P-47s: Hammer of God?

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Marshall

Pissing in the wind can be usefull if your pants are on fire 🚒
But point taken, i understand nobody has the code on the forum.

I will try to contact the elf ( this could be a line in lord of the rings)

Im, off . Have to catch an Elf.

Ahh, details grasshopper.

The Elf

[Lokasenna]

He could easily test his hypothesis by simply changing the nationality of the airframes in the scenario editor. Make the P-47 models Japanese, make the A6M models USN, etc.

I think the rest of us know what would happen then.

[Encircled]

Yup, somebody would creat a mod with Japanese P-47s.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Yup, somebody would creat a mod with Japanese P-47s.

[:-][:D]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

He could easily test his hypothesis by simply changing the nationality of the airframes in the scenario editor. Make the P-47 models Japanese, make the A6M models USN, etc.

I think the rest of us know what would happen then.

Yup: it would prove that the game engine is biased against him! [:D]

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Marshall

Well we can settle the air combat thing very quickly
If the combat calculations model can be revealed, we can discuss it in detail and with open visor based on actual factual algoryrhms that are used in the game.
Of course we need to consider all the side values the calculation takes into affect as well.
So i will be happy to state my ignorance and wrong saying after we have the model on the table and discussed it in depth.

Perhaps a dev can help us out here by giving is the model only, no need for the code, just the model.
That would be a great thing, and a great learning experience

So is this possible? 🙈

ORIGINAL: obvert
You're asking in the wrong place. No one on the forum owns the game code. You need to contact the developers or possibly Matrix Games.

You also could benefit from supplying any evidence to support your claims. Combat reports, tests, whatever. most players here do the work themselves rather than asking for the code, or the air model. One of the developers of the air model has appeared in this thread, The Elf. So give him a PM if you're serious and want to discover more through some tests or something. He might point you in the right direction at least.

One suggestion I could give you would be to try tests in 42 and another set in 45 of a grand campaign with the same airframes, same settings and conditions, same pilot skills, same situation in game and the same group leaders. That might show you whether your conjecture actually has some merit. Without evidence you're just pissing in the wind ...

The Elf established the original air combat algorithms, but he doesn't have the code. Michael worked closely with him back in the day, so the current code is probably pretty close to his ideas. I recall one of the problems with all the combat algorithms was the game was too abstract to include all the variables for a great simulation. Air combat simulators can be much more accurate because they include many, many more performance details than AE can. We were limited by computer memory, any data on aircraft has to be stored for every plane in the database, same things for land combat and ship combat. Say it requires another 10000 bytes per aircraft to make a really good combat sim. Not much for a modern computer, but multiply that by all the aircraft slots and you are taking up a pretty good sized chunk of memory. When that data is included, then someone has to go through the effort to characterize every single aircraft, which is a lot of work.

Now do the same for every LCU and every ship class. Not only are you eating up a lot of RAM many users don't have and possibly hitting the memory limits for 32 bit Windows, somebody has to dig up and enter in all that data.

The algorithm we have is imperfect, but it's better than the original WitP which is what we were aiming for.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: Miller

In real life the IJN failed to sink a single US CV after 1942. However you can read multiple AARs as well as games I have been involved in myself where the Jap player has sunk dozens of CVs after 1943 when this mythical Allied air advantage kicks in.

The Japanese did sink a CVL in 1944 as well as some CVEs. The IJN lost 2/3 of the KB in one day in June 1942 and lost most of their talented air crews in the Solomons campaign. If the KB had stayed intact and those air crews hadn't have been wasted, the IJN might have been a bit more competitive after 1942. Especially in 1943 when the USN had few operational carriers for most of the year.

Bill

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: Marshall

Well we can settle the air combat thing very quickly
If the combat calculations model can be revealed, we can discuss it in detail and with open visor based on actual factual algoryrhms that are used in the game.
Of course we need to consider all the side values the calculation takes into affect as well.
So i will be happy to state my ignorance and wrong saying after we have the model on the table and discussed it in depth.

Perhaps a dev can help us out here by giving is the model only, no need for the code, just the model.
That would be a great thing, and a great learning experience

So is this possible? 🙈

ORIGINAL: obvert
You're asking in the wrong place. No one on the forum owns the game code. You need to contact the developers or possibly Matrix Games.

You also could benefit from supplying any evidence to support your claims. Combat reports, tests, whatever. most players here do the work themselves rather than asking for the code, or the air model. One of the developers of the air model has appeared in this thread, The Elf. So give him a PM if you're serious and want to discover more through some tests or something. He might point you in the right direction at least.

One suggestion I could give you would be to try tests in 42 and another set in 45 of a grand campaign with the same airframes, same settings and conditions, same pilot skills, same situation in game and the same group leaders. That might show you whether your conjecture actually has some merit. Without evidence you're just pissing in the wind ...

The Elf established the original air combat algorithms, but he doesn't have the code. Michael worked closely with him back in the day, so the current code is probably pretty close to his ideas. I recall one of the problems with all the combat algorithms was the game was too abstract to include all the variables for a great simulation. Air combat simulators can be much more accurate because they include many, many more performance details than AE can. We were limited by computer memory, any data on aircraft has to be stored for every plane in the database, same things for land combat and ship combat. Say it requires another 10000 bytes per aircraft to make a really good combat sim. Not much for a modern computer, but multiply that by all the aircraft slots and you are taking up a pretty good sized chunk of memory. When that data is included, then someone has to go through the effort to characterize every single aircraft, which is a lot of work.

Now do the same for every LCU and every ship class. Not only are you eating up a lot of RAM many users don't have and possibly hitting the memory limits for 32 bit Windows, somebody has to dig up and enter in all that data.

The algorithm we have is imperfect, but it's better than the original WitP which is what we were aiming for.

Bill

Bill, if I may add: and it is certainly not programmed to be biased toward either side.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: witpqs
Bill, if I may add: and it is certainly not programmed to be biased toward either side.

Agreed. It is coded to try and be as accurate as possible. Unless the Allied player gives up, the players are playing a version that gives Japan an unrealistic edge, and/or the Japanese player is much better than the Allied player, the Allies will win. The victory points are set up to give the Japanese a chance to win on points. Winning outright is not possible.

Specifically in aircraft, there was a reason the F6F had an 18:1 victory to loss ratio. The quality of the pilots after mid-1943 was a factor, but so was the aircraft thrown out there against the Hellcat. While the Japanese did bring new aircraft to the fight in the last year or so of the war, they could not build them in large enough numbers and their engines had terrible reliability problems. As a result the Oscar and Zero stayed in the fight until the end. Even with experienced pilots, the Allies had learned how to fight the maneuverable Japanese aircraft and it was essentially the most modern generation of Allied fighters up against contemporaries of the Wildcat and Buffalo.

Suburo Sakai was very critical of late war USN fighter pilots he encountered. However it's also notable that while he was able to get away from Hellcats, I believe he only claimed one Hellcat in several encounters with them.

Bill

[LoBaron]

What also needs to be pointed out is that Sakai himself was exceptionally lucky to survive to tell his story.

For sure, while an exceptional display of skill and willpower, being wounded over Guadalcanal let him avoid the fate of many of his squadron mates in the skies over sw pac. Many of those pilots he assesed to be similar to his skill or better died there - and this was before the massed arrival of US 3rd gen airframes.

And he only survived his heroical battle against 15 Hellcats because a stroke of luck and intuition let him reach the AA umbrella over the airfield. He was never in a position to disengage on his own against the superior Allied planes. This also reflects the huge advantage the Allied pilots had in their faster aircraft. Speed, much more than maneuverability, enables the pilot to take the Initiative in an engagement, and engage or disengage depending on the odds. Japanese pilots rarely had that choice, even less late war.

[mind_messing]

Despite the fact that Marshall is off the wall crazy in a way that I've not seen on here since Commander Stormwolf (the Mavis strategic bomber guy), he does hit close to the mark in regards to "victors write the history". The literature focusing on the Pacific War tends to be overwhelmingly written in the West, whereas Japanese sources are either outright revisionist or very difficult to access.

That said, the game does an excellent job of presenting as fair a canvas as possible to play on. The game has a good balance between history and playability. It would not be as popular as it is if it did not.

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Yup, somebody would creat a mod with Japanese P-47s.

It exists. It's called the Ki-94-II

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Yup, somebody would creat a mod with Japanese P-47s.

It exists. It's called the Ki-94-II

Except for that pesky SR3, and the climb, and that the 30mm has terrible accuracy relative to the 20mm and .50 Browning, and the range...

[Marshall]

I read his posts, big fan of commander stormwolf.😎
What happened to him?

[kjnoel]

I'm surprised Terminus hasn't popped up and shouted "Helmut" yet.....

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Marshall

I read his posts, big fan of commander stormwolf.😎
What happened to him?

He's now going by "Marshall."

[MBF]

ORIGINAL: obvert

He's now going by "Marshall."

+1 Sure seems like

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Encircled

Yup, somebody would creat a mod with Japanese P-47s.

It exists. It's called the Ki-94-II

Except for that pesky SR3, and the climb, and that the 30mm has terrible accuracy relative to the 20mm and .50 Browning, and the range...

Check out the German plane called "DO 335" this would be the answer. If Japan had gotten plans etc. early enough. But not even stupid Germans would build it fast enough cause crazed Hitler&Co. were still facinated with building bombers (like Me262 case too)....[;)]
Ah and as the DO has 2 pretty reliable engines (iirc) they wouldnt have bad service rates like jets etc. And not problem with specific fuel you need for jets

[obvert]

The Japanese had several good designs and some prototypes built, such as the J7W, for fighters that could intercept the B-29s over the HI and deal a bit better at least with the better Allied fighters. Trouble was they coldn't even get the mid-war models figured out and operating in numbers, and by the time the late war types were ready to produce, the factories were getting blown up and the war was nearly over.

We in game have it a bit easier as long as the B-29s don't get going too early. [;)]

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: obvert

The Japanese had several good designs and some prototypes built, such as the J7W, for fighters that could intercept the B-29s over the HI and deal a bit better at least with the better Allied fighters. Trouble was they coldn't even get the mid-war models figured out and operating in numbers, and by the time the late war types were ready to produce, the factories were getting blown up and the war was nearly over.

We in game have it a bit easier as long as the B-29s don't get going too early. [;)]

Tbh. the J7W (this is the "Shinden", right) does not look to me as it would operate reliable.... may be only a feeling. The Do335 however looks serious. [:)] But in the case of these planes its only speculation as they werent there in any number anyway and missing trained personnel / fuel in this late phase of the war.

[bomccarthy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

The Japanese had several good designs and some prototypes built, such as the J7W, for fighters that could intercept the B-29s over the HI and deal a bit better at least with the better Allied fighters. Trouble was they coldn't even get the mid-war models figured out and operating in numbers, and by the time the late war types were ready to produce, the factories were getting blown up and the war was nearly over.

We in game have it a bit easier as long as the B-29s don't get going too early. [;)]

The J7W was one of those fantasies-come-to-life that had the potential to kill more Japanese pilots than Americans. The first prototype was completed in April 1945, but it took another four months of fiddling before designer/test pilot Masaoki Tsuruno was able to taxi the plane from the hangar to the runway without overheating the engine - which was what happens when you bury a 2,100 hp air-cooled radial in the rear fuselage. On its three test flights, Masaoki discovered that the torque effect was so bad he couldn't use full takeoff power (he also encountered significant vibrations in the propeller shaft). Total flight time was 45 minutes, during which the landing gear was never retracted. Similar American designs, such as the XP-55 Ascender and the XP-56 Black Bullet revealed some significant stability issues in this type of tailless design -- they could be solved, but not without a lot of time and further research.