Question about 4E Bombing

[rustysi]

in late 42. The Tai-Chi 1 and Tai-Chi 2 are not much more effective than sound detectors.

Don't know if its charisteristics are any better, but the Tai-Chi 3 is available Oct. '42.

and the 7.7's are fairly useless.

I've only had one B-17D shot down by 7.7's in all my games, and that was when a rather large bunch of Nate's caught a few B-17D's.

[rustysi]

I respectfully disagree. They do add something, flak most times will not fire at night with no radar or searchlights. Add searchlights, and they will fire even without radar present.

+1

[Dili]

Explain how that is possible with searchlight specs.

Now it is possible that some mod changed the specs.

[Zorch]

Dili,

Why are they chanting your name in those beer commercials?

Puzzled

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: kfmiller41

Am playing Japan in a PBEM and my opponent just bombed my base at truk using about 50 heavy bombers. Date was 29 Dec 42. 5 raids came in at between 14000 to 18000 feet and total planes for all raids were 89. He lost no planes to my 30 zeros. He scored 18 hits, put 8 carriers and 1 battleship out of commission for at least 3-6 months with major damage. While I congratulate him on doing that I also feel like this accuracy is so out of whack I can understand why so many Japanese players call it quits. I mean I want to be competitive but I have nothing to shoot down hordes of 4 engine bombers, even my 2 engine fighters cannot stop them.
Am I just a bad player or is this something that should be house ruled to limit the uncanny accuracy these things have? It is only December 42 and he is already clobbering my bases with these beasts.[X(][X(]

If you're looking for some help on settings drop in some screen shots of your fighter CAP settings, the combat report of the strikes, and some info on your pilot experience and skills. Too little here to go on.

That said, it's not out of the ordinary for massed 4Es to do a lot of damage on port strikes, as everyone has basically confirmed.

This uncanny accuracy during daylight is something that might be explained away, but when you see them coming in at night in 0% moonlight and getting multiple hits on pinpoint targets, while shooting down droves of night-fighters to boot without suffering much themselves, then you start wondering...

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Dili


Aurorus searclights do not matter, they are load cost sinks.

I respectfully disagree. They do add something, flak most times will not fire at night with no radar or searchlights. Add searchlights, and they will fire even without radar present.

They are also damage soaks.

This has been my experience as well. Without searchlights, flak often does not fire at night. It may be that flak is set to base accuracy of 0 at night. Searchlights have an accuracy of 2 and lend their accuracy rating to flak in units that contain searchlights but do not have radar.

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: kfmiller41

Am playing Japan in a PBEM and my opponent just bombed my base at truk using about 50 heavy bombers. Date was 29 Dec 42. 5 raids came in at between 14000 to 18000 feet and total planes for all raids were 89. He lost no planes to my 30 zeros. He scored 18 hits, put 8 carriers and 1 battleship out of commission for at least 3-6 months with major damage. While I congratulate him on doing that I also feel like this accuracy is so out of whack I can understand why so many Japanese players call it quits. I mean I want to be competitive but I have nothing to shoot down hordes of 4 engine bombers, even my 2 engine fighters cannot stop them.
Am I just a bad player or is this something that should be house ruled to limit the uncanny accuracy these things have? It is only December 42 and he is already clobbering my bases with these beasts.[X(][X(]

If you're looking for some help on settings drop in some screen shots of your fighter CAP settings, the combat report of the strikes, and some info on your pilot experience and skills. Too little here to go on.

That said, it's not out of the ordinary for massed 4Es to do a lot of damage on port strikes, as everyone has basically confirmed.

This uncanny accuracy during daylight is something that might be explained away, but when you see them coming in at night in 0% moonlight and getting multiple hits on pinpoint targets, while shooting down droves of night-fighters to boot without suffering much themselves, then you start wondering...

Thank You LST. I have stayed out of this thread due to my strong feeling on this subject. You, politely, hit the nail on the head.

Add to that the ability of 40-50 4EB to inflict 1,000+ Casualties on troops in Lvl-6 Forts and we're moving farther into the fantasy realms...

[Dili]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

Dili,

Why are they chanting your name in those beer commercials?

Puzzled

[:)] what do you mean?



----

Searchlights are radars in game but they aren't even anti-aircraft radar.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: obvert




If you're looking for some help on settings drop in some screen shots of your fighter CAP settings, the combat report of the strikes, and some info on your pilot experience and skills. Too little here to go on.

That said, it's not out of the ordinary for massed 4Es to do a lot of damage on port strikes, as everyone has basically confirmed.

This uncanny accuracy during daylight is something that might be explained away, but when you see them coming in at night in 0% moonlight and getting multiple hits on pinpoint targets, while shooting down droves of night-fighters to boot without suffering much themselves, then you start wondering...

Thank You LST. I have stayed out of this thread due to my strong feeling on this subject. You, politely, hit the nail on the head.

Add to that the ability of 40-50 4EB to inflict 1,000+ Casualties on troops in Lvl-6 Forts and we're moving farther into the fantasy realms...

I held back, but wondered if someone else would add this in. If you know my games you know that I ask for (and inflict on myself playing the Allies) an HR for no more than 50 bombers o night strike against any one port/airfield. The DBB AA makes night strikes slightly less lethal, but not enough.

In the war the Brits tested and proved early on that hitting an airfield at night, even with the many landmarks and guides at night in Europe, was next to impossible. In the Pacific it was even harder. There are a few cases where it worked, but usually later in the war. Not to say the early 4Es especially didn't try it a lot, but they certainly didn't sink 70-90% of ships in port, and definitely didn't hit 50% of the aircraft on a busy base.

There is a great book on the difficulties (and amazing perseverance and achievements) of the 4Es that started it new PI and moved to OZ throughout the early part of the war, called Fortress Against the Sun by Gene Eric Salecker. A really good read. Also talks about the tactics of Japanese pilots trying to bring them down and how many they'd routinely hit with their defensive guns.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: obvert




If you're looking for some help on settings drop in some screen shots of your fighter CAP settings, the combat report of the strikes, and some info on your pilot experience and skills. Too little here to go on.

That said, it's not out of the ordinary for massed 4Es to do a lot of damage on port strikes, as everyone has basically confirmed.

This uncanny accuracy during daylight is something that might be explained away, but when you see them coming in at night in 0% moonlight and getting multiple hits on pinpoint targets, while shooting down droves of night-fighters to boot without suffering much themselves, then you start wondering...

Thank You LST. I have stayed out of this thread due to my strong feeling on this subject. You, politely, hit the nail on the head.

Add to that the ability of 40-50 4EB to inflict 1,000+ Casualties on troops in Lvl-6 Forts and we're moving farther into the fantasy realms...

If it happens in PBEM, then you and your partner could rengetiate the house-rules and ban 2E/4Es from flying Ground attack missions in combat hexes.

[Lecivius]

Why is it when something on the AFB side works it's fantasy, but those that work in JFB favor is acceptable? Why do we even have these discussions after all of these years?

Some of the things a-historical...

1) Japanese torpedo bomber accuracy.
2) Allied attack bomber inefficiency.
3) E boat ASW.
4) Allied production.
5) Japanese CAP efficiency.
6) Allied bomber coordination failure.

The list goes on & on. Nobody likes it when 'their side' gets impacted. It's a game, play it. There are tactics to overcome most of this. The challenge is to work with what you have to accomplish your goals. One or 2 home rules, sure. Any more and you may as well put in cheat codes [:-]

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget




This uncanny accuracy during daylight is something that might be explained away, but when you see them coming in at night in 0% moonlight and getting multiple hits on pinpoint targets, while shooting down droves of night-fighters to boot without suffering much themselves, then you start wondering...

Thank You LST. I have stayed out of this thread due to my strong feeling on this subject. You, politely, hit the nail on the head.

Add to that the ability of 40-50 4EB to inflict 1,000+ Casualties on troops in Lvl-6 Forts and we're moving farther into the fantasy realms...

If it happens in PBEM, then you and your partner could rengetiate the house-rules and ban 2E/4Es from flying Ground attack missions in combat hexes.

I missed that John was mentioning ground troop here. Yes, and that is an HR I set up as Allies vs Greyjoy. It's fine in x2-3 defensive hexes, but in the clear it's pretty tough. I wouldn't insist on this as Japan though. I now prefer fewer HRs than I used to as flak has improved so much.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Add to that the ability of 40-50 4EB to inflict 1,000+ Casualties on troops in Lvl-6 Forts and we're moving farther into the fantasy realms...

If it happens in PBEM, then you and your partner could rengetiate the house-rules and ban 2E/4Es from flying Ground attack missions in combat hexes.

I've conducted many (many, many, many, many) ground attacks with 4EBs on Japanese troops.

It takes more then 40-50 to inflict 1000+ casualties. The only way you approach the 1000+ casualty level is:

-open terrain
-no CAP
-low altitude (so susceptible to flak, but minimal flak might be present anyway)
-no forts (i.e., they're moving through open terrain)

Given that devices aren't typically destroyed until most are already disabled, this isn't terribly unrealistic. If you've got troops in a big ol' open hex (especially if they're moving through), of course they're going to be heavily disrupted by bombing raids.


I mostly think the great bugaboo of 4EB pilots with ace status from killing droves of night fighters is a bogeyman. I've seen (and participated in) some cases that might raise some eyebrows, but no more than perfectly coordinated CV strikes (for the most part) or no stacking limits (which I don't want to play with for playability reasons rather than realism or balance) or terrible sub attack routines or... I don't know, pick something that's just slightly off. The game's not perfect. Not to mention something that doesn't have anything to do with the game engine at all, which is the lack (in most games) of the historical Midway battle and its strategic consequences.

This 4E's are OP is a gripe about what is, at worst, a minor issue - and no more of an issue than any other minor issue. If you're getting pounded by 4Es, ask yourself if it's really ridiculous or if maybe you're doing something wrong. I don't lose droves of night fighters against 4Es bombing at night. I don't lose droves of non-night fighters against 4Es bombing at night. I don't experience insane bombing damage from dozens of 4Es bombing at night. It takes some experience and knowing how the game works, but I'll drop a little hint - it appears that the mere presence of CAP impedes the efforts of the bombers, so set your night CAP to be higher than the bombers such that engagement is minimal but still distracting to their aim, or lower than the bombers for more "normal" engagements.

[John 3rd]

I see it all the time Lokasenna. Will guess that I've seen 1,000+ Cas inflicted at least 50-60 times in my current match. Am pretty certain that is not an exaggeration.

Will post some from my current game as they occur.

Lecivius's Post above is why I stayed out of this discussion to start with.

[Canoerebel]

John's wrong, but he's wrong in good faith. He's taking a pounding from 4EB in the game. He's not quite sure how to stop it or if he can stop it. He's frustrated. He's making a point but he's unconsciously exaggerating to do so.

He's never suffered 1000 casualties under six forts nor in good defensive terrain. He has taken that many a number of time (probably dozens of times but probably not 50 to 60) in open terrain with few forts and no fighters and often with no flak.

Right now he has more than 1,500 fighters in Japan but leaves armies in open terrain with little or no forts without fighter protection. He instead devotes the fighters to Home Island industry protection, which is a concious choice that has merit but repurcussions. The repurcussion is that I don't want to tackle Tokyo, with 630 fighters, so I instead use my Liberators to target his army that is left unprotected.

If there was a house rule prohibiting Liberators from targeting troops, he could then, with impunity, shift his entire fighter defense to the Home Islands, secure in the knowledge that his troops are safe from attack.

As Loka and Obvert note, other IJ players are not experiencing this kind of thing. Why is that?

[Lecivius]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
Lecivius's Post above is why I stayed out of this discussion to start with.

I hope I didn't come across as disrespectful. That was not my intention, and if I offended I apologize. I truly think you tried hard in your mod to keep a balance, and said as much in your mod thread[;)] It's just this is a game, not historical. Each side gets something. Each side has aggravating problems to overcome. I would like to see posts on "How I overcame <this>", than repeated threads on why <that> is so frustrating [8D]

[John 3rd]

You did not. I just hate getting into this discussion.

If I did Dan, I apologize. It has happened.

Tell you what. Why don't you hit one of those bases and we'll conduct an experiment. Port Arthur could be good. You could also hit Fusan. I won't change any defensive set-ups at either of those locations. We're at the end of things, perhaps we could make this useful for people discussing this.

What do you think?

[RichardAckermann]

Well, an insight how many casualties would be realistic on groundattacks under various conditions would actually help me.

[Canoerebel]

John, here's a good example from our last turn. The results should be even more dramatic in making your point, because your base only had one fort instead of the hypothetical "six" you referred to above. So the damage should have been even greater than you predicted. This raid was against Taikyu, Korea, a Japanese base with (as said) one fort, clear terrain, and a sizeable garrison including four infantry divisions. You had no fighters on CAP and some flak, though I think your AA units were disrupted or disabled or heavily fatigued. The results:

Morning Air attack on 32nd Division, at 103,53 (Taikyu)

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid spotted at 38 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Allied aircraft
Thunderbolt II x 16
B-24J Liberator x 3
F4U-1D Corsair x 15
B-24J Liberator x 42
B-25D1 Mitchell x 3
B-25H Mitchell x 7
B-25J1 Mitchell x 3
P-51D Mustang x 36
F4U-1A Corsair x 14

Allied aircraft losses
B-24J Liberator: 2 damaged
B-24J Liberator: 11 damaged
B-25D1 Mitchell: 1 damaged
B-25H Mitchell: 4 damaged
B-25J1 Mitchell: 1 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
500 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 20 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 45 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 11 (1 destroyed, 10 disabled)

Note that none of the combat squads was destroyed; they were disabled, which you'd expect in open terrain with few fortifications and no fighters and meager AA.

[Yaab]

Bombing altitude?