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Castor troy, not disputing the validity of your statistics (although take note that "other causes" very often meant "failed to return" - well, at least I hope planes that failed to return count there - which usually was due to being shot down by enemy fighters), is realising why statistics for airforce that seriously was not meeting any meaningful opposition in the air for 1/3 to 1/2 of measured periods are not a valid comparison, unless you manage to reduce the enemy air force to impotence just as soon in the game*, seriously beyond your intellectual capacity?

If it is, I'll give another hint to you: check losses for 1943 from your own table.


*I admit there is a problem there - not that it is impossible or highly improbable to do, just Japan most likely will be steamrolled much faster compared to RL, after losing ability to contest the air.

Freeboy I have you right where I want you [:-]


All kidding aside I still lead in points, I have shot down almost 2 to 1 in air to air, so I am happy. Hard to stop the narrow offensive he has all game, to much force to slow down. If I am playingas the Allies a narrow strong front can not be stopped. It just over comes any thing I can throw at it.

Yep, and in points this game is going his way.. even after I roll through what little is  left in sra, and move on coastal China.. Korea?
he just has ammassed so many points...
I just now am having 38s and 47s shoot down enemy fighters at a large advantage, and its Feb 44.. My goal is to overrun all of the costal asian bases, invade dKorea, and bomb japan back to the pre industrial era.. time then is not my friend so I push push push forward, and loosing the air advantage and getting a moderate advantage hugely slows me down...
 
Even though I do the " narrow front" or my words, locust swarm attack style, I have three fronts open, on in PI, one in Thailand, and one is sra/maly...
the problem for each is getting the troops where the fighting is in supplied shape, I can, barely, he cannot... and this is simplistic but accurate...
 
 

ORIGINAL: FatR

Castor troy, not disputing the validity of your statistics (although take note that "other causes" very often meant "failed to return" - well, at least I hope planes that failed to return count there - which usually was due to being shot down by enemy fighters), is realising why statistics for airforce that seriously was not meeting any meaningful opposition in the air for 1/3 to 1/2 of measured periods are not a valid comparison, unless you manage to reduce the enemy air force to impotence just as soon in the game*, seriously beyond your intellectual capacity?

If it is, I'll give another hint to you: check losses for 1943 from your own table.


*I admit there is a problem there - not that it is impossible or highly improbable to do, just Japan most likely will be steamrolled much faster compared to RL, after losing ability to contest the air.

my intellectual capacity is big enough to tell you that I rather go with real statistics than with a "wrong" of a forum member. And a hint for you, there are "op" losses in the game if you haven´t noticed yet and those rage up to 50% in average PBEMs so we´ve got up to 50% of losses which are treated the same as the "failed to return" you state.

If you ever get a PBEM to 45 then you can check how many TOTAL losses you will have and how the ratio flak/fighters/ops is and then you can compare it to these real life statistics posted above. Wonder how you play to as the Japanese "reduce the enemy air force to impotence just as soon in the game" because the majority of the AARs still sees the Japanese achieving what they wouldn´t even dreamt about in real life. I haven´t lost a single PBEM in WITP as the Japanese and while AE has become more problematic for the Japanese, I serioulsy doubt I would do anywhere worse than real life. I bet real life people were too dumb to come up with loss causes, at least dumber than you are now to tell these are all wrong (?) 60 years later now.

All that doesn´t matter anyway, I´ve said there were more losses to flak than to fighters and brought up the stats for your "wrong". Of course you had to come up to say "these stats can´t be used". Wrong, right, wrong, right... I go with these real life stats and if you want to go on thinking that only 2-10% of the aircraft were claimed by flak, 50% by fighters and the rest lost due to accidents then go ahead and believe what ever you want but as long as you can´t show EVIDENCE for it, I go with what you usually tell me: you talk a lot and show no evidence. Lol, other than blah blah, there hasn´t come a lot on the forum lately.

And to repeat me for the 117th time, people should stop thinking that flak wasn´t a real threat in WWII. Who´s going to tell me now that flak is a real threat in the game? Please noone raise his hand who stacks 12 trillion tubes in a hex but goes with real life, realistic numbers.

Last PBEM turn I just had 22 Georges at 40.000+ ft coming in as kamis, none of the 1400 carrier based fighters could intercept them, they´ve attacked a BB TF, scored 10 hits on two BBs, flak claimed 0 (ZERO) and when I´ve looked at the TF I had to find out that while all the BB and escorting Fletcher class destroyers were running out of 5 inch ammo (a whole TF spent nearly all 5 inch ammo on 22 Georges while failing to achieve anything) I also had to find out that neither a 20mm or 40mm shot was fired at the Kamikazes. This example rather sounds like a combination of actual bugs and flaws but it just happened. If it is a bug or flaw that 90% of the 5" ammo is spent on 22 aircraft, decide. If it´s a bug or flaw that Kamikazes flying "too high" can´t be intercepted, decide. If it´s a bug or flaw that the 20mm and 40mm didn´t even open fire on the strato Kamis, decide. If it´s a bug or flaw that none of the Kamis was even damaged, let alone shot down by flak, decide. If it´s a bug or flaw that they achieved nearly a 50% hit rate, decide. But hey, none of what I describe is strange or wrong. [:D] And flak got realistic effects, yes gentlemen, you should never forget this is a GAME´s forum and these things clearly remind me about that.

castor troy,

Have a look at this thread:

tm.asp?m=2793785

from the Tech subforum. Second post, michaelm comments on kamis and flak. His view is only real game defence against kamis is CAP, not flak.

Alfred

Flak might be a bit on the anemic side and I really look forward to the changes in DaBabes
after my current PBEM is concluded.

Still a couple of observations reveal the problem of comparing WWII data to game results:

In WitPAE players tend to adapt to AAA concentrations very fast.
I highly doubt that field commanders adapted their altitude over target to max effective AAA ceiling as we do.

- We know exact altitude limitations of Flak
- We avoid Flak traps
- We dont mind if we have to fly in med-high alt because of AAA and wreck a base in 10 days instead of 6
- Placing AA units to max their effectiveness is an artform on its own, I believe that it is often
not used to its full potential (this includes me naturally)

The second major difference is what Puhis mentioned:

Very often the strike size/AAA defense relation is completely different to the real war.
We are easily able to put numbers of planes over target which would have been considered as
oversaturating a target and thus dismissed in WWII.


So: comparing WWII statistics to WitPAE statistics is the wrong apporach.

ORIGINAL: Alfred

castor troy,

Have a look at this thread:

tm.asp?m=2793785

from the Tech subforum. Second post, michaelm comments on kamis and flak. His view is only real game defence against kamis is CAP, not flak.

Alfred

Does that mean flak shouldn´t be a defence against kamikazes? [X(] Going to dig up a couple of more stats related only to Kamikaze attacks. If flak isn´t supposed to do anything against Kamikazes (for what ingame reason ever) then it get´s even more funny to see CAP not being able to do anything against a Kamikaze either when the Cap´s ceiling is lower than the Kamikaze´s. Sorry, I know this comment is going to be too harsh, too much critisizing and too much like coming from a complete a$$hole, but are we are now totally drifting off into wonderland and real life happenings got nothing at all to do with this game? [&:]

Going to read up in the tech forum...


EDIT: michaelm was talking about flak and OKHAS, not flak and "normal" Kamis. Doesn´t explain to me why neither my 20mm nor 40mm fired on the strato Georges when they were crashing into my BBs though.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Flak might be a bit on the anemic side and I really look forward to the changes in DaBabes
after my current PBEM is concluded.

Still a couple of observations reveal the problem of comparing WWII data to game results:

In WitPAE players tend to adapt to AAA concentrations very fast.
I highly doubt that field commanders adapted their altitude over target to max effective AAA ceiling as we do.

- We know exact altitude limitations of Flak
- We avoid Flak traps
- We dont mind if we have to fly in med-high alt because of AAA and wreck a base in 10 days instead of 6
- Placing AA units to max their effectiveness is an artform on its own, I believe that it is often
not used to its full potential (this includes me naturally)

The second major difference is what Puhis mentioned:

Very often the strike size/AAA defense relation is completely different to the real war.
We are easily able to put numbers of planes over target which would have been considered as
oversaturating a target and thus dismissed in WWII.


So: comparing WWII statistics to WitPAE statistics is the wrong apporach.

what else than to REAL LIFE do you want to compare a game you seem to call REAListic on a common basis? First, ppl get told they should back up their claims with REAL life evidence, then ppl are told real life shouldn´t be compared to AE. Mhm, ok. In that case I say, Kamikazes that can´t be intercepted by any fighter on Cap nor can be shot by 20mm and 40mm flak (but by 5inch without any effect) is perfectly REAListic. Oh, sorry, REAListic is the wrong term here, because it has nothing to do with REAL life. It must be GAMEy then. Wow, this is really more and more drifting off into the war between Mars and Venus and now I also understand why ppl are arguing and discussing why a troll should be harder to kill than an orc.

Take the example I´ve stated above with 22 Georges, not even one of those BIG formations, still uninterceptable, not being shot by 20 or 40mm flak but most of the 5" ammo used up by a full task force while not achieving anything (not even a damaged kami) and a hit rate of near 50%. Sorry? You can make five wrongs into a right though in that the 10 hits did not even minor damage as the worst thing that happened was a 20mm mount knocked out as the BBs armor is George Kami prove. Nothing of what I describe in this example that happened just yesterday in my PBEM is REAListic nor sane.

And please stop saying we players are kind of smarter than REAL life commanders as they usually weren´t stupid either and if it would have been possible to avoid Cap and flak while achieving 50% hits with Kamis in REAL life just because you set your squadrons to 40000+ ft I guess the real life commanders would have been smart enough to figure that out. Wait, I guess that wouldn´t have worked in REAL life.

LOL CT, calm down. [8D]

I was referring to your use of general AA loss statistics as evidence.

Producing loads of statistical evidence about monthly losses and comparing this
1:1 to in game statistics does not make sense if you cannot confirm at the same time
that the specific tactical situations were also similar/identical.

I wasnt even disagreeing with your general assumption.

That isn´t so hard to understand is it?

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

LOL CT, calm down. [8D]

I was referring to your use of general AA loss statistics as evidence.

Producing loads of statistical evidence about monthly losses and comparing this
1:1 to in game statistics does not make sense if you cannot confirm at the same time
that the specific tactical situations were also similar/identical.

I wasnt even disagreeing with your general assumption.

That isn´t so hard to understand is it?

Baron, if you manage to get your PBEM into mid 45, you keep using more or less sane AA concentrations (if you don´t it wouldn´t matter either as you would not attack a target with a trillion flak guns) then please go ahead and show us your total air losses in 8/45 and I will be glad to agree with you that flak comes even close to real life effects when you show us even 25% of your losses coming from flak. Only problem, you won´t do that within the next two years so I can only come up with my stats which won´t be accpeted anyway, neither game stats nor real life stats.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

The second major difference is what Puhis mentioned:

Very often the strike size/AAA defense relation is completely different to the real war.
We are easily able to put numbers of planes over target which would have been considered as
oversaturating a target and thus dismissed in WWII.

To take this a step further, players will strip assets in one area to saturate another area thus achieving force levels that were never seen IRL. Example: many allied players will send ALL 4E's to Burma in '42. IRL, MacArthur demanded (and got) his ration of 4E's even though other theatres prolly could have used them more effectively.

What this means is that unless the IJ player has also stripped all AA assets and moved them to Burma, the allies are seeing lower bomber/AA ratios than was actually present. Meaning, they can bomb to oblivion a target in fewer missions thus taking fewer AA losses than RL. You just skewed your result not due to the game engine, but rather an ahistoric player tactic that almost ALL players use.

I'm not going to blame the player here ... it is GOOD tactic to do so and IRL it should have been done. Sadly a lot of lives were spent to coddle "general" egos, but that too is part of history.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

So: comparing WWII statistics to WitPAE statistics is the wrong apporach.

I wouldn't go so far as to say wrong, it is the only benchmark we have. However, you cannot do a straight comparison. You cannot say if overall WWII losses were this, then overall game losses have to equal this. What you can say is that specific when specific game situations look like RL, then they should ON AVERAGE mimic RL statistics.

Finding those situations to compare to and then determining if they are withing statistical bounds is the trick. I would guess this is basically how the model was validated and tuned. Knowing the guys who built and then re-built the game engine I'm quite willing to trust that they did this thoroughly. At least I have no evidence to the contrary, nor have I seen any posted here to suggest otherwise. In fact my game experience would say it is pretty close.

Example: I know I can't just send RL sized unescorted 4E raids on Rabaul, if I do, my losses are unacceptable. I have to send 4x - 10x RL sized raids so that I can reduce the base before my losses are excessive.

Exactly.
And you are right, my comment on statistics comparision was formulated too general. You expressed what I was trying to say much better.

What I meant was: A total-loss statistic has no comparision value to another total-loss statistic if the variables leading to those statistical results are neglected.

IRL allied fighters did lot of airfield strafing, dive bombers were used to knock out AA guns, 2E bombers fly low level airfield attacks etc. These attacks were vulnerable to flak and attrition was high.

In this game I haven't see any of my allied opponent doing strafing or low level airfield attacks. Because of the flak, one of my opponent is using DB as level bombers at 9000 feet, so that japanese 13,2 mm and 25 mm AA guns can't reach them...

Yup. Thid is the reason I believe the guys flying warplanes in WWII into those situations, without deathwish, had the biggest balls on earth.

Schweinfurt raid, BoB, the Russian front, the Solomons, you name it. On both sides.

Funny, I don't really have any problems with land based flak as it seem to be fairly effective.
 
However, it it late 43 in my game and I would have to say that Allied naval flak is about the most broken thing in this excellent game. As far as I have seen my opponents Japanese naval flak is just as effective if not slightly better. But still not very good. I expect that top notch Japanese pilots will get through and get their hits. But I expect to see a lot of them die for their effrots.
 
Historically late 43 and Allied flak was getting very, very good. I just don't see that at all.
 
 

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Funny, I don't really have any problems with land based flak as it seem to be fairly effective.

However, it it late 43 in my game and I would have to say that Allied naval flak is about the most broken thing in this excellent game. As far as I have seen my opponents Japanese naval flak is just as effective if not slightly better. But still not very good. I expect that top notch Japanese pilots will get through and get their hits. But I expect to see a lot of them die for their effrots.

Historically late 43 and Allied flak was getting very, very good. I just don't see that at all.

But, as discussed in another thread several months ago, is this due to a game engine issue OR is it due to the very fact you state:

"I expect that top notch Japanese pilots will get through and get their hits. But I expect to see a lot of them die for their effrots. Historically late 43 and Allied flak was getting very, very good. I just don't see that at all. "

The issue I see here is that IRL the IJN had almost no good pilots left in late '43. So, we expect to see heavy flak losses, but would they have occurred IRL with better pilots?

Testing the game engine for historical accuracy, you can say ok line up 50 exp / 60 skill pilots and attack USN forces and look at the results and how close do those match reality? My supposition is that 50 exp/ 60 skill is about what the IJN had in late 43. I have NOT tested this exact scenario, but I do know that this type of pilot in the game in '42 will get creamed. I assume it also holds true for '43.

However, in game, you are not seeing the above pilots. More likely, your opponent has a depth of 70/70 pilots (or better) which in game react FAR differently than 50/60 pilots.

You then have two lines of arguement:

1. The IJN pilots were higher skill/exp
2. Pilot exp/skill has no (or lower) impact upon AA losses.

I think we all agree that in late '43 IJN pilot quality was far lower than '42. And the designers, at least one of whom has RL fighter combat exp, beleives that pilot exp/skill does impact AA losses. I'm not in a position, due to lack of first hand experience, to argue either point.

Hi Pax,

Historically....The good, even great IJN pilots got through and scored hits....But the died by the bushel via. In some of the 1942 battles, strike losses ran to 40% for the IJN. Those are nasty numbers.
The land AA is not broken...It is the sea...Allied AA was decent to start and got just plain gnarly as the war progressed.

The game way overstates the ability of the Nell, Betty, Kate ability to hit with torpedoes and also their ability to survive AA.

Jeffs, Pax and me are trying to explain exactly why a post like yours is by far
not enough to jump any conclusions.

ORIGINAL: jeffs
In some of the 1942 battles, strike losses ran to 40% for the IJN. Those are nasty numbers.

40% of how many? Against what number of CAP? At which ingressing altitude? Against what number of
AAA guns? With which type of aircraft? With or without early detection by radar? How experienced where
those specific pilots? How was the weather? What was the armament? Against what kind of ships and
how many of those? How was the intel before the strike?...

40% is a nasty number. But not of value except with context.

The land AA is not broken...It is the sea...Allied AA was decent to start and got just plain gnarly as the war progressed.

I don´t know, but if that is the conclusion you are coming to I have ot remind you that the guns used
for LB AAA have very similar values (or are in fact the same guns) to the their naval based counterparts.
The AAA calculations are also either the same or at least very similar.

The only diminishing factor on naval attacks is that the guns cover different parts of the ship, in comparision
to land based guns who do not have that limitation. This is compensated by the fact that large ships have as
many AAA guns in ´43 as any half decent AA unit, facing in different direcitons.

The game way overstates the ability of the Nell, Betty, Kate ability to hit with torpedoes and also their ability to survive AA.

Again, if this is the conclusion you are coming to because you read about some 40% losses in ´42 then you are not
stating a fact, you are at max voicing a very vague opinion without facts to back it up.


For a true confirmation whether ther is an issue someone would have to recreate an more or less exact
historical tactical situation covering all above questions (e.g. one of those 40% loss strikes)
and run it again and again.
Then compare the average to the historical result and see if its similar.
If it isn´t and the historical situation can be viewed as representative you have an argumental
basis for a discussion.


This is not critisism. I just want to point out why anybody who wants to optimise the game as close
to historical as possible cannot rely on opinions to do it. If he did he had a high chance to
reduce historical accuracy isntead of increasing it.

Just as a reminder: AAA may be a bit weak, but I am far from convinced it is.

What I think is just what it is: An opinion based on forum comments, the fact that DaBabes
increased AAA strenght (since there are really a nice bunch of brains behind
DaBabes this has probably the most weight), and a stomach feel.

This would never be enough for me to enter a discussion and selling my opinion
as a confirmed fault of the game. [;)]

I have run AA tests using Marianas scenario. Both sides had similar TFs, 3 CVs and same number of same type of escorts.

On average, japanese flak killed 5-7 % of allied planes.
Allied flak killed 15-25 % of japanese planes.