: 38 fighters.
Time to intercept by all but 7 planes was more than 40 minutes.
Of the 7 planes which could intercept in fewer than 40 minutes all were F4U4 Corsairs on CAP at over 40,000 feet and all 4 Ki-74 were intercepted and shot down.


Conclusions: Too small a sample size so far and plausible explanations for the lack of interception in 3 of the 4 raids. The 4th raid was fully intercepted and engaged. Will await further data from larger opposed raids. On the plus side the Allies have put 300 to 400 ships to sea and are looking to invade somewhere ( probably Formosa ) so we should see massive air battles soon which will help gather the requisite information.

[GreyJoy]

Michealm, me and rader are starting to use your latest exe from our next turn....we'll try to provide some data as soon as we get them!

Still thx for your great support!

[Nemo121]

Ok we've had a day with about 400 kamikaze sorties vs moderate CAP.

Basic findings were:
1. 240+ kamis shot down by CAP which was moderate ( under 100 planes vs strikes of about 50 kamis at a time ).
2. ALL high-flying kamis were shot down
3. About 2/3rds of the low-flying kamis ( 100 feet ) got through


So with moderate raid sizes CAP worked very well and really butchered the raids. When CAP had very limited time to intercept ( low-flying raiders spotted late ) it did much less well but still show down more than it would have under previous betas IMO.


There was one significant oddity though. With just under 200 kamikazes getting through CAP not a single one hit. I wonder if there's a penalty for making a low-altitude approach at 100 feet or so as it does seem that planes at that altitude almost never hit anything.


FlAK shot down about 20% of the planes which made it through CAP but, much more significantly, damaged almost all of the others causing them to miss. In my mind this is where a lot of the complaints about FlAK being ineffective whither on the vine. In reality when you see a plane damaged by FlAK and crash into the ocean while attempting to hit a ship AE records that as an OPS loss whereas ANYONE looking at a movie shot from the ship it was trying to hit would say "That plane was shot down by FlAK". If you don't believe this set up a test where you give BBs NO FLAK ammo and run 100 kamis at them. Then check the results without FlAK and you will find that the hit rate without FlAK goes up by far, far more than just the number of planes nominally listed as shot down by FlAK in the aircraft losses screen.

Sometimes the in-game reports need to be interpreted in order to give you a sense of what they're actually talking about. Seriously, how many people would talk about a Grace coming in at 100 feet off the port bow, being hit by 40mm FlAK, bursting into flames from the right wing and hitting the water 50 metres short of the boat as being an "operational loss"? No, you'd call it a FlAK kill since the damage to the wing probably caused the miss. In the game though it'd be an operational loss.


Tests of CAP vs thousand-bomber raids will have to wait for an additional phase of combat a few months from now.

[GreyJoy]

Ok, we had our first test with the new exe file provided by Michealm.... it seems to work very well!
 
170 japanese fighters on LRCAP 1 hex of distance... against a 500 bomber raid escorted by 100 Corsairs and Wildcats with crack pilots (everyone above 50 exp 70 A2A skill).
 
The CAP did a very good job imho...mauling the escort very badly....more than 60 escorts shor down and some 7 bombers... but the key was that the CAP did make a lot of firing passages...defenetly more than what we were used to with this kind of raids...
 
[&o]

[LoBaron]

Thanks for the testing Nemo and GJ!

Now, if we only had one of those large CV battles reportedly affected as well. Hm. GJ? [:D]

[witpqs]

Nemo, regarding the CAP vs low-flyig Kami's: what were the altitude settings of the CAP?

[Nemo121]

witpqs,

Mostly staggered from about 10,000 to 40,000 feet. As you'd expect the 10,000 feet ones appeared to be the ones which most rapidly intercepted but pretty much every altitude band seemed to intercept at least partially. It was a small sample size though so it isn't possible to give lots of info. I was disappointed at the utter lack of leakers from the high altitude flights though. I would have thought a couple would have leaked.

But, we'll just have to have more instances to check over time. Between GJ and Rader and Damian and I I'm sure there will be a few massive clashes where we'll get good data to help refine the BETA.

[witpqs]

Thanks. I'm wondering if having some 5,000ft CAP would be wise in such situations for the defender.

[Nemo121]

Absolutely but then the luck of the draw might intervene and they'd be out of position. It would be a good idea though ( and it is done most of the time but even if you are right on the spot only having 9 minutes of interception time before the kamikazes are over the ship means that there's a fair chance of leakers no matter what ).

We've had more air battles and it definitely seems that there are more combat rounds.... Unescorted high speed, high-altitude kamikaze attacks are a thing of the past as most of the time they simply won't work.

Vs 4-engined bombers the ludicrous phasing in which before the first defending fighters fire a shot they are damaged by 4-engined defensive fire continues. I'm not arguing that it couldn't happen but just that when 60 fighters attack there's something a bit wrong with the first 15 ( one after the other ) being hit by defensive fire and being either shot down or forced out of combat before even getting a shot off.

Honestly michaelm, something needs to be done about the bomber defensive fire phase. I experimented by setting the range of the defensive armament to 100 yards and the bomber defensive fire phase was still driving off and damaging fighters at 500 yards. It seems that this defensive fire phase isn't actually linked to the in-editor technical characteristics of the defending fire or, if it is, this linkage is outweighed by other factors which allow guns to drive off and damage fighters operating beyond the range of those defending guns.

[castor troy]

If defensive bomber fire is looked at, this should be done for Japanese bombers too then because as it is now, they never do anything in four years of the war, I guess there is no instance when a Japanese bomber has ever shot down an Allied figther. Can't even remember of driving one off, same goes for Allied 1E bombers.

[Puhis]

In my 4 PBEM games, once one IJA bomber have shot down allied fighter. I think it was flying night mission, and the kill was some outdated allied plane. You're right, it's not right. Japanese bombers shot down fighters. For example 20th February 1942 unescorted Betties tried to bomb Lexinton. Wildcats shot down most of the bombers, bombers shot down 2 Wildcats. During Guadalcanal campaing allied fighter pilots learned to avoid 20 mm rear gun, one or two hits could be deadly.

However, allied 2E bombers (at least B-25s) don't have any problems killing Oscars and Zeros. Once I run into a possible bug that AI's Dutch units got IL2s. IL2s had about 1:1 kill ratio vs Oscars.

[GreyJoy]

After some hard and big battles fought under the beta micheal made for this thread i can tell you that the differences are substantial.
CAP now does a better job and stays in the air more time and so fights for a longer time than before.
I strongly suggest to add this tuning to the official beta modifications

[Nemo121]

Of course changes should apply to both sides.

In my current game as 6 of my top 12 aces are four-engined bomber pilots with between 5 and 7 kills each. There's something very wrong when that situation prevails.