Help - High Altitude Sweeps

[BBfanboy]

The game tries to model the historic air battles where the US aircraft were heavier and higher-powered so they flew high, dived on the enemy aircraft and used the built-up speed to get away or climb quickly back up. Trying to dogfight with a Zero at low level was a losing proposition so they just didn't stick around to do it. Boom and Zoom.

But lighter aircraft with bigger wing surfaces like the Spits and Hurris were built for dogfighting. USN fighters went more with the rugged construction and heavy punch idea since escorting bombers meant letting the enemy fighters start the attack first. After the bomber load on carriers was reduced in favor of more fighters, the USN fighters also preferred the Boom and Zoom tactics.

[Alpha77]

Btw. I just read some reports (story) of 77th Sentai (IJA). At one point the army yielded to the navy to send more forces south. The army was not fond of this theater at all. Noted was that the airfields like Wewak etc. were quite terrible. The runway was bad, no real protection for planes (revetments named ?), AA guns were rare and not the best, also AEW was not good, meaning warning times were bad. This was one of the main reasons the airfoces from both navy and army were crushed on the fields (!).

However if enough planes got in the air, in this case 77th was flying Oscar IIb and met even superior planes like P47s (which were still not so numerous) the rates were not 4:1 or higher for the Americans but often enough only 2:1 or better!! Note this was late 43 early 44 I believe and some units like 77th had some luck before with lower losses, so also their pilots were still good.

It is suspected that the flying circus technics of the Japanese still worked to a decree in this timeframe - meaning in dogfights Oscars would trump P47 or P38. This went away with more exp and more planes on the Allied side plus ofc huge losses on the IJ side (and lack of fuel, spare parts, technicians at forward bases)

In reality if the pilots are good and aware to spot diving planes (like the higher flying P38/47) they had good changes to evade and fight back. Not like in the game dive + boom (not always but too often!).

I play 1 PBM still and we deleted the sweep rules a while ago. I noted the Allies fly sweep in 95% of cases at max alt (39 for P38 and 41 of P47) also the distance is often quite high. I DO NOT think the game does give enough penalty for long distance VH alt flights.

Even if no enemy is encountered this should be more dangerous (= be more ops, I noted perhaps 1 P38 as ops in 3 turns of these flights with perhaps 111-120 planes flying 2 turns in a row). On my side I noted a bit simmilar things with the George (1st model with 40k alt), I had not many ops at all for such flights.

However it seems ops losses for Japanese are generally higher for some reason even IF flying normal range and always using rest%. I mean eg. search and LR cap missions, not sweeps even if these missions are flown at lower alt. In theory sweeps so high should be more dangerous to accidents, fatigue etc.

A bit OT, but I lost pilot and plane to short transfer from Rabaul to Manus. Good weather, good fields. I also lost 2 high exp losses to crash lands in India recently they were flying normal alt LR cap. It says it is monsun, but the bases in question were not bad weather it said (? also the bases have 8+5 fields and not damaged so why do they crash). Allies seem not to lose these planes if he flies in the same weather/theater. I btw. tend to my pilots and do not send high fat out, but seems it is useless to care if they crash themselves without fights - also I play Allies too and less exp pilots can do longer range transfers without killing themselves[:-] (rant off)

[geofflambert]

This high level sweep stuff is an artifact of players and not of the game. I have no idea what you're doing way up there. You can't even see the fighters down below to go after them. You're doing it because the fighters below know you're up there because they have radar telling them so. So you're coming in at 40k. The guys below know you're not coming to bomb anything. Why would they come up? The base defender shouldn't be playing your game but make you play theirs. Keep your defending fighters low, real low. Make them come down where your maneuver advantage comes in to play. If the damage bombing raids can do is limited, don't bother with CAP at all. If you can't afford attrition don't just hand it to the other guy. The high altitude sweeps make sense in conjunction with same day bombing raids or when such raids are or should be imminent. The defender should stay low anyway and come up to meet the bombers too. And don't run your CAP at such a high percentage, just enough to cost the bombers. You put up 100% you're laying it all out there for the sweepers. Stop it.

[ITAKLinus]

I think strato-sweeps are not that terrible if the Japanese player has enoguh sang froid to keep its CAPs at low altitude and fight only whenever necessary.

Broadly speaking, I found that the idea of "send them always at the maximum altitude" is not such an easy win for the allies. Now that I am on the allied side, I can and routinely do max-alt sweeps, but the great bulk of my sweeps come at lower altitude.

IIRC, Alfred confirmed somewhere that pilotes fighting at 75% (or 80%, I found two different references to the percentage) of their planes' ceiling incurr in additional fatigue. Just to make an example.
Moreover, I routinely have better results in going in at mid-altitudes even with late-war fighters. My understanding is that the first waves of sweepers arrive first and accomplish the following: A) degrade the CAP; B) make the CAP fly higher and higher; C) do some kills.
There are planes suited to do this.

Then the big boys with P47s come in from stratosphere and do a good damage to the enemy.

Most important element is to avoid sweeping UNDER the CAP.


Sadly, we play with the "2nd Best MVR HR" (game started ages ago and my opponent of the time was adamantine in willing this HR). It wouldn't make much of a difference playing without it in any case.


It's not a big micro-management hell. Not at all. At certain point you know perfectly who can go at which altitude. Moreover, most of the fighters are either 31k ft maximum or 20k ft maximum, with the latter being prevalent in the first 6 months of the game. There are few families which are fairly tight: P39s go generally at 15k ft maximum, P47s go whenever you want and so on.
P40s have few differences among them and so do many English planes such as the Hurricanes, but it's not a big deal.


EDIT: I refer to Scen01, stock game, PDU=on

[Q-Ball]

Good feedback...playing Japan, I've found the N1K1 to be far superior as a sweeper to the Ki-84a. In fact, against a good CAP setup the Frank shouldn't be sweeping from what I can tell. The J2M is even worse. I have the Ki-100 in 1943, and it does better than the Frank set to high-altitude.

That's just my 2 yen, I'm sure experience differs with versions and HR

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Good feedback...playing Japan, I've found the N1K1 to be far superior as a sweeper to the Ki-84a. In fact, against a good CAP setup the Frank shouldn't be sweeping from what I can tell. The J2M is even worse. I have the Ki-100 in 1943, and it does better than the Frank set to high-altitude.

That's just my 2 yen, I'm sure experience differs with versions and HR

Yeah, I edited my last post: Scen01, stock, PDU=on.



Sweeps with Franks can be nasty if you are caught with a wrong CAP setup. Same goes with Oscar-IVs, as funny as it might look like (and it shouldn't).

Generally, I got the nastiest sweeps by Oscar-IVs on poor CAP setups, go figure. I suppose it's due to the fact that the Oscars go in, dive on my poorly placed CAP and then avoid the dive, working roughly the same as the Spitfire VIIIs, by far the best sweepers at hand in early '44.

I've never played the Tony line because I don't believe in it, though. I just know that by early '44 I see that a CAP with Oscar-IV + Frank-R + George-3 (final model) is by far the best defensive setup available against strato-sweeps and sweeps in general.
Tojos and Jacks are hampered by the fact they are very good climbers and, in the case of Tojos, they do have a very poor armament. You need those 20mm cannons if you want to down late-war allied fighters in good numbers.


To be honest, even with the "2nd Best MVR Band HR", sweeps are quite variegated until now (april 1944). Sometimes, I take it in the chin. Some other times, the Japanese suffer horrendous losses.
Last turn my opponent swept with Oscars and Nicks. Shredded them with a CAP of Corsair/Hellcat/P47/HurricaneIIa. Few turns before, he swept with Oscars and tore my cap apart. Same goes with Franks.
When you run low-altitude CAPs, how you mix it and the quality of your pilots is very relevant. I think it's a game in the game and it makes the entire stratosweep problem a "non-problem".




I've obtained decent results even with very outdated P40s against Frank-Rs piloted by experten brutally diving on them. Well, maybe "good" is a big word... Let's say someone survived and I inflicted way more casualties than expected [:D][:D][:D][:D]