Ki-102 Issue and Query

[el cid again]

CHS added two variants of the Ki-102 twin engine fighter/bomber - A and B. Now the B is worse in performance than the A - because as designed it is heavier. But it is heavier because it carries a missile - OHKA. What is wierd is this: while OHKA IS defined, it is NOT on the Ki-102b. That raises the question - why have a Ki-102b at all? You are better off with the Ki-102a. UNLESS we add the Ohka to the b model.

Two options:

1) Delete the Ki-102b, get rid of the inferior plane, and gain a slot to add some new type.

2) Convert the Ki-102b to its historical form - WITH the missile.

What do YOU think?

[steveh11Matrix]

Can anything actually use the OHKA?

If they can, would this be a way of simulating the very-high-accuracy Tallboy and Grand Slam drops by 617 Sqdn?

Steve.

[el cid again]

Can anything actually use the OHKA?

If they can, would this be a way of simulating the very-high-accuracy Tallboy and Grand Slam drops by 617 Sqdn?

Steve.

I do not see how? First - I thought 617 was out of theater. Second, I thought Tallboy and Grand Slam were immense gravity bombs used to hit targets on LAND which are hardened. OHKA is a missile for use against ships, and Ki-102 is a medium sized plane. Tallboy and Grand Slam are the biggest (weight wise) weapons of the war - and need the heaviest of heavy bombers to lift them. Worse - they do not target the same sort of targets. I see nothing in common with these weapons.

[steveh11Matrix]

Simming the effect, not the method.

The effect I'm trying to simulate would be the high accuracy of these weapons as used by 617 Squadron - much, much better than other, 'normal' gravity bombs.

You may be right, there may be other, better methods?

Steve.

[el cid again]

Simming the effect, not the method.

The effect I'm trying to simulate would be the high accuracy of these weapons as used by 617 Squadron - much, much better than other, 'normal' gravity bombs.

You may be right, there may be other, better methods?

Steve.

As a technical guy I find the idea gravity bombs can be "more accurate" highly suspect. They are not guided - and so they are not going to be any different than any other bomb. Look at the bombing at Clark AAF - and the bombing of battleships using improvised 16 inch armor piercing shells from battleships at Pearl Harbor. Read capt Fujita about how this was done - and the fantastic accuracy achieved by the 5 plane VICs of Kates (and the 9 plane VICs of twin engine bombers). The bombing at Clark was from 25,000 feet, without Norden bombsights, and it was "the most accurate of the war" (Saburo Sakai, an eyewitness). Fujita records they achieved about 5 out of 6 hits in practice runs with the Kates - fantastic for gravity bombs. There ARE things you can do - fly lower - use wider VICs - and practice on similar looking targets - being the best. But if you do the same thing with different bombs, you will get the same results - exactly the same results - wether you use hand grenades or tall boys.

[el cid again]

I think you are talking about the dam busting raids - and what 617 used was skip bombing. The same thing was used by allied bombers late in the war on ships in the Pacific. IF you skip bomb, you almost cannot miss (if you gage the ship lateral movement correctly) the ship MUST BE SOMEWHERE ALONG THE PATH OF THE BOMB. For this reason, this IS in the game system - hard coded after a certain date.

This was defeated, once, by Japan's greatest destroyer captain, Takishi Hara. Having heard of it, he worried about it, but had no answer - until it happened to his ship (Shigure I think - he bossed two destroyers at different times). He ordered the ship to sail strait - with two effects:

1) The bomb aimer misaimed because Japanese ships ALWAYS circle - so he had the wrong lateral movement rate set - and the bomb missed!

2) The ship was a better AAA platform, so his gunners were not forced to track movements imposed by own platform. His long guns - normally not very useful in such a situation - were up to hitting the B-25 on a constant bearing, closing range.

He got a bonus - doing things right often has free bonuses: The plane, on its way to crash into the sea, misinterpreted flames from his stacks (creosote ignited when he ordered full speed) as a hit, and radioed the ship was clearly hit! So the Americans did not send a follow up raid!!!

[Blackhorse]

FYI, the 617 Squadron was slated to rotate to the PTO as part of the x20 Lancaster/Lincoln bomber-equipped "Tigerforce" to support the final invasion of Japan.

By the end of October, 1945 100 of the 14,000 lbs "Tallboys" were to be stockpiled on Okinawa for use by the 617 and one other squadron.

[steveh11Matrix]

No, I was talking about the use of Tallboy and Grand Slam. 617 achieved unprecedented accuracy with these weapons, far, far better than a 'normal' squadron dropping 'normal' bombs, so I wondered if the inherently superior accuracy of the Guided Weapon category could be used. But maybe not: it was but a passing thought. It may be better to model the Squadron as very, very high experience, the weapons as inherently a little more accurate but plain gravity weapons, and leave it at that.

I DO assume that you will be modelling the Talboy and Grand Slam, and 617 (and other) squadrons using them? What about he B29 squadrons that were to be converted to drop two each?

Heh, he, who needs nukes? [;)]

Steve.

[el cid again]

FYI, the 617 Squadron was slated to rotate to the PTO as part of the x20 Lancaster/Lincoln bomber-equipped "Tigerforce" to support the final invasion of Japan.

By the end of October, 1945 100 of the 14,000 lbs "Tallboys" were to be stockpiled on Okinawa for use by the 617 and one other squadron.

FYI Freeman Dyson, who during WWII was the mathmetical analyst for Bomber Command, reports it was planned to transfer the ENTIRE command to PTO - and he was relieved in August when the war ended and he didn't have to do it. Dyson later became a physicist, worked on the very unusual Project Orion (for a space ship powered by atom bombs - which every reviewer thinks would work - which was outlawed by the treaty forbidding atom bombs in space - and which Curtis LeMay wrote SHOULD have been built!). He also is just about the only physicist to honestly describe the effects of missile defenses.

[el cid again]

I DO assume that you will be modelling the Talboy and Grand Slam, and 617 (and other) squadrons using them? What about he B29 squadrons that were to be converted to drop two each?

My very limited charter is to review Japanese planes., Apparently lots of work was done on Allied OB and Japanese OB is on the table just now.


However, if YOU want the mods, tell me what you think you want. I can send them to you like Cobra Aus makes art - in a few minutes.