Hordes of Tonys

[CapAndGown]

Excellent discussion. Hope you can keep it going. I am learning a lot. This is the kind of discussion that I like to see on this forum.

[ChezDaJez]

I’d be curious to see others post their loss rates as well. My opponent is a very methodical player and never leaves an opening. He always comes in force and hasn’t run a shoestring operation yet. I’ve hammered away looking for weakness, but so far I’ve found none.

My game is at 7/1/42 now. As you can see from the screen shot, losses on both sides have been heavy, averaging over 300 IJ aircraft and 400 Allied aircraft per month.

I don't have much to complain about as far as air-air combat goes. It seems to be fairly realistic with the possible exception of B-17s. I managed to down 112 of them in air-air combat. Most of those were unescorted flying max range and going up against some very experienced Jap pilots. I have had a few major battles where I came out on the losing end big time but overall it seems ok.

My biggest concern is the ops losses, especially when comparing the A6M2 Zero against the P-40B/E and F4F-3/4s. I t doesn't make sense to me. The A6M2 was a sweet flyer and handled exceptionally well at low speeds whereas the P-40 and F4F were a handful to fly below 200 knots. Add in the widetrack landing gear on the Zero and the narrow gear on the P-40 and F4F and you would think that the Zero should have fewer ops losses but it doesn't work that way. My A6M2s have 100 ops losses as opposed to the F4F-3 with 6, the F4F-4 with 10, the P-40B with 16 and the P-40E with 26.

Now part of that may be due to the lower sortie rates of the Allied aircraft (compared to the Zero) due to their being fewer of them but it still seems out of line. It seems to apply to all Japanese aircraft but not the Allied.

I'm not complaining, just wondering.

Chez

[ChezDaJez]

I have no idea how fast the factories expand, but its doubtful that production can be doubled in a month. Even at 110 Oscars a month there are not 810, there are somewhere around 700 and since the factories did not go to 110 a month on December 8th we can be pretty certain there are actually less than this.

Costs 1000 supply per expansion point plus there must be 20000 supply in the city to expand.

Japan has to be very, very careful not to overexpand to quickly otherwise she will eat all of her supply in just a couple of months. I've put up my production rates below. I have plenty of supply and HI, its lack of oil that's going to kill me.

So far keeping up with aircraft losses is no problem, manning them is.

Chez

[Tom Hunter]

Chez,

My impression is that ops loss and moral reduction are a function of two things, how far you fly and how big your airbase. I have Hurricanes in Mitiykina that have great moral, low ops losses and bomb the crap out of the Japanese every day. Other planes flying the same mission from the same altitude don't like it nearly as much.

Jim since you asked:

As to be expected the air groups using planes that are at 0 replacements are not at full strength.

P40E (at least one group downgraded to P36)
3 groups
65 of 72
24 of 24
31 of 72

P40B I hold these at important bases to fly escort when KB comes to call.
5 groups
39 of 72
35 of 72
24 of 24
21 of 74
30 of 72

Kittyhawks
8 groups
7 at 16 of 16
1 at 12 of 16 but that is because its in the Phillipines where supply is running low

P39s
4 Groups
52 of 72
38 of 72
24 if 24
15 of 24

Hurricanes
10 groups all at full strength
The Japanese don't fly in Burma
One group is at Lautem, the Japanese don't fly there either

VMF groups: these guys go where the action is
3 full groups and the half group from Wake
2 at 24 of 24
1 at 12 of 12
1 at 19 of 24 but it is at Clark Field, so it is not drawing replacements

Chinese I16s
3 groups
22 of 24
24 of 24
22 of 24

P36 Most groups are not in combat, but they do cover some important locations
6 groups
39 of 72
21 of 72
72 of 72 (Canton Island)
20 of 24
two groups at 24 of 24

Demons, Buffalos and Mohawks are all at full strength, Brewsters are all chewed up badly

In spite of the fact that the Japanese have enough planes to keep all thier Zero groups in action the Allies have air parity over Soerbaja, Timor, Port Moresby and China. They have total control of the air in Burma. The Japanese have started launching large scale training attacks with a number of groups.

As I have mentioned we may never know how this one turns out, Blackwatch has some kind of a medical problem and I have not heard from him since September. Though the Allies are clearly streched there is no question that they are doing very well in the air, passing the Japanese in planes destroyed some time in May, and inflicting greater losses than they recieved since late March or April.

[Nomad]

Here is a shot of my game with PzB. PzB has lost an average of 445 Japanese aircraft per month. The Allies( Wobbly, ADavidB, me ) have averaged losing 578 aircraft per month. No wonder I can not find any aircraft to fly. [:D]

[CapAndGown]

It seems to be the rule that op-losses for the japs are higher at the begining. Some of these come simply from transfering planes around. As the front moves forward, you have to move your planes forward as well. Unless their fatigue is 0 and the weather is clear, you stand a good chance of an op-loss. Also, since you can move in one long leap with Zeros, many people do, meaning more op-losses, whereas the allied planes cannot make those kind of long hops.

Also, the japs can fly at longer ranges and generally do. The allies can't fly long range escort, so they don't experience those kind of op-losses. Generally they are limited to flying CAP over their own bases. Many people are in love with the Zero's range, but having that long range often results in higher op-losses. I have always thought that range was overrated in players' minds since any long range mission really takes it out of the pilots in fatigue and ops-losses.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

Basically here's what I think. Bypassing a strategic fortress type base and bombing it to neutralize it is historical. Bypassing a small, non-offensive base so you can train your air groups is just about as gamey as you can get. These rules would apply to either side, at any point in the game.

Bataan wasnt a "strategic fortress", just a "non-offensive base"???

It has the biggest and most numerous shore guns in the game. Glad to know it isnt a "strategic fortress". So tell me again why its ok to by-pass say Jaluit and bomb it as the allies (which they did real world), and the Japs cant park bombers on Clark Field and pound Bataan. I think I missed your point.

[ChezDaJez]

It seems to be the rule that op-losses for the japs are higher at the begining. Some of these come simply from transfering planes around. As the front moves forward, you have to move your planes forward as well. Unless their fatigue is 0 and the weather is clear, you stand a good chance of an op-loss. Also, since you can move in one long leap with Zeros, many people do, meaning more op-losses, whereas the allied planes cannot make those kind of long hops.

Also, the japs can fly at longer ranges and generally do. The allies can't fly long range escort, so they don't experience those kind of op-losses. Generally they are limited to flying CAP over their own bases. Many people are in love with the Zero's range, but having that long range often results in higher op-losses. I have always thought that range was overrated in players' minds since any long range mission really takes it out of the pilots in fatigue and ops-losses.

I understand that ops losses are predicated on range. The only problem with that is that I haven't been flying long range attacks except during the first month or two of the war. Nearly all of my fighters have been assigned to CAP duty and lately I have been guarding against his heavies coming from Imphal and conducting the occasional raid/sweep in return. The range is the same for both of us. Very few have engaged in offensive operations greater than range 5. They are operating out of level 4 airfields as I try to station them with Bettys. I typically lose 2-3 Zeros per day due to ops losses flying CAP. His planes, flying CAP, seldom see the ops loss rate.

What is interesting is that I haven't lost a Zero that I can remember flying LR Cap from Baker Island, which is a level 1 field. Nearly all the ops losses seem to come from the Burma theater.

Personally, I feel ops losses should be based on aircraft characteristics, not just range flown. It doesn't make sense to me to have multi-pilot, mulit-engine aircraft such as Bettys and B-17 bombers suffer the same or greater ops losses than single engine, single pilot day fighters.

Anyways, just my .02 cents.

Chez

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez
Nearly all of my fighters have been assigned to CAP duty and lately I have been guarding against his heavies coming from Imphal and conducting the occasional raid/sweep in return. The range is the same for both of us.

Don't forget, CAP aircraft usually picks a base or hex within their range settings and randomly assigns a small flight to patrol it. So perhaps 4 planes are flying CAP at a base that is possibly 9-11 hexes away or whatever you have their range limits set to. Try turning your range down to 4 or something and see if that doesn't help.

I see this a lot in Burma now that I've moved my Hurricanes into Mandalay to try and contest that base once more. If my opponent’s recon flies over the Chinese divisions in the river hex adjacent to Mandalay, 4 or 8 Hurricanes are shown as attempting to intercept the recon flight, even though I did not assign any CAP for that hex.

Jim

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez
Nearly all of my fighters have been assigned to CAP duty and lately I have been guarding against his heavies coming from Imphal and conducting the occasional raid/sweep in return. The range is the same for both of us.

Don't forget, CAP aircraft usually picks a base or hex within their range settings and randomly assigns a small flight to patrol it. So perhaps 4 planes are flying CAP at a base that is possibly 9-11 hexes away or whatever you have their range limits set to. Try turning your range down to 4 or something and see if that doesn't help.

I see this a lot in Burma now that I've moved my Hurricanes into Mandalay to try and contest that base once more. If my opponent’s recon flies over the Chinese divisions in the river hex adjacent to Mandalay, 4 or 8 Hurricanes are shown as attempting to intercept the recon flight, even though I did not assign any CAP for that hex.

Jim

Sorry for getting off-track for a moment, but this information strikes my interest. Looking over the recon for IJ I see that I believe the Pete has the highest speeds, yet the shortest range. Is it possible, particularly later in the war when the Allies have better fighters, that the situation you described would see the Petes surviving while the much slower, but longer winded Alfs getting shot down? I have not that much experience with the game, but since I'm never too deep into any load I woudl be surprised with early IJ if I'm getting more than one float plane per day even engaged at all, though surely the AI is flying at least some CAP.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter
Jim since you asked:

Thanks Tom, I’ll reciprocate in kind with a side by side comparison since you took the time.

P40E (at least one group downgraded to P36)
3 groups
65 of 72
24 of 24
31 of 72

Your total 120 P40E’s out of a total capacity of 168

My P40E groups:
3 groups of 24 and 2 groups of 72
3 full strength at 24
15 of 72
72 of 72

My total 159 P40E’s out of a total capacity of 216

P40B I hold these at important bases to fly escort when KB comes to call.
5 groups
39 of 72
35 of 72
24 of 24
21 of 74
30 of 72

Your total 149 P40B’s out of a total capacity of 264

My P40B groups
2 groups
15 of 72
35 of 72

My total 50 P40B’s out of a total capacity of 144

Kittyhawks
8 groups
7 at 16 of 16
1 at 12 of 16 but that is because its in the Phillipines where supply is running low

Your total 113 Kittyhawks out of a total capacity of 128

My Kittyhawk groups:
3 groups of 16
all full strength

My total 48 Kittyhawks out of a total capacity of 48

P39s
4 Groups
52 of 72
38 of 72
24 if 24
15 of 24

Your total 129 P39’s out of a total capacity of 192

My P39 groups
3 groups of 72 and 2 groups of 24
2 full strength at 24
2 full strength at 72
38 of 72

My total P39’s 230 out of a total capacity of 264

Hurricanes
10 groups all at full strength

Your total 160 Hurricanes out of a total capacity of 160

My Hurricane groups
10 groups of 16
9 full strength
1 of 16

My total 145 Hurricanes out of a total capacity of 160

VMF groups:
3 full groups and the half group from Wake
2 at 24 of 24
1 at 12 of 12
1 at 19 of 24 but it is at Clark Field, so it is not drawing replacements

Your total 79 F4F-3’s (I am assuming they are 3’s) out of a total capacity of 84

My F4F-3 groups
2 groups of 24
all full strength

My total 48 F4F-3’s out of a total capacity of 48

Chinese I16s
3 groups
22 of 24
24 of 24
22 of 24

Your total 68 I16’s out of a total capacity of 72

My I16 groups
3 groups of 24
18 of 24
20 of 24
21 of 24

My total 59 I16’s out of a total capacity of 72

P36 Most groups are not in combat, but they do cover some important locations
6 groups
39 of 72
21 of 72
72 of 72 (Canton Island)
20 of 24
two groups at 24 of 24

Your total 200 P36’s out of a total capacity of 288

My P36 groups
3 groups of 72 and 2 groups of 24
1 full strength at 72
2 full strength at 24
39 of 72
39 of 72

My total 198 P36’s out of a total capacity of 264

Demons, Buffalos and Mohawks are all at full strength

Same here.

Brewsters are all chewed up badly

Mine all full strength.

Your total aircraft we counted up equals 1018, mine 937. But your numbers include 5 full Kittyhawk groups (80 planes) and 1 extra 24 plane group of F4F-3’s I as yet don’t have. So take 104 off your total and you have 914 to my 937, a surprisingly close number.

Of course I could add another 30 P36’s from my pool, but I’ve been allowing that to build up so I can swap my last non-AVG P40B group out and try and replace the horrendous losses the AVG has suffered. Without replacing the P40B groups, it would take the AVG fully 7 months to rebuild given the low replacement rates of 10 per month.

Even so that would only put me 50 aircraft ahead of you, which I find a strikingly close comparison. So those 100 extra P40B’s you’ve managed to keep around really makes a big difference.

Your total capacity is 1356 mine is 1216. But again take away 104 for groups I haven’t received yet and yours is 1252. Hmm take away the 12 planes for the lost half squadron from Wake and you have 24 more planes in your capacity (that or its late and I messed up the math somewhere), so you’ve received another 24 plane group I haven’t yet received. So our difference is growing to 890 to 937, a total of 47 aircraft or 77 if you add in my pool of 30 P36’s.

Still that’s only one large air group worth of a difference and you’ve doubled your losses, so perhaps the attrition way isn’t as bad as I thought. Obviously your pools don’t have much if any air frames in them, but you have managed to train up you groups probably 10 or 20 points higher than my 60’s average experience for my groups. Of course had I seen my opponents single minded effort to decimate the AVG coming, I’d have preserved another 100 P40B’s to add to the difference, but alas such are the vagaries of war.

Jim

[Tom Hunter]

Chez,

I forgot about weather, but the Hurricanes are still less affected than the Buffalos that are flying the same mission out of Ledo. Maybe the Japanese just take more ops losses.

Nomad we know why the Allied losses are so high in the game you took over. The question is are you closing the gap or opening it?

As I look at the numbers I posted above it occurs to me that Blackwatch is only fighting about 300 Allied aircraft, there are 144 Hurricanes and 60 Chinese fighters that he is avoiding, and most of the P40Bs and P39s are out of the action due to Allied choices. If the Japanese were engaged over Burma their loss rate would be a lot higher, possibly catastrophic. When looking at the over all effect of the strategy the total surrender of airspace should be taken into account as well.

Jim are there places the Japanese won't fly in your game?

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Sorry for getting off-track for a moment, but this information strikes my interest. Looking over the recon for IJ I see that I believe the Pete has the highest speeds, yet the shortest range. Is it possible, particularly later in the war when the Allies have better fighters, that the situation you described would see the Petes surviving while the much slower, but longer winded Alfs getting shot down? I have not that much experience with the game, but since I'm never too deep into any load I woudl be surprised with early IJ if I'm getting more than one float plane per day even engaged at all, though surely the AI is flying at least some CAP.

I'd like to believe that everything is taken into account on intercept attempts, but the truth is we just don't really know. the manual says oil damage is affected by engineers present at the base, but I've seen empty bases suffer half damage or worse while bases with 100 engineers or more suffer none at all. So your guess sounds right, but who really knows what goes on inside the depths of the WitP code? It could just be a single random roll period or an in depth series of rolls that looks at all the different stats.

Jim

[Charles2222]

Thanks. I am trying to look at things a little differently at times. I know how everybody dogpiles into wanting Alfs, but as much as I recall so many people harping on speed being so important (whereas it's never been in any GG game from anything BTR and earlier) it does surprise me a little that such an angle is taken on the recon as well.

I believe I saw some other slight indicator that this may be quite a deal (though how much can a range of one help?). Though the information is very vague at the moment, and it may not have been due to speed at all, but I can think of no other reason, my Ida DB's were"terror" on enemy subs, whereas I expected the Val's or Betty (given same short range to ASW search) to be much more effective.

Some of those planes we have come to hate, if speed is really a very big deal, could have more place than we give them.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter
Jim are there places the Japanese won't fly in your game?

Remember these numbers I’m using are over a month old, so my game is into June now and I have another months worth of production (and some losses) added to my numbers. I have moved about 80 Hurricanes and 16 Spitfires into Mandalay to try and contest that base again as I see he is building up for his Burma campaign now. But my bombers are still forced to hide in India for the most part and get decimated on day air attacks so they recently switched to night bombing to help train them up.

Everywhere else there is a kind of lull going on as he switches into his build up phase after the conquest of the SRA and PI. He hasn't shown his hand on whether he intends to drive further south towards Noumea (he has the Solomons and PM already) or just hold the historical perimeter in the Pacific. He does have Midway, so that causes me some concern, but as I said when he does come (if he does) it will be with overwhelming strength, that's his play style. He keeps his cards close and when he lays em on the table there really isn't a lot I can do to stop him so far.

The only other active theatre right now (late June) is China. He is building up massive strength in Yenen (over 35 units detected) to launch his major push in the north. He’s already totally decimated my supply, so my guess is he’s been simply allowing things to get critical through bombardment consumption levels before he launches his push. Homan fell because of no supply and I was only just able to prevent him from taking Sian as well, but now he’s shifted to Yenen and I’ve sent what little help I can that way, but those corps are all division strength at best and as yet still a few weeks away.

Jim

[Tom Hunter]

Mostly just details

The F4s are F4F4s except for the half group from Wake, which got away because Wake was not attacked.

F4F3 losses are high because I lost two CVs early in the game, and because I send the one 12 plane group into action as often as possible to use the pool. Regardless of that we both have full F4 groups of either type and I have 12 more because of the 211/1 group from Wake.

Agreed that sweeps can be dangerous to Allied fighters, but that can be largely negated by not flying CAP. No CAP, nothing to fight the Sweeps.

My feeling is the same when it comes to the question of getting the Dutch out. It is much more up to the Allied player than the Japanese. The Japanese can do things to catch the planes, but an aware Allied player can take countermeasures.

Playing for attrition also requires a lot of advance planning of the defensive. I'm not convinced that everyone who plays this game is good at that. If you play attrition wrong then the Japanese can really hurt the Allies a lot. There is also the question of player variability, what worked on Blackwatch may not work on Mogami, especially after Mogami has read 3 AARs and too many other posts where I discuss my approach. We will see about that, when January 1st 1942 rolls around I will post the intel screen in a seperate thread and hopefully the other lunatics will do the same.

An interesting discussion and comparison any way you choose to look at it.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

I’d be curious to see others post their loss rates as well. My opponent is a very methodical player and never leaves an opening. He always comes in force and hasn’t run a shoestring operation yet. I’ve hammered away looking for weakness, but so far I’ve found none.

My game is at 7/1/42 now. As you can see from the screen shot, losses on both sides have been heavy, averaging over 300 IJ aircraft and 400 Allied aircraft per month.

I don't have much to complain about as far as air-air combat goes. It seems to be fairly realistic with the possible exception of B-17s. I managed to down 112 of them in air-air combat. Most of those were unescorted flying max range and going up against some very experienced Jap pilots. I have had a few major battles where I came out on the losing end big time but overall it seems ok.

My biggest concern is the ops losses, especially when comparing the A6M2 Zero against the P-40B/E and F4F-3/4s. I t doesn't make sense to me. The A6M2 was a sweet flyer and handled exceptionally well at low speeds whereas the P-40 and F4F were a handful to fly below 200 knots. Add in the widetrack landing gear on the Zero and the narrow gear on the P-40 and F4F and you would think that the Zero should have fewer ops losses but it doesn't work that way. My A6M2s have 100 ops losses as opposed to the F4F-3 with 6, the F4F-4 with 10, the P-40B with 16 and the P-40E with 26.

Now part of that may be due to the lower sortie rates of the Allied aircraft (compared to the Zero) due to their being fewer of them but it still seems out of line. It seems to apply to all Japanese aircraft but not the Allied.

I'm not complaining, just wondering.

Chez

Steve,

Per the USSBS report ( that has been given on this forum before ), the Japanese historically lost about 30,000 planes during the war to operational losses. In a 46 month war this would be over 600 op losses per month on average. So you're not even in the ball park yet in terms of your game vis-a-vis history.

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#eojcap

In the game - unless it is an emergency - after each transfter I do wait for fatigue to be 0 - and I limit transfer to 10 hexes or less ( again unless it is an emergency ). Oh, and emergencies are basically rare events ( by definition ). I do lose planes ( and people ) for the poor pilots units ( 30-45 exp ) but almost never for the units with higher exp.

Op losses for units in CBI should probably be higher than the average. My father was stationed in Ceylon and said that the British would crash land their aircraft more often than not - and then just shove them over to the side of the field to make room for the next one. The fields were less well maintained and the facilities were poorer ( and this is on the Allied side ! ). Of course in the game I'm not sure what the designers had in mind in CBI - probably the effects are either due to weather ( which is fine ) or malarial which would be debatable.

THe "sweetness" of the plane might be a factor ( in op losses ) but there are others. Navagating across the water, inexperienced pilots, lack of maintenance crews and spare parts. But all in all .. op losses for both sides are significantly under-represented in the game.

[Nikademus]

They have to be otherwise too many pilots would die. The op loss figures also include rear area training groups, not just the front line units. According to Bergerud, in the first half of the war, Japanese combat losses exceeded operational losses. Reasons cited were high Japanese training levels (or proficiency) combined with light aircraft with forgiving flight characteristics. Late war the trend reversed and op losses exceeded combat losses by a wide margin. This would make sense given the extreme paucity of the Japanese training program at that point which would foster many accidents once these newbies were put into the cockpit of a high preformance aircraft.

[NemRod]

Hi Tom. Long ago in your AAR we discussed about production and I told you I was playing a very different game as Japan.This game is the one I'm playing against Jim[;)].
Now I can tell you more, if it has some interest for the discussion.

I HAVEN'T increased my production for Betties (46),Helens(37), Oscars(62), just auto upgrades.
I have increased recently my production for A6M2(175)+A6M3(72) but I've played most of the game with a production of 130 A6M2.
This is far less than what Blackwatch must have produced to sustain the battle against you.Yes, the Jap player can produce a lot of planes but if he does that he can't do many other important things: supplying troops, building bases, expanding shipyards...And he will pay for that in the future.

What is funny is that untill now I was playing the game thinking Jim had hordes of everything just training and waiting for the appropriate moment to strike[:D].

I hope Blackwatch will be soon able to play WITP again or enjoy whatever he wants.

[ChezDaJez]

Per the USSBS report ( that has been given on this forum before ), the Japanese historically lost about 30,000 planes during the war to operational losses. In a 46 month war this would be over 600 op losses per month on average. So you're not even in the ball park yet in terms of your game vis-a-vis history.

I don't doubt that there shouldn't be high ops losses, it's the ratio between the US and Japanese that concerns me. The US, if anything, should have higher ops losses numbers-wise than Japan, especially late in the war.

For example, according to the USAAF Statistical Digest, the US lost 11,995 fighters in 1944 (all theaters) from training, ops and combat. They lost a total of 28,300 aircraft of all types in 1944 from all causes. More on that when I get back from class.

Putting primitive airfields, lack of navigational devices, inexperience, high performance aircraft and young men together will lead to high ops losses but it should apply to both sides equally.

Chez