B17 Losses too heavy

[jwilkerson]

Well I'm finally going to join the "B17 losses too heavy" Fanboy club.

Note results from air attack below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Gili Gili , at 56,94

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 30
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 42

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 69

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 destroyed, 10 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 47 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
46 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 1

Aircraft Attacking:
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now, I'll admit this was an "ambush" in the sense that I ( the Japanese player ) had been planning this battle for a couple of months ... and carefully gathered the first three Nate units that convert to Tony's and built them up .. .kept them out of combat ... once they converted to the Tony's put them on ships ( with escort ! ) took them to Wewak and trained them up a bit. In the mean time I tried to make sure that my bases near east Papua were built up and supplied ... for his part my opponent had been bombing Gili Gili with 60-120 B17Es unescorted with no opposition from me for several weeks. I believe he was "training up" his B17Es. Finally I staged all my Tony units and several rested A6M2 units forward to bases near Gili Gili. Then the battle above occurred.

My expectation given my experience with the game was that I would trade fighter for B17E ... so if he brought 70 and I brought 70 ... then we would each lose maybe 20. But as you can see the results were 8 fighters lost for 52 B17s lost.

Now I don't require the game to produce 100% accurate results. But I hope it is quite obvious that these results are extremely out of whack. BTW the B17s were flying from Cooktown.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Well I'm finally going to join the "B17 losses too heavy" Fanboy club.

Note results from air attack below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Gili Gili , at 56,94

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 30
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 42

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 69

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed, 3 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 destroyed, 10 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 47 destroyed

Japanese ground losses:
46 casualties reported
Guns lost 1

Airbase hits 1
Airbase supply hits 1

Aircraft Attacking:
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
2 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
1 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now, I'll admit this was an "ambush" in the sense that I ( the Japanese player ) had been planning this battle for a couple of months ... and carefully gathered the first three Nate units that convert to Tony's and built them up .. .kept them out of combat ... once they converted to the Tony's put them on ships ( with escort ! ) took them to Wewak and trained them up a bit. In the mean time I tried to make sure that my bases near east Papua were built up and supplied ... for his part my opponent had been bombing Gili Gili with 60-120 B17Es unescorted with no opposition from me for several weeks. I believe he was "training up" his B17Es. Finally I staged all my Tony units and several rested A6M2 units forward to bases near Gili Gili. Then the battle above occurred.

My expectation given my experience with the game was that I would trade fighter for B17E ... so if he brought 70 and I brought 70 ... then we would each lose maybe 20. But as you can see the results were 8 fighters lost for 52 B17s lost.

Now I don't require the game to produce 100% accurate results. But I hope it is quite obvious that these results are extremely out of whack. BTW the B17s were flying from Cooktown.

That's a little bit better than a 75% loss rate on one mission, assuming the game counted right. Has your opponent confirmed these losses? If so, it's ridiculous--bigtime ridiculous.

I also note that during the campaign the Allies have lost a total of 202 Forts to enemy fighters. How is that possible if this is your first strange occurrance? Only three B-17 losses have resulted from flak thus far, so it's not as if your opponent has been bombing the ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt.

Indeed, on 17 August 1943 the Allies sent 230 B-17s to bomb Schweinfurt. This formation was opposed by some 300 German fighters. Only 184 of the Forts actually arrived over the target, and of these 36 never returned. That's a loss rate of just 19.5% yet it was considered catastrophic at the time.

The worst foray over Schweinfurt in terms of American casualties suffered came on the "Black Thursday," 14 October 1943. On that day the 8th Air Force committed 291 B-17s to a similar mission over that Bavarian industrial city. Of those, 229 actually bombed the target, with 60 planes being shot down. That came to an even more catastrophic loss rate of 26%, totally unacceptable, or for that matter sustainable, even for the USAAF with all its resources.

Both of these deep strikes into German territority were unescorted, of course--these were the pre-Mustang days.

And by the way, the result of the "Black Thursday" strike caused the Germans to disperse their ball-bearing industry over a wide area, thus making it harder for the Allies to get at the plants, so it's not as if the Schweinfurt raid had no effect, just that the losses of B-17s and crews were high. Yet I further note that your in-game result shows just 1 Airbase and 1 Airbase supply hit, plus some piddling Japanese casualties off on the side.

Does that sound like the kind of results B-17s achieved over Schweinfurt to you?

Below is an aerial photograph of Schweinfurt made during the 14 August 1943 raid. The area outlined in red shows the position of the flak Batterie Spitalholz.

[Halsey]

I hate to be the one to bring up the "Invincible Zero" thread again, but...........[;)]

[pauk]

greetings....

I share your opinions guys, but....

No, i do not want speak about "playing balance", but again... I know we are all getting tired of arguments "so-if" type, but again...

the main problem in WiTP that several things are unbalanced. One of them is uber-kill rate of B-17. But if you correct this, we will find that this will pull the trigger of other problems connected with air segment of the game.

1. There is to many B-17 in the game. (just small note: in one PBeM game - date is 1st january '42 Johore Baru is bombed with 90 B-17 [X(])
2. Replacement rate is too big for B-17.
3. Air strikes with 200-300-400 ac from the single airport is possible

So, what i'm trying to say is that if you fix uber air battles, you will just speed operations which is, i believe, unacceptable for all of us. Who wants to finish grand campaign in 43?

It would be ideal that all illogical and unrealistic things in the game are going to be fixed/changed, but problably not's going to happend.

I'm one of the guys who can accept this/adopt to the game and enjoy in the game. It is still best game of the genre....

[pauk]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

I hate to be the one to bring up the "Invincible Zero" thread again, but...........[;)]

greetings...

this invincible thread will last till Corsairs show up
[;)]

Then we are going to start "invincible Corsairs" thread[:D]

[Ian R]

I'm just getting to near to Corsairs in my (first) campaign game (December 42). I peeked into the IJN AI turn recently and noticed a lot of their fighter pilots are down at 30 odd % experience.

I had sunk 3 CVs and 2 x CVLs in about June in a maxi coral sea battle, in which he USN lost the Wasp, Saratoga and Lexington.

Sometime after that I installed the 1.5 patch.

Is this the after effect of the sunk cv airgroup plane drain, or is it something that happens anyway?

[Ian R]

On reflection it was the Hornet which was damaged in June and after a long stay in Luganville headed to Sydney with 50% system damage and a couple of upgrades overdue. The Wasp was sunk later by Betties from Kavieng.

Question remains though, is it the plane drain which also wipes out the pilot pool? Or could this happen because so many IJN planes were shot down striking the US carriers. (While Beauforts and B26s from Milne Bay were putting bombs into the CVs).

[Speedysteve]

What was the flak Batterie Spitalholz? Obviously Flak. But was it an especially large battery in terms of caliber or numbers? Rail Flak?

[Sardaukar]

BTW, you could have flown your B-17Es bit more higher and encounter *no* Zeroes. B-17E has higher ceiling than A6M2. So if flying over 30 000 ft, why not fly at 35 000 ??
That is one weird number of losses, though.

Cheers,

M.S.

[Mr.Frag]

B-17 losses are too low [:'(]

You have way too many of them and use them for missions they never flew so the rate of loss can not be compared to what historically happened. If you want to put them mostly on naval search (just like in 1941/42) your loss rates will drop down and fit in with history.

[String]

ORIGINAL: Ian R

On reflection it was the Hornet which was damaged in June and after a long stay in Luganville headed to Sydney with 50% system damage and a couple of upgrades overdue. The Wasp was sunk later by Betties from Kavieng.

Question remains though, is it the plane drain which also wipes out the pilot pool? Or could this happen because so many IJN planes were shot down striking the US carriers. (While Beauforts and B26s from Milne Bay were putting bombs into the CVs).

IJN get's 100 high quality replacement pilots in the beginning, after that it's 10 per month.

For IJAAF its 250 and 20.

After those initial pilots are gone almost all of the replacements will be low quality rookies. (unless you shoot down less than 10 IJN and 20 IJA planes per month). AI doesn't train it's rookie pilots either so it's quite logical that it has such low quality pilots at that stage.

[erstad]

I agree that these losses seem unusually high. But, a few questions to consider:

1) Cooktown starts as a 1(3). What was it at the time of the raid? If it's not large enough (L5?) to handle the heavies, it's equivalent to them flying at extended range despite only being ten hexes. Some of the planes that were only "damaged" may not have made it home.

2) You mentioned you opponent had been hitting GG for several weeks. Does this mean every day? These units may have had extremely high fatigue. If you opponent still has a safety save, you might ask him to check the fatigue levels.

If neither of these factors are in play, then these results do seem high (but one needs to be cautious about judging the game engine based on one combat, because there is extreme variability IRL and IWITP). But if these guys are walking dead trying to fly B-17s off a grass airstrip (OK, I exaggerate), then the results aren't necessarily that bad. You want historical results, play historically. Push units beyond what would be reasonable IRL and you may get results that seem ahistorical.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: erstad

I agree that these losses seem unusually high. But, a few questions to consider:

1) Cooktown starts as a 1(3). What was it at the time of the raid? If it's not large enough (L5?) to handle the heavies, it's equivalent to them flying at extended range despite only being ten hexes. Some of the planes that were only "damaged" may not have made it home.

2) You mentioned you opponent had been hitting GG for several weeks. Does this mean every day? These units may have had extremely high fatigue. If you opponent still has a safety save, you might ask him to check the fatigue levels.

If neither of these factors are in play, then these results do seem high (but one needs to be cautious about judging the game engine based on one combat, because there is extreme variability IRL and IWITP). But if these guys are walking dead trying to fly B-17s off a grass airstrip (OK, I exaggerate), then the results aren't necessarily that bad. You want historical results, play historically. Push units beyond what would be reasonable IRL and you may get results that seem ahistorical.

You sound a little bit like Frag. [8D]

     Well, there's too many B-17s to begin with, so it's logical we'd have them shot down easier. Put 'em, on patrol. Everything's cool!

By the way, I agree there are too many of the beasts. Another OOB cock-up, of which there are almost too many to list. But the crucial point remains that too many of the system mechanics come from outer space, and that's not even to mention the ones which simply don't function correctly--when they function at all.

[Speedysteve]

Tris - any ideas on my above question?

Steven

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

That's a little bit better than a 75% loss rate on one mission, assuming the game counted right. Has your opponent confirmed these losses? If so, it's ridiculous--bigtime ridiculous.

I also note that during the campaign the Allies have lost a total of 202 Forts to enemy fighters. How is that possible if this is your first strange occurrance? Only three B-17 losses have resulted from flak thus far, so it's not as if your opponent has been bombing the ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt.

... snip ...

I'll try to get my opponent TommyG to comment on this event from his perspective.

From mine, the three Tony units were experience in the 60s ... the A6M units were experience ranging from 70s through 80s ...

All morales were high 90s ... and fatigues were single digits.

Yes, there have obviously been other B17 air battles in our game; however, none with so many losses in one battle. The other events were more like 20 B17 lost per battle over a period of a week. This is the first one with 50 in one battle.

Historically, B17 strikes in 1942 ( in the Pacific ) were sized between 4-20 planes ( with smaller missions being more correctly classified as recon missions ). The B17s went straight at the major Japanese air bases around the Solomons, including Rabaul. Rarely, were any B17s lost, though usually some Japanese fighters were lost in each raid. The ability to launch large airstrikes in the game; however, makes comparisions to history questionable ... and this applies to both sides. As the Japanese I also routinely launch 100+ LBA bombing missions.

[Lemurs!]

And you and i both know that the game has a scale issue.
Put 9 planes a side and losses will be less than 5%.
Put 20 planes a side and losses will be about correct.
Put 70 planes a side and losses get ridiculus.

It is true that a larger number of aircraft did increase percentage losses due to it being easier to find a target. Believe it or not that was the hardest job of a WW2 fighter pilot.
But what this game does to loss rates is silly.

What really burns my cheese is that it was just like this in UV and i specifically asked if this had been fixed and i was told yes.

Mike

[TommyG]

As the poor dumb b*st*rd that lost the 52 B-17s, may I point out that Cooktown is now a level 5 base with 10K over needs supplies, a US Hq unit, and excess aviation support. The B-17s are rotated out of combat whenever their morale drops below 50. Whenever 50% or more of the squadrons are below 50 morale, I stand the entire base down. All units were in high 60's/low70s in experience. Gili Gili was the target rather than a larger base because I was getting slaughtered over Buna and Lae. The B17s have not been much of a factor in this game, which is vey unusual in that I rely on them heavily and to good advantage in every other game. Also, though, it should be pointed out that I am not very good.

[pfnognoff]

A couple of questions:

From the description of the battle I understand that all your fighters were on LRCAP over Gilli Gilli?

What was their altitude set to?

Are squadron commanders very agressive?

And a couple of remarks on oversized air battles with rediculous results:

I think that with the current combat procedure (every plane gets a shot at every plane, if I'm not very mistaken) there must be a limit on planes that can fly a single mission, like so many have said before. Maybe something like 10 planes per airfield size point? So if you launch 3 missions against three different targets from a size 4 airfield, each of the missions could have 40 AC maximum.

In the game Pauk was talking about (96 B-17s flying airfield attack over Jahore), they murdered 64(!) IJA/N AC on the ground, on the following turn there were 94 Zeros flying coordinated escort mission from Jahore and Kuching against Batavia! They were escorting arround 90 Betties and Nells on the counterstrike (also coordinated from those two bases). Zeros murdered Allied CAP for 2 Zeros lost they shot down in dogfight arround 40 allied fighters (even some AVG Tomahawks). Now if that is not perfect example of air-war (if played too agressively) producing way too much results, I don't know what is [:)]. But I also think that just acknowleding that we play too agressively is not enough, the game should not allow us to do such things.

[Greco, Thomas A]

More from the poor dumb bastard. I lost the planes and I am the one least troubled by it. Sh*t happens. Maybe they were too complacent from two weeks of unevenful similar missions. Maybe they encountered some bad weather and were strung out and out of formation. Maybe sun, clouds and haze blinded them from seeing the fighters. Maybe the japs just got lucky.
Since I don't use the planes in an historical fashion, I have no reason to expect an historical result. Hap Arnold, Curtis LeMay and I had a tremendous argument about using strategic weapons for limited tactical puposes. They want to save them for attacks against Japan's ability to wage war. They want to save them for the Home Islands. I dont have the same vision, and. since it is my game, I won the argument.
I don't want a game that aways provides mathematically precise results based on predictable formulas. The ability to roll double sixs has to be there or the game is not realistic. Actuaries did not fight at Midway.

[sadja]

I'm glad somebody can kill B-17s, in my PBEM game the 4eng Bas**rds give me all kinds of grief and fly all the time durring monsoon season with few op losses. Blam0 uses them to good effect. I have broke even or win about 1/3 of my fights with B-17s comming unescorted. The nates and oscar1b don't have the fire power and the zero is too fragile. The Tony does have the firepower of the zero but more rugged. Japan did not design planes to be bomber busters, until after thier experiance with B-17s. I like Greco's answer, its part of war. Sometimes disater strikes when you think you should win, no matter what. That is why there are battles like Bastonge,Bataan, first Wake attack and even the 2nd Wake attack where if Cunningham had better como he wouldn't have surrendered. I'm sure Yamamoto expected to win midway.

Sadja