B17 Losses too heavy

[Nikademus]

50% for all airframes at the moment

It has greatly reduced kills for the most part though the power duo of the 6x.50 armament and the 2x20mm/2x7.7 still have a high kill prob against anything below DUR 60. I toyed with the idea of messing with these device values but that might indeed make them too anemic vs the heavy bombers and the rugged Allied mediums.

Larger battles still experience the exponential effect but it's more manageable. Kaiser and I have had our first large air combat using modern aircraft (P40's vs A6M). The results are below cut out from the Beer Wars AAR which uses my mod. The losses are a little higher than i'd like but not unreasonable, especially as these are total losses for two days of intensive fighting. Only area so far where the mod broke down was in a 6 on 5 carrier fight. The tacticals remain hidiously vulnerable to the power duo. I dont wish to break the preportional relationship of the DUR between tacticals/single engined and mediums and heavies so i've been working with armor to address it. I emailed Spooky. If he's willing i'll probably be posting the mod this week. Either that or i'll make it available by email. I still need to write the FAQ and create a cheat list for the Japanese subs because i removed them from production.

Ki-27/Ki-43

Yes...... the problem children. They work better in my version too but still not well enough to avoid being clay pidgeons when facing experienced modern adversaries such as P40 (they do very well against inexperienced Buffalo drivers and the Oscar can hold it's own against Huricanes) . I've made more changes for the new mod but they are not fully tested. I havn't had the time to set up the static tests save for a couple. Those i did were very hopeful.

[michaelm75au]

The bombing altitude bug was fixed previously.
I think he is saying that there may be an issue with CAP interception at 32+K altitude getting excess results similiar to the bombing bug.
Michael

ORIGINAL: testarossa

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag
As 32,000 just happens to be very near 32768 (which is a potential overflow problem with signed vs unsigned integers), this could be something of a similar nature to that seen when bombers about 32767 feet got amazing results as they were actually bombing from below ground level.

Wasn't that fixed in one of the patches?

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

I've posted the USAAF bombing survey twice before. That gives you loss figures of heavies in the POA. By year, and counting all causes (enemy fighter, AA fire and operational) it runs 6 losses in 1942, 23 in 1943, 38 in 1944 and 30 in 1945. The survey might well be in error, but those are the official figures for what they're worth.

I do have reason to wonder about the figures for 1942. Only 100 combat sorties are listed for this entire period, which has to be an error. It could be that these statistics only account for 5th Air Force activity, a command which wasn't in place until September of 1942. I don't know. All the survey provides is the bottom line.

Over the course of the entire war, 14,043 heavy-bomber combat sorties were carried out: 100 in 1942, 1,014 in 1943, 6,720 in 1944, 6,209 during the final months.

POA = Pacific Ocean Areas = South- & Central Pacific commands but not SWPAC, CBI, North Pacific or 20th AF.

Total no. of USAAF heavy bombers lost June 1942 - August 1945 came to 1,197. 406 (34%) of these were lost to enemy fighters. Figures are incomplete prior to June 1942, although FEAF's losses are recorded back to and including December 1941, which presumably would provide the bulk of losses to June 1942.

Heavy bombers lost/effective sorties:

1942 = 64/2,755 = 43 sorties pr. loss (actually lower, as only airborne sorties are recorded for 1942)
1943 = 208/15,383 = 74
1944 = 423/35,178 = 83
1945 = 502/56,719 = 113

Total = 1,197/111,035 = 92

Source: http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

I've posted the USAAF bombing survey twice before. That gives you loss figures of heavies in the POA. By year, and counting all causes (enemy fighter, AA fire and operational) it runs 6 losses in 1942, 23 in 1943, 38 in 1944 and 30 in 1945. The survey might well be in error, but those are the official figures for what they're worth.

I do have reason to wonder about the figures for 1942. Only 100 combat sorties are listed for this entire period, which has to be an error. It could be that these statistics only account for 5th Air Force activity, a command which wasn't in place until September of 1942. I don't know. All the survey provides is the bottom line.

Over the course of the entire war, 14,043 heavy-bomber combat sorties were carried out: 100 in 1942, 1,014 in 1943, 6,720 in 1944, 6,209 during the final months.

POA = Pacific Ocean Areas = South- & Central Pacific commands but not SWPAC, CBI, North Pacific or 20th AF.

Total no. of USAAF heavy bombers lost June 1942 - August 1945 came to 1,197. 406 (34%) of these were lost to enemy fighters. Figures are incomplete prior to June 1942, although FEAF's losses are recorded back to and including December 1941, which presumably would provide the bulk of losses to June 1942.

Heavy bombers lost/effective sorties:

1942 = 64/2,755 = 43 sorties pr. loss (actually lower, as only airborne sorties are recorded for 1942)
1943 = 208/15,383 = 74
1944 = 423/35,178 = 83
1945 = 502/56,719 = 113

Total = 1,197/111,035 = 92

Source: http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm

You're right. I did that before, too, before correcting the post. The POA does not include the SWPAC theater.

So, just for FEAF (including the 5th) the loss ratio per sortie of heavy bomber in 1942 would come to 1:48.47 sorties (rounded up).

Thanks for catching that error (again).

My point remains the same, that the game isn't close to modeling air combat in any PTO theater. It's too bloody in general, and ascribes a fantastic enemy fighter-plane prowess versus American heavy bombers.

Curiously, there are only 4 losses listed to "other" for all of 1942, and again, I wonder how accurate that statistic is. That puts operational losses at less than 10% for that time period, whereas operational losses for heavies for the entire war for the FEAF comes to 36% (rounded up). A small point, I'm only curious. With regard to the game, it seems as if the model consistently does not give that sort of percentage to operational losses, with a far greater percentage deriving from air combat.

As long as we're at it, the percentage of losses in the FEAF to AA comes to 19%.

Counting effective sorties (from Jan 1943), and throwing in the 1797 sorties from 1942 which are not so broken down, I get 1 Japanese fighter plane destroyed for every 42 heavy-bombers flown, and a ratio of 245:1 (rounded up) of heavy-bomber sorties to each loss to enemy fighters. The ratio versus Japanese AA fire comes to 577:1, showing how relatively ineffective that AA defense was. The loss to operational causes has a ratio of 307:1 (rounded down).

In the ETO total heavy-bomber losses came to 5,548, with 2,452 falling to fighters, 2,439 to AA, and 657 losses accounted for because of operational causes. Figuring 274,921 effective heavy-bomber sorties, that gives a kill ratio of each heavy sortie to enemy fighter kill of 112:1. The AA ratio comes to an almost identical 113:1 (rounded up), indicating that German AA fire was equally effective in defense as their fighters, which is not surprising at all. The operational-loss ratio was 418:1 rounded down.

Of course these figures are averages over the entire course of the war and do not take into consideration air battles of the most intense nature--for example, the slaughter of American heavies on "Black Thursday" in 1943.

No matter how one slices the pie, the game's air system is simply much too bloody and implies an effectiveness to the Japanese air-defense means of all kinds in World War II which did not in fact exist.

I hope my math above is right. You can check my figures with yours and see if a mistake has been made.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

Curiously, there are only 4 losses listed to "other" for all of 1942, and again, I wonder how accurate that statistic is. That puts operational losses at less than 10% for that time period, whereas operational losses for heavies for the entire war for the FEAF comes to 36% (rounded up). A small point, I'm only curious.

On the presumption that operational losses are a function of the number of sorties flown, the FEAF numbers would suggest that the 1942 "other" losses are not wildly out of keeping with those of the following years - actually 1943 shows more of an anomality than 1942.

FEAF Sorties Airborne/"Other" Losses

1942:1,797/4 = 449 sorties airborne pr. "other" loss
1943:12,610/18 = 701
1944:25,158/84 = 300
1945:23,239/78 =298

Total:62,804/184 = 341

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

Curiously, there are only 4 losses listed to "other" for all of 1942, and again, I wonder how accurate that statistic is. That puts operational losses at less than 10% for that time period, whereas operational losses for heavies for the entire war for the FEAF comes to 36% (rounded up). A small point, I'm only curious.

On the presumption that operational losses are a function of the number of sorties flown, the FEAF numbers would suggest that the 1942 "other" losses are not wildly out of keeping with those of the following years - actually 1943 shows more of an anomality than 1942.

FEAF Sorties Airborne/"Other" Losses

1942:1,797/4 = 449 sorties airborne pr. "other" loss
1943:12,610/18 = 701
1944:25,158/84 = 300
1945:23,239/78 =298

Total:62,804/184 = 341

Well, it just seems like so few. Because of the lack of effective-mission counts for 1942, I wonder how accurate the other 1942 statistics might be.

Operational losses are, I'm sure, a function of gross missions flown, but probably are even more closely tied to the nature of those missions--especially combat missions as opposed to recon flights.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

Curiously, there are only 4 losses listed to "other" for all of 1942, and again, I wonder how accurate that statistic is. That puts operational losses at less than 10% for that time period, whereas operational losses for heavies for the entire war for the FEAF comes to 36% (rounded up). A small point, I'm only curious.

On the presumption that operational losses are a function of the number of sorties flown, the FEAF numbers would suggest that the 1942 "other" losses are not wildly out of keeping with those of the following years - actually 1943 shows more of an anomality than 1942.

FEAF Sorties Airborne/"Other" Losses

1942:1,797/4 = 449 sorties airborne pr. "other" loss
1943:12,610/18 = 701
1944:25,158/84 = 300
1945:23,239/78 =298

Total:62,804/184 = 341

Well, it just seems like so few. Because of the lack of effective-mission counts for 1942, I wonder how accurate the other 1942 statistics might be.

Operational losses are, I'm sure, a function of gross missions flown, but probably are even more closely tied to the nature of those missions--especially combat missions as opposed to recon flights.

Note that "statistically speaking" ... it is not necessary to assume operational losses are a function of gross missions flown ( or in general that A is caused by B or that A is dependent upon B ) .. it is sufficient to show that A is significantly correlated to B in order to enable statistical inference. Perhaps too fine a line for this forum but just thought I'd toss that in !!!

[jwilkerson]

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.

After waiting a couple of days for some Thunderstorms in Papua to pass over ... TommyG came back again with a repeat B17 raid on Gili Gili and I came up again with the same groups of Tony's and A6M2s ... results were substantially the same and are posted below. So we are now sure we have a "repeatable" event ( at least until TommyG runs out of B17s !!! ).

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 10/08/42

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

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 38
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 41

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 105

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed, 2 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 destroyed, 9 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 41 destroyed, 23 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
5 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[bradfordkay]

Looks like we need to avoid using large groups of bombers, if we wish to avoid heavy losses of those bombers. I noticed something like that once, when I had two bomber groups involved in an attack. When I only use one bomber group the losses don't seem so high.

[TommyG]

Well I guess the problem is self correcting since now I don't have enough B-17s to make any large scale raids.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

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.

After waiting a couple of days for some Thunderstorms in Papua to pass over ... TommyG came back again with a repeat B17 raid on Gili Gili and I came up again with the same groups of Tony's and A6M2s ... results were substantially the same and are posted below. So we are now sure we have a "repeatable" event ( at least until TommyG runs out of B17s !!! ).

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 10/08/42

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

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 38
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 41

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 105

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed, 2 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 destroyed, 9 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 41 destroyed, 23 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
5 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is sobering. I wonder if it's new to v1.5. With v1.4 I'd use B-17s at 20,000 feet for day raids to avoid the worst effects of the heavy flak Chez had piled in Rabaul, which was sufficient at that time.

I wonder if you could persuade Tommy to send another flight over, this time at a lower altitude to see if that's the issue or not. If you get similar results, we're in trouble.

In general, these results are unacceptable, of course--they render the air model broken in this respect.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

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.

After waiting a couple of days for some Thunderstorms in Papua to pass over ... TommyG came back again with a repeat B17 raid on Gili Gili and I came up again with the same groups of Tony's and A6M2s ... results were substantially the same and are posted below. So we are now sure we have a "repeatable" event ( at least until TommyG runs out of B17s !!! ).

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 10/08/42

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

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 38
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 41

Allied aircraft
B-17E Fortress x 105

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed, 2 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 destroyed, 9 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-17E Fortress: 41 destroyed, 23 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
5 x B-17E Fortress bombing at 32000 feet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is sobering. I wonder if it's new to v1.5. With v1.4 I'd use B-17s at 20,000 feet for day raids to avoid the worst effects of the heavy flak Chez had piled in Rabaul, which was sufficient at that time.

I wonder if you could persuade Tommy to send another flight over, this time at a lower altitude to see if that's the issue or not. If you get similar results, we're in trouble.

In general, these results are unacceptable, of course--they render the air model broken in this respect.

There may be a # of factors .. my pet theory is that large numbers of fighters ( over 50 ? ) is the primary problem ... and I didn't figure out that large numbers of fighters caused geometrically increasing numbers of losses until a few weeks ago ... and these raids with TommyG are the first pure "tests" with large numbers of fighters on one side and large numbers of pure bombers on the other ...

I think TommyG is done "testing" with his B17s in our game ... though we could use the saves to perform additional tests ... right now I don't have time ( and I owe you a move first anyway !!! ) but TommyG and I sent the saves from the first instance to Frag .. I haven't seen a report back .. but we should have one shortly.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Looks like we need to avoid using large groups of bombers, if we wish to avoid heavy losses of those bombers. I noticed something like that once, when I had two bomber groups involved in an attack. When I only use one bomber group the losses don't seem so high.

So first the designers put too many B-17's in the game. Then they make it possible to base far to many at a single base. Then they create a set of maps and air ranges that
make only the B-17's able to reach most Japanese targets, encouraging the Allies to mass these assets to be able to do anything in the game. And now they've made the
B-17's rediculously vulnerable to Japanese fighters to try "fix" the mess. How many "wrongs" do they think it takes to make a "right"?

[Culiacan Mexico]

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...

32000 feet?

Your losses do to air combat at that altitude should have been virtually none.

IMO

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: 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.

At 32,000 feet in 1942/43? I am not so sure.

When the B-29 began their campaign against major targets in Japan they often came in above 30,000 feet and the Japanese had considerable trouble meeting this threat.

What this shows is a major intercept at extreme altitude by Japanese fighters, almost as if the subroutine is not modifying the fighters abilities based on altitude. Speculation on my part of course.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Only the P39 and P400 are affected by high altitude. -1 man per 1k ft pver 10k

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex

Only the P39 and P400 are affected by high altitude. -1 man per 1k ft pver 10k

Historically, Japanese fighters at this time (in general) were not great performers at this altitude (32,000 feet). If the subroutine does not model this, then the result will not be historical.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Then it is not historical

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex

Then it is not historical

Gasp! SHOCKING!!![X(][8|]

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Looks like we need to avoid using large groups of bombers, if we wish to avoid heavy losses of those bombers. I noticed something like that once, when I had two bomber groups involved in an attack. When I only use one bomber group the losses don't seem so high.

So first the designers put too many B-17's in the game. Then they make it possible to base far to many at a single base. Then they create a set of maps and air ranges that
make only the B-17's able to reach most Japanese targets, encouraging the Allies to mass these assets to be able to do anything in the game. And now they've made the
B-17's rediculously vulnerable to Japanese fighters to try "fix" the mess. How many "wrongs" do they think it takes to make a "right"?

Mike this is not the only area where their is a combination of error. How about unlimited troops defending an atoll followed by unrealistic naval bombardment effect, followed by uber coastal guns, followed by assault landing of massive amount of troops from massive number of ships with no historical landing craft onto a very small beach.