Little whine and tears about high altitude sweeps

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: FatR
That is probably supposed to emulate the historical practice of free hunting, which was probably the most kill-to-loss efficient way of using your fighters in RL.

Sure, I assumed that was why sweeps gained a bonus. A sweep is a free hunt.

That doesn't mean you should be able to infallibly peel off a handful of fighters to be easy meat, though. I'm not normally a house rule man but I sense one I'd demand here... specially as (as these things so often are) it's rather one sided given only one side has fighters with any range.

You most likely can counter it by reducing the operational range of squadrons that currently fly CAP to 0 (don't know for sure, AI hadn't even used any normal sweeps so far).

Possibly... I didn't think the max range thing affected escort missions.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: FatR
You most likely can counter it by reducing the operational range of squadrons that currently fly CAP to 0 (

Nope, that's why we've always (for past 5 years anyway) called it "leaky cap" (though this term is also used for a completely different phenomena of being able to break a few bombers through the Uber CAP).

But "leaky CAP" (un ordered cover cap over nearby bases) can be a good thing. After getting angry when I was first subjected to losing planes when my opponent was striking my nearby bases and picking off the 1-2 fighters that were flying over them "unautorized" I finally figured out how to make this work for me. We could eliminate it from AE - but it has always been there - at least for WITP - and we didn't set out to change everything!

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

We could eliminate it from AE - but it has always been there - at least for WITP - and we didn't set out to change everything!

unfortunately, I would like to see Cap only where I gave the orders to fly it. In a normal PBEM it´s not that much of a problem but I once had a PBEM going where my opponent 99% concentrated on taking out leaking Cap. I found this more than irritating after over a month of fighting with half a dozen to a dozen fighters from leaking Cap against his 200 fighter sweeps and there was nothing I could do against it other than moving my fighters out (which exactly was the goal of my opponent). Well, call it my usual whine, I just found it completely ridicoulos. But that´s one of those things that I think of when saying "exploiting the game in a PBEM". Others call it me whining. When I order to fly Cap over a base and half a dozen fighters fly Cap some 120 miles away then this isn´t what I want to see, at least not when I set the range to 0 (which is of no use in regards of leaking Cap [8|]).

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
In a normal PBEM it´s not that much of a problem but I once had a PBEM going where my opponent 99% concentrated on taking out leaking Cap. I found this more than irritating after over a month of fighting with half a dozen to a dozen fighters from leaking Cap against his 200 fighter sweeps and there was nothing I could do against it other than moving my fighters out (which exactly was the goal of my opponent). Well, call it my usual whine, I just found it completely ridicoulos. But that´s one of those things that I think of when saying "exploiting the game in a PBEM". Others call it me whining. When I order to fly Cap over a base and half a dozen fighters fly Cap some 120 miles away then this isn´t what I want to see, at least not when I set the range to 0 (which is of no use in regards of leaking Cap [8|]).

I think that is completely ridiculous. I'd simply refuse to play someone doing that - it's completely unrealistic and gamey to automagically peel off a handful of enemy fighters to be killed, absolutely without fail, day after day. I wouldn't mind some sort of ambush chance when sweeping a base hex or something to reflect the odd tail end charlie getting nailed, but to automagically do it day after day? No.

It's just an exploit, pure and simple.

[BigBadWolf]

Btw, is there a way of making your pilots coordinate their sweeps better? I have two groups of Zeros and one of Oscar flying sweeps over Singapore from Khota Baru, and every time they all go separately, one unit at a time. It's no big deal, as Buffaloes defending singers are pretty much useless, but I shudder at an idea of bomber strike flying in some strongly defended base while teh escorts are mocking about 200 km behind them.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana
I think that is completely ridiculous.

Regardless it is same as it has always been since day one of WITP anyway, nothing new.

ORIGINAL: BigBadWolf
Btw, is there a way of making your pilots coordinate their sweeps better?

Main thing is make sure they are flying at the same altitude - that will encourage them to fly together to the target.

[BigBadWolf]

Thanks, will try.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: castor troy
In a normal PBEM it´s not that much of a problem but I once had a PBEM going where my opponent 99% concentrated on taking out leaking Cap. I found this more than irritating after over a month of fighting with half a dozen to a dozen fighters from leaking Cap against his 200 fighter sweeps and there was nothing I could do against it other than moving my fighters out (which exactly was the goal of my opponent). Well, call it my usual whine, I just found it completely ridicoulos. But that´s one of those things that I think of when saying "exploiting the game in a PBEM". Others call it me whining. When I order to fly Cap over a base and half a dozen fighters fly Cap some 120 miles away then this isn´t what I want to see, at least not when I set the range to 0 (which is of no use in regards of leaking Cap [8|]).

I think that is completely ridiculous. I'd simply refuse to play someone doing that - it's completely unrealistic and gamey to automagically peel off a handful of enemy fighters to be killed, absolutely without fail, day after day. I wouldn't mind some sort of ambush chance when sweeping a base hex or something to reflect the odd tail end charlie getting nailed, but to automagically do it day after day? No.

It's just an exploit, pure and simple.

well, the game ended five or six turns after I sank three CVs and a BB with LBA. Reason for the abandoning given by my opponent though was that he can´t stand my ongoing whine about him taking out an average of 6 fighters of leaking Cap daily for over a month. I guess the kill rate was something like 170:3 in those four or five weeks at the base that had leaking Cap. Normal kill rate on the map was still 2:1 for me. But you can´t do anything if 6 fighters of leaking Cap get bounced by 200 incoming figthers on a sweep. Poof, there go your trained IJAAF pilots... [8|]

[Sardaukar]

I'd prefer that on range setting 0, CAP would not leak outside hex. I am fine if it'd leak with other range settings, since it is sometimes actually useful.
 
I think that would be quite "elegant" solution and would nicely counter any attem,pts to exploit "leaking CAP".

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

I'd prefer that on range setting 0, CAP would not leak outside hex. I am fine if it'd leak with other range settings, since it is sometimes actually useful.

I think that would be quite "elegant" solution and would nicely counter any attem,pts to exploit "leaking CAP".

that would be a perfectly fine solution for me too

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana
It still seems like an exploit to me. So in the Battle of Britain you attack the empty field 40 miles west of Biggin Hill rather than Biggin Hill itself, because you know there'll mysteriously be a couple of Spitfires in some sort of quantum state that wandered over that hill by accident, and the rest of the squadron is stuck elsewhere?

That is just bizarre.

Unfortunately sweeps remain exploitable because they are absolute in nature. in RL, an enemy could, depending on the circumstances, choose to decline an invitation to dance which defeats the purpose of a sweep (to engage and attrit the enemy fighters) US did this at Lunga.....British did it over Malta and during BoB. Germans still had alot of success but part of the reason for that was due to the use of Rotte sized formations hunting at variable times and altitudes/vectors etc. That allowed them to often bounce and/or ambush patrolling or scrambling defensive fighters. They didn't simply send in (as per WitP) 80 Bf-109's over an airfield and proceed to shoot down entire squadrons. Goering wanted the British to do that of course.....but they didn't hence the Luftwaffe got frustrated in the same way 11th Air Fleet got frustrated over Lunga. However being what it is in WitP...we get what i call "Sweep wars" as each side tries to outguess the other's deployments. Usually the most common tactic is to simply ground one's fighters or set them to bombing attacks. (Our opponents did this in current Joe/Nik game....and in last Joe vs. Nik game, as Allied i did that as well, thwarting his sweepers by setting my fighters to naval)

Course once uba Allied bomber power comes to play this won't work anymore. [:D]

The high alt sweep tactic will work most of the time but it is highly dependant on range. Long range ops severely curtail a fighter's ability. In general though the impact will be less severe on a sweep mission vs. an fighter set to escort when confronting a CAP.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
Unfortunately sweeps remain exploitable because they are absolute in nature. in RL, an enemy could, depending on the circumstances, choose to decline an invitation to dance which defeats the purpose of a sweep

I agree, but having to sweep a base at least exposes the sweepers to the full force of the defence.

It's true that freijagd were just ignored by the more competent commanders (like Keith Park, say). You could simulate that by giving the air commander of the defenders a chance to simply decline to engage incoming fighter sweeps, if there were no bombers around. I suspect Pacific air defence may not enjoyed such fine control as that found in the European theatre, though.

In any case, I'd rather have somewhat ahistorical sweep behaviour than the ability to infallibly peel off a small percentage of the enemy air defence to kill every day.

I don't think it's a huge issue, it's the sort of thing a house rule would end.

[Nikademus]

The leak is annoying and highlights another issue which in turn helps make sweeps in particular too effective.....in that it often pits most if not all of the attacker str against the defenders. Again....in RL....you could have 80 planes on escort for say, 6 bombers....but the sky being what it is....and there being only so much room for so many planes....this did not translate into either an impenetrable defense of the bombers, nor did it mean that all or even a majority of those 80 planes would attack a scramble of say, 12 fighters. In reality often only a small % of an attacking or defending force got a plane in it's sights.

This is a large part of why the old WitP-Med mod ultimately could not simulate the Malta fighting.

[bradfordkay]

castor... did you actually have a base at the location where he was sweeping?

[Dobey455]

TBH the altitudes at which A/C can perform combat missions in the game is pretty ridiculous. Few of the A/C of this period had super charges (on either side) and while they may have had a service ceiling that allowed them to climb to, and maintain level flight, at a height in the vicinity of 40,000 feet that's about all they would be capable of. There is a reason that air combat didn't take place at these altitudes IRL.

There is a big difference between service ceiling and combat ceilings for piston engine A/C. Even the 8th AF over Europe didn't conduct combat missions in the stratosphere (although the P-47's would have come pretty close).

Realistically I wouldn't expect too much combat in the Pacific above about 20,000ft until the B-29's start flying late war.

Just my 2c.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

castor... did you actually have a base at the location where he was sweeping?

yes, otherwise he couldn´t order a sweep in WITP.

[Shark7]

If you think Hurricanes are bad, just wait till the Spitfires show up, they are just plain better all around.

[xj900uk]

I'm now on to Jan-42 and my Buffallo's over Singapore,  Port Blair and Rangoon have been doing surprisingly well. (several aces, one British pilot is now up to 8 kills)  Against unescorted bombers. 
Oscars, Zero's and even Nates are giving them a spot of trouble though,  they seem to be loosing at the rate of 5:1 although surprisingly few pilots have been killed (several WIA)
 
Re fighter sweeps, they are all well and good but unless the other side (RAF in BoB) comes up and plays ball,  are a complete waste of time.
The USAAF got around this in 44/45 by allowing their Mustang pilots 'free chase',  in other words if the Luftwaffe wouldn't come up, after the bombers had dropped their ordnance & were heading back home, the P51's could come down to treetop height and shoot up whatever took their fancy...