4E Night Bomber in Air-to-Air

[Erkki]

So I'm wrong again, because of reasons? [:'(]

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

air radar doesn't come in until '45

Are you sure? I thought there were lots of air radar equipped planes (in the game) before '45.

Devices don't activate until '45 ... they are in the plane setups, but won't actually arrive until device is active.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

If the Nick doesn't have radar, Maybe the attack went in piece meal and the Nicks were picked off as they came into range....GP

That is pretty much how the combat report reads .... and likely 50% never actually came in contact with enemy as well. Can't know that without the combat animation though ... but what you had was serial 1 fighter against 2 or more 4E's that have more firepower than the fighter.

Granted, for the IJ, Nick has good armament. But that is relative to Oscar. Compare it to a '43 FW-109 though ... its way slower, less armament, less manouverable .... ok, the Nick is a piece of crap. So if the FW109 had its hands full taking on B24/B17's, why should any JFB speculate about any IJ fighter struggling?


BTW: I'm not suggesting that night air combat doesn't have some issues. However, the latest beta fixes a lot and more or less the issue balance themselves out. erkki says B____, but maybe he isn't running the latest beta. Latest beta, things can work for both sides.

[Erkki]

Latest beta.


Doesn't change the fact, that had it been a daytime engagement and all Ki-45s had time to attack, it'd have ended very differently. It isnt about the firepower or armor even. It doesn't go to this specific battle only, it goes to all night air-air: gunners remain very effective while fighters are not. Night air combat, folks, night, not day. The Ki-45s here and fighters find the bombers perfectly well as they get shot down by the said bombers better in the night than in dayligh. They should not.

Of course I speak bullshit when people run out of arguments when defending a pet exploit. (for some people any way).

If you want an example of someone having his air force shot down by nocturnal B-24 sweeps that take zero casualties, and we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of planes shot down that include armoured ones and over a base with radars, check out Lowpe's AAR. I don't think he should counter those sweeps or night bombings because its counter productive. Even if night air combat was more realistic it could still be waste of resources. But hes still enjoying something nearly 0 to infinite ratio against bombers, and only because they happen to fly in the night. Think about it.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Latest beta.


Doesn't change the fact, that had it been a daytime engagement and all Ki-45s had time to attack, it'd have ended very differently. It isnt about the firepower or armor even. It doesn't go to this specific battle only, it goes to all night air-air: gunners remain very effective while fighters are not. Night air combat, folks, night, not day. The Ki-45s here and fighters find the bombers perfectly well as they get shot down by the said bombers better in the night than in dayligh. They should not.

Of course I speak bullshit when people run out of arguments when defending a pet exploit. (for some people any way).

If you want an example of someone having his air force shot down by nocturnal B-24 sweeps that take zero casualties, and we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of planes shot down that include armoured ones and over a base with radars, check out Lowpe's AAR. I don't think he should counter those sweeps or night bombings because its counter productive. Even if night air combat was more realistic it could still be waste of resources. But hes still enjoying something nearly 0 to infinite ratio against bombers, and only because they happen to fly in the night. Think about it.

Are you referring to the OP here? If so, you are not reading the same OP that I am.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

air radar doesn't come in until '45

Are you sure? I thought there were lots of air radar equipped planes (in the game) before '45.

Devices don't activate until '45 ... they are in the plane setups, but won't actually arrive until device is active.

No - this pic is from March '44, although I recall these planes had their radar in '43. Others certainly did too, maybe some in '42 for all I remember.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: witpqs


Are you sure? I thought there were lots of air radar equipped planes (in the game) before '45.

Devices don't activate until '45 ... they are in the plane setups, but won't actually arrive until device is active.

No - this pic is from March '44, although I recall these planes had their radar in '43. Others certainly did too, maybe some in '42 for all I remember.

I was referring to IJ planes aka NICK. I am well aware the allies get it much earlier. I have a page full os caualties because of that! [;)]

[PaxMondo]

Device 1923 become active 10/45
Device 1922 becomes active 6/45

S1A1 uses 1923
Q1W1 uses 1922

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo



Devices don't activate until '45 ... they are in the plane setups, but won't actually arrive until device is active.

No - this pic is from March '44, although I recall these planes had their radar in '43. Others certainly did too, maybe some in '42 for all I remember.

I was referring to IJ planes aka NICK. I am well aware the allies get it much earlier. I have a page full os caualties because of that! [;)]

Oh, I had thought you meant universally.

[Spidery]

Until the development of "Wilde Sau" (or airborne centi-metric radar) there was no way to use mass aircraft to counter night bombing runs. Instead, the Germans relied upon en route interception by one aircraft at a time but at multiple spots.

The game doesn't model any form of en route interception. The massed searchlights needed for Wilde Sau don't exist. There should be no historic expectation for the Japanese to intercept Allied strikes. Historically, the Japanese had great difficulty countering night raids.

Using a small number of aircraft on night CAP seems to achieve historic results. That is, it does little damage, loses few planes, but decreases bomber accuracy. If you use ahistoric tactics then undesirable outcomes result.

Also, fighters at night should attack from below the aircraft and not above (it is very hard to see a plane at night below you against dark land). Whether the game models that I have no idea.

Arguably, the problem is that night bombing of facilities is more effective than historically was the case and therefore a counter is needed to what was, mostly, just a minor annoyance. However, the unusual effectiveness of night bombing is, in part, just a consequence of the ability to maintain an ahistoric tempo of air operations across the board. Fortunately, the Japanese have a limited counter, they can realise there is an issue from December 7th and deploy night fighters earlier than historically was the case.

Another issue not modeled is the ease with which you can swap aircraft between day and night roles. This doesn't model the use of different camouflage patterns for night or day use, different bomb sights, etc.

This doesn't mean you may not want House Rules to give what you consider a better gaming experience.

[Spidery]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Device 1923 become active 10/45
Device 1922 becomes active 6/45

S1A1 uses 1923
Q1W1 uses 1922

J1N1-Sa and P1Y2-S use the H-6 Radar (device 1920) that becomes active 6/44 (DBB-C). Does that radar help with the air interception?

[seille]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Latest beta.


Doesn't change the fact, that had it been a daytime engagement and all Ki-45s had time to attack, it'd have ended very differently. It isnt about the firepower or armor even. It doesn't go to this specific battle only, it goes to all night air-air: gunners remain very effective while fighters are not. Night air combat, folks, night, not day. The Ki-45s here and fighters find the bombers perfectly well as they get shot down by the said bombers better in the night than in dayligh. They should not.

@Erkki
We seem to play the same game. At least we agree that the performance of a B24 gunner shouldn´t be higher at night compared to daytime.
I have more results like this. That´s why most targets are not defended by fighters in the night. In this case i thought armor, two engines and adequate firepower
should work against small numbers or attackers.

@PaxMondo
Why we should talk about the FW-190 when we compare ? I had the german ME-110 in mind which was used a lot as nightfighter.
I just checked out. I´m playing with the x8-Beta from early june 2014. In the change log i was not able to see where adjustments were made to air war.
Are that undocumented changes, Pax ? I can´t see any changed behavior in night air war compared to earlier versions. Allied 4Es hit from time to time and destroy many defending fighters in the air.
Japanese bombers rarely hit (flak and few fighters over the target), never shot down any fighters and take (few) losses against enemy daytime fighters. That´s why i stopped my night bombings for now.

@Spidery
The "WildeSau" i had in mind when i allowed my Nicks to intercept in 90% moonlight. They should be able to find and hit the enemy bombers.
No radar help, but it worked.

[Spidery]

@Spidery
The "WildeSau" i had in mind when i allowed my Nicks to intercept in 90% moonlight. They should be able to find and hit the enemy bombers.
No radar help, but it worked.

I may have misunderstood but I think Wilde Sau involved flying above the bombers and the flak ceiling and using the searchlights to locate the bombers. It therefore requires a concentration of searchlights (or a city without a blackout). It therefore only worked over metropolitan areas.

[seille]

They used searchlights, but more a combination of AA fire and the burning cities. Combination of smoke and fire (Leichentuch or Mattscheibe) allowed the fighters to see the bomber silhouette
and engage them. This worked of course only direct over the city.
In my game example i trusted in the high moonlight level. Obviously the moonlight helped only the allied gunners....

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Until the development of "Wilde Sau" (or airborne centi-metric radar) there was no way to use mass aircraft to counter night bombing runs. Instead, the Germans relied upon en route interception by one aircraft at a time but at multiple spots.

The game doesn't model any form of en route interception. The massed searchlights needed for Wilde Sau don't exist. There should be no historic expectation for the Japanese to intercept Allied strikes. Historically, the Japanese had great difficulty countering night raids.

Using a small number of aircraft on night CAP seems to achieve historic results. That is, it does little damage, loses few planes, but decreases bomber accuracy. If you use ahistoric tactics then undesirable outcomes result.

Also, fighters at night should attack from below the aircraft and not above (it is very hard to see a plane at night below you against dark land). Whether the game models that I have no idea.

Arguably, the problem is that night bombing of facilities is more effective than historically was the case and therefore a counter is needed to what was, mostly, just a minor annoyance. However, the unusual effectiveness of night bombing is, in part, just a consequence of the ability to maintain an ahistoric tempo of air operations across the board. Fortunately, the Japanese have a limited counter, they can realise there is an issue from December 7th and deploy night fighters earlier than historically was the case.

Another issue not modeled is the ease with which you can swap aircraft between day and night roles. This doesn't model the use of different camouflage patterns for night or day use, different bomb sights, etc.

This doesn't mean you may not want House Rules to give what you consider a better gaming experience.

Hey,


How should night CAP of a few planes disrupt bomber accuracy?

This was how a night fighter sortie usually went: took off, flew around and either saw nothing or chased a few contacts(radar or GCI), returned home. If they got to attack a bomber, that bomber was usually surprised and destroyed. There were cases of night fighters shot down by bombers(or blinded by flashbangs in some cases) but those were few. Most night fighters shot down were done so by other night fighters lurking near home base or friendly flak. That of course in Europe where there was considerably more sorties flown. Managing to intercept a bomber without radar or GCI in Pacific or Burma must have been a nightmare - just as was trying to bomb and hit something...

Not quite what you see in the game. If the algorithms can be changed for night combat, somehow making night fighters much, much more likely to just disengage(Ki-45 cant stay in formation, running out of fuel etc. reports) and allow them to do maybe just on average 1/5 or 1/4 of an attack per plane, and nearly completely or completely disable bomber gunners, would give more plausible results. In my opinion.

[Spidery]

How should night CAP of a few planes disrupt bomber accuracy?

The threat causes the planes to fly in none-straight lines as they bank to give the gunners a chance to see if there are planes below them. This makes the navigation more difficult and causes fewer bombs on target.

Agreed that if the likelihood of night CAP engaging was decreased the results might be more in line with expectations (however, would be best not to do anything that messed up the Allied ability to intercept Japanese raids). However, it appears not to be necessary as you can elect to decrease the number of day fighters on night CAP and still get reasonable results.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

Another issue not modeled is the ease with which you can swap aircraft between day and night roles. This doesn't model the use of different camouflage patterns for night or day use, different bomb sights, etc.

I think it would be neat to see a plane and pilot Fatigue hit when switched from day to night operations and back again. This would attempt to address your points above...

[obvert]

Just arriving late to the party here. While I think it's important to bring up these issues and give examples from all areas of the war during the period, from what I remember any change to the night bombing routine in game is untenable with the actual system. It would result in other unwanted changes.

As an alternative easy and quite workable HRs allow good gameplay including some measured night bombing and interception. In my current games we've limited night bombing to numbers of bombers per target.

These are the rules from my game with GreyJoy. Neither of us have used night bombing much so far in the first half year. In the war there were relatively few large scale night bombing missions anyway until the strategic bombing in late 44-45. The betas with their increased flak effectiveness also help temper night bombing results and DBB is even a bit better. The reduced number of planes early mean less fighters shot down until the NF get going and can shoot back. While the number of fighters lost is high, with the NF the number of bombers lost is equally high and each 4E is worth 2 VPs to one for the fighters, and they're a lot more scarce, but they do gets their hits. It does balance out with a bit of reasonable negotiation on HRs.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strat bombing:

manpower strikes allowed during daylight
manpower strikes allowed during night with sliding scale:

25 planes/target in 41
50 planes/target in 42
100 planes/target in 43
200 planes/target in 44
400 planes/target in 45-46.

CV strikes allowed for any strategic target at any time

Night bombing port/airfield:

50 planes/target for the entire war.

Aerial mining:

50 planes/target only at night for the entire war.

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

As Jocke referenced, night fighters work a bit too well in game when massed in one base, but the devastation of B-29 strikes is every bit as damaging in game as it was during the war in spite of this, especially the late arriving night bombing B-29B. In combination with the other more armed variants this plane wrecked whatever it targeted with it's incredible bomb load. Jocke picked his targets well, and over the course of 44-45 the Japanese economy became increasingly unproductive, leading to supply shortages and later to the reduction of the newest fighter airframes.

So, my point is that the game is very playable, but we have to be willing to make some deals with HRs to make it a bit better with night bombing.