Hordes of Tonys

[rtrapasso]

The chances of a fire on landing or takeoff were pretty rare if there was no battle damage.

Actually, i don't think it was all that uncommon at least on landing. Maintenance standards certainly were not up to contemporary air force or airline standards out there on the front, and tired pilots made mistakes that could easily rupture a fuel tank ("oops, forgot to set the flaps!", or "Oops, forgot to lower the landing gear!")

Or a plane that crashes on takeoff for a combat mission?

I think this would be considered operational by almost anyone's standards.

[ChezDaJez]

Actually, i don't think it was all that uncommon at least on landing. Maintenance standards certainly were not up to contemporary air force or airline standards out there on the front, and tired pilots made mistakes that could easily rupture a fuel tank ("oops, forgot to set the flaps!", or "Oops, forgot to lower the landing gear!")

All of those cases you listed would be ops losses for sure but the fires just didn't spontaneously start. These fires would be secondary to a crash landing. There were several instances of a fuel or oil line coming loose or rupturing and creating a fire that caused the loss of the aircraft but that chance was relatively rare compared to pilot error or weather. The chance of a fire was actually far greater on takeoff than on landing due to the application of full power for the takeoff run.

It's not really important to know how the game models ops losses as it is fairly abstract. However, it seems to me that some Japanese aircraft, specifically the Zero, suffers abnormal ops losses regardless of pilot experience. If range and fatigue are primary factors, I would think that patrol planes and Allied 4E bombers should be suffering horrendous ops losses but they don't seem to.

Chez

[Gen.Hoepner]

Agree. Every time you transfer a Zero Daitai you risk some op losses, even if the range is not that much and the destination AF is big and the weather is good.
Those zeros seem to be made of paper....

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

Agree. Every time you transfer a Zero Daitai you risk some op losses, even if the range is not that much and the destination AF is big and the weather is good.
Those zeros seem to be made of paper....

Any time you transfer ANY squadron, you risk losses. What kind of losses are you talking about???

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

Agree. Every time you transfer a Zero Daitai you risk some op losses, even if the range is not that much and the destination AF is big and the weather is good.
Those zeros seem to be made of paper....

You left one factor out - fatigue == 0 ...

I routinely transfer zeros with ( almost ) no loss ... but I transfer in good ( non-thunderstorm at both end points ) ... at range <= 10 ... with airfield >= 4 ... and fatigue == 0 .. in these cases I only seem to lose planes when exp < 60 ... if exp is >= 60 I loss very few .. less than 1 out 100 transfers ... for example I just transferred 78 ( 26x3 ) zeros from Amoy to Manilla and lost none ... fatigue was zero .. weather was non t-storm at both ends, airbases >= 4 .. and range actually might even be 11 .. but still no losses even though I "stretched" my parameters ... on exp was 71 in all three cases ( they had just finished "training up" in China and are being ferried to the "front" ... but now I have to wait 2-3 days for fatigue to again be zero before next hop ...

[doktorblood]

The majority of ops losses were write-offs of damaged aircraft at the base. Non-lethal ops loss of 30% of the number of damaged aircraft be about right.

[CEDeaton]

I hope someday they will come up with a patch that lets both sides change the way replacement pilots come into the pipeline instead of a fixed number and experience level based on nationality and branch of service.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
What would also be a really nice touch would be if the players had the option to pull out&nbsp;active duty&nbsp;pilots and send them back home for instructor duty and have this affect the starting experience levels.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The Japanese took serious shortcuts in training pilots after the war started, with disastrous affect.&nbsp; If the players had a slider of some sort that would increase or decrease training time with a corresponding counter-effect on starting skill level that would also help.&nbsp;&nbsp;Such an approach&nbsp;shouldn't affect (to any great extent) the number of pilots that come out of the pipeline - once the pipeline gets caught up with&nbsp;an increase in&nbsp;training time - although it would have the immeadiate effect of turning off new pilots for a bit when changes are made to lenghten training, or pumping up the volume a bit when training time is first shortened.
&nbsp;
Not forcing us to repeat the same mistakes of history should be what we are striving for, or we should at least have that option.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: CraigDeaton

I hope someday they will come up with a patch that lets both sides change the way replacement pilots come into the pipeline instead of a fixed number and experience level based on nationality and branch of service. 

What would also be a really nice touch would be if the players had the option to pull out active duty pilots and send them back home for instructor duty and have this affect the starting experience levels. 

This is happening in AE. Check the Air War thread and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Here's a bit on it that I copied from that thread:

Pilot Pools

1. The TrainED Pilot pool: These are green horns fresh out of flight school and ready for their first combat assignment.

2. The Reserve Pilot pool: These are pilots that have spent at least one day in an operational unit AND have been:

- Orphaned by some cataclysm (CV sinking, Destroyed air unit)
- Unit disbanded and pilots sent to reserve pool
- Rotated out automatically
- Selectively rotated by the player

3. The TrainING Pool: This is the equivalent of the current Pilot pool where new recruits are being trained at varying schools. They are represented as in "classes" each class is at a different stage of training and thus has differing current EXP level. YOU MAY DRAW PILOTS TO COMBAT UNITS FROM THIS POOL. But you can imagine what that means...

Edit: Pilots in the TrainING pool are not named until they finish training or are drawn into an operational unit.


Also note that you will be able to transfer experienced pilots from operational units to become instructor pilots. This will have the effect of possibly increasing the number of pilots trained.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner
Yes, you're right, but the replacement rate of their B-17s,B-24 and B-25 let them sustain far more losses without bothering much than what would have been in RL.

True, although that depends on what scenario you are playing. It is becoming a trend to reduce the replacement rates of some Allied aircraft to more realistic levels.

My knowledge of Allied OOB certainly isn't as good as many who worked on the mods. However, in the mod I'm playing, I question whether replacement rates were reduced too far. I don't think it accurately reflects all the planes shipped to the DEI, which were lost in transit, lost on the ground...or as I understand it, just plane lost. This mainly has to do with fighters, I have no real problem with the modded bomber replacement rate.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

Uber Tonies? No, it's not like that. The Tonies are inferior to many allied fighters present in the game. 10 corsair, as they are modelled in witp, can win a match with 50 tonies even if the latters have decent crews( 75 exp >).
The Tony is a decent fighter, slightly better than the A6M2 if you consider the max speed and the armour, nothing much.
Plus...for the jap player it's a pain to produce large amount of Tonies, due to the fact that this model uses the Kawasaki engine and you need to expand a lot the starting production and then convert it back when the KI-61 goes out of production...so to say thousands of Supplies wasted!

The real fact is that allies players tend to use their 4E bombers like a nuke bomb since early 42, without bothering much about enemy CAP or escort. That's completely unhistorical and unreal, cause even 100 fortresses, against something more than 25 decent enemy fighters, without any escort, would have been slaughtered. Try to immagine 100 B-17 or B-24s in mid 42, over Berlin, during daylight, against 25 experienced Me-109 and some flak.....

Of course the reason the Allied player masses 4Es, is because Japan masses it's fighters and bombers. Best way to avert a 200 Betty strike is to hit first with 200 B-17s.

[Mike Solli]

I think that many of the historical losses aren't reflected properly (low operational loss rate in the game).&nbsp; If the replacement rate is too high, the lack of operational losses will result in an artifically high pool, even though the replacement rate seems to be correct.&nbsp; I hope the changes they're making in AE fixes this.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: esteban

I agree that the Japanese get a reasonable boost by using player-defined upgrades, but considering all the items in the game that favor the Allies, its not that big a deal.

Also, you can get a decent amount of benefits as the Allies with player-defined upgrades:

-you can convert lots more of your American fighter squadrons to P-38s.

-you can convert the otherwise useless Wirraways to Hurricanes

-you can convert you Hudsons to Beauforts early

-If you are not playing with any house rules affecting upgrades, you can upgrade your American 2-engine bombers to any 4-engine bomber (In my current PBEM, basically we do not allow this, in return the Japanese cannot upgrade their "light" sentais from Lilys and dive bombers to Sallys/Helens.)

As far as the Tony being uber, its a good 1942 fighter, and certainly far better than either the Nate or either Oscar, but it is not going to save you against Corsairs or Hellcats in 1943.

This is course applies to stock. In CHS for instance Wirraways convert to Boomerangs only. Oz never gets Hurricanes...as it should be.

The problem is that some of the mods are getting so good at historical rates that the Allied side starts to very accurately reflect the shortage of everything. It reflects the fact that it was the first time through the war for all the allied planners. Japan's production system allows them the benefit of adjusting their production early in the war to account for lessons learned from the actual war...i.e. produce more Tonies faster than was ever possible. There is no flexibility on the Allied side. If your opponent is advancing faster than historically possible, PH is under siege, Sydney is about to fall, sorry you still only get X number of fighters a month. Rosie the riveter apparently goes home at 5PM regardless.

Overall I think the mods are still well balanced, but the Japanese production does allow some games to become skewed. Looking forward to some Allied production capabilities in AE.

[Mike Solli]

I think the Tony, like most new fighters, is successful for awhile and then is trumped by new Allied fighters.&nbsp; At least, that's what I've seen.

[Mike Solli]

I'm beginning to think that I may want to go back to PDUs off.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I think that many of the historical losses aren't reflected properly (low operational loss rate in the game). If the replacement rate is too high, the lack of operational losses will result in an artifically high pool, even though the replacement rate seems to be correct. I hope the changes they're making in AE fixes this.

Great point Mike.

[niceguy2005]

The other conclusion that I have come to is that most allied replacement pilot experience is too low relative to Japan.&nbsp; This will have a big effect on the posters original complaint about the skies filled with Tonies.&nbsp; I agree with the General that Tonies are a marginal upgrade over the A6M2.&nbsp; P-38s should match up very well with them.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I'm beginning to think that I may want to go back to PDUs off.

I like PDUs on, but think the Allies in particular need to be careful not to abuse the system.

Edit: but then I would accept a tad less realism for the sake of a little more variation of game play.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I'm beginning to think that I may want to go back to PDUs off.

I like PDUs on, but think the Allies in particular need to be careful not to abuse the system.

Edit: but then I would accept a tad less realism for the sake of a little more variation of game play.

I'm kind of curious what a non-PDU game would be like. All mine are with PDUs on. It would definitely be different.

[Shark7]

One thing that no one seems to keep in mind is that by late 1944, those hordes of Tony's are really nothing more than target drones for the Hordes of P-47s, P-51s, and Corsairs the Allies end up with.&nbsp; So the Japanese player gets to be superior a little longer, it always ends the same way.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

One thing that no one seems to keep in mind is that by late 1944, those hordes of Tony's are really nothing more than target drones for the Hordes of P-47s, P-51s, and Corsairs the Allies end up with.  So the Japanese player gets to be superior a little longer, it always ends the same way.

Yup, see post #153 above.