As i stated previously I think that Nik's A to A mods have some merit, however, I everything i read indicates to me that there really was an anti-aircraft gap in the sky where light AA was ineffective and heavy AA could not adequate deal with, primarily over land. Naval is a different matter.. In both cases heavy AA was basically almost useless against the dive bomber while it was in its dive.
Also I read the read me Elf posted above an extracted one quote
Land based AA has always been rather anemic in the game since UV days. Players can attack bases at as low as 6000 feet and suffer negligible results even if that base has stacked multiple heavy AA battalions there. In return they plaster the base, Allied of course more than Japan given the bomb loads of Allied level bombers.
And I'm talking about land based AA for the rest of this. Sea based attacks for the most part had different attack profile ...
I looked into the "AA gap" issue as a part of responding to a thread started by Apollo11 a few weeks back and learned almost as much as I ever wanted to know about AA ( land-based ) during WWII ... some sources ( Ian Hogg ) state there was an AA gap - at least pre-war. Others ( USAAF training film ) insist there was no AA gap. But what is clear is that there is an alitude below which the heavy AA guns cannot effectively engage, primarily due to inability to track low flying targets across the engagement horizon. In german use, heavy AA was only used rarely against low flying attacks and when it was, it was done with barrage fire where the guns were pre-aimed in a "scatter" pattern and fired 1-2 rounds as the strike flew over. This tactic is described as unable to get hits - but it is hoped that it "scares" the enemy !
Further there is a range/altitude beyond/above which "light" AA cannot engage, stated to be about 1600 meters at the outer edge.
German 88 fuses for the HE ( flak ) round - came in a number of flavors, a 2 second minimum and a 1 second minimum and even a 0 minimum. The 1 second minimum would've caused the round to go off at roughly 3000 feet and the 2 second minimum at roughly 6000 feet ...
Given the time required to perform directed fire however, the amount of time an attacking air element spends inside the engagement envelope, much below 10,000 drops off quite quickly. So somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 feet seems likely. And it is also clear that first line German heavy flak, rarely fired barrage fire - and that is stated doctrine.
So at least for the Germans by mid-war .. the "flak gap" maybe have been minimal or even zero ... but heavy flak should have a "floor" below which its effecctiveness drops off.
And again, rightly or wrongly one of the ( several ) factors which led LeMay to decide to risk the low level night attacks was a belief that the Japanese were optimized for high level AA. Later in the summer of 1945 when he was getting away with day light attacks at 15,000 feet ( which should be the optimal altitude for heavy flak ) one ccould argue that Japanese flak was ineffective any ANY altitude. But this wasn't known in early March when the night bombing decision was made.
I'm ok with increasing Japanese flak a little bit below 6,000 feet .. because the allies at least ought to be able to tell the difference ... and not sure they can now. Everyone seems to know that in the game 6,000 feet is the magic altitude, things weren't nearly that simple IRL. But I wouldn't want to create a "Hanoi in the Pacific" ... at least not during WWII !!!
So in reading through the Nik read me .. it sounds like he increases flak effectiveness and then backs off a little .. but there is also a warning about players not stacking their flak units. Well in general if you give us players a hole - we will "drive a Pz division through it" ... so this concerns me a bit. I'm ok with a slight increase - but feel that it should be tested or we should be ready to back it out if we release it and everyone comes back with data indicating the Forts are Falling.












