Air losses against no air GS dat Flak

[PeteJC]

Halfway thru T2 I have 200 flak losses. I certainly would be happy with your results. Again, I may not be playing ideally but have not changed my game play and the flak and operational results are much higher than before.

[DeletedUser44]

I didn't think my numbers where that bad either.

The only thing of any significance I could think of was the altitude settings.

Other than that, I am not doing anything special.

[PeteJC]

OK just to be clear as I do not want to confuse your comments and others (I also have been going through the other posts about this topic).

So, you were finding that your flak results were excessive and then after you increased to altitude of 16,000, they became much more reasonable (your T4 results posted above)?

I will do a test between the 9,000 default and 16,000 altitude tonight.

[PeteJC]

Apologies Sauron_II. I just caught that you were on 16,000 originally and it was not a change from 9K to 16K. So ignore my question.

I will still do a test tonight. On a separate note, my operations losses are brutal. That may be on me though so I will hunt around the manual and posts on tips to minimize OPS losses.

[DeletedUser44]

ORIGINAL: PeteJC

OK just to be clear as I do not want to confuse your comments and others (I also have been going through the other posts about this topic).

So, you were finding that your flak results were excessive and then after you increased to altitude of 16,000, they became much more reasonable (your T4 results posted above)?

I will do a test between the 9,000 default and 16,000 altitude tonight.

I adopted flying at higher altitudes about a week or two ago.

It began with Recon missions.

Then I noticed that the initial GS missions are set up using 15k altitude (instead of 9k). So I started doing something similar.

I've really noticed a difference in recon losses (way down now).

Was unsure about GS missions though. The jury is still out, but it is something you may want to give a try and test out yourself.

[DeletedUser44]

ORIGINAL: PeteJC

Apologies Sauron_II. I just caught that you were on 16,000 originally and it was not a change from 9K to 16K. So ignore my question.

I will still do a test tonight. On a separate note, my operations losses are brutal. That may be on me though so I will hunt around the manual and posts on tips to minimize OPS losses.

Another modification I made, which may be applicable to the OPS losses, i changed the minimum amount to fly GS missions from 20% to 30%. (Pct Fly = Air Group Ready AC Percentage)

I have an unverified theory, but it is somewhat centered on the AI letting you fly your aircraft into the dirt if you want.

So once my AC starts taking losses, I really want them to stop flying. (now they are starting to accrue penalties, fatigue, travelled(%), etc...) Bumping the Pct Fly seems to help with that. (I probably should bump it to 40%, really...)

[PeteJC]

Great tip. I will try out the 40% as well with the test.

[Hardradi]

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[DeletedUser44]

Is this 1st turn losses? I don't think you stated, so just assuming.

If so, the Soviet losses of 5k+ on 1st turn are min-maxed to an extreme degree.

There is noway I would do that to a real PVP opponent, and not feel like I totally abused the system.

[Hardradi]

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[Hardradi]

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[DeletedUser44]

I am sorry, but the damage inflicted is so over-the-top on the Soviets, is hard to not feel that Karma didn't step in.

Even in a thread dedicated to min-maxing Soviet 1st turn AC losses, I don't remember any postings to this extreme.

[DeletedUser44]

I am about 1/2 through turn 4 and so far, I just have not seen the FLAK losses you are reporting.

Sorry.

[DeletedUser44]

This is the worst FLAK loss for the turn so far.

9 out of 148 Ju 88 shot down due to FLAK.

Looks reasonable to me.

[king171717]

Flak loses are so high now. Every Ground Support attack I do I lose so much more air then the previous official patch I was playing on. I am playing against 115 tho.

[Hardradi]

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[Hardradi]

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[DeletedUser44]

One thing I am noticing is that Soviet FLAK (and potentially German as well) are using *very* generous values for their 'Ceiling'.

Ceiling: Enter the number of feet for how high the weapon
can fire (i.e. to what altitude can the weapon fire?).

And then you have Range...

Range: Enter the number of meters for the maximum
effective range of the device.

meters ??? Why are we changing up units of measure? Should that be feet? (I hope it is feet)

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This is the problem we have. Many AA units could be used in a combat/direct-fire role, as well as an AA role. In order to model that in the game, we need FOUR(4) separate range characteristics:

1. Maximum Range (vs ground)
2. Effective Range (vs ground)
3. Maximum Ceiling (vs air)
4. Effective Ceiling (vs air)

I think it is obvious that 'effective' is going to be less than 'maximum'.

Well, WiTE2 only has 2 of the 4. *sigh* (Range & Ceiling as described above)

In a simulation, if you only could have 2 of the 4, then you would want "Effective" Range & "Effective" Ceiling. Those are the range characteristics that really matter.

However, when cross referencing what the game is using for their Range & Ceiling values, it appears to be using "Maximum" and not the "Effective" values. DOH!

It just means that the Range and Ceiling values may be *inflated* and allowing these weapons system to be much better than they were historically, at least on the AA weapon systems I have looked at so far.

[carlkay58]

King171717 - what altitude is your Ground Support flying at?

[PeteJC]

I have done a test to see how many bombers are lost due to flak and OPS. I left out fighters as their losses do not seem that severe or have changed much since the new patch. I have also left out H2H losses as they seem normal.

I did the test on turn 2 of a game that had its original set-up done in the .08 patch, but I saved it at the end of turn 1 so I believe it should "read" as an original .11 patch but I am guessing so someone correct me if I am wrong. My GS doctrine was set at 16K feet/40 PctFly/100MisPct/100EscPct.

I randomly did 34 attacks (all with GS) along the entire front. In a nutshell 4,088 bombers flew and 351 never came back (8.6%). The losses were 50/50 between flak (4.5%) & OPS (4%). The numbers changed very little after I took out the two best & worst results.

So does a 4.5% loss rate due to flak and a 4% loss rate due to operations seem reasonable. Seems a bit high to me but I honestly don't know. Does anyone have the historical numbers?