B-17 supremacy

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: btbw
Why you talking about me?

LOL, tbh I have no idea. First I thought you just did not understand the root cause of your defeat and needed help, now I rather believe you
should chose an easier game... [8|]

[Empire101]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: btbw

Very sarcastic but after carrier battle near Brisbane can you show me way how save 2 carriers from major fire and floating?
Mr. Genius

Sorry, but you seem to be under the false impression that there is a solution to every problem. IRL, there are problems for which there is no solution.

If you had damaged carriers from action that deep into allied territory, then the expectation is that they are indeed lost. That is why those raids were rarely done. There is, in fact, huge risk in doing them. You wish to do actions which IRL were highly risky and then to have an unrealistic outcome and blame the game. I don't claim to be Mr. Genius, but I am smart enough to understand the risks inherent with your type of op and avoid them. [;)]

Continue to blame the game for your actions and there is a name for that.



ORIGINAL: LoBaron

LOL, tbh I have no idea. First I thought you just did not understand the root cause of your defeat and needed help, now I rather believe you
should chose an easier game...

+1 to both of the above.


btbw, please lower the anti.....people are only trying to help.

[btbw]

LOL. Why you talk about carriers? Mistakes? Me? It example.
40 B-17 attacked ships in port. 8 hits in flattops, 2 hits in port buildings.
B-17 SO SMART. They dont attackes ML stayed here, 3 CAs, bunch of merchants etc.
Wonderful B-17 directly attacked and hitted ONLY main ships like swarm of dive bombers.
I understand when AB/DB/TB choose who to attack and make 25% hits from their attacks. It close to historical and it why that classes was born.
BUT.
Slow stupid blind B-17 maintained course (for gain accuracy, change speed on 10mph or alt for 100 feet and you will lose for 100-200 feet from aim point even if you luck, no maneurs - it stop bomb sight work and need to make attack round again, clinbs do miss too) without ability for TARGET except leader  ( in that big pool under feets). All bombers going from SAME course (it mean not individual targeting and correcting course with sighting on enemy ships). All drop bombs with leader (it give small chance to carpet area and hit target with may be ONE bomb).
So how 8 B-17 hit ONLY flattops on area on 5000000 square meters without hitting other ships?
I see here WRONG formula. Level bombers must have area effect formula and damage ships despite of their rank or size.

[btbw]

So guys try be constructive and dont see where carriers, how much CAP and what i must to do with all your opinions how to do something.
B-17, accuracy, selectivity - it target of this thread.
JFYI accuracy of B-17 against dot-target like warship was near 1%.
Accuracy against area target like huge building - 30%.
ONLY ONE warship touched by B-17

[bk19@mweb.co.za]

ORIGINAL: btbw

LOL. Why you talk about carriers? Mistakes? Me? It example.
40 B-17 attacked ships in port. 8 hits in flattops, 2 hits in port buildings.
B-17 SO SMART. They dont attackes ML stayed here, 3 CAs, bunch of merchants etc.
Wonderful B-17 directly attacked and hitted ONLY main ships like swarm of dive bombers.
I understand when AB/DB/TB choose who to attack and make 25% hits from their attacks. It close to historical and it why that classes was born.
BUT.
Slow stupid blind B-17 maintained course (for gain accuracy, change speed on 10mph or alt for 100 feet and you will lose for 100-200 feet from aim point even if you luck, no maneurs - it stop bomb sight work and need to make attack round again, clinbs do miss too) without ability for TARGET except leader  ( in that big pool under feets). All bombers going from SAME course (it mean not individual targeting and correcting course with sighting on enemy ships). All drop bombs with leader (it give small chance to carpet area and hit target with may be ONE bomb).
So how 8 B-17 hit ONLY flattops on area on 5000000 square meters without hitting other ships?
I see here WRONG formula. Level bombers must have area effect formula and damage ships despite of their rank or size.

To replicate anything like this kind of detailed behaviour you will need to be using a game that models these aspects with a much finer degree of granularity. Have a look at Microsoft Flight Simulator or other simulators of its kind.

In a game such as this, unless you have a quantum chip set on a very expensive PC you are unlikely to be able to model the dynamic behaviour that you seek.

[btbw]

ORIGINAL: bk19@mweb.co.za

ORIGINAL: btbw

LOL. Why you talk about carriers? Mistakes? Me? It example.
40 B-17 attacked ships in port. 8 hits in flattops, 2 hits in port buildings.
B-17 SO SMART. They dont attackes ML stayed here, 3 CAs, bunch of merchants etc.
Wonderful B-17 directly attacked and hitted ONLY main ships like swarm of dive bombers.
I understand when AB/DB/TB choose who to attack and make 25% hits from their attacks. It close to historical and it why that classes was born.
BUT.
Slow stupid blind B-17 maintained course (for gain accuracy, change speed on 10mph or alt for 100 feet and you will lose for 100-200 feet from aim point even if you luck, no maneurs - it stop bomb sight work and need to make attack round again, clinbs do miss too) without ability for TARGET except leader  ( in that big pool under feets). All bombers going from SAME course (it mean not individual targeting and correcting course with sighting on enemy ships). All drop bombs with leader (it give small chance to carpet area and hit target with may be ONE bomb).
So how 8 B-17 hit ONLY flattops on area on 5000000 square meters without hitting other ships?
I see here WRONG formula. Level bombers must have area effect formula and damage ships despite of their rank or size.

To replicate anything like this kind of detailed behaviour you will need to be using a game that models these aspects with a much finer degree of granularity. Have a look at Microsoft Flight Simulator or other simulators of its kind.

In a game such as this, unless you have a quantum chip set on a very expensive PC you are unlikely to be able to model the dynamic behaviour that you seek.

OMG. It all? We dont have wargame? We have game with war theater and non-historical, non-realistic airplanes inside?
Dude, why you need WITP AE then?
Quantum chip, lol. Bachelor with some knowledge of probability theory can make model of Level bombing. You dont need to have quantum chip and Jakob Bernoulli for that.

[DavidTheGreat]

Nothing points to the fact that 1 bomber hits 1 ship, being docked in rows one could argue that 1 bomber hits several ships.
About the hit chance, out of 312 bombs dropped only 9 hit targets, the one on the BB has minor effect, being not able to penetrate, the other is a different story, so the hit chance is rather low, you should be glad he dit not fly his mission at 100 ft. As written before, putting ships in port in range of 4E bombers is a risk, one i would rather not take.

[Grfin Zeppelin]

So your carriers were damaged and burning you disbanded them at port, thats fine and reasonable but, all of them ? Next time leave the cripples behind and move the rest into safety.
Also in such a situation remove the planes especially the fighters and place them at the airfield to protect your precious and fly in even more fighters.

These are things you could have done after bringing yourself in this kind of mess. As stated before, using carriers in remote locations is risky and if something goes wrong yer in big podoo.

Your situation only barely has something to do with are 4Es broken or OP or not. You made a mess out of it and need to rethink that whole situation.

YOU operated them there, YOU disbanded them at a port so stop blaming and draw your conclusions.

[d0mbo]

Guys, btbw is convinced the game is WRONG and he is RIGHT. Nothing is going to alter his thinking right now. This happens a lot to people who lose irreplaceable CV's, for whatever reason. It could be you or me the next time

btbw: don't post when you are mad. It only creates an ugly and unpleasant thread like this one. Come back when you have settled down and you are able to make reasonable posts.
Even if you would have a point right now, the way you post in this thread won't help to get it across to others.

[btbw]

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin

So your carriers were damaged and burning you disbanded them at port, that fine and reasonable but, all of them ? Next time leave the cripples behind and move the rest into safety.
Also in such a situation remove the planes especially the fighters and place them at the airfield to protect your precious and fly in even more fighters.

These are things you could have done after bringing yourself in this kind of mess. As stated before, using carriers in remote locations is risky and if something goes wrong yer in big podoo.

Your situation only barely has something to do with are 4Es broken or OP or not. You made a mess out of it and need to rethink that whole situation.

Thank you for lesson. But again. I dont worry about these scenario.
I talking about bug in game.
B-17, right now, it long-range, well-protected, well-defended DIVE BOMBER.
In really, they was useless againt maritime and slightly useful against land targets (area).
It all what i want by opening this thread - B-17 as level-bomber.
In my cause AAR must look like 1-2 hits in flattops and 6-7 hits in a hundred other ships and harbour.
It how work real math for area bombers.

[21pzr]

I don't know, with 160 bombs dropped randomly over the entire 5 sq km port, that's one bomb every 30,000 sq mtrs (300 x 100 rectangle). A CV or BB would fill a minimum 200 x 30 mtr area, this gives about a 1 in 4 chance of hitting the ship for every rectangle. Not bad odds, and the bombers would not be randomly dropping over the whole area. Ships at anchor will all be facing the same direction, so that the bomb leader could choose his run direction and aim point to drop the bomb string along the axis of the anchorage. Why were only the big ships hit? They're big. Would the bomb leader concentrate on the capital ships? Of course. Ships at anchor are not maneuvering, they are like a warehouse. Who says that all of the bomb squadrons released on one bomb leaders cue? Delays, weather, etc, etc, could have caused squadrons to arrive from different directions and times, so each squadron leader could target a vessel.

If you did this attack 100 times, you would probably not get the same result, or you may lose all 4 carriers, its random.

And really, a 500lb bomb hitting a CV is nearly lethal every time, while the same bomb hitting port facilities would cause partial damage, not complete destruction of the port.

I am a relative noob to AE, but I know my strategy and air warfare. I don't see anything wrong with this result. If you had 39 dive bombers doing this, you would have lost ALL the carriers for sure, the BB, and probably 39 ships in total.

Bill

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: d0mbo

Guys, btbw is convinced the game is WRONG and he is RIGHT. Nothing is going to alter his thinking right now. This happens a lot to people who lose irreplaceable CV's, for whatever reason. It could be you or me the next time

btbw: don't post when you are mad. It only creates an ugly and unpleasant thread like this one. Come back when you have settled down and you are able to make reasonable posts.
Even if you would have a point right now, the way you post in this thread won't help to get it across to others.

Yep. +1

btbw ... I wouldn't say anything more. You're about to earn a name here that you won't want and is very hard to dispell once earned.

[btbw]

ORIGINAL: d0mbo

Guys, btbw is convinced the game is WRONG and he is RIGHT. Nothing is going to alter his thinking right now. This happens a lot to people who lose irreplaceable CV's, for whatever reason. It could be you or me the next time

btbw: don't post when you are mad. It only creates an ugly and unpleasant thread like this one. Come back when you have settled down and you are able to make reasonable posts.
Even if you would have a point right now, the way you post in this thread won't help to get it across to others.

Ummm, should i change CVs in AAR for SC? It help?
But problem in selectivity of high-altitude box-flying plane on area bomb mission close to pin-point dive-bombing from much lesser altitude, individual piloting planes, maneur etc.
Wrong calculation in that cause.
Why we not have devastating LB in land bombing? Let look how they kill only AFVs or General and fly away dont touched others?

[LoBaron]

The more I think about it the more it looks like either intended or unintended troll...

But its a fun thing how synch the forum reacts given the right triggers. [:D]

[vettim89]

btbw,

I think you have clung onto one of the biggest myths of the Pacific Theater: 4E bombers rarely hit shipping. I think this myth is largely based on the results from the B-17 attacks on the Japanese CVTF at Midway. Yes, it was very difficult to hit a combat ship from altitude when it was using aggressive evasive maneuvering. However, the USAAF regular hit Japanese shipping with B-17s and later B-24s. Many if not most of the hits were on ships at anchor from medium altitudes. That said, one major battle, Bismark Sea, showed that they could hit even maneuvering targets. The point being that non-moving ships were sitting ducks evenfor level bombers.

I suggest you look at this link. Just read the entries for the first two months of the war and you will see that B-17s and a few LB-30s were hitting Japanese shipping on a regular basis even in early months of the war when their numbers were much smaller than what you encountered.

US Navy Chronology

[Omat]

Hello

Yes you are right. Trolling or unintended troll. Sometimes it hurts.
Maybe the brother of pelton in the WitE Forum or cousin from Mister JP D aka Mr. Japan.

Omat

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

The more I think about it the more it looks like either intended or unintended troll...

But its a fun thing how synch the forum reacts given the right triggers. [:D]

[btbw]

ORIGINAL: 21pzr

I don't know, with 160 bombs dropped randomly over the entire 5 sq km port, that's one bomb every 30,000 sq mtrs (300 x 100 rectangle). A CV or BB would fill a minimum 200 x 30 mtr area, this gives about a 1 in 4 chance of hitting the ship for every rectangle. Not bad odds, and the bombers would not be randomly dropping over the whole area. Ships at anchor will all be facing the same direction, so that the bomb leader could choose his run direction and aim point to drop the bomb string along the axis of the anchorage. Why were only the big ships hit? They're big. Would the bomb leader concentrate on the capital ships? Of course. Ships at anchor are not maneuvering, they are like a warehouse. Who says that all of the bomb squadrons released on one bomb leaders cue? Delays, weather, etc, etc, could have caused squadrons to arrive from different directions and times, so each squadron leader could target a vessel.

If you did this attack 100 times, you would probably not get the same result, or you may lose all 4 carriers, its random.

And really, a 500lb bomb hitting a CV is nearly lethal every time, while the same bomb hitting port facilities would cause partial damage, not complete destruction of the port.

I am a relative noob to AE, but I know my strategy and air warfare. I don't see anything wrong with this result. If you had 39 dive bombers doing this, you would have lost ALL the carriers for sure, the BB, and probably 39 ships in total.

Bill

I waiting for post like it.
Seriously guys if you start to calculate you must be more accurate with it.
So you divide area on 160 bombs? Probably, you never seen how B-17 attack area target. They never disperse in sky over all area and drop all bombs spread out it equally by each 20 feet.
Bomb-dropping from single LB it stroke of bombs (4 in our cause) with distance between each (delay in bombing release * air speed +/- distortions).
40 LB= 40 strokes.
If we for second imagine these LB flying side-by-side to each other (long front of them) and drop bombs. Well then they can cover front = distance between * number.
Our example - 40 LB and 20 m (we need to hit CV).
So 800m front.
Port in Noumea have 5 sq.km. Let make it 1600 x 3000 m
So our long front of LB cover half of lowest port side length. So theoretically we devastate half of ships here.
BUT. Stroke of bombs can only cover few hundred meters (delay between drops * speed*number dropped). IF we agree with cruise speed of B-17 and 0.5sec delay then we have length of stroke 110m/s * 0.5 * 4 =220m.
Oooooops. We only cover 1/15 of other size.
But it not all what wrong.
Let see again delay in stroke. In meters it 55m. For hitting carrier it too much. We need 20m for guarantied hit.
How we can fix it? Divide bombers. Make them run on target not in line of front (with half-coverage of lowest side) but in 2 lines at least. One by one with half of 55m distance between tails. It give to us 27m or almost beam of Soryu CV. Perfect.
Someone said CAP was low. Well but they fight well and one even rammed B-17. Alot of them damaged and they inflict damage too. All it because they going in BOX FORMATION.
This formation mean planes going not in line of front (with best coverage of lowest side) or in line of 2 fronts (with best chance to hit target in half lesser coverage) but in next order
http://www.303rdbg.com/formation.jpg
As you see we have much lesser coverage. Price of defense.
Now 5000000 sq meters and our 160 bombs laying in....mmm... may be 220m x 220m=48400 sq.m. or 100 times lesser. Despite how many bombs - they cover 1% of port area.
And we coming to happy-end.
So our bombers cover 1% of port area and they will hit ships in this spot and guarantied have 1 hit (with box formation even 2) to target like CV. But we have 100 ships in port so probably we must see 1-2 hits in 1 ship, 2 if we not lucky. Remember it LB. They cannot change course like DB or TB when they see ship and even start read name of it. All that they can - it mantain course and speed and look for leader signal - release bombs. Leader cannot identify target in port (it why pathfinders and squaleaders was invented on much lesser planes like Mosquito or Mustang or Thunderbolt), he only target dot in cross of 2 visible orientiers or blink of radar). Limes make few massive operations against one battleship stayed in Norge fjord and only in 1944 got few hits from special trained elite pilots.
No more romanthic songs now.
1% of area hitted, 100 ships inside, 1-2 hits in 1-2 ships and it can be CV with 1% chance.
But it was 3!!!! CVs and 1 BB.
What difference between area bombing (or 160 bombs hurt someone parked here) and in-game result?
Game count port attack of LB like attack of DB. LB choose BEST targets, release all their bombs to THESE FAT TARGETS and count 25% (game limitation 1 hit per plane or they can make more) hits like very good DB (initial accuracy for bomb 25% i think).
And dont need to calculate how many CAP here, how much LB flying, and what parked. Wrong principe of level-bombing strike.
P.S. I remember chronic with mast-bombing B-17 test. Wonder why USA tried it? If they can make 8 wonderful hits in 3 CV+BB in port?

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: btbw
In really, they was useless againt maritime and slightly useful against land targets (area).

When you have ships disbanded in port, they effectively become land targets.

If the ships were at sea, then they would effectively be immune to B17s at 13,000'.

Try it out and see, have some B17s attack a CV in the open ocean at 13,000'.

[btbw]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

btbw,

I think you have clung onto one of the biggest myths of the Pacific Theater: 4E bombers rarely hit shipping. I think this myth is largely based on the results from the B-17 attacks on the Japanese CVTF at Midway. Yes, it was very difficult to hit a combat ship from altitude when it was using aggressive evasive maneuvering. However, the USAAF regular hit Japanese shipping with B-17s and later B-24s. Many if not most of the hits were on ships at anchor from medium altitudes. That said, one major battle, Bismark Sea, showed that they could hit even maneuvering targets. The point being that non-moving ships were sitting ducks evenfor level bombers.

I suggest you look at this link. Just read the entries for the first two months of the war and you will see that B-17s and a few LB-30s were hitting Japanese shipping on a regular basis even in early months of the war when their numbers were much smaller than what you encountered.

US Navy Chronology

LOL. So let count?

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: btbw

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin

So your carriers were damaged and burning you disbanded them at port, that fine and reasonable but, all of them ? Next time leave the cripples behind and move the rest into safety.
Also in such a situation remove the planes especially the fighters and place them at the airfield to protect your precious and fly in even more fighters.

These are things you could have done after bringing yourself in this kind of mess. As stated before, using carriers in remote locations is risky and if something goes wrong yer in big podoo.

Your situation only barely has something to do with are 4Es broken or OP or not. You made a mess out of it and need to rethink that whole situation.

Thank you for lesson. But again. I dont worry about these scenario.
I talking about bug in game.
B-17, right now, it long-range, well-protected, well-defended DIVE BOMBER.
In really, they was useless againt maritime and slightly useful against land targets (area).
It all what i want by opening this thread - B-17 as level-bomber.
In my cause AAR must look like 1-2 hits in flattops and 6-7 hits in a hundred other ships and harbour.
It how work real math for area bombers.

LoBaron was 100% correct. You need to quit playing this "buggy" game and find something much easier to play. [8|]