Night Bombing Problems

[Matto]

Hi all,
so I have v1.30 just installed and tested night bombing missions. All problems are still in game ... great results of airfield/port/ground bombing, attacking group is without ANY fatique (in fact, my testing group had after three night attacks equal fatique to resting one).
So solution is some rule like "alow attacking cities only"
Matto

[Feinder]

Programically (thru patch) you could maybe
a. require a substantial exp rating (like in skip bombing), or bombs end up hitting orchards 80 miles away.
(* oh gawd, wife cat just farted, it's horrible, and I swear it wasn't me *)
b. have a "night" exp rating for aircraft, just like there is for ships.

[Bradley7735]

Assuming all other factors are the same (CAP, weather, exp, etc etc) bombing during the day should give at least 4 to 5 times better results than bombing at night. Even city attacks. (please correct me if any of you think I'm wrong)

I would hope that night bombing attacks are (or will be) represented as such. Bombing at night means you don't get shot down by cap or AA as often, but it also means you have a very hard time hitting the side of a barn. a dozen planes would be relatively lucky to get one or two airfield hits.

I think Kid said he'd look at night bombing accuracy, or something like that. I sure hope he does. Watching the WITP-Dude vs Zeta AAR sometimes reminds me of fingernails on the chalkboard. a dozen planes destroying 4 to 10 planes and numerous hits on the airfield is just rediculous. (maybe if the landing lights were up on the field)

[siRkid]

My suggestion is to make the fatigue hit fairly healthy when you change from day to night and/or back again, but only make it last for 3 days. Then return to normal. There should still be elements of difficulty in target location (night discipline, etc), but otherwise the rest shouldn't be THAT high.

I might be willing to push for this but will the players be abel to accept the posibility of driving up the fatigue because the unit was switch back and forth a few times during the same turn.

I want to keep the programming to a min.

[pasternakski]

Milo Minderbinder got good results in his night attack.

What's wrong with just introducing an accuracy modifier to reduce the effectiveness? All this other stuff seems to me to mess with mechanics that leak over into other aspects of the game.

[Black Cat]

-Please- stop mucking about with the coding for minor issues raised by a few PBEM`ers, that issue can easly be covered in House Rules since the AI does not abuse it in AI VS Human games, or if you must Pasternakski`s idea is best.

[pasternakski]

Careful - mucking about seems to have become the #1 creative activity around here ... and they take pride in it, too ...

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Black Cat

-Please- stop mucking about with the coding for minor issues raised by a few PBEM`ers, that issue can easly be covered in House Rules since the AI does not abuse it in AI VS Human games, or if you must Pasternakski`s idea is best.

I agree.

If the night bombing is too accurate, then adjust that parameter and only that parameter. There's no reason to, nor much logic behind IMO, messing with fatigue or other indirect factors instead. Low fatigue seems appropriate to me and more importantly it's consistent with how I've learned to play UV & WitP. When I set a unit to night bombing, I'm trading accuracy for safety, higher morale & lower fatigue. Just as I do when I set a unit to bomb from high altitudes.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Programically (thru patch) you could maybe
a. require a substantial exp rating (like in skip bombing), or bombs end up hitting orchards 80 miles away.
(* oh gawd, wife cat just farted, it's horrible, and I swear it wasn't me *)
b. have a "night" exp rating for aircraft, just like there is for ships.

Feinder, as a programmer I don't think there is any way 2by3 can patch the game to make your wife's cat fart. And even if they could, the game doesn't model bio-gas warfare anyways.

(Don't bother *twap*ing me, I'll have laughed myself to death by the time you've read this anyways. )

[pfnognoff]

ORIGINAL: Kid

My suggestion is to make the fatigue hit fairly healthy when you change from day to night and/or back again, but only make it last for 3 days. Then return to normal. There should still be elements of difficulty in target location (night discipline, etc), but otherwise the rest shouldn't be THAT high.

I might be willing to push for this but will the players be abel to accept the posibility of driving up the fatigue because the unit was switch back and forth a few times during the same turn.

I want to keep the programming to a min.

It's an excellent idea, but if you implement that every click on "Change to Night Ops/Change to Day Ops" would drive up the fatigue, that could lead to frustration, if you click there by mistake or your mouse click gets propagated from a previous screen.

All that needs to be done is first to be sure somebody knows what was the original design decision behind Night flying fatigue levels and operational losses, so they can be compared to current in game statistics, and second apply a greater to hit modifier for precision bombing at night, mentrioned allready here by few people.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Kid

My suggestion is to make the fatigue hit fairly healthy when you change from day to night and/or back again, but only make it last for 3 days. Then return to normal. There should still be elements of difficulty in target location (night discipline, etc), but otherwise the rest shouldn't be THAT high.

I might be willing to push for this but will the players be abel to accept the posibility of driving up the fatigue because the unit was switch back and forth a few times during the same turn.

I want to keep the programming to a min.

I like this. [:)]

But I like this even more: [;)]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

require a substantial exp rating (like in skip bombing), or bombs end up hitting orchards 80 miles away.

"Kid" what do you think of this?


IMHO it is very historic because in WWII in Europe the bombers were only able to hit big targets (i.e. cities) at night and that was only if pathfinders managed to properly mark the target for "regular" fliers. Same thing should be in PTO. Except for huge radis on cities precision night bombing should be pure sicence fiction in WWII for 99.99% of pilots...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Top Cat]

I kinda of agree with the city bombing only thought.

In Europe the Brits discovered that most of their bombs didn't get within 5 miles of their target during night raids until the advent of more sophisticated radio guiding techniques (the codename "oboe" rings a bell). Even then they were attacking large areas.

Did the Allies deploy this kind of technology in the Pacific and if so when?

Cheers
Top Cat

[Ron Saueracker]

As far as night missions go, I'm OK with Naval Attack as it is experience driven, and am OK with City Attack if the experience level is 80%+. Absolutely no Night Ground Attack missions and airbase and ports can only be attacked by dedicated Night Ops units.

Additionally, as the Allied player, I don't use American bombers at night...they are the daylight bombing doctrine guys. Chinese no way. UK, Commonwealth, and Dutch can, but only if they satisfy the above criteria.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

As far as night missions go, I'm OK with Naval Attack as it is experience driven, and am OK with City Attack if the experience level is 80%+. Absolutely no Night Ground Attack missions and airbase and ports can only be attacked by dedicated Night Ops units.

Additionally, as the Allied player, I don't use American bombers at night...they are the daylight bombing doctrine guys. Chinese no way. UK, Commonwealth, and Dutch can, but only if they satisfy the above criteria.

I sincerely hope that "Kid" and Matrix/2By3 people will think about our suggestions...


Leo "Apollo11"

[AmiralLaurent]

Actually tactical night raids were used by all sides on a regular basis during WWII. The Bomber Command and XXth Air Force strategic campains should not hide the fact that many raids target airfields and ports. And some were very efficient, like shown by the heavy losses suffered by Axis ships in Med during night strikes in 41-42.

Right now, Uv and WITP have nevertheless big simulations problems to deal with it. Day and night raids are almost as big and night raids suffer from far less AA fire and suffered almost no loss to nightfighters.

AA fire should be reduced at night but bombing precision should be too. From all my numerous readings about WWII in the last 10 years, it seems to me that night bombing was done far lower than day bombing and suffered at least as much losses from AA, as crews had to fly closer to the ground (and guns) to try to hit something.

So the AA reduction currently in the games should be lessened and the night precision lessened a lot. Op losses should also be higher than what they are.

I also think that huge raids saturate AA defenses in UV & WITP. At least in UV, a 20 B-17 raid against Rabaul will have 10-15 hit by AA, while a 100 B-17 raid (same alt) will only have 3-5... Seems rather stange to me. Anyway, this should certainly not happen at night, where bombers will attack by small groups or even alone.

[rtrapasso]

Are the Japanese able to conduct low-loss night bombing later in the war against US AA units? Has anyone got this far in the game and or tried it in later-war scenarios? If so, this is historically inaccurate. By late 1944, the SCR-584 radar with the Mark 8 director unit (combined with proximity fuse technology) was able to shoot down any (non-jet, and some jets) aircraft that came into its effective range. Essentially any aircraft that blundered into this zone was doomed (unless it either had started radical evasive maneuvers before it got into the zone, or maybe they could saturate the defenses at high cost). This radar was so good, it is still around today (although I don't think commercial airports still hook it up to the AA guns and Mark 8 director).

[pertsajakilu]

ORIGINAL: Howard Mitchell


I'm not sure that the fatigue should be much higher - the tempo of RAF Bomber Command's night operations matched that of the 8th Air Force's daylight raids for example. Night attacks should be much less co-ordinated, but surely the main effect should be a great reduction in bombing accuracy. Again quoting the example of the European theatre, Bomber Command switched to area bombing because it was incapable of hitting anything smaller in the early war years.

Losses were high and they could hardly hit anything except a large area targets. No damage to the industry and no loss of morale amongst civilians. Just to meant to kill civilians as much as possible.

Pertsajakilu

[siRkid]

I sincerely hope that "Kid" and Matrix/2By3 people will think about our suggestions...

That is why this thread is pinned at the top. Because of my move, I have not had the time to read the entire thread. Has the group come to an agreement? Would someone be willing to consolidate the suggestions into one post that I can use to focus the discussion on a few options to chose from?

[kayjay]

The Brits developed the ASV radar (anti surface vessel) Mks 1, II, & III - the Mk III was used operationally by coastal command in the Bay of Biscay (May 1943) to hunt U boats and was quite effective. This type of radar was not used over land. The US version was the DMS1000 and was fitted to Liberators on ASW patrol. Unofrtuantley the ASV radars used many of the same components as the H2S land navigation radar being developed for bomber command, and coastal command and the U boat war did not get priority.

The Swordfish III carried the ASV Mk.XI fitted between the main wheel legs in a bulky radome. The radome made the the carrying of torpedoes or large depth charges impossible, so when the target was a ship the Swordfish was accompanied by other aircraft without radar. Against submarines, the radar-equipped Swordfish Mk.III was armed with eight rockets on underwing launches, and also carried flares to illuminate any U-boat it found.

ASV Mk.XI had a maximum range of about 60km against ships, and in good conditions and at low altitude (2000 feet) it could detect a surfaced submarine at about 20km. But it could detect a schnorkel only in very calm seas and at distances below 8km. It gave bearings with an accuracy of about 2 degrees.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Kid

Has the group come to an agreement? Would someone be willing to consolidate the suggestions into one post that I can use to focus the discussion on a few options to chose from?

I think that "overall agreement" is too big word but I hope that all of us here can agree that some kind of modification from current system is necessary...


Leo's shoot at "agreement" list for night bombing

#1
Dramatically increase fatigue for pilots on all night missions.


#2
Increase possibility that pilots who fly night mission and who have low EXP rating (EXP < 50) can damage and/or crash while on take off and landing.


#3
All pilots with EXP < 65 should increasingly have difficulty finding designated target HEX no matter what mission is (i.e. there should be lots and lots of "unable to find target" for such pilots).


#4
Add additional pilot EXP rating test when aircraft is in target HEX for all night missions depending on mission type:


a) Night Target is LCU (Land Combat Unit)

Only pilots with EXP > 90 have a change of hitting anything and even then there should be additional RND (i.e. "roll dice") chance that they can miss.


b) Night Target is Airbase

Only pilots with EXP > 80 have a change of hitting anything and even then there should be additional RND (i.e. "roll dice") chance that they can miss.


c) Night target is Port

Only pilots with EXP > 70 have a change of hitting anything and even then there should be additional RND (i.e. "roll dice") chance that they can miss.


d) Night Target is City

Only pilots with EXP > 60 have a change of hitting anything and even then there should be additional RND (i.e. "roll dice") chance that they can miss.


What do you think gentleman?


Leo "Apollo11"