Night Bombing Problems

[2ndACR]

Just wondering if you guys are going to look into the problems with night bombing?

The accuracy is unreal, immune to CAP, immune to AAA, low ops loss, low fatigue. It really needs to be looked at very hard. Just put the entire allied air force on night port raids or airfield raids and watch the carnage. If you really want to test it, just pack as many AAA units, lots of supplies into a base with some ships, put about 80 Japanese fighters on night CAP and the results will be the same. Forget daylight raids, except for naval strikes, just go with night raids.

[Ron Saueracker]

Yeah, it's so bad that I find I can't even use it, except for Blenheim 1Fs, without feeling like a poof. Gamey as hell to use it too much.

[Bosun]

Right! No sense in being a gamey poof by whacking defenseless night blind Sons of Nippon.[:-]

[kaiser73]

Agreed. I never use it when playing allies cause it's too easy to bring destruction without losses, regardless of air superiority.

[pauk]

I would say that night bombing are too effective for both sides. Playing Japan i have no problem at all with destroying allied power at rangoon and rest of burma with night bombing mission.

Secondly, look at the PzB AAR and see damage done to the ships in the port by his LBA (again night bombing).

Of course, this can be annyoing for allies, but later in the game it is devastating for japanese.

Making a 'house rule' - no night bombing - wont be satisfying for allied player, because allies poundering japanese industry with massive night attacks.

what to do?

[WhoCares]

You might be right about the accuracy of night raids and maybe op. losses, but with respect to disruption and fatigue, night raids were by far safer then day time attacks, as it was by far more difficult for AA and fighters to locate and attack bombers in the night.

[Halsey]

Any suggestions to house rule implementation?

1. Size of airfield for strike aircraft? Level 7+
2. Limiting strike size? Only one squadron (no groups) per qualifying airfield.
3. B-29's, one group strikes allowed per qualifying airfield.
4. Wait for it to be addressed by the Betas?

Any ideas?

[String]

allow only city attacks for night bombing... that's what it was mainly used for no?

[Halsey]

That's a very good suggestion.
That would allow area targets as legitimate.
Maybe only allow game designated night units to attack tactical targets.(airfields, ports, ground units)
Night naval attacks seem to be alright. As they happen infrequently.

Tactical night bombing operations were few and far between. Usually only carried out by special ops air units.

[Captain Cruft]

I second the motion (needs looking at in game engine).

In a recent PBEM turn I had 4 Hudsons destroy 5 planes on the ground and damage about 10 more on a night airfield attack. This was at 7,000 feet. Yeah right ...

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: String

allow only city attacks for night bombing... that's what it was mainly used for no?

I LIKE IT!

[Speedysteve]

I'm with some sort of restriction/change.

Night bombing does seem too accurate with tactical bombing (LCU, Airfield, Port.).

In my current PBEM with Hard_Sarge whenever he (Allies) attacks at night there is NOTHING I can do - CAP, AA do nothing. Damage is caused. Luckily he doesn't do it that often otherwise I would be pretty p****d. Worst raid was 30-40 B17's bombing Rabaul destroying 12 G4M's, couple of patrol planes and 6 Zero's. This was out of a total (at the time) of 75 planes! 4 nights of that and my entire force in the area would be wiped out.

End of the day it is feasible for the Allied player to continuously bomb at night and pound the Jap into submission. Ridiculous I know but it shouldn't even be possible.

Either night bombing should be restricted to certain targets (city), minelaying etc

OR

There should be tweaks to make AA (more so than CAP since Jap didn't have co-ordinated night defence) more effective/LBA take bigger fatigue hits to prevent continuous night bombing/PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY reduce accuracy - seems far to accurate at tactical missions. IN GENERAL BC would be lucky to get within a mile of their targets (A CITY!)

Just my thoughts.......

Regards,

Steven

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

I'm with some sort of restriction/change.

Night bombing does seem too accurate with tactical bombing (LCU, Airfield, Port.).

In my current PBEM with Hard_Sarge whenever he (Allies) attacks at night there is NOTHING I can do - CAP, AA do nothing. Damage is caused. Luckily he doesn't do it that often otherwise I would be pretty p****d. Worst raid was 30-40 B17's bombing Rabaul destroying 12 G4M's, couple of patrol planes and 6 Zero's. This was out of a total (at the time) of 75 planes! 4 nights of that and my entire force in the area would be wiped out.

End of the day it is feasible for the Allied player to continuously bomb at night and pound the Jap into submission. Ridiculous I know but it shouldn't even be possible.

Either night bombing should be restricted to certain targets (city), minelaying etc

OR

There should be tweaks to make AA (more so than CAP since Jap didn't have co-ordinated night defence) more effective/LBA take bigger fatigue hits to prevent continuous night bombing/PERHAPS MOST IMPORTANTLY reduce accuracy - seems far to accurate at tactical missions. IN GENERAL BC would be lucky to get within a mile of their targets (A CITY!)

Just my thoughts.......

Regards,

Steven

I'd pretend to have ISP problems until he agrees to a house rule. Anyone who does not see this as gamey is either of two things, a gamey player or a player with no conscience.[8D]

[pfnognoff]

ORIGINAL: WhoCares

You might be right about the accuracy of night raids and maybe op. losses, but with respect to disruption and fatigue, night raids were by far safer then day time attacks, as it was by far more difficult for AA and fighters to locate and attack bombers in the night.

I'm no expert, but shouldn't the attackers have the same dificulty targeting the airfield at night? It is safer but it must be less effective, by far! At the moment it looks to be better to attack the airfield by night, because you can catch more (if not all) on the ground, with what looks to be the same accuracy.

[siRkid]

Ok, we had a problem in UV with night bombing that we fixed. The change must not have came over. Night bombing is something I will look at for the next patch. My soluton is to make the fatigue and operational loses for groups conducting the mission much higher. Also, to improve night fighters with radar kill rate. If we can come up with a list of possible fixes, I'll post them in a poll and we can go from there.

[Nomad]

I beg to differ here Kid, it is NOT fixed in UV. [:(] Night bombing has the same kind of effects, super accurate, low fatigue hit, low ops losses, etc.

[denisonh]

I think night raids are too effective, but it is the size of the raids that needs to be looked at.

Small night raids were used quite a bit during the war (B-17s hit Rabaul at night fairly frequently), but "large scale" night missions were used for City bombing, not "point targets".

A possible way to address this is similiar to the CV coordination rule, penalizing large night strikes against airfields/ports. Night strikes were not by nature well coordinated.

Also similiar to skip bombing, requiring a higher experience to be effective as well.

[Halsey]

Thanks for looking into this Kid. It seems that a some gamers have switched to entirely night land attack missions to deal out good damage for little risk of return casualties.[8D]

[fbastos]

allow only city attacks for night bombing... that's what it was mainly used for no?

I think that the Germans used night bombing against the troop concentrations in Normandy. Looks like there were so many soldiers there that anywhere the bombs fell, they would cause damage.

Also, night bombing doesn't let troops sleep. I think that the Soviets used several biplanes on night bombing missions, just to wake up the Germans.

F.

[siRkid]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I beg to differ here Kid, it is NOT fixed in UV. [:(] Night bombing has the same kind of effects, super accurate, low fatigue hit, low ops losses, etc.

Thats odd because I tested it myself. Oh well, lets get it right this time.