ORIGINAL: Nemo121
You know, interestingly enough in March 1942 the last time the Japanese tried to sweep me at Ponape they lost 14 Zeroes in return for 1 P-40B. So, that's a 14:1 exchange rate in favour of the CAP side ( vs the sweeping side ). In addition these kills were scored by P40Bs and P39s and P400s in the main. Each plane type got about 4 kills while a squadron of P38s got 2 kills. Oh and before anyone wonders about 2/3rds of my fighters were in at a lower altitude than the Zeroes. So altitude wasn't the cause.
So, it wasn't as though I had a host of ueber-planes doing all the killing.
It is statistically impossible that I can randomly get such different results consistently vs enemy sweeps unless I'm actually doing something differently and the results aren't random but merely a result of better strategic, operational and tactical employment.
In March 1942 Zeroes and Oscars no longer sweep my airbases as, when they do, they go down fairly easily. I'm managing an averaging of about 3 to 1 exchange rate in favour of P40Es on CAP vs sweeping Zeroes and Oscars.
As to why escorts do so poorly vs sweep... You should think of escort as an order to "close escort" bombers... In real life this DID make fighters terribly vulnerable just as it does in-game. There is no middle-ground of "high escort" in-game so you need to compensate by sweeping for several days before sending the bombers in. Once you do that you can achieve the results and exchange rates you want. People seem to choose not to do this and then act as though there's no solution possible. The reality, however, is that they simply chose not to enact the correct solution.
LoBaron's sweep co-ordination is another solution but I'm a bit more conservative in my play style and prefer to sweep on days preceding the raid.
I can counter this example with that example:
190 Allied fighters of different types on Cap (all skill 70) being swept by 25 Oscar II at their ceiling (higher than all Allied fighters could go), result was the endless DIVE and 20 Allied fighters shot down for not a single Oscar downed or damaged. It sure is a realistic example. Especially when the next encounter then are 100 remaining Allied fighters being kept away from 80 bombers by 20 Tojos. Mhm. I´ve never argued about the sweep as I can´t see that much bonus from it, I´m only arguing about the dive, which in many, many, many instances is a never ending dive and not the "it´s just for a short period where you take out three enemy fighters" argument by a dev and some supporters that (quote) haven´t fired up the game for a long time.
What the supporters of "it´s all right" seem to miss is that we "it isn´t all right sayers" aren´t that ignorant to haven´t tried all suggestions on the forums an uncountable number of times probably but came to the conclusion that it just isn´t working. Heck, even a dev looked at my PBEM (thanks to him) to make out a reason for non coordination and couldn´t find one other than the assumption that perhaps it would work to set all squadrons to the appropriate HQ. Tried, failed. Same goes for layered Cap different ac types, having Martians fly my fighters, etc. Tried, failed. Conclusion, go higher than your enemy and get the dive. You either shred your enemy or if he´s got superior ac / pilots than at least you won´t get shred if you dive him. And I can only repeat myself, the air teamleader always asked for evidence, there is enough evidence in the AAR section, I´m always asking for evidence by the "it´s alright sayers" that claim to get coordination in 95% of the time and have the dive end after the enemy loses a couple of fighters. Or that the people saying the dive doesn´t matter could at some point perhaps just do an combat report AAR repeatably showing they don´t suffer at 10-25k ft when the enemy is coming in constantly at 38k ft. That would be cool. Where is the evidence for it? I couldn´t find it, not even in dev´s AARs that show the same slaughters for the same reasons. I find that funny though, same as the pre Cap flak discussion and it´s result. Repeat mode, but nevertheless putting a smile on my face.
I guess nearly noone is doubting how it worked in real life, the problem is that the "it works sayers" are talking about real life and the "it doesn´t work sayers" are talking about the game. And it definetely is not working like real life in the game at all. No chance and only evidence for it doesn´t work in the AAR section. Of course someone could start a fairy tale AAR saying "my fighters have been dived on for 12 months now but I shot down 10 times more enemies (in my PBEM) than I lost my fighters, the dive doesn´t matter". But like the "it work sayers" always note, without the detailed combat report, you haven´t got evidence for anything.
