My kingdom for a decent fighter

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: inqistor

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

It is 8/44 and as Japan, I do not seem to have any fighter that is half way good enough to do anything to the Allies. I have the first version of Franks a version, 5c Zeros, and Tojo IIcs. Plus Jack v5 and some Georges J version. I have tried stacking my CAP plus anything else I could think of and I still get beatened down [:(].

Is it just the number of planes the Allies have (plus quality) and I just have to accept the carnage or (hopefully) I am doing something wrong that the kind people here will explain using small words [:)] so that I can correct the errors of my ways.

Of course if my mix of fighters that I have produced is way off, then that will need to be fixed in a different game as it is too late to fix my production now [:(]

And why exactly are you fighting on their terms?

Allied fighters sweep, to attack your fighters. Your only advantage in accepting this fight is to lower loses for your pilot over friendly territory. So:

1) Do not fight his sweeps
2) Destroy his planes on ground
3) Catch his fighters during escort

You can control somehow your numbers over time using LRCAP, and low LRCAP percentage, so you will have low number at the turn beginning (and get slaughtered), and it will be rising, as time goes (so you will have more planes, when bombers arrive)

Great ideas, but a bit harder to implement if your opponent is good at what he's doing.

1) How do you get to bombers in the air (or escort) if you don't fight his sweeps? At least 4 and sometimes more than 6 groups sweep nearly every bombing run in my game in 44.

2) The last time I tried to attack his CAP, a relatively small CAP of 140+ fighters (total stationed at base, not in the air) in relation to what he has over some bases, I lost 183 to 24 planes and hit abut 5 crap ships (LST/LSI and one AKE) in a port strike with 200+ bombers, multiple sweeps, generous escorts and 140 ships in a level 5 port!

If his CAP is a profusion of Hellcats with a few Corsairs and Spit VIII, that's a tough nut to crack. It's even stronger over any base hosting 4Es.

3) What escort? Most often there is no escort, only 250+ 4E and 100+ 2E coming in mostly coordinated. He doesn't need escort with those numbers. My fighters still can't crack through when they survive the waves of P-47/Corsair sweeps. When he does use escorts, sure, I get to wipe 40-50 P-40s off the board. Great.

If you have any other ideas, I for one would be happy to try them out, but I think really this is just not going to be a pleasant ride through the last years of the war for the Japanese, and that maybe is how it should be. Sure, he'll make mistakes every once in a while, or sweeps will fly after bombers occasionally, but if I put up CAP enough to have a chance to get lucky, I'd lose 300 planes with at best 1:5 ratios for a week before even getting a crack at an incoming strike.

[PaxMondo]

Bolt/Sair/Stang/Spits in '44 are really deadly for the IJ.  Your Frank is only a gen 2.5 ... just below 400, and so will struggle with all 4 of those.  All of your gen 2 ac are ~370m and as you are seeing are just too slow.  Frank/George mix is prolly your best solution until your gen 3 fighters come on board, but your losses will still be high.  Just remember that all of gen 3 fighters are SR3 or higher ... so you have to use them in appropriate locales.  To me, that means trading turf for time, not losing too many ac (and giving the consequential exp to the allies) until your defense perimeter is smaller and those gen 3 ac are available.
 
BUT, PzB was able to hold his perimeter with gen 2 fighters against the allied hoard ... so obviously there are subtleties that I haven't teased out of the ACM.  [;)]

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: inqistor

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

It is 8/44 and as Japan, I do not seem to have any fighter that is half way good enough to do anything to the Allies. I have the first version of Franks a version, 5c Zeros, and Tojo IIcs. Plus Jack v5 and some Georges J version. I have tried stacking my CAP plus anything else I could think of and I still get beatened down [:(].

Is it just the number of planes the Allies have (plus quality) and I just have to accept the carnage or (hopefully) I am doing something wrong that the kind people here will explain using small words [:)] so that I can correct the errors of my ways.

Of course if my mix of fighters that I have produced is way off, then that will need to be fixed in a different game as it is too late to fix my production now [:(]

And why exactly are you fighting on their terms?

Allied fighters sweep, to attack your fighters. Your only advantage in accepting this fight is to lower loses for your pilot over friendly territory. So:

1) Do not fight his sweeps
2) Destroy his planes on ground
3) Catch his fighters during escort

You can control somehow your numbers over time using LRCAP, and low LRCAP percentage, so you will have low number at the turn beginning (and get slaughtered), and it will be rising, as time goes (so you will have more planes, when bombers arrive)

This is great advice for the Allies [:)] and works like a charm for them lol.

I, like obvert above, have tried to do the above with the similar results. The Allies invaded Sanbang and I had planes there plus a lv9 AF at Georgetown and I threw everything I had and got zilch. Had about 200 escorts and 200 bombers and just got a bunch of planes killed. Although I was pleased that at least some of the bombers got through so I could at least see a few CVs on the bombing screen. Not that the bombers could actually hit one [:(]

My feeling is that the Japanese high command finally realized how bad their planes were outmatched in RL. So that the only way to do any damage to the Allies was to not worry about return trips for the pilots [:(]. And so the Kami's were born. At least this way they would hopefully take some ships with them. At least we, as players, do not have to worry about asking real people to go on a one way trip, thank God.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar
The Allies invaded Sanbang and I had planes there plus a lv9 AF at Georgetown and I threw everything I had and got zilch. Had about 200 escorts and 200 bombers and just got a bunch of planes killed.

Pre-current beta I had say that if you have so many escorts on one airfield you are better off assigning most of them to naval attack instead, so that they will act as quasi-sweepers, and just one or two groups to escort. Of course, all of your strike groups except divebombers should fly at 1k, and divebombers at 15, to hopefully at least distract CAP. 200 bombers is not nearly enough to decimate a major invasion in any case, but I'd expect at least some hits. With the current beta not sure, I've yet to see all the consequences of the modified air coordination rules.

[Numdydar]

And we are using the Beta verion with that code concering coordination. Not sure if that made a difference or not.

As for the number of planes, I would have loved to have had more go in [:)], however, I only had a single 1 day turn to do something as I knew he would take the base the next turn. So I did not have a lot of time as I had a lot of assets in the PI and Marininas that I needed to stay in place for what was occuring in CenPac. Also, it is a question of support too as I cannot overload AFs and expect to have a lot of planes able to fly when most of the AC that have any chance against the Allies all have a SR of 3 [:(]

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

And we are using the Beta verion with that code concering coordination. Not sure if that made a difference or not.

As for the number of planes, I would have loved to have had more go in [:)], however, I only had a single 1 day turn to do something as I knew he would take the base the next turn. So I did not have a lot of time as I had a lot of assets in the PI and Marininas that I needed to stay in place for what was occuring in CenPac. Also, it is a question of support too as I cannot overload AFs and expect to have a lot of planes able to fly when most of the AC that have any chance against the Allies all have a SR of 3 [:(]

Actually if you only expected 1 day of attacks, there was no reason not to overstack, at least up to the allowed number of airgroups (unlimited on AF 9, IIRC, or AT least very big). SR has little bearing on whether the planes take off on the first day, before they start getting damaged and worn out. Overstack only really hurts 2E/4E bombers, reducing the number that can take off, and depending on how many airgroups are available, overstacking still can be worthwhile despite this reduction.

Of course not much can be done about just not having enough aircraft... I personally try to keep a crisis reserve by relocating some training air groups from Japan to Palembang and Java, but in case of bombers, which need to train several skills, they might be in the stage of training where they are completely useless, when a need comes.

[inqistor]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: inqistor

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

It is 8/44 and as Japan, I do not seem to have any fighter that is half way good enough to do anything to the Allies. I have the first version of Franks a version, 5c Zeros, and Tojo IIcs. Plus Jack v5 and some Georges J version. I have tried stacking my CAP plus anything else I could think of and I still get beatened down [:(].

Is it just the number of planes the Allies have (plus quality) and I just have to accept the carnage or (hopefully) I am doing something wrong that the kind people here will explain using small words [:)] so that I can correct the errors of my ways.

Of course if my mix of fighters that I have produced is way off, then that will need to be fixed in a different game as it is too late to fix my production now [:(]

And why exactly are you fighting on their terms?

Allied fighters sweep, to attack your fighters. Your only advantage in accepting this fight is to lower loses for your pilot over friendly territory. So:

1) Do not fight his sweeps
2) Destroy his planes on ground
3) Catch his fighters during escort

You can control somehow your numbers over time using LRCAP, and low LRCAP percentage, so you will have low number at the turn beginning (and get slaughtered), and it will be rising, as time goes (so you will have more planes, when bombers arrive)

Great ideas, but a bit harder to implement if your opponent is good at what he's doing.

1) How do you get to bombers in the air (or escort) if you don't fight his sweeps? At least 4 and sometimes more than 6 groups sweep nearly every bombing run in my game in 44.

What exactly he is bombing? The only advantage Japan have in air war in 1944 is range. If you move your airbases back enough, Allies will be forced to use only long range fighters.
And you can always use low percentage LRCAP.

2) The last time I tried to attack his CAP, a relatively small CAP of 140+ fighters (total stationed at base, not in the air) in relation to what he has over some bases, I lost 183 to 24 planes and hit abut 5 crap ships (LST/LSI and one AKE) in a port strike with 200+ bombers, multiple sweeps, generous escorts and 140 ships in a level 5 port!

In 1944 Japan can match Allied airplane production, maybe even make something extra, but every result above 2:1 will actually weaken Japan even more in long term.
There are alternative ways of fighting (or whatever that line went). First - night attacks, second - use your ships. Third - GIRETSU! (OK, that would be hard to simulate)

3) What escort? Most often there is no escort, only 250+ 4E and 100+ 2E coming in mostly coordinated. He doesn't need escort with those numbers. My fighters still can't crack through when they survive the waves of P-47/Corsair sweeps. When he does use escorts, sure, I get to wipe 40-50 P-40s off the board. Great.

Pick your battles. Let him hit into empty air for few days, then suddenly concentrate. Also, force him to fly longer distances, that would tire his pilots.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Inquisitor

What exactly he is bombing? The only advantage Japan have in air war in 1944 is range. If you move your airbases back enough, Allies will be forced to use only long range fighters.
And you can always use low percentage LRCAP.

In 1944 Japan can match Allied airplane production, maybe even make something extra, but every result above 2:1 will actually weaken Japan even more in long term.
There are alternative ways of fighting (or whatever that line went). First - night attacks, second - use your ships. Third - GIRETSU! (OK, that would be hard to simulate)

Pick your battles. Let him hit into empty air for few days, then suddenly concentrate. Also, force him to fly longer distances, that would tire his pilots.

Thanks for trying to help. I do appreciate the ideas. Most just aren't feasible. It's just nearly useless to bomb anything with IJA bombers against Allied radar and AA even if I make it through the CAP. There may be a time when he finally diffuses his forces when this will be possible. Not so much right now.

What is he bombing? Anything he wants to! [:D] Fields, troops, etc. Even when I pick my battles that doesn't mean I'll see less opposition. It's nearly always everything pointed at one target.

As Pax says, it's just about buying time until I have something that might at least hold it's own in the late war fighters coming in 45 and hoping to get lucky once or twice until then.