The tojo as uber.....

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I´m sure both forums still are one of the most civilized forums on the net

Very sad, but probably true.

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Shark7





Yeah, in this instance the bounce is more akin to the tactic of 'diving out of the sun' such as used by the AVG against the Japanese over China. The AVG is a very good example of a mediocre aircraft (P-40C) using superior tactics to gain the advantage. Unfortunately the game doesn't seem to model this well (or rather models it too well).

Maybe the game does model it well and we are reading a few too many tales about AVG, it would take a lot of skill to dive out of the sun in China unless your going to be sweeping at sunset or late afternoon as you will need to go behind the Japanese. Speaking of which most players waste AVG against the Japanese cream instead of China where they fought lesser opponents also the Japanese know they are in Burma so send more quantity and quality than historical.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I´m sure both forums still are one of the most civilized forums on the net

Very sad, but probably true.

Why is this sad? Wonna more work as a moderator? [&:]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

castor troy, decrying the other as childish and then retreating to the level of "he started it" really establishes a low base of behaviour.

I see you've decided to continue the discussion in this thread - which isn't going to get anyone rational and adult to join in or take you seriously.

Goodbye, if you reflect and see some sense and have a fresh, rational start in a new thread I may contribute further. I think others might consider taking the same stance, it is probably the best chance for the many to hold the line against unseemly behaviour.


And just in case anyone decides to go asking who I am to be posting "sage" advice... Someone who would have joined in in this particular furball with relish a few years ago but, thankfully, we all have the capacity to learn, even castor troy ( and I ). IOW no special qualifications or anything just, I hope, a little bit of common sense ( although probably not enough [8D] )

The childish was pointed at MYSELVE anyway: [8|]

And while it´s just completely childish (but no matter how old certain people are, this won´t change), I was not the one who again started with it.

Still it is like it is, I´m not the kind of person who gets slapped and waits for the next slap. Probably 98% of the people are the same anyway.

Other than calling me a troll, I have not seen someone who actually said: "the airwar in the Pacific was fought just below 40.000ft in real life". Yet I always see: "the modelling of the airwar in AE is near perfect and working very well, reflecting real life as close as possible". Those two statements definetely don´t match. The modelling of airwar in AE is a vast improvement over WITP but it definetely still needs as much improvement in AE as it needed (and received) in WITP. But that´s just my troll opinion I guess. It stays the same though, if people aren´t restricting themselve in a PBEM (not needed in AI games) to keep their fighters at reasonable alts, you will get a Pacific airwar at altitudes between 30k and 40.000ft. And this is not reflecting real life at all, at least not in my book. I´m happy to be taught otherwise though.

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: castor troy
I´m sure both forums still are one of the most civilized forums on the net

Very sad, but probably true.

Why is this sad? Wonna more work as a moderator? [&:]

No, it's very sad that this is about the best that our "civilization" can do for a forum.

[TheElf]

The Wildcat was not well suited for the fight at Guadalcanal. It had a bunch of weight in the back that we could have dispensed with very nicely. It was beefed up for carrier landings in the rear and we didn't need it. But there wasn't anything to be done in that regard. So because of this we'd work like hell to climb to 23,000-24,000 feet. At that altitude when you make a turn you lose 1,000 feet, and it's very easy to stall out. In theory the F4F had a higher service ceiling but not in practice. You'd look up there and there sit the Japs at 30,000 looking right down your gazoo. A real fun time. You couldn't get that bird much higher than 24,000: not you, not Jesus, nobody. The bird wouldn't go any higher.

- Roger Haberman, VMF-121 Vet. as quoted in Fire in the Sky

Zeke vs. Wildcat debate aside, some aircraft can just fly higher. If that isn't working in your favor, try a new tactic. That is the point of this game, to provide you, the player with the same challenges as the real Commanders. If your opponent is using a performance advantage against you, then seek an advantage of your own to counter it.

[FrankE]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

The Wildcat was not well suited for the fight at Guadalcanal. It had a bunch of weight in the back that we could have dispensed with very nicely. It was beefed up for carrier landings in the rear and we didn't need it. But there wasn't anything to be done in that regard. So because of this we'd work like hell to climb to 23,000-24,000 feet. At that altitude when you make a turn you lose 1,000 feet, and it's very easy to stall out. In theory the F4F had a higher service ceiling but not in practice. You'd look up there and there sit the Japs at 30,000 looking right down your gazoo. A real fun time. You couldn't get that bird much higher than 24,000: not you, not Jesus, nobody. The bird wouldn't go any higher.

- Roger Haberman, VMF-121 Vet. as quoted in Fire in the Sky

Zeke vs. Wildcat debate aside, some aircraft can just fly higher. If that isn't working in your favor, try a new tactic. That is the point of this game, to provide you, the player with the same challenges as the real Commanders. If your opponent is using a performance advantage against you, then seek an advantage of your own to counter it.

And yet,for a variety of reasons that aren't modeled in the game, in real life all fighter sweeps weren't conducted at maximum altitude. But that's the best tactic in AE. The same goes for CAP, there are reasons that CAP was layered at different altitudes but it's just silly to do that in AE.

IMO, a couple of relatively simple changes would go a long way towards getting more realistic air combat in AE.

1) If the altitude difference (between sweep/CAP and CAP/bombers) is greater than 10K, chances of an intercept occuring is reduced drastically. The bigger the altitude difference, the smaller the chance. Chance of intercept is increased with better radar.

2) If a sweep is conducted at an altitude higher than the max altitude of the CAP planes, any CAP that doesn't have a commander with a very high aggressiveness should have a good chance of declining combat altogether.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: FrankE

ORIGINAL: TheElf

The Wildcat was not well suited for the fight at Guadalcanal. It had a bunch of weight in the back that we could have dispensed with very nicely. It was beefed up for carrier landings in the rear and we didn't need it. But there wasn't anything to be done in that regard. So because of this we'd work like hell to climb to 23,000-24,000 feet. At that altitude when you make a turn you lose 1,000 feet, and it's very easy to stall out. In theory the F4F had a higher service ceiling but not in practice. You'd look up there and there sit the Japs at 30,000 looking right down your gazoo. A real fun time. You couldn't get that bird much higher than 24,000: not you, not Jesus, nobody. The bird wouldn't go any higher.

- Roger Haberman, VMF-121 Vet. as quoted in Fire in the Sky

Zeke vs. Wildcat debate aside, some aircraft can just fly higher. If that isn't working in your favor, try a new tactic. That is the point of this game, to provide you, the player with the same challenges as the real Commanders. If your opponent is using a performance advantage against you, then seek an advantage of your own to counter it.

And yet,for a variety of reasons that aren't modeled in the game, in real life all fighter sweeps weren't conducted at maximum altitude. But that's the best tactic in AE. The same goes for CAP, there are reasons that CAP was layered at different altitudes but it's just silly to do that in AE.

IMO, a couple of relatively simple changes would go a long way towards getting more realistic air combat in AE.

1) If the altitude difference (between sweep/CAP and CAP/bombers) is greater than 10K, chances of an intercept occuring is reduced drastically. The bigger the altitude difference, the smaller the chance. Chance of intercept is increased with better radar.

2) If a sweep is conducted at an altitude higher than the max altitude of the CAP planes, any CAP that doesn't have a commander with a very high aggressiveness should have a good chance of declining combat altogether.

In real life altitude was a critical factor in Air Combat. Yeah they didn't ALWAYS fly at there Max ceiling, but they did fly at higher relative altitudes than their opponenets if the performance of their crate allowed it. The fact that players choose to fly their AC at such high altitudes isn't up to me to decide, it's up to the players. If you are losing, cuz your Defenders are at a performance deficit then you have lost the strategic initiative. Just like anything else, it'll come full circle and the shoe will be on the other foot.

Declining combat and what? Getting away scott free?

Can you imagine the uproar, (from both sides) when combat never occurs? Next thing you know Players who see their sweeps become utterly useless will whine and moan that their High alt sweeps are ineffective against lower ceiling CAPs because they flee and avoid combat, and that CAPs composed of Higher Ceiling defenders negate their offensive advantage with radar, and force their AC to flee. Then everyone will wank that A2A combat NEVER occurs because any side that finds itself at a disadvantage avoids combat altogether.

Where would you draw the line? When you, and only you have the advantage?

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

In real life altitude was a critical factor in Air Combat. Yeah they didn't ALWAYS fly at there Max ceiling, but they did fly at higher relative altitudes than their opponenets if the performance of their crate allowed it. The fact that players choose to fly their AC at such high altitudes isn't up to me to decide, it's up to the players. If you are losing, cuz your Defenders are at a performance deficit then you have lost the strategic initiative. Just like anything else, it'll come full circle and the shoe will be on the other foot.

Declining combat and what? Getting away scott free?

Can you imagine the uproar, (from both sides) when combat never occurs? Next thing you know Players who see their sweeps become utterly useless will whine and moan that their High alt sweeps are ineffective against lower ceiling CAPs because they flee and avoid combat, and that CAPs composed of Higher Ceiling defenders negate their offensive advantage with radar, and force their AC to flee. Then everyone will wank that A2A combat NEVER occurs because any side that finds itself at a disadvantage avoids combat altogether.

Where would you draw the line? When you, and only you have the advantage?

Elf,

Great to see you back!

Appreciate your comments and insights.

Great job of the A2A model. Thanks for your efforts.

[Rob Brennan UK]

And yet,for a variety of reasons that aren't modeled in the game, in real life all fighter sweeps weren't conducted at maximum altitude. But that's the best tactic in AE. The same goes for CAP, there are reasons that CAP was layered at different altitudes but it's just silly to do that in AE.

I disagree with this somewhat , i find layered CAP can work against high sweeps depending on which CAP planes the sweep goes for 1st. EG.. P39's at 10k get bounced by zeros flying high(with no altitude data in the combat replays it's impossible to confirm the following, just my gut instsinct ) it seems the sweep planes and CAP try and close but planes will always dive faster than those climbing (esp the crummy P39's) .. so combat occurs between the 2 altitude settings , sake of argument lets assume they meet at 15k. As you all know CAP tends to dribble in from multiple patrols forming up so your CAP P40's set at 19k finally arrive and get the bounce on the Zeros at 15k where they have battered the P39's. the allies won't win this battle , but then again they shouldnt. Lets assume 6 P39's shot down and several more damaged (these planes do seem to take a bit of killing so the pilots can survive quite often) , the P40's kill 3 Zeros and damage several more while losing 4 of their own to the japanese fight back when the furball forms up after the P40 bounce. Given that japanese planes are notorious for falling apart in a light breeze a lot of damaged planes wont get home , this means the allies actually 'win' on pilot losses. In the long run (like the real war) pilot quality is like gold dust. If you can preserve your own and kill the enemys you win long term.

there is always the chance that the Zeros bounce the P40's 1st however then the allies do get plastered. But the more alt bands you use on defensive CAP the more chance the highest groups won't get hit 1st so you get some payback eventually.

I have used this in a PBEM guad scenario and it works for me (sometimes) eventually the japanese just stopped sweping as thier losses were unacceptable after a while. Some caveats here though , dont fight Sweeps unless you have to and don't do it with inferior numbers either.

Also unless you actually watch the animation you just cant see whats really happened as the combat reports are so way off in numbers as to be virtually useless unless the combat is completely one sided.

Diclaimer - [;)], this is just one persons opinion and experiemce with the game not a magic how to defeat sweeps rule. so please don't harrangue me personally. I am always open to new ideas and others experiences however.

[FrankE]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

In real life altitude was a critical factor in Air Combat. Yeah they didn't ALWAYS fly at there Max ceiling, but they did fly at higher relative altitudes than their opponents if the performance of their crate allowed it.

I disagree. If that were true, why did almost all combat in the pacific (and Russian front for that matter) occur at altitudes of less than 20k feet?

There's a logical leap here that just doesn't follow. Fighters at a higher altitude have a tactical/energy advantage [TRUE] therefore it's advantageous to fly fighters at their maximum altitude [TRUE in AE, FALSE historically].

Maybe the bounce algorithm is too dependent on the starting altitude of both sides? In real life there were probably a lot of other factors (not modeled in the game) that came into play to determine whether one side bounced the other or not.

ORIGINAL: TheElf
The fact that choose to fly their AC at such high altitudes isn't up to me to decide, it's up to the players.

Granted that it isn't your decision but if the players are doing something ahistorical to 'game' the system then it should be discouraged by the game engine.

ORIGINAL: TheElf
If you are losing, cuz your Defenders are at a performance deficit then you have lost the strategic initiative. Just like anything else, it'll come full circle and the shoe will be on the other foot.

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to Thunderbolts and Mustangs constantly sweeping at over 40K feet.

ORIGINAL: TheElf
Declining combat and what? Getting away scott free?

Yup. There's certainly plenty of historical precedent for it. P-39/400 units at PM and Guadalcanal for instance. Or pretty much all the japanese fighters versus high altitude B-29 raids. Just because they didn't fly to intercept the B-29s didn't keep them from flying against carrier raids on the coast.

ORIGINAL: TheElf
Where would you draw the line? When you, and only you have the advantage?

I don't think you draw a line, more of a very fuzzy border region. It shouldn't be an all-or-nothing deal.

[FrankE]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

And yet,for a variety of reasons that aren't modeled in the game, in real life all fighter sweeps weren't conducted at maximum altitude. But that's the best tactic in AE. The same goes for CAP, there are reasons that CAP was layered at different altitudes but it's just silly to do that in AE.

I disagree with this somewhat , i find layered CAP can work against high sweeps depending on which CAP planes the sweep goes for 1st. EG.. P39's at 10k get bounced by zeros flying high(with no altitude data in the combat replays it's impossible to confirm the following, just my gut instsinct ) it seems the sweep planes and CAP try and close but planes will always dive faster than those climbing (esp the crummy P39's) .. so combat occurs between the 2 altitude settings , sake of argument lets assume they meet at 15k. As you all know CAP tends to dribble in from multiple patrols forming up so your CAP P40's set at 19k finally arrive and get the bounce on the Zeros at 15k where they have battered the P39's. the allies won't win this battle , but then again they shouldnt. Lets assume 6 P39's shot down and several more damaged (these planes do seem to take a bit of killing so the pilots can survive quite often) , the P40's kill 3 Zeros and damage several more while losing 4 of their own to the japanese fight back when the furball forms up after the P40 bounce. Given that japanese planes are notorious for falling apart in a light breeze a lot of damaged planes wont get home , this means the allies actually 'win' on pilot losses. In the long run (like the real war) pilot quality is like gold dust. If you can preserve your own and kill the enemys you win long term.

there is always the chance that the Zeros bounce the P40's 1st however then the allies do get plastered. But the more alt bands you use on defensive CAP the more chance the highest groups won't get hit 1st so you get some payback eventually.

I have used this in a PBEM guad scenario and it works for me (sometimes) eventually the japanese just stopped sweping as thier losses were unacceptable after a while. Some caveats here though , dont fight Sweeps unless you have to and don't do it with inferior numbers either.

Also unless you actually watch the animation you just cant see whats really happened as the combat reports are so way off in numbers as to be virtually useless unless the combat is completely one sided.

Diclaimer - [;)], this is just one persons opinion and experiemce with the game not a magic how to defeat sweeps rule. so please don't harrangue me personally. I am always open to new ideas and others experiences however.

Good point, I really hadn't considered that. I was thinking of layered CAPs more in terms of bomber intercepts (where I don't notice any advantage of using them) than in terms of fighter intercepts.

[jwilkerson]

There has been a lot of talk about an altitude advantage being decisive. Yet, to date, I haven't seen any data to indicate that this talk is indicative of real "in game" results.

Both before and after game release - there have been a few people talking about this. Before release I did some sand box testing and could not establish any decisive results with altitude advantage. In order to run a good sand box test of a given factor, one must rule out all other factors, or at least as many other factors as possible. In establishing the existence of the "sweep bonus" years ago in WITP - I got practiced at creating a good air to air sand box. Roughly it includes these elements.

01 - The planes used should be identical on both sides.
02 - All pilots and leaders should be identical on both sides.
03 - The air bases used should be identical on both sides.
04 - All supporting land units and leaders of land units should be identical on both sides.
05 - Just to be sure - run all tests in both directions with identical settings.
06 - Some effects may be date dependent so running tests with different dates may be indicated depending on what you are hunting for.

The above is the procedure I use when doing air to air testing. I did do this before release for altitude and sweep bonuses and found nothing unexpected. Experience, firepower and durability were still the "high leverage" attributes determining the outcome. Maneuver has always been a relatively low impact factor. Air warning also matters - probably more in AE than in WITP.

If someone wants to perform some testing roughly like the above and post the results - I'm sure we would all be interested. But until we have some good data - we are just chatting here. [:)]

[Shark7]

Just a thought here, as far as real game and not a test sandbox, it seems to me that the better pilot, in the better plane, using better tactics should win. There are a lot of factors that go into air to air combat, not just who started at a higher altitude or which plane can turn in a smaller arc. You can't possibly account for all that is going on in the combat resolutions without having to realize that it is a number of factors that affects the outcome. The only way to test a single aspect's effect on the resolution is to do as jwilkerson has posted above and isolate each factor independently.

Reality:

In the early stages of the war, the Japanese player will have all 3 of the things I mentioned above. As the war progresses, this will even out, then eventually turn into an Allied advantage. By war's end the Allied player will have P-51s, Hellcats, Corsairs, Tempest, P-47s, P-38s, etc. These planes are all on par or superiour to the late war Japanese planes, unlike the early war planes which are generally inferior (F-2A Buffalo, etc).

In the case of Tojo v Hurricane over Burma in mid to late '42, the Japanese player still has the advantage in pilot experience (if he has done his homework and utilized all the tools available to ensure that squadrons retain moderate to high experience levels) and aircraft performance (though it is razor thin in this instance). Once the Hurricane bumps up to later models or changes to Spitfires, the plane performance will go in favor of the Allies. Tactics in this case is being supplied by the player using his altitude advantage to maximum effect while sweeping over Allied territory.

I really don't see an issue here. Yes the Japanese player has an early advantage, but it will evaporate. That is what historically happened with exceptions...the AVG being chief among the exceptions. But the AVG had excellent leadership and experienced pilots that understood the strengths and weaknesses of their airframes.

[Big B]

Joe, I'm not volunteering to do the testing here ([;)]) - but I just want to make an observation.

It seems to me that your test conditions listed below are rock solid for establishing a baseline. However, after establishing that baseline, how can one know what the effects of different aircraft ratings in different categories will be - unless one starts to throw in those different stats systematically? (checking baseline results against dissimilar aircraft results).

B

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

There has been a lot of talk about an altitude advantage being decisive. Yet, to date, I haven't seen any data to indicate that this talk is indicative of real "in game" results.

Both before and after game release - there have been a few people talking about this. Before release I did some sand box testing and could not establish any decisive results with altitude advantage. In order to run a good sand box test of a given factor, one must rule out all other factors, or at least as many other factors as possible. In establishing the existence of the "sweep bonus" years ago in WITP - I got practiced at creating a good air to air sand box. Roughly it includes these elements.

01 - The planes used should be identical on both sides.
02 - All pilots and leaders should be identical on both sides.
03 - The air bases used should be identical on both sides.
04 - All supporting land units and leaders of land units should be identical on both sides.
05 - Just to be sure - run all tests in both directions with identical settings.
06 - Some effects may be date dependent so running tests with different dates may be indicated depending on what you are hunting for.

The above is the procedure I use when doing air to air testing. I did do this before release for altitude and sweep bonuses and found nothing unexpected. Experience, firepower and durability were still the "high leverage" attributes determining the outcome. Maneuver has always been a relatively low impact factor. Air warning also matters - probably more in AE than in WITP.

If someone wants to perform some testing roughly like the above and post the results - I'm sure we would all be interested. But until we have some good data - we are just chatting here. [:)]

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I just sent the file to Ark and we are going to run the turn over a few times with different settings. We will run the turn with the same settings a time or two to see if the outcome varies.

Does anybody remember the beginning of this thread?
We were both staring with amazement at the results of the encounter over the skies in North Australia.
Crsutton maintaned that the "Tojo uber" results stem from high altitude sweep.
As quoted, we did a test on the same file, but this time Tojos were sent sweepeing at the same altitude as defending Allied fighters. Every other conditions (numbers, commanders, etc.) were similar to the initial turn results.
Here are the results:

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. (CR always shows higher altitute in this place, my fighters were really sent at 14 kFeet, if they go through the CAP, there's info at the end, but, even when receiving such a good ratio, Japanese fighters were all forced to retreat)
Estimated time to target is 11 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 42

Allied aircraft
Kittyhawk IA x 10
P-40E Warhawk x 57

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
Kittyhawk IA: 2 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk: 14 destroyed

CAP engaged:
No.75 Sqn RAAF with Kittyhawk IA (10 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
10 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
49th FG/7th FS with P-40E Warhawk (14 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
14 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
49th FG/8th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 15 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 2 minutes
49th FG/9th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 13 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 2 minutes
28th CG/11th FS with P-40E Warhawk (15 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
15 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead

I can now say that this success is not because of the advantageous (some say, gamey) high altitude sweep (as it was suggested).
Tojos are just marvellous fighters in AE, when backed up by great commander, good quality pilots, low fatigue... etc.
I am glad it works this way and see no issue here.

[Athius]

But what is it that makes the Tojo so good? In comparison to the Oscar it would seem to be the weaker fighter. Less max alt, lessmanoeuvrability, worse arnament (more guns but the 7.7's appear to be useless and the 13.2mm's are Front mounted instead of the Center mounted Oscar Variant, making them less accurate)

[Big B]

Well, yes I do, which is why I went off on a tangent about other things being at work here.

To sum up your report below, 39 P-40E's engaged 42 KI-44 Tojo's (a 1:1 match-up) and lost 16 P-40's to 0 Japanese...hence "Tojo's are Uber" in the original complaint.

The combat result is not impossible, but shouldn't be an average either (325th FG P-40F's & P-40L's in the MTO achieved even better results & and at far worse odds too - against BF-109's a couple of times).

B

ORIGINAL: viberpol

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I just sent the file to Ark and we are going to run the turn over a few times with different settings. We will run the turn with the same settings a time or two to see if the outcome varies.

Does anybody remember the beginning of this thread?
We were both staring with amazement at the results of the encounter over the skies in North Australia.
Crsutton maintaned that the "Tojo uber" results stem from high altitude sweep.
As quoted, we did a test on the same file, but this time Tojos were sent sweepeing at the same altitude as defending Allied fighters. Every other conditions (numbers, commanders, etc.) were similar to the initial turn results.
Here are the results:

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. (CR always shows higher altitute in this place, my fighters were really sent at 14 kFeet, if they go through the CAP, there's info at the end, but, even when receiving such a good ratio, Japanese fighters were all forced to retreat)
Estimated time to target is 11 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 42

Allied aircraft
Kittyhawk IA x 10
P-40E Warhawk x 57

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
Kittyhawk IA: 2 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk: 14 destroyed

CAP engaged:
No.75 Sqn RAAF with Kittyhawk IA (10 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
10 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
49th FG/7th FS with P-40E Warhawk (14 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
14 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
49th FG/8th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 15 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 2 minutes
49th FG/9th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 13 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 2 minutes
28th CG/11th FS with P-40E Warhawk (15 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
15 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead

I can now say that this success is not because of the advantageous (some say, gamey) high altitude sweep (as it was suggested).
Tojos are just marvellous fighters in AE, when backed up by great commander, good quality pilots, low fatigue... etc.
I am glad it works this way and see no issue here.

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: Athius
But what is it that makes the Tojo so good? In comparison to the Oscar it would seem to be the weaker fighter. Less max alt, lessmanoeuvrability, worse arnament (more guns but the 7.7's appear to be useless and the 13.2mm's are Front mounted instead of the Center mounted Oscar Variant, making them less accurate)

It's just quite comforting to know that even such a mediocre (as some players in this thread called Tojo [;)]) plane can be dangerous and deadly weapon... IMHO, again, this is not an uber Tojo case, nor the high sweep problem (if any really exists). We can only talk about this particular complex case, these particular results... these pilots, fatigue levels, this particular difference in mvr ratings, speed ratings, these commanders... etc. ranging sometimes from a complete disaster and a great victory.
Sometimes the puzzle is just too complex to pull out outrageous thesis (such as high alt sweep is borked [;)])

But from my experience, if you find a good leader for your squadron, with Air Skill of 70 or more, you can have similar results quite often... [:D]

[pompack]

I have not said much because it seems like I am playing a different game. This is all anecdotal instead of a formal test, but here is my recent (PBEM) experience with sweeps and Tojos

My game has reached (at least temporerily) a state of equilibrium in late July 42. There are three Allied airbases with varying numbers of P40E's and Hurricanes within range of seven Japanese bases with (until recently) Oscar 1c's. As the Japanese, I have been running between two and seven sweeps per day against one or more of these Allied bases. I have sent in the sweeps at 15k, 20k, 25k and 30k and sometimes all of them at the same time. The Japanese fighter pilots are mostly 50-72 air skill and 50-70 experience (I try to fill losses with vets from the reserve but sometimes have to add a rookie or two). I don't know the Allied skill levels, but I suspect that they are about the same or higher since my opponent has the majority of his units in training due to the usual Allied early-war shortage of airframes. Recently he has added seveal F4F units and a single P38. For the last three weeks there have been at least two sweeps per day. The result has been ... average. the usual result is I lose two, he loses one then I lose 1 and he loses three then I lose three and he loses two and repeat.

After reading this thread, I was eagerly anticipating the Tojo rout. I carefully brought up my pre-production Tojo unit and two new units fresh from five months of training and then Tojo conversion. I launched all three at 30k feet, one at each of the target airbases. Just to make sure, I also keep up the pressure with sweeps from seven Oscar units as well. After three days of intense fighting the results have been ... just the same as before. In Tojo combat I lost 12 and destroyed 14 while losing 38 Oscars who destroyed 28 allied aircraft. These were the A2A results; when I include ops losses I came off considerable worse- just like the previous three weeks. At this point I am back to rest mode while I wait for replacement a/c and fresh pilots

So in 24 days of combat with somewhere between two and nine sweeps per day at altitudes between 15k and 30k (and with the average above 25k) I never achieved better than a 7:2 kill ratio with a single sweep. Now it may be significant that the largest sweep was less than 20 a/c and most were between five and 10 a/c; the defenders were usually 30-40 but quite often they were outnumbered when the fight started, the rest joining later.

As I say, certainly not controlled testing. However it is a large number of individual fights. And yes, I do feel that I am losing the battle [:)]