Game Balance "Achieved"...

[ADavidB]

Maybe the B-17's durability should be raised but at the same time as I've said earlier operational losses to everyone need to be drastically raised and possibly increase the supply usage of aircraft or bombers as well so sorties aren't being flown everyday or every other day for that matter. Notice iun the article the one pilot had only flown 30 some odd missions in one year. These changes would go a long way to preventing the European style air war we see being waged..

As long as the changes are applied equally to each side, that seems reasonable. (I haven't been posting PzB's daily bombing attacks with hundreds and hundreads of Japanese bombers and fighters...daily attacks with 118 Sallys are no more "historic" than similar things for B-17s...)

Dave Baranyi

[tsimmonds]

So many bombers destroyed like this is indeed a bogus result.

But you know what? Knowing that this will happen, don't walk into it. Send the bombers in at 36600. Split them up to go against multiple lesser (but still important) targets in smaller groups at low altitude. If IJ concentrates a fighter buzzsaw someplace like this, go in with an uber bombardment TF and blast the f**ckers to h3ll. If he gets gamey, game him back. But don't just play into his strength. It's a game ferchrissakes, and playing games is what we all do, or? Outgame him and pretty soon he'll learn that the fighter buzzsaw isn't paying off. Too many of us want to get the big result every time, starting right now. Patience, guys.

[WiTP_Dude]

Good points.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

Well, the good folks working on improving the game have reached another milestone - B-17s are now as readily damagable as Bettys or Nells:


Dave Baranyi

Now David...You are clearly mistaken!!
In "Samurai",Saburo Sakai,(a mere Japanese enlisted man) sez that when he first encountered the B 17(early model),he was amazed that he was required to make several passes on the plane,(which he had problems doing as it was very fast and required he stay with it for many miles), and he sez that in frustration he closed to point blank range and still never brought that plane down. As I recall,he sez he was finally "rewarded" with a white glycol stream finally emerging from one of the engines,but the plane still continued on it's way home!.. (It's been a few years since I last read his great book,and he did say they finally learned a "head-on" pass was FINALLY found to be the best way to bring the plane down.He further admits this was only found after many engagements with that plane.
He was of course in the Tainan group at Lae at the time..Some of you will recognize his name..
Now David,on the other hand,Japanese planes were notorious for having neither armor,nor self-sealing tanks,and the pilots till approx 1943 thought it "sissy" to wear parachutes,(so when their plane took ANY hits,the planes (all) had a tendency to *IGNITE* and the pilot had no chute with which to "escape to fight another day").
David,you propose that the B 17 has somehow been emasculated to "equal" the flammable and lack of self-preservation tendencies of the Japanese planes and pilots????
Well,you must be an "allied fanboy" !!!!,(or whatever it is you are called if you try to seek a modicum of historical accuracy in your "historical-based" wargames.........)

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

Yes, you should have tried to conduct a naval bombardment of Rabaul. It's much easier and gives you better results[;)]

Another TWO WRONGS TO MAKE A RIGHT solution. Results from bombing (even with escorts) coming out pure crap? Not a problem. Conduct a "hit and run" 30 minute Naval Bombardment..., and the results will also be pure crap---but in your favor!

Just hold your nose past enough "steaming piles" and eventually you might find reality...., or fall in a cess pool.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

Yes, you should have tried to conduct a naval bombardment of Rabaul. It's much easier and gives you better results[;)]

Another TWO WRONGS TO MAKE A RIGHT solution. Results from bombing (even with escorts) coming out pure crap? Not a problem. Conduct a "hit and run" 30 minute Naval Bombardment..., and the results will also be pure crap---but in your favor!

Just hold your nose past enough "steaming piles" and eventually you might find reality...., or fall in a cess pool.

Realistic? No. But then neither is concentrating that many offensive bombers or defensive fighters in this theatre at this point in time. It is called dealing with the game. If your opponent siezes on a gamey tactic in response to your gamey tactic, you can either

• reply with a further gamey tactic to convince him of the error of his ways, or
• evade his gamey tactic by going back towards realism yourself, by using more smaller raids at low altitude against bases he is of necessity leaving undefended by his concentration. In amphib terms this is called leapfrogging; hit 'em where they ain't; or
• hit him with 120 B17s from 36600 day after day, where his fighters can't get at you. Kill his CAP by ones and twos. Play the game, instead of klagging about it here; it's not like it is going to change, eh?

Or, WTF, just keep on sending bombers into the meatgrinder a hundred at a time. Plenty of 'em after all.

[ADavidB]

Play the game, instead of klagging about it here; it's not like it is going to change, eh?

But that is the problem - the game was changed in the last revision. What I keep on hoping is that, as with the time in UV when the B-17 repair algorithm was changed too much and B-17s never got repaired so the "improvement" was reversed a bit, the powers-that-be might reconsider what they have done here and consider something of a reversal too. Sure, it won't cure the general problem of both sides being able to stack way too many planes in a given base, but fundamentally, one side should not be given the ability to avoid attacks and the change to the Allied heavy bombers has done that for the Japanese side.

The rest of your suggestions are good ones and the best ideas for dealing with the current situation, but the changes still take away an important weapon from the Allied player.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[Mike Scholl]

[[/quote]
Realistic? No.
[/quote]

You should just stop right here and ask yourself "Why not?". Why can't we expect "realistic" in a game that purports to be a simulation of the War in the Pacific? Nobody would need to use "Gamey" if "real" worked. We may have to accept inaccuracy as that's the best we're going to get from this game---but why must so many folks "excuse and defend" it? Yes, WITP is never going to be perfect..., but if ALL of us had been griping about the inaccuracies from the get-go, we might have gotten more of them fixed by now and have less garbage to wade through. Instead, aat least half the posters DEFEND what they KNOW is "unrealistic" and rediculous, giving 2by3 a smoke screen to hide behind.

I'm not going to hammer 2by3---they took on a he11 of a task and produced a flawed but playable result. It's more than anyone else has on this level of complexity. I wish they hadn't "hard-coded" themselves into so many corners, but you can only do what you know how to do. But why defend the inadequacies? It doesn't even help them! You can't learn from a mistake unless you know you've made one---and having a bunch of posters claiming UP IS DOWN just obfusticates the situation. Why can you just say, "Yea, everybody knows this is wrong, but apparently they can't do anything to fix it without screwing up three other things so we'll probably have to live with it"?

[pad152]

I think somebody just read the what-if book about Zero's in the Battle of Britain.[8|]

Imagine Hitler with Zero fighters

Zero Over Berlin
By Joh Sasaki

It's 1940 and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler wants to rain death on London but he doesn't have the aircraft. However, his generals have read about a new long-range plane — the Japanese "Type Zero.

Yea Right![:-]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: pad152

I think somebody just read the what-if book about Zero's in the Battle of Britain.[8|]

Imagine Hitler with Zero fighters

Zero Over Berlin
By Joh Sasaki

It's 1940 and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler wants to rain death on London but he doesn't have the aircraft. However, his generals have read about a new long-range plane — the Japanese "Type Zero.

Yea Right![:-]

INTERESTING, BUT SILLY. The Zero was just starting coming off the production lines in 1940. Even if the Germans had purchased a copy, tested it, and made the dicision to adopt it (all of which would take time),
they would still have the same problems the Japanese had with the Tony. Adapting the design (airframe and engine) to German production methods, re-tooling for the new design, getting enough built to start training pilots on the new fighter, etc, etc. With luck they might have had some squadrons available by the summer of 1941. More likely the Spring of 1942.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

Maybe the B-17's durability should be raised but at the same time as I've said earlier operational losses to everyone need to be drastically raised and possibly increase the supply usage of aircraft or bombers as well so sorties aren't being flown everyday or every other day for that matter. Notice iun the article the one pilot had only flown 30 some odd missions in one year. These changes would go a long way to preventing the European style air war we see being waged..

As long as the changes are applied equally to each side, that seems reasonable. (I haven't been posting PzB's daily bombing attacks with hundreds and hundreads of Japanese bombers and fighters...daily attacks with 118 Sallys are no more "historic" than similar things for B-17s...)

Dave Baranyi

The game, as it stands, allows both sides ( in the Pacific - which is where we are "fighting" ) to launch larger raids than were historically possible.

I agree that essentially we are able to approach "european" style air wars. As Japanese I routinely am lauching 100+ air strikes in 2-3 locations on the map multiple times per week. If all sides air units accumulated fatigue faster, especially for larger and longer ranged missions ( simulating the planning required ) and B17 accuracy against shipping was reduced, I think we'd go a long way to helping. Though I also think the defensive figher algorithm needs some adjustment, especially at the higher end ( i.e. larger numbers of defending fighters getting too many hits ).

If you get another similar result of escorted B17s going down too heavily, please post as this will at least remove the argument that "Oh you should expect roughly 50% or higher losses for unescorted B17s" ...

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

But that is the problem - the game was changed in the last revision. What I keep on hoping is that, as with the time in UV when the B-17 repair algorithm was changed too much and B-17s never got repaired so the "improvement" was reversed a bit, the powers-that-be might reconsider what they have done here and consider something of a reversal too.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

We need to be careful with this one. The 'problem' of never getting repaired was not a heavy bomber problem, it was any large a/c group! I had many 72 plane fighter groups that had about 38 - 50 planes ready max when just sitting on the West Coast doing nothing but CAP.

I know that the release notes said it was a heavy bomber fix, but it went way beyond just heavies. Also, even prior to the fix heavies in squadron-size units got repaired plenty fast. It was only large groups of a/c (including fighters) that had the problem getting repaired.

By the way dividing the large fighter groups in sub-units didn't help because the game has limited slots and only a few could be divided.

Making the heavies tougher to use would be fine, but we need to watch out for side effects.

[Andy Mac]

Ive been pondering this problem as both sides are using ahistoric numbers of aircraft in raids. (p.s. I love this game only game thats kept me playing for a year, 1sty game ever ive PBEM'd etc etc )

Is the problem actually about AvGas v Supply

I dont know how either side shipped avgas about but I am conscios that as we assume supply = AVGAS its all being carried in normal transports.

Both the Japanese (and even the Allies if you ignore West Coast Tankers) have a limited tanker fleet.

Assuming the abstraction that is supply/fuel/oil is actually favouroring air ops by allowing in effect avgas to be carried by normal transports.

If Avgas was carried by tankers only then air ops become much more limited as both sides need to risk valuable tankers at the front line in order to operate aircraft.

Now I could be 100% wrong and in fact both sides shipped avgas via ordinary transports during the war (or in order to make this approx work they have ignored small tankers and ships)

I dont know anyone have any thoughts.

p.s. I am not advocating a change at this stage just trying to understand why we sometimes see far more air ops than was historic.

Andy

[myros]

Why are combat results being posted as "proof"? If 10 zero's damaged the same plane the results will list it as '10 damaged'. At least take the time to count and post your actual losses if your going to whine ;p I dont know how many times Ive seen wacky results in the combat report but when my turn comes around I check the base and its nowhere near as bad.

M

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

But that is the problem - the game was changed in the last revision. What I keep on hoping is that, as with the time in UV when the B-17 repair algorithm was changed too much and B-17s never got repaired so the "improvement" was reversed a bit, the powers-that-be might reconsider what they have done here and consider something of a reversal too.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

We need to be careful with this one. The 'problem' of never getting repaired was not a heavy bomber problem, it was any large a/c group! I had many 72 plane fighter groups that had about 38 - 50 planes ready max when just sitting on the West Coast doing nothing but CAP.

I know that the release notes said it was a heavy bomber fix, but it went way beyond just heavies. Also, even prior to the fix heavies in squadron-size units got repaired plenty fast. It was only large groups of a/c (including fighters) that had the problem getting repaired.

By the way dividing the large fighter groups in sub-units didn't help because the game has limited slots and only a few could be divided.

Making the heavies tougher to use would be fine, but we need to watch out for side effects.

No - I was specifically speaking of Uncommon Valor, not WitP. In one of the early updates of UV the developers, faced with similar complaints about the unrealistically rapid pace of 4 enginer bomber air operations, changed a small factor that controlled the rate with which 4 engine bombers were repaired. Unfortunately, it effectively turned the repair rate to "zero" for 4 engine bombers. The developers recognized that they had made a mistake and found a fix that both corrected the new problem and improved the old problem.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Ive been pondering this problem as both sides are using ahistoric numbers of aircraft in raids. (p.s. I love this game only game thats kept me playing for a year, 1sty game ever ive PBEM'd etc etc )

Is the problem actually about AvGas v Supply

I dont know how either side shipped avgas about but I am conscios that as we assume supply = AVGAS its all being carried in normal transports.

Both the Japanese (and even the Allies if you ignore West Coast Tankers) have a limited tanker fleet.

Assuming the abstraction that is supply/fuel/oil is actually favouroring air ops by allowing in effect avgas to be carried by normal transports.

If Avgas was carried by tankers only then air ops become much more limited as both sides need to risk valuable tankers at the front line in order to operate aircraft.

Now I could be 100% wrong and in fact both sides shipped avgas via ordinary transports during the war (or in order to make this approx work they have ignored small tankers and ships)

I dont know anyone have any thoughts.

p.s. I am not advocating a change at this stage just trying to understand why we sometimes see far more air ops than was historic.

Andy

Avgas cold be shipped in drums by any type of ship and transport aircraft, or as bulk load by tankers (Neosho at Pearl was discharging avgas when the attack came in - luckily she was not hit). Drums could be unloaded and cached in dumps, but if poper pumping equipment was lacking, filling up the planes was a slow process, limiting the number of sorties. Bulk shipping required proper facilities like storage tanks and pipelines - seldom to be found outside major bases, so they had to be built first.

The simple supply handling and base expansion system of WitP is the root of many issues with the game [:(].

[tsimmonds]

But why defend the inadequacies? It doesn't even help them! You can't learn from a mistake unless you know you've made one---and having a bunch of posters claiming UP IS DOWN just obfusticates the situation. Why can you just say, "Yea, everybody knows this is wrong, but apparently they can't do anything to fix it without screwing up three other things so we'll probably have to live with it"?

Mike, I'm not defending them at all. I rarely post without having either something concrete to offer or at least something to say that someone might find amusing. I chimed in this time to offer suggestions for dealing with this problem that obviously exists in the game as it is coded. Maybe they will fix it, maybe not. Meantimes, PBEMs go on.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Is the problem actually about AvGas v Supply

Funny, I've been asking myself the same question these last few days. If an air sortie burned up a fuel point (as they do on CV's) in addition to supply, it would at least help to slow things down a bit. The fuel supply category already exists and is catered for with regards to being moved by tankers and other vessels if less efficiantly, as LST points out. So it's not like a huge new apparatus would have to be added to make it work (?). Take a look at your sorties count. This is the no. of additional fuel points you'd have to administer to maintain the current level of ops. It would also make it more complicated to grab a base and fly an air armada off it the next turn. An isolated base could be made unable to operate aircraft even though it generates supply. The additional drain on fuel might even hamper our ability to conducy naval operations a little bit, as the fuel is a shared resource. It's no panacea, but I guess every little bit helps.

As it stands, in my opinion, the game doen't do enough to emulate the very real problem the Japanese faced with regards to aviation gasolin, a category every bit as vital as heavy fuel oil for Japan's ability to sustain the fighting. Below is some numbers on Japanese stockpiles and IJN consumption of these two critical items. The points is two-fold: Aviation gas was relatively scarce, and, as we know, although the figures below doesn't in themselves show this, lack of aviation gas seriously hampered all aspects - training not least - of Japanese air operations.

Stockpiles, Heavy Oil/Aviation gasolin (in tons):

12/41: 3,624,000/491,000
42: 3,184,000/460,000
43: 1,804,000/331,000
44: 798,000/155,000
45: 78,000/78,000
8/45: 4,000/17,000

IJN consumption, Heavy oil/Aviation gasolin:

12/41-3/42: 520,000/86,000
4/42-3/43: 3,660,000/466,000
4/43-3/44: 3,510,000/628,000
4/44-3/45: 2,740,000/545,000
4/45-8/45: 250,000/84,000

(Source: Parillo, Mark: The Japanese Merchant Navy in WWII, p.237)

Here's some other numbers that I've computed on the basis of the USAAF statistical digest ( http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm. ). They pertain the the total and relative comsumption of avgas and bomb weight by FEAF aircraft. Ideally I'd be able to compute the amount of gross shipping tonnage needed to fly a particular mission, but the figures I've found doesn't even remotely allow this. However the point is to demonstrate that avgas wasn't a triffling matter compared with another important category - bombs (the measure by which supply consumption of attack missions are computed in the game). The figures will show how FEAF's heavy bombers consumed 3.84 tons of avgas for every ton of bombs on target, mediums 4.83 tons and fighters 7.56 tons (and incidentally that FEAF's fighters weren't extensively used as FB's until the last year of the war or so). In itself it's obviously not a very good comparison, as any airborne aircraft will consume avgas but only those actually attacking a target will use bombs, but the point is to demonstrate that avgas in itself was an important category of supply in terms of weight, probably, as I suspect but cannot prove, the single most important. With regards to putting a brake on heavy bomber ops, it is notable that the average FEAF heavy baby burned 8.56 tons of avgas pr. sortie.

Tom

Fighters, FEAF, 42-45:

AvGas Consumed (tons):

1942: 9,691
1943: 72,801
1944: 129,544
1945: 99,174

Total: 311,100

Avg. pr. Sortie: 1.15

Bombs Dropped (tons):

1942: 50
1943: 91
1944: 8,563
1945: 32,437

Total: 41,141

AvGas Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 1.02
1943: 0.94
1944: 1.28
1945: 1.19

Bomb Weight Dropped pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: N/A
1943: N/A
1944: 0.08
1945: 0.39

Avg. pr. Sortie: 0.15

AvGas & Bomb Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 1.02
1943: 0.94
1944: 1.36
1945: 1.57

Avg. pr. Sortie: 1.30

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Medium bombers, FEAF, 42-45:

AvGas Consumed (tons):

1942: 8,802
1943: 41,431
1944: 117,950
1945: 80,743

Total: 248,206

Bombs Dropped (tons):

1942: 834
1943: 8,034
1944: 25,819
1945: 16,753

Total: 51,440

AvGas Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 2,96
1943: 3,13
1944: 3,17
1945: 2,85

Avg. pr. Sortie: 3,04

Bomb Weight Dropped pr. sortie (all, tons):

1942: 0,28
1943: 0,61
1944: 0,69
1945: 0,90

Avg. pr. Sortie: 0,63

AvGas & Bomb Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 3,24
1943: 3,74
1944: 3,86
1945: 3,75

Avg. pr. Sortie: 3,67

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heavy bombers, FEAF, 42-45:

AvGas Consumed (tons):

1942: 15,619
1943: 93,254
1944: 231,951
1945: 196,463

Total: 537,287

Bombs Dropped (tons):

1942: 1,749
1943: 21,580
1944: 57,752
1945: 58,798

Total: 139,879

AvGas Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 8.69
1943: 7.40
1944: 9.22
1945: 8.45

Avg. pr. Sortie: 8.56

Bomb Weight Dropped pr. sortie (all, tons):

1942: 0.97
1943: 1.71
1944: 2.30
1945: 2.53

Avg. pr. Sortie: 2.23

AvGas & Bomb Consumption pr. Sortie (all, tons):

1942: 9.66
1943: 9.11
1944: 11.52
1945: 10.98

Avg. pr. Sortie: 10.79

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Once 1.52 comes out, I'll be restarting my PBEM scen #15. We are going to give the B17/24 two armour points, hopefully that will save a few bombers from total destruction. We are making other unhistorical changes too. But we're trying to make the game play better without the fighters being on steroids.

[tsimmonds]

If an air sortie burned up a fuel point (as they do on CV's) in addition to supply, it would at least help to slow things down a bit. The fuel supply category already exists and is catered for with regards to being moved by tankers and other vessels if less efficiantly, as LST points out. So it's not like a huge new apparatus would have to be added to make it work (?). Take a look at your sorties count. This is the no. of additional fuel points you'd have to administer to maintain the current level of ops. It would also make it more complicated to grab a base and fly an air armada off it the next turn. An isolated base could be made unable to operate aircraft even though it generates supply.

I like this idea, but there is a catch: fuel does not travel by rail. How would the needed fuel get to an airbase with no port?