Wildcat Woes

[Desertmole]

What a turn! I just had a slugfest with the Japanese (AI) in which I destroyed a carrier (Soryu) and gave a good whupping to two others (Shokaku and Hiryu). I had a huge alfa strike (57 F4Fs, 112 SBDs, 30 TBFs and 45 TBDs) hit a group defended by only 11 Zeros. My F4F pilots were experienced (75+) and had reasonably low fatigue (circa 20). The Japanese had been in conbat constantly for 5 days. In spite of all this, I lost 17 F4Fs, 6 SBDs, and 4 TBDs! One Japanese pilot scored 7 kills! WTF?[X(] The Japanese AI is in pretty bad shape, having lost over 100 APs and 25 other vessels, but has more points due to bases. Is this a case of "fudging" on the part of the AI to redress the situation? The F4F pilot losses reads like a who's who from "The First Team at Guadalcanal."[:(]
I would expect these kind of losses if we were flying Buffalos (or maybe Piper Cubs) but the Wildcat was a better plane than that![:-]

[Grunt]

Are you taking casualtiy figures from the Combat Report or did you actually go back into your squadrons and figure it out for yourself? Because I find the Combat Report will overstate my own losses to me.

Russ

[Denniss]

It's known the F4F does loose too much planes against the Zero in UV - maybe the dogfight value is one point too low

[Desertmole]

I went back to the squadron lists. Most of my carrier based squadrons are looking a bit aenemic. Last night, however, things seem to have turned around a bit. My Marine squadrons are more than holding their own, with a seeming rate of about 2-1 in killed to lost against Zeroes. Right now I think I am facing not only the land-based Zeroes, but several carrier squadrons grounded at Rabaul, since I am seeing escorts of 100+ Zeroes on bombing missions (which look ridiculous, when they are escorting 3 Bettys). I think things will even out over time, but right now all my fighter squadrons are looking a bit thin.[;)]

[crsutton]

What difficulty level are you playing on? At higher levels the AI will have a great advantage in air to air.

That said, the wildcat is at a distinct disadvantage in UV. This is perhaps historically incorrect but you will have to deal with it. You will make up for it later when you get your corsairs, which just can not be shot down.

Against a human player, you must be on guard against massive fighter sweeps. This seems to throw the wildcat inbalance completely out of whack and the casualties are really disproportinate. If you face a massive sweep of zeros with a like number of wildcats and P40s (forget about aircobras) the kill ratio can be a bad as 3 or 4 to one. You might lose 100 to 150 planes! Smaller battles seem to work OK with very few losses for each side.

By the way. Play a human. You will learn a whole lot more[8D]

[Blitzer]

crsutton is right as usual on several counts.

First of all the AI enjoys a healthy tactical advantage on high levels of difficulty. Not my favorite solution, but it compensates in part for its deficiency in strategic planning.

Second, massive Japanese fighter sweeps do tend to kill a great many Allied aircraft. This is not necessarily unrealistic, since the Empire did not employ this approach as much as they might have, except in Yamamoto's wide-ranging and massive raids over the entire area. These were a disappointment due largely to the pilots' low experience on the one hand and the useless dissipation of force on the other. Raids over Moresby and the lower Solomons typically involved only a handful of M2s/M3s and were terribly outclassed by superior enemy deployments and experience.

Finally, you really should take on a human opponent. The AI encourages bad habits and often leads to results not concordant with history.