Sustained bombing?

[Chiteng]

Example:

Say Port Moresby is maxxed out 9 airfield 9 port with plenty
of supply and support and baseforces.

You put all your medium bombers there (seems a sensible move)
and you target say Buna.

Now the Range to target is minimal. You have all the supply you will ever need. You have the airforce HQ IN Port Moresby.
You suffer few if any losses as you pound Buna.

BUT after two to three days you cant fly reasonably well any longer. Your fatigue is high and your morale is dropping.
If you keep doing it for say a week to support an invasion,
you will need to evac to Australia to recover.

This directly contradicts the evidence of BOTH Bomber Command and the Eighth airforce. They didnt need to periodicly evac to Scotland to rest. They just kept bombing. Excpet for the break in the Autumn of 1943 I dont recall 8th being grounded for anything except bad weather.

However in UV it is common to ground things to recover lost morale. What exactly is going on?

[Mr.Frag]

I beg to differ ...

The actual documentation quite clearly states that the poor basing coupled with malaria coupled with logistics problems coupled with poor food coupled with no rest resulted in extreme fatigue and morale problems with the air crews.

Any crew forced to fly every day is going to go down the tubes in a few days, even against a target that has no defense.

Do not compare aircrews sitting around at a nice comfie base having tea and crumpets to aircrews in the pacific theater who were lucky to get cooked food now and then.

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
I beg to differ ...

The actual documentation quite clearly states that the poor basing coupled with malaria coupled with logistics problems coupled with poor food coupled with no rest resulted in extreme fatigue and morale problems with the air crews.

Any crew forced to fly every day is going to go down the tubes in a few days, even against a target that has no defense.

Do not compare aircrews sitting around at a nice comfie base having tea and crumpets to aircrews in the pacific theater who were lucky to get cooked food now and then.

Hmm like I stated there is an abundance of supply at PM.
Tea and Crumpets notwithstanding. There is no logistical problem
and they have ample support. No shortage of housing, or planes.
Malaria may indeed exist. But the same thing happens when you bomb Cairn from Townsville.
There is no Malaria there.

So where is the difference again? Only in the game engine.

[mogami]

Hi, You don't send 100 percent every day. Bomber command did not fly 100 percent per day. You keep a few units back to replace tired ones. If a group gets too beat up you return it to Austraila and replace it with a new group from there. This is really a simple idea. If you try to fly every group every day you are not operating in the same manner as the historic units.

Quit inventing problems and saying it is the game. This is common sense doctrine.

[Mr.Frag]

Chiteng,

You got a site I can bomb your with 986 MB worth of WW II USAF war records in PDF form?

It includes every single mission flown from Dec 7, 1941 until Sep 15, 1945.

I'd pump them up somewhere, but obviously, they are rather large.

Some of your postings are quite well detailed, but when it comes to the AF, you are "off in the wild blue yonder"

The realities of the Pacific Theater: More soldiers were "too sick to fight" then "killed in the line of duty".

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, You don't send 100 percent every day. Bomber command did not fly 100 percent per day. You keep a few units back to replace tired ones. If a group gets too beat up you return it to Austraila and replace it with a new group from there. This is really a simple idea. If you try to fly every group every day you are not operating in the same manner as the historic units.

Quit inventing problems and saying it is the game. This is common sense doctrine.

What problem do you think I am inventing?
'IF' the game model cant explain why bombing from Townsville
to Cairn somehow causes more fatigue than bombing from
Lympne to Calais, I have to ask WHY.

And this is the appropriate forum to ask that question.

[mogami]

Originally posted by Chiteng
What problem do you think I am inventing?
'IF' the game model cant explain why bombing from Townsville
to Cairn somehow causes more fatigue than bombing from
Lympne to Calais, I have to ask WHY.

And this is the appropriate forum to ask that question.

Hi, Who flew from Lympne to Calais everyday for a week?
Show me 1 bomber group in Europe where the same pilots flew missions every day for a week. (At that rate bomber crews would need replacing every month even without loss)
Bomber command flew mostly unopposed night missions. But they still did not fly the same groups days on end.
Your inventing a problem by trying to maintain unrealistic operations. The game prevents this by fatigue and morale. (It makes you behave normaly.) If I want to bomb Buna everyday I send enough bombers from different groups every day. (once you damage the airfield/port you don't need as many bombers per day to keep it damaged) This is simple logic for me. Where does it lose you?

[AmiralLaurent]

You can try another Grisby's games "12 O'Clock High" that is about ETO and MTO warfare.
You will see that if you send all Bomber Command or 8th AF several days in a row, fatigue will rise and morale and accuracy drop as in UV.

In both games, if you rest one day, raid one day (either your whole force or raid with 50% everyday), morale will stay good (if losses are low).

Historically, most bomber squadrons fly only 10-15 times a month, even when supplies were plenty. If you bomb Cairns from Townsville, in UV, most medium bombers units will fly two times a day. That is possible only for a short period.

[crsutton]

Mr. Frag is right here. You can not expect to send crews up every day. It was not done historically except in critical situations or for very short periods. Crews were rested between missions. To send a crew up on a daily basis will do them in very quickly. Generally an air crew was sent home after 30 to 40 missions. You don't hear of crews getting sent home after 40 days in the theater. It took months or ever a year or more to complete a tour. That's because they were not flying every day.

Food and comfort were only part of the equation. Combat missions were extremely draining-especially the brief moments of extreme danger when in actual contact with the enemy. The adrenalin rush during combat was extreme and many times a pilot would be physically drained and exhausted after a brief period of combat. To put a human being in that position for three or four days in a row might cause a total system failure and combat shock. This is why air crews were rested for a few days after a mission-if possible.

Listen to Mogami. Send half your planes on one day then give them a day off. You will do fine and still close down the airbase soon enough.

[Chiteng]

Originally posted by AmiralLaurent
You can try another Grisby's games "12 O'Clock High" that is about ETO and MTO warfare.
You will see that if you send all Bomber Command or 8th AF several days in a row, fatigue will rise and morale and accuracy drop as in UV.

In both games, if you rest one day, raid one day (either your whole force or raid with 50% everyday), morale will stay good (if losses are low).

Historically, most bomber squadrons fly only 10-15 times a month, even when supplies were plenty. If you bomb Cairns from Townsville, in UV, most medium bombers units will fly two times a day. That is possible only for a short period.

I wish I could, in BOTR my B-26 are routinely shattered by
flak. Doesnt matter what route they take. It makes certain they wont be used again for a week. If intercepted, its even worse.

[BillBrown]

The thing I would like is some way to set up bombing like this without haveing to go in every turn and choose which squadrons to fly. I think there should be some way to set bomber squadrons to a level of effort or something. For this case, normal operations might have about 60 - 70 of the aircraft and crews flying each day. The one thing I dislike is going through all of the squadrons every day and making decisions about which fly and which don't. I am supposed to be a theator commander, not every squadron commander.

[Drex]

i'm sorry Bill but I think alot of the players like control of their bomber and fighter groups and will fight to the death to keep it.

[BillBrown]

I didn't really rule out complete control. If you want you can have them all set for max effort. That would correspond to how uv treats the air units now. I just think a setting for say rest, minimum effort, normat, and max effort would be nice. There are many times thoughout the game where you want to have continual bombing runs but not at max effort every day.

[Odin]

I normally use my B17 against Rabaul all together, and gave them up to 3 days holidays if the attack was sucessful enough....otherwise they have to fly the following day:D

What isnt that impressive is the bomb damage...ok in one raid i scored 40 port hits, but only 3 Supply hits....is it that hard to hit the supply dumps

[Mike_B20]

Odin, apparently each supply hit equals 10% of whatever was there, so your measly 3 Port supply hits wiped out 30% of the supplies.
Not too shabby really.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Originally posted by Mike_B20
Odin, apparently each supply hit equals 10% of whatever was there, so your measly 3 Port supply hits wiped out 30% of the supplies.
Not too shabby really.

It's not 30% (but close approximation)...

Each damage point to port/airbase/supply is 10% of value but prevous damage is already calculated in this...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Mike_B20]

Ok, 27.2%

[ctid98]

Originally posted by Mogami
Bomber command flew mostly unopposed night missions.

I wouldn't say this is entirely true. A Lancaster Bomber had an average life expectancy of only 7 missions, hardly unopposed.

Also, getting back to the main thread, the 8th AF expected an attrition rate of 2% per mission, doesn't sound that bad, except this means that if you flew everday none stop that in 50 days nobodies left !!! If you expect the same attrition rate for the South Pacific and then add in supply shortages etc you can see why you don't have planes flying long after 2 or 3 days.

[mogami]

Originally posted by ctid98
I wouldn't say this is entirely true. A Lancaster Bomber had an average life expectancy of only 7 missions, hardly unopposed.

Also, getting back to the main thread, the 8th AF expected an attrition rate of 2% per mission, doesn't sound that bad, except this means that if you flew everday none stop that in 50 days nobodies left !!! If you expect the same attrition rate for the South Pacific and then add in supply shortages etc you can see why you don't have planes flying long after 2 or 3 days.

Ssshhhhhh Don't mention the Lancaster bomber.....
Really Bomber command suffered 2 percent loss for the war. The hardest hit mission being the dam buster mission that suffered 49 percent loss. I know of at least 3 Lancasters that flew over 90 missions. (But if they had not given them all those "special" missions the loss rate would have been lower.)

[Mr.Frag]

The "Memphis Belle," a Boeing B-17, has been retired from active service in the European theater after 25 successful bombing missions. With its distinguished crew, which has remained intact since its formation 10 months ago, the ship has been returned to the United States for another-and no less important-mission.

I think this quote pretty much covers it. 25 missions in 300 days!

It was pretty rare to have a plane survive 25 missions let alone the aircrew of ten and the 8th AF certainly had all the comforts of home.