AA seems worthless

[jzardos]

Not sure why can't seem to shoot much down. Have about 20 examples on attacks on Messina in which hundreds of perfectly good flak guns can't shoot down a plane. Or there are a few times I get 1-3 bombers.. lol

Please tell me this is a bug that will be fixed. I can't imagine this is historical or else, nobody would build flak guns. Darn, this really bums me out [:(]

[ratprince]

I believe you are flying above flak range....

[jzardos]

ORIGINAL: mike mcmann

I believe you are flying above flak range....

You are wrong. Rules are quite clear about flak ranges.

"17.2.2. Anti-Aircra ft Defense
All enemy units that are flown over during an air mission
will attempt to engage the air group units with their antiaircraft
ground elements and any anti-aircraft support
units. AA units in cities/airfields will fire at aircraft flying
in adjacent hexes if they are 15000 feet or higher, while
units will fire into adjacent hexes if the enemy aircraft
is 10000 feet or higher. Fire at adjacent hexes has much
less effect than fire at aircraft flying directly overhead.
For all air missions AA units in the target hex are much
more effective. AA units attached directly to cities or
airfields (including flak intrinsic to the airfield unit) are
more effective, as are self-propelled flak units. These
are cumulative benefits, so a self-propelled flak unit in a
city that is in the target hex will receive benefits from all
three conditions. Flak against air transport and airborne
missions is more severe in daytime than at night."

also

"Numbers displayed are
between 0 and 9 to indicate intensity of flak,
with the left number being low/mid (below
20k altitude) and right number being high"
(above 20K).

[ratprince]

guess your flak just sucks then

[Denniss]

We are looking into the Flak effectivness, it seems the heavier Flak is too ineffective at these rather low alts.
Especially the 4-mots should present a big target to shoot at.

[jzardos]

Thanks Dennis. Once again I'm wondering if I should put my campaign game on hold. Seems like not being able to shoot down allied aircraft in this game poses a serious handicap for the axis player. I guess all games need patches. Sounds like maybe before end of Dec a patch? Could be worse, waited year for WiF to be fixed and it still is not.

[:(]

[Helpless]

What is ammo situation in the flak units you are referring to?

I tweaked flak code in coming patch, so it should be more intensive, but low ammo may seriously degrade it. You may send the save to 2by3@2by3games.com so I could check it. Thanks.

[Belphegor]

I notice it's raining during that combat. I don't have the rules in front of me but does that not affect the effectiveness of flak (and bombing)

[mariandavid]

The only valid figures that I have found on this are the British: Sticking to the case above the number of rounds per kill for heavy AA only firing in the day was of the order of 1,600 in the early part of the war (1940 is the obvious measure point as that is when adequate statistics were available) but dropped markedly to just 150 rounds per kill in 1944. And that was of course firing at much trickier targets than large lumbering Wellingtons and Liberators. Just to note rate of fire of a typical (85-95mm) HAA gun was 8 rpm when emplacing rising to 16rpm when fitted with power fuze setters and so on. Radar it seems was important when shooting at 'less than optimum elevations', which makes sense since ordinary optical systems were perfectly adequate for height/speed calculation when shooting at 20,000 feet plus.

Without having bothered myself to test the game in this respect (having too much fun landing and killing!) based on the above - and assuming that at least the Italian 9cm and German 8.8cm guns would be largely emplaced along both shores of the Straits of Messina would tend to concur with jzardos.

And would only add that both 8th Air Force and Bomber Command battle-reports seem strangely imprecise when assigning losses to AA versus fighters. Maybe an institutional bias in favour of recording the effects of air versus ground damage?

[Grotius]

I have no idea whether my data would be helpful, but here are my air losses after 7 turns playing the Allies in the "Breakout and Pursuit" scenario:

364 - Air to air losses
391 - Flak losses
507 - Operational losses

1262 - total aircraft lost

[Peltonx]

AA is huge. Lt Flak is best below 5k, but med and hvy stop firing below 3k.
Med and hvy are best at 15k and not very good above 20k. So fighters should be above 25k.
Front line units should have 1 mixed or 1 lt per division and 1 med or hvy.

HG Division SU = mixed AA
or
HG Division SU = 1 lt and 1 med or 1 hvy.

I know there is not enough for all divisions, but they do help in key areas of the front. I load up German
divisions in Italy until Frances get invaded.

[Smirfy]

The Allied air losses seem on the ludicrous high side especially in the ARR's I believe historically the Lufwaffe was suffering many times the losses of the Allies even when you consider the amount of Allied ground attacks going on. Historically Bomber commands losses sharply decreased from April 1944 which suggests Heavy Flak was not really a high altitude killer. Im sure aircraft though came home perforated but to suggest 1 kill per 160 shells is stretching credibility just watch the old newsreels. I think the heaviest losses from Flak on the Allied side were in the Coastal Command Strike Wings which were to be expected ie plenty of warning and an unobstructed horizon.

[mariandavid]

Smirfy: The figure is from the British Official History of the Anti-Aircraft Artillery so stretching credibility or not that's what was determined. And this is against German fighter-bombers and medium bombers not Allied heavy bombers. Note though that by this stage of the war the Allies had abandoned the box barrage idea but that the Germans continued to use it. I asked an 'expert' why and he explained that the Germans were using less-trained gunners using equipment that was slaved to central targeting, so I imagine that the German round count per kill would be different. The British by now were only using HAA barrage shots at V-1's.

[Smirfy]

I think you will find if its from an Allied source it will include V-1's and will be the effect of the proximty fuse so its a case of lies damn lies and statistics as trying to expoliate that to the European theatre. The British Army was disbanding corps and divisional AA units in France because they wernt being used. Japanese pilots thought the Allies had developed an AA shell with a revolving chain the proximity fuse was that effective.

[cmunson]

Not sure why can't seem to shoot much down. Have about 20 examples on attacks on Messina in which hundreds of perfectly good flak guns can't shoot down a plane. Or there are a few times I get 1-3 bombers.. lol

I think this must be a low supply/ammo situation. This is not typical of what I am seeing for flak losses. This is turn 33 in 43 campaign.

[Smirfy]

Those losses are quite simply nonsense

[KWG]

2028 in 33 days, 61 a day average. A third of your air combat losses.
It looks like you have been flying a lot of air missions.

[Helpless]

2028 in 33 days, 61 a day average. A third of your air combat losses.

This is turn 33 in 43 campaign.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

Smirfy: The figure is from the British Official History of the Anti-Aircraft Artillery so stretching credibility or not that's what was determined. And this is against German fighter-bombers and medium bombers not Allied heavy bombers. Note though that by this stage of the war the Allies had abandoned the box barrage idea but that the Germans continued to use it. I asked an 'expert' why and he explained that the Germans were using less-trained gunners using equipment that was slaved to central targeting, so I imagine that the German round count per kill would be different. The British by now were only using HAA barrage shots at V-1's.

Allied also improved their anti flak flying tactics during the war here is training video that was made during the war train allied bomber pilots how to avoid German flak fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP_-WUMi-nw

[KWG]

DOH!!!!

61 a week.[:'(]