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Looking up early raids against targets in France, the B-17s unescorted made it home. Best example is 21 August against Wilton shipyard, approx 20 bombers were attacked for 20 minutes by approx 20 ME109 and FW190 and all planes returned with the loss of the copilot of one plane, it was claimed that 2 fighters shot down and 5 probables. What Spence wrote makes sense. The Zero's had 60 rounds for its 20mm, and honestly, it was a crap first generation gun. The Germans had the same problem but they fixed theirs early on and developed ways to deal with the 17's and 24's. Even then, there is enough data to show that the Japanese pilots/planes had a hard time dealing with the heavy bombers early in the war.

I once had a similar number of Zeros shoot down 3 or 4 B-17s out of a 12 or 13 plane raid, IIRC. However, weather was better and it was over my base. Not KB but Tainan air group in 1941 so definitely the first team. No Zeros lost but several were damaged.

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Ahh yeah, very true. I suck at Maths, thats why I do Physics. [:D]

[:)]

physics is math though

Physics applies math to the real world, which makes it easier to understand. 

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Physics applies math to the real world, which makes it easier to understand. 

I'd say physics applies a first approximation of math to a simplified world, which makes it easier to understand [;)]

Just my 2cts

Hartwig

ORIGINAL: darbymcd

How would the CAP even be routed to the raid, assuming they didn't have radios.... flak burst morse code?
When people are guessing very high losses for american bombers, does someone have an historical episode in mind?

Haiphong raid on 15th September of 1943 (4 out of 5 Liberators shot down), for example. Most attempts of unescorted broad daylight attacks on major Japanese bases, like Rabaul raid on January 5th of 1943 (2 out 11 Flying Fortresses/Liberators shot down) weren't so disastrous, but that's probably the example with the ratio of interceptors to bombers closest to the OP's case.

ORIGINAL: FatR


Haiphong raid on 15th September of 1943 (4 out of 5 Liberators shot down), for example. Most attempts of unescorted broad daylight attacks on major Japanese bases, like Rabaul raid on January 5th of 1943 (2 out 11 Flying Fortresses/Liberators shot down) weren't so disastrous, but that's probably the example with the ratio of interceptors to bombers closest to the OP's case.

+1

Summer of 1942 B-17 unescorted raids from Oz had similar results, which is largely why they were moved from bombing to recon. The losses were unsustainable (crew morale) and the a/c (at that time) were unreplaceable.

Note: what I have read of the missions is that roughly 50% of the losses ocurred on the long way home ... so the IJ fighters never saw them lost. It built the mystique up of the B-17 ...

Since the 2 Zeke has a lower cruise and top end speed than the 17-E and it was in moderate rain where visibility was low I'm surprised many of the attackers were damaged at all. 

I've had numerous combat reports where I had two HBs downed and a number lost in ops on a mission and I only put my best bomber pilots with defensive ratings of 60 plus on the stick. I could post them or other instances and infer this aspect sucks but I don't because it all works within the scheme of this great game.

Summer of 1942 B-17 unescorted raids from Oz had similar results, which is largely why they were moved from bombing to recon. The losses were unsustainable (crew morale) and the a/c (at that time) were unreplaceable.

If you fly at max distance you will lose HBs to ops losses even without combat and considering the amount of HBs the allied player gets the pools would run empty if that's the way an allied player is conducting the air campaign, this is modelled and in game.

Well when it says 8 (or 12) zeroes damaged, could that be just minor? ie, if they take 1 point of bullet damage, it's still reported as damage even though its inconsequential right?

But according to
http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t162.htm

Far East AF only lost 37 heavy bombers to enemy ac in all of 42 (from 1797 sorties). So it is difficult to believe that there was some sort of carnage in the sky. As FatR points out, it is possible for high loss rates to occur, but the reality is it just didn't happen that often. FEAF heavy bombers flew 54k combat effective sorties in the war and lost 231 to enemy ac. Of course many (most?) of these are not bombing missions against heavy opposition, but it is still difficult to reconcile reality with the expectations people have of an AVERAGE result being a high kill rate... it just didn't happen in the war.

As PaxMondo points out, there was a mistique about the ruggedness of the B17 that grew that was somewhat overblown, but the Japanese still only shot down a tiny handful of them. You point out the summer of '42 as an example of high losses sustained by the bomber force, but there were only 14 total heavy bomber losses from May to Aug (from ac) from 500 sorties. so a 2% shoot-down rate, which probably was not sustainable for the Americans at this point, it isn't an aerial Verdun either.

This topic as usual got me thinking about the old 666 from the series Dogfights

Old 666


And stumbled onto this page about Jay Zeamer which is an interesting read for those inclined.

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

This topic as usual got me thinking about the old 666 from the series Dogfights

Old 666


And stumbled onto this page about Jay Zeamer which is an interesting read for those inclined.

Great link... the story of Jay Zeamer on Home of Heroes. Thanks for posting it.

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

This is not intended to start another massive debate over whether the game is right or wrong in the way it handles 4E combat. I am simply curious as to what players think the end result of this combat would have been had this occurred in real life. The B-17s came from Auckland I assume and the carriers were parked one hex north of Norfolk Island.

A number between 0-4.

This is based on my researching of day to day losses in multiple theaters. In the first half of the war, the average loss per skirmish was one plane. Part of the reason for this of course is that even with large #'s of planes involved, not everyone engages and planes in general (not just 4E's) are tougher to shoot down than some might imagine.