My B17's seem to suffer extrordinary ops losses.

[Sredni]

I've just started using my level bombers in india, a BS and BG of b17's I evacuated from the PI, and the numerous Blenheim IV bomber squadrons and a BG of LB-30 Liberators I just shipped in from america (well... flew to Australia then shipped in), and of them all the b-17e's are suffering extrodinary ops losses.

The blenheims and liberators might suffer 1 or 2 damaged bombers per mission, but those get repaired from turn to turn and the bomb sqaudrons and liberator group stay at close to 100% operation. But the b-17 squadron and group both slowly turn by turn get more and more planes in the damaged catagory till there's hardly any flying at all.

I'm flying out of a size 9 field (dacca), I have 359 aviation support for the 250 required. I'm flying ground attack missions at 6000 feet against undefended troops 7 hexes away (mytikyna). None of my planes are taking flack damage either (which is kinda suprising against 90,000 troops, but meh), these are all ops damage.

So does anyone know why the B-17's are unable to maintain long term bombing for me while the blenheims and liberators are happily bombing each turn? Am I doing something wrong, or do B-17's just naturally require rest periods between bombing runs? Are B-17's harder to repair then other bombers?

Thanks for you're time [:)].

[Feinder]

I was going to say, "Check your AF size." B-17s hate anything smaller than a 6.

But if you say Dacca is a 9, with ample aviation support, I don't know why you're having so much trouble. My only other suggestion would be to put one of the RAF HQs there (not a RAF BF, but an RAF HQ). That should at least help.

-F-

[Ron Saueracker]

Divide the group...seems to alter the effectiveness of the ground crews.

[freeboy]

this might be a bug, mu b17 and b24 groups are really slow at rebuilding damaged planes at large bases with lots of supply and support

[SteveV]

Yep, mine too. Weeks to repair planes. Very different from any other types of bombers.

Glad I am not the only one.

SteveV

[Tophat]

I'm not seeing this at all so far and i've had 15 B-17's damaged at Clark,then repaired and flownoff within 8 days.
I'll see how this continues in India and Australia.

[dtravel]

The B-17s do seem to not repair as quickly as other four-engine bombers.

[Sredni]

hmm, I'll try splitting the bomber group up and see how it works. Have to wait a week or two for them to get fully operational and all the downed planes to be fixed.

Now that I think about it I noticed the same problem with the AVG, when I had it in one big group the ops losses mounted over time rendering the group more and more damaged as time went on while they were on CAP, but when I split the group into subgroups of 24 each they now maintain strength with ground crews repairing ops losses from turn to turn as they occur.

The odd thing is my other group in the area is the liberator group, and the ground crews seem able to keep up with it's ops losses. Tho it isn't full strength yet with some still being assembled from shipping, but it is up to over 30 liberators now and climbing. The b-17 group I start bombing with at around 20 of 48 planes operational, then it slowly falls over a 4 or 5 days to 10 or less when I stand it down to rebuild. Done that several times now with the same result. The b-17 squadron I've let repair to full strength (12 I believe), then over a few days bombing it will fall to half strength or so when I stand it down to repair.

And I can't split a squadron of 12 can I [;)]. If I have to baby sit it from turn to turn I'll probably end up leaving it to do bombing runs with 2 planes every couple turns on it's own.

I'm planning to move a b-17 group to OZ to help port moesby soon, I'll have to see if it's effected the same way.

Oh and someone mentioned air HQ's. India seems to have an abundance of air HQ's, and I rescued one of singapores air hq's as well so I've always had them. Currently I have a range 3 Air HQ in calcutta covering diamond harbour, calcutta, dacca, and chandpur.