B17 Losses too heavy

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

Listen. The Tony was fundamentally a modified license-built Messerschmitt Bf 109E--indeed, it was mistaken for such by the Allies when first encountered over Papua New Guinea.

Hi

don't know if this statement is true (and don't want and cannot dispute if you're right with this) but it seems to me that the Allies (or at least the Americans) were always assuming that they encountered German planes (or German license-build planes) when encountering Japanese planes that showed a good performance. As if the Japanese had not been able to produce some "advanced" equipment by using some own ideas or technological research[;)]!

Just noticed this when reading American reports about Japanese planes during WW2...

K

Okay. Not to quibble with you or your information, but what you're reading is somewhat in error.

When I need good specs for the Messerschmitt I first go here. It's a great site for the details, most of which can be verified any number of other places, but this is the best place to start your search that I know of: Bf 109

The reason I started at this site is because of the relative dearth of good (read: reliable) information for Japanese aircraft. As the Tony was a knockoff of the Bf 109E I approached this problem through the "back door." Seemed logical to me.

As for where my analysis leads . . . after a little thought it might become clear that my conclusions are about as correct as one could hope given the available data to work with. If that's not clear, then I guess there's not much room left for further discussion. If you specifically dispute the "knockoff" angle, don't waste your time. That's common knowledge. (Which is one very good reason not to trust the author you've been going by. If he didn't know that then what else didn't he know? People who write books, professing to be experts, should do better.)

[treespider]

Per "The Illustartated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare, vol 15"

Ki-61, Kawasaki

Japaenese fighter aircraft. Blinded by years of prejudice and poor intelligence reports, The Allies for several weeks jumped to the conclusion that the new troublesome in-line engined Japanese fighter which appeared over New guinea in April 1943 was the Messerschmitt Bj 109 somehow made available to Japan by her German ally. In fact it was the Ki-61 Hien (Swallow), a totally original design by Takeo Doi and Sin Owada, leading engineers of the Kawasaki company. Detailed design work had not started until december, 1940 a year after issue of the army air headquarters specification calling for a general purpose fighter. The delaywas due tothe priority given at first to the unsuccessful Ki-60 heavy interceptor.

The Ki-61 had slimmer lines than the KI-60 and a high aspect ratio wing. Powered by a 1175 hp Ha-40 engine 9the japanese version of the 12 cylinder Daimler Benz DB 601A, built under license at Kawasaki's Akashi factory the Ki-61 was a low wing all metal monoplane with wide trackinward retracting undercarriage and a retractable tail wheel. It was characterized by a large ventrail radiator bath under the fuselage just beneath the wing trailing edge. The pilot sat in an enclosed cockpit with a backward sliding hood..."

[treespider]

Conitinued in the same article

.....Difficulties with its Ha-40 engine dogged the Ki-61-I throughout it career. By September 1942 Kawasaki had already decided to introduce the Ki-61-II version with the new 1500 hp Ha-140 engine designed for high altitude efficiency....

...Problems with the new power plant were unfortunately no less frequent than those of its predecessor...

....With the Ha-140 engine working satisfactorily the new fighter could attain 610 km/h (379 mph) at 6000m (19,700ft)....

....Only th Ki-61-II Kai was able to offer effective combat to the B-29 Superfortresses when they were flying at maximum altitude. .....

[Tristanjohn]

Okay, we're ready for . . . The Test.

Bear with me as we go through the preamble. The results of the test threatened to be so predictably gruesome (from my point of view) that I wanted to be sure we gave Gary's game every possible break. To that end, as I noted earlier, I ferried all of Tom's B-17s which were at Cooktown back to Townsville until they had completely recuperatred. (Actually, there's still a considerable number of B-17s working up at Townsville, but I went with the test as soon as I had over 100 of them to fly in perfect condition.) I also ferried the 7th BG (B-24Ds) over to Townsville from Luganville and let it get ready along with the B-17s. More fodder, so to speak, for the super Japanese interceptors as it turned out, but I wanted to give the Allies a formidable attack force.

So, let's look at the base of Cooktown first and see what's happening there.

     Airfield: 6

     Port: 5

     Supply: 2x

     Support: OK

     Aviation support: 243

     Air HQ: 5th Air Force, 240 support (full boat), the leader is Chennault (Air Skill 93, Aggression 80)

Now for the American heavy bombers.

     B-17Es

19 BG/B 16x (Exp) 67 (Mor) 99 (FatT) 0 (Leader) 67/72
19 BG/C 15x  63 99 5  71/64
11 BG/B 21x  70 99 0  66/63
11 BG/C 21x  61 99 0  61/67
43 BG/A 16x  67 99 0  63/60
43 BG/B 16x  68 99 0  69/74
  5 BG/B 16x  62 99 0  69/65
  5 BG/C 16x  65 99 0  74/70

     B-24Ds

  7 BG/A 16x  67 99 0  66/82
  7 BG/B 16x  67 99 0  69/85
  7 BG/C 16x  64 99 0  68/84

It doesn't get any better than that for the Allies.

Next we'll look at the Japanese side of the board.

I've arranged to cover Milne Bay with LRCAP (Joe's trap) from two different spots with both A6M2s and Ki-61 KAIcs. There's a CV TF 2 hexes distant providing the bulk of the Zero LRCAP, plus a another Zero Daitai stationed at Dobodura. The Tonys are all at Dobodura, which is 3 hexes distant from Milne Bay.

     Tonys

  65 Sentai 26x  65 98 3  61/74
144 Sentai 29x  59 98 3  62/57
203 Sentai 13x  68 99 2  79/93

     Zeros

CI-1   Daitai   5x   69 99 1  66/62
DI-1   Daitai  28x  78  99 1  87/97
DII-1  Daitai 15x   77 73 0  67/62
DIII-1 Daitai 14x   73 99 1  67/69
EI-1    Daitai 25x   78 99 2  76/79
FI-1    Daitai 18x   67 99 2  65/66
F2      Daitai 25x   43 99 1  87/95

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Per "The Illustartated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare, vol 15"

Ki-61, Kawasaki

Japaenese fighter aircraft. Blinded by years of prejudice and poor intelligence reports, The Allies for several weeks jumped to the conclusion that the new troublesome in-line engined Japanese fighter which appeared over New guinea in April 1943 was the Messerschmitt Bj 109 somehow made available to Japan by her German ally. In fact it was the Ki-61 Hien (Swallow), a totally original design by Takeo Doi and Sin Owada, leading engineers of the Kawasaki company. Detailed design work had not started until december, 1940 a year after issue of the army air headquarters specification calling for a general purpose fighter. The delaywas due tothe priority given at first to the unsuccessful Ki-60 heavy interceptor.

The Ki-61 had slimmer lines than the KI-60 and a high aspect ratio wing. Powered by a 1175 hp Ha-40 engine 9the japanese version of the 12 cylinder Daimler Benz DB 601A, built under license at Kawasaki's Akashi factory the Ki-61 was a low wing all metal monoplane with wide trackinward retracting undercarriage and a retractable tail wheel. It was characterized by a large ventrail radiator bath under the fuselage just beneath the wing trailing edge. The pilot sat in an enclosed cockpit with a backward sliding hood..."

I'm familiar with all that. But the Tony still started out with its basis as the Messerschmitt Bf 109E.

The point of that plane's design was to replicate the performance the Germans had demonstrated with their fighter. The Japanese did not dream up that design on their own and then all of sudden find out the only thing that would properly propel it happened to be a German engine. The project was inspired by the German design. Had the Japanese acted on their own from scratch it's guaranteed they would have come up with a different, more conventional for them, design, one more suited to the existing radial-engine technology they had in hand--in other words another Zero. In fact, the installation of the Mitsubishi radial late in the war was only made due to a lack of availalble in-lines. It was a happy accident. It worked out for them so let's all yell hurrah! But. The Tony was still a knockoff (albeit a somewhat modified one) no matter how you slice it.

One thing we seem to lack of around here is the ability to extrapolate order from confusion based on what we already know to be true. That's not good. There's a wealth of information in the world, much of it is bogus in one way or the other. It's always been that way, it will always be that way. To get to the nub of something it is often necessary to employ a process of distillation in order to eventually arrive at something approximating truth. This is not easy. It requires effort. But it's worth it. If you care about the difference.

[timtom]

Now roll it!!!

[Tristanjohn]

Here are the results. Or rather the result from one test. I see no reason on earth to keep repeating this test. That would be silly. If anyone wants to do this for some reason known only to God, contact me and I'll foward you the pertinent files (assuming Tom and Joe agree) and you can test away to your heart's content. In the meanwhile, I'm satisfied this air model is so whacked-out it will regurgitate this preposterous result time after time after time.

Here's the first screengrab.

You'll notice that the Japanese are credited with 477 sorties for the turn. This is not correct. As I noted somewhere else in the forum (I can't recall where, about a month ago) the screen counter for sorties is broken. To conduct this test I stood all aircraft down for both sides except those flying in the test. In fact I did this several turns prior to the test. I wanted to check something. And I found what appears to be a symptom of the problem.

On the first turn that I stood all planes down, when I checked this as the Allied player the intelligence screen showed zero sorties for the day. When I loaded the Japanese turn next, the intelligence screen indicated they'd flown 47 sorties. I checked, and all Japanese planes were still grounded. When I back to the Allied side of the board, the screen said the Allies had just flown 47 sorties. All their planes were still grounded as well.

I make it 198 possible sorties for the Japanese--that assumes all the fighters ordered to fly flew. No way Jose can that possibly come to a grand total of 477 sorties for the Japanese.

So much for the intelligence-screen counter.

The figure of 181 sorties for the Allies is right. They could have flown 185 aircraft.

[Tristanjohn]

Second screengrab.

I guess I'll add this one for color. I wanted to present this more like I do in my AARs, but the screen utility malfunctioned and all I had left to work with was a black screen. So I went back into the game and cut this out of the corrupted graphics--WitP doesn't like to be interrupted.

[Tristanjohn]

Final screengrab.

     Read 'em and weep!

[Halsey]

Now it would be interesting to see which Japanese airplane scored what number of kills.
The Zero or the Tony?

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Halsey

Now it would be interesting to see which Japanese airplane scored what number of kills.
The Zero or the Tony?

When you think of it that's yet another design flaw of sorts. I know that Joe insists good AI is necessary to enable developers to thoroughly test product. If that's the case, then I'd offer that the program needs to give back creditable data within that process. In this case, as you point out, there is no easy way to easily extract the particular data we'd like to have. I'm sure not about to go from screen to screen with pencil in hand before the test run writing down kill totals for individual pilots, and then recheck those same screens afterward. That's the only way I know of to get that data, and they don't pay me enough for that kind of work.

It's a shame all the way around, and predictable. For all the game's chrome, when it comes right down to it what you need to see often can't be seen. But then I guess that's why they it chrome, isn't it?

[ChezDaJez]

Tris,

Try this link for info on the Tony. Pretty comprehensive for all models of the Tony. It was NOT a licensed built Me-109 though the engine is a Japanese version of the Daimler engine.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... ki-61.html

Note that the K-61 KAIc was a very good airplane, when the engine operated at it rated output.

The author, Joe Baugher, has also listed the references used to get this information.

Chez

[Hortlund]

Excellent work tristan. Pretty hard to argue these facts.

I predict complete silence from matrix on the issue though.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Tris,

Try this link for info on the Tony. Pretty comprehensive for all models of the Tony. It was NOT a licensed built Me-109 though the engine is a Japanese version of the Daimler engine.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... ki-61.html

Note that the K-61 KAIc was a very good airplane, when the engine operated at it rated output.

The author, Joe Baugher, has also listed the references used to get this information.

Chez

Thanks. I already had that bookmarked, though.

I don't write what I write willy nilly, Steve. It takes me time to arrive at my conclusions as I check every available source, and I then think about it. When I'm not sure I say so and let others pick up the thread wherever I left it--or wherever it happened to escape me. In this case, I'm confident of what I write, and equally sure other authors who write something else are not correct in their conclusions.

My line of reasoning runs thusly. The Japanese "started original development" early in 1940 on a "new" airframe design which just happened to have a need to incorporate German in-line engine technology? These Japanese designers were, furthermore, not only fully aware of the Bf 109 series but taken with that design--people seem to agree on that score--yet you want me to believe that after these same Japanese engineers obtained a Bf 109 and studied it closely, they ultimately arrived at their prototypical Tony, which just happens to look more like something out of a German war propaganda film than your typical aircraft of Nippon, in isolation from these concerns? In other words, that these guys didn't knockoff the Messerschmitt?

I'm sorry, but I feel we're just not putting 2 and 2 together here.

There's a vague reference to this on that Bf 109 site toward the end, where it lists variations by countries, then concludes with a rather cryptic plea for anyone to come forward with information concerning the Japanese work in this area, or words to that effect. Right. [8D]

Anyway, it's clear to me, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Tony was inspired by the Bf 109 and in fact closely resembles the German plane in many respects, right down to the engine. And this would make sense, as the Japanese were eager to find better weapon systems--in this case they were looking for something with more power and durability than the Zero. The Tony as it evolved was modified for increased endurance more than anything else, at least that's what I get out of my reading, and that makes sense given the Pacific theater, but at bottom it's nothing more than a Bf 109 tinkered with in Japan. That plane is a fundamentally German, not Japanese, design.

So, people can go with that where they will. I don't care. It's a minor point.

What I do care about is how terribly screwed-up the game model is. Dumb OOB mistakes, terrible in-game results. Hardly a simulation at all.

[Dutchgy2000]

Kawasaki had long been interested in liquid-cooled engines.

Between 1923 and 1933, Kawasaki Aircraft Engineering Company's head designer was Dr. Richard Vogt (a German), who returned to Germany in 1933 to take a similar position at Blohm und Voss.

Kawasaki continued to be strongly influenced by Dr. Vogt's beliefs after he left, particularly a faith in the usefulness of liquid-cooled inline engines (Ki-32 dive bomber).

This made Kawasaki something of a heretic among Japanese aircraft manufacturers, who preferred air-cooled radials.

In 1940 obtaining blueprints and examples of, as well as licencing rights to, the Daimler-Benz 601A engine, A team led by Doi Takeo and Owada Shin set about designing a fighter around the new engine.

The Ki-61 reflected a profoundly Japanese design philosophy and as such had a greater emphasis on maneuverability than its German counterpart. If anything, the Kawasaki design had more in common with Heinkel's work than Messerschmitt's

The Ki-61 wasn't the only fighter design to be powered by the Ha-40 engine. Kawasaki also experimented with an unusual twin-engine design conceived by Takeo Doi in 1939 and approved for prototype development in October 1940 as the Kawasaki "Ki-64". The Ki-64 had a vague configurational resemblance to the Hien, though it was larger.

Check for yourself:

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

Final screengrab.

     Read 'em and weep!

The problem of massive combat losses shown in your test example tells (again, as you were not the first one to document this!) much about the results we get in air combats involving large numbers of planes and is thus not only related to the performance of B-17s. The game provides quite realistic results when only small numbers of planes are involved, but once one player masses planes for air combats, the kill rates become completely unrealistic. I've seen this happen quite often (too often) in my PBEM. Even Nates are able to kill lots of B-17s when they're present in large numbers. It seems that every fighter plane doing CAP gets the chance to fire at incoming aircraft.

[timtom]

Hate to say it, but if certain stallwart defenders of the status quo were to comment, they could not unreasonably argue that what (statistically) amount to a few random results doesn't prove anything.

I'd love to see someone more enterprising than myself test the hypothesis that aircraft losses increase exponentially with increased numbers involved in combat.

[Hortlund]

ORIGINAL: timtom

Hate to say it, but if certain stallwart defenders of the status quo were to comment, they could not unreasonably argue that what (statistically) amount to a few random results doesn't prove anything.

I'd love to see some more enterprising than myself test the hypothesis that aircraft losses increase exponentially with increased numbers involved in combat.

This is not "a few random results". If you were to run tristans scenario 100 times, you'd get similar results every time. Thus something is fundamentally broken with the game engine, this is not the result of a freak one-time dice roll.

[timtom]

I doubt it not - I'm just saying others might...

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Once the Germans realised what a good plane the Zero was they requested permission to built it, but the Japs said no way. So when the FW190D-9 was introduced the Germans took off a pair of cannon to imitate the Zero.