Rating Fighters

[AmiralLaurent]

Feinder, 5% for guns is very low IMOO. The Nates are scrap because of their lack of firepower. They will only damage 4 of 5 planes they hit (not even couting B-17) while Zeroes will destroy 4 of 5. While Nates hit by an Allied fighter will be destroyed at least 9 times on 10.

The only way to have success with Nates is to use them in big numbers and overwhelm the enemy so the same Allied plane may be attacked by several planes and destroyed after several hits. And also use them in defence, so damaged planes have a greater chance to crash during the return flight.

[Feinder]

Yeah, I kinda wanted guns to have a little more "ooph" in the calculation. And that's certailnly the joy of being able to put in your own percentages. My reasoning behind having guns the weakest element is because -

1. Speed is life.
2. Maneuver gets you into position, if speed isn't working for you.
3. Durability might limit you to having a really bad day, instead of fatal day.
4. Guns are worthless if you're not in position to use them, and if you -are- in position, a kill is (nearly) a forgone conclusion (assuming you're not trying to shoot down a tank).

The kick is that many of the Japanese planes are -very- undergunned (quite historical actually, guns/ammo are heavy and heavy takes away fuel allowance, which Japan loved). If you increase guns much more, the US planes jump in in the ratings (esp dogs like the P-39). I don't like the jump, because it misrepresents the effectiveness of the Japanese fighters. We've all had the dubvious experience of Japanese fighters slaughtering Allied fighters, despite the fact that they're undergunned. So again, I'm trying to simulate the fact that a big gun does you know good, if you can't gain an advantagous position to use it.

It's your example with Nates/Zeros that I value durability more than guns, because it makes a BIG difference that many of the Japanese planes have only 7mm MGs, which will -never- penetrate the 1 armor of many of the Allied planes (which results in more damages, and fewer kills vs. AC with even 1 armor). On the flip-side however, if an allied plane hits a Japanese fighter, it doesn't matter if it's with 4x 3cals or 8x 50cals, the Japanese fighter is going down one way or another because of the lack of armor (but in the latter case, the plane with 8x 50cals would have a -much- higher rating, due to the excessive guns, when in fact it doesn't matter much, because Zero will die anyways).

Also remember that I'm also trying to simulate the weights of the rating as they are applied in WitP. For once, I don't care about the historical anecdote. I want to see how my planes are matching up to their theater counterparts, and if I should relocate some squadrons, as they appear in WitP.

** And a note to "be wary of the obvious, that might not be so obvious", if you up the guns too much, your bombers become great AtA platforms, because they -do- have a lot of guns. But again, they can't bring them all to bear at once (even in WitP simulated combat). Still, many of the heavy bombers -do- make great AtA platforms, so do as you wish!

Natrually, with the tool on the first page (it's easily missed), you can simply adjust the ratings as -YOU- see appropriate. If guns are important to you, then so be it. I value range more than payload for my bombers, and don't give a crap about speed, and durability is only marginal for me. But maybe payload is your thing. Up payload, and lower range if that's important to you, and you get very different results.

-F-

[AmiralLaurent]

I'm used to see Zeroes slaughtering Allied fighters, and Zeroes have a firepower of 12, that is pretty good for 41-42. Oscars and Nates are not so brillant.

I personnaly won't divide the aircraft between fighters and bombers but give to each aircraft type a precise role, that it will be restricted.

Fighters are divided between:

_ bombers escorts: range, speed and manoeuvaribilty are the most important things. The first goal is to engage enemy defending fighters and protect the bombers, shooting them down is a bonus, so firepower will arrive later. Planes only hit may crash during return so durability is not so important.

_ bomber destroyers: used in rear areas where enemy escorts can't arrive. Firepower and then durability are what matters. They will always fly fast enough to catch bombers.

_ interceptors: used to defend bases in range of enemy fighters. Range doesn't matter and other points are useful but this category is made of fighters not able to fit in the two above.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Of course I wasn't there, but I did send you this link once re P-40s in combat versus the Zero: http://www.airartnw.com/fightingtigers.htm

Look closely at the painting. Those are Ki-43 Oscars (note the long thin tail). The problem was that the Brits and AVG tended to call any retractable gear Japanese fighter a "Zero." Also, in the writing, he mentions Nakajima fighters, again referring to the Ki-27 Nate.

I didn't and don't care too much about the painting, only the reference. It could be that Rossi is full of it, merely confused. For the sake of my stake in this argument it hardly matters, as my only interest here is whether or not the game model has it correct, or nearly or reasonably so. (I enjoy being being devil's advocate, I guess. [:)])

If you've the interest, here's a fairly detailed (three pages) account of his action with the AVG, as written by Rossi: http://home.att.net/~C.C.Jordan/Rossi-AVG.html

The report is interesting and confirms that they were flying against Ki-27 Nates. There are 2 pictures of them, one has crashed and one appears to be a propaganda photo. On 21 Mar 42 he writes:
Quote:
"The pilots who did make contact said the Japanese planes were all faster than those they had met before; no fixed gear fighters either. Ken Jernstedt was shot down but only slightly injured. It was one of our worst engagements..." Unquote. On 8 April he also says that they met Zekes, which he says were similar to Zeros. That indicates to me that they were not Zeros and he misidentified Oscars as Zekes. Under the OOB link below, you'll find that the 64th Sentai, commanded by Col. Kako, led the mission that Rossi refers to on 8 April. The 64th Sentai flew the Ki-43 Oscar.

Again, I've read all that. Afterall, I directed you to it.

Here are a couple of interesting reads; one concerning "claimed" kills and one has the Japanese squadrons the AVG flew against (All IJA air units equipped with Nates and Oscars.

"Claims:" http://www.warbirdforum.com/loss.htm
IJA OOB: http://www.warbirdforum.com/hinoki.htm

I will look ASAP.

Your link: http://www.warbirdforum.com/vics.htm) doesn't work.

Try this, then: http://www.warbirdforum.com/vics.htm

Same link, and it works when I try it in PREVIEW mode.

Here's the main link, same AVG site: http://www.warbirdforum.com/avg.htm It's the fourth link on that page up from the bottom, listed as Flying Tiger victory credits, air and ground

Again, Triston, the AVG never met any A6Ms in combat, nor did the 23rd Ftr squadron that replaced the AVG. The only fighters they met were army fighters, mostly Ki-27 Nates and Ki-43 Oscars.

You really should read the entire warbird forum concerning the AVG at: http://www.warbirdforum.com/avg.htm
It is extremely well researched, detailed with names, places and dates of the Japanese, British and American flyers that took part in the air battles over the CBI. No where does it mention the A6M in that theater.

I've read a number of debates on the forums over the years re just that topic. I realize that the man who runs that site does not believe the AVG ever met the Zero, only some of the pilots make references to it. In fact within the last year I watched a program on television re the AVG and one of the pilots who was still alive at that time made reference to confronting the Zero. (I know know, hardly conclusive, and afterall it's only TV.)

But again. All this talk about the Zero, Steve, is getting us nowhere. The argument from my point of view is whether or not the P-40 might reasonably be construed by the game model to be on a par with the Zero in terms of overall performance. I say that it might well be so construed when we throw in combat doctrine, pilot discipline and the like, all of which I feel are valid factors.

Think about this. Gary gives a "maneuver" rating for planes, as if the ability of a plane to "maneuver" might be something absolute when in fact it should not be represented as something absolute but rather something which needs to be qualified according to the circumstance. It's like polling. If you ask bad questions of the sample the poll results will come out skewed. "Was the Zero better at maneuvering than the P-40?" a question might go. Well, it depends on what altitude the planes were at and what air speed we're talking about, right? But Gary never takes that into consideration. At 15,000 feet in a vertical space, diving, with a P-40 pilot who understands the flying dynamics of both his plane and that of the enemy, I'd take the Tomahawk any day. Wouldn't you?

So, the maneuver rating in the game is something unhelpful for the reason it's an all-or-nothing consideration. Worse than meaningless, it only serves to skew the model terribly in play. (Except for your Zeros against my P-40s, of course. [:D])

I did find it interesting that Erik Shilling never engaged a single Japanese fighter in the air during his entire flying career, in or out of the Flying Tigers, yet he claimed to be an expert on dogfighting Japanese aircraft. The only time he ever fired his guns was when his flight intercepted a Jap bomber and shot it down. He was credited with 3/4 of the kill. The only fighter-to-fighter combat he ever saw was a mock dogfight against a British Brewster Buffalo.

I believe that's fair. Looking over it from afar it would appear that Shilling's memory made much more of his own experience than was actually there at the time. I don't want to demean a man who was a veteran, but it does seem to look that way to a casual observer this far down the road.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Feinder
Again, this does not take into account the Zero bonus, or the fact that 1-on-1, most Japanese pilots will have an exp rating of about 70 vs. 60 of their Allied counterparts. Exp is the single most important attribute in a-t-a combat (and in WitP). However, because it can vary widely, it can't be accounted for. And as I said, I personally put a lot of emphasis on range. The Hurricane II is a fair fighter, but it's range sucks, so it's relegated to point-defense duties.

I was with you until you stated that experience is and should be the single most important factor in air engagements.

Let's think about this for a minute.

How does one define "experience"? What "good" is it if it happens to be bad experience? It would be far better to have a rating for tactical doctrine. That, and pilot training within the context of that tactical doctrine, would be entirely more to the point. This is, in fact, the largest reason why Japanese pilots fell behind the combat curve of the Americans so quickly in the war. Their "experience" versus the Chinese and then early Allied pilots of other nationalities taught them lessons which did not stand the test of superior American doctrine down the road. The first example of this is the AVG performance versus the Japanese over a period of some six months. The next example would be that of IJN pilots against USN Wildcat pilots, who had had to learn the same "Chennault" lessons over again. And they did, fast! Unfortunately for the Japanese, their pilots were not so quick to realize what was happening up there in the air. And once they did catch on they further discovered that their planes were ill-suited to at least the BnZ tactics. The thoughts of Thach (and others--he wasn't the only one who contributed) on this subject widened the tactical gap even further. Early result? Wildcats, for all their inherent performance problems, which nobody wants to deny, still killed more Zeros than the other way around. What could be the difference?

Three guesses. [;)]

One of the best sources to go to for this analysis is John Lundstrom and his two "First Team" books. For whatever that's worth.

[Feinder]

Now you're getting into semantics Trist. [;)]

Yes, everything you are indicating is correct. There are many facets of experience, and how it helps you in most ways, but everybody can have a bad day and forget to check-6 the one time you should. And yes, the Allies had superior techonolgy as the war progressed, and quickly developed superiour tacticts, all which contribute to over-coming an experience advantage of the individual.

I will reitterate for the 3rd time. I'm just using the spreadsheet to create parings in WitP. Historical anecdotes are not relevent to the spread sheet. It is simply a reflection of what I feel is important in how I "grade" my own aircraft. Allied technolgoy is reflected in better speed/maneuver/gun ratings. There is -no- way that WitP accounts for superiour group tactics (except perhaps thru leader ratings, but the Allies aren't being given a specific advantage there).

-F-

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

There is no comparison between the F2A and the A6M. Any pilot worth a salt knows which plane would win. The A6M Zeros tore through every P-40 squadron they ever came across. The AVG never engaged A6Ms in combat so no comparison can be made there. Navy Wildcats barely held there own against the Zero. They did so because they learned that if they didn't have a height advantage, it would be suicide to engage.


Chez

This is a generalization and not a very good one. Early war zero pilots had success against P40s but that was about it. Other than that, P40 had a very decent success rate against zeros. What about the air battles over Darwin where ANZAC P40 pilots did a very credible job of shooting down zeros?

To say the zero was superior is without merit. The zero certainly had advantages-long range and maneuverabilty certainly come to mind. but I can't think of much more. The P40 was just as fast if not slightly faster in level flight, could dive away with ease from the zero and most important had a much better roll rate at high speeds (a much underated asset when comparing maneuvering ability of both planes) Since any turn begins with a roll, a well flown P40 could intially turn faster than a zero and get off a valuable shot inside of the turning zero's arc. When you factor in the far superior firepower and overall structrual soundness of the P40, it comes out looking better.

The zero was a capable aircraft in the hands of a skilled pilot but it was poorly armed (later models are better), had a weak airframe and in the cruical period of the war, had no sealing gas tanks.

Quite frankly, the zero was designed for the past war. Yes, it was trememdously agile but only at mid and low speeds. That is, it was a dogfighter in a era when dogfighting had become all but obsolete. The secret to fighting a zero in a P40 was to keep the speed up. At high speed the zero was a poor performer and turning ability dropped off significantly. At high speeds the p40 could fly rings around it. Once the Allied pilots understood this simple fact, the p40 was more than a match for the zero.

And, I might add, (I have already beat this one to death) that P40s generally had working radios where most zeros had none or had radios that did not work very well. With dogfighting growing obsolete and the greater reliance placed on formation flying, this was a tremendous tactical advantange. It is almost entirely overlooked in this and other forums when discussing the merits of WWII aircraft. Modern aircraft fighting aircraft without radios!

You might as well have equipped the japanes pilots with wooden rifles.

All things considered, perhaps it is only a marginal difference, but the P40 was a better plane. Any pilot worth his salt knows that[;)]

[ChezDaJez]

Think about this. Gary gives a "maneuver" rating for planes, as if the ability of a plane to "maneuver" might be something absolute when in fact it should not be represented as something absolute but rather something which needs to be qualified according to the circumstance. It's like polling. If you ask bad questions of the sample the poll results will come out skewed. "Was the Zero better at maneuvering than the P-40?" a question might go. Well, it depends on what altitude the planes were at and what air speed we're talking about, right? But Gary never takes that into consideration. At 15,000 feet in a vertical space, diving, with a P-40 pilot who understands the flying dynamics of both his plane and that of the enemy, I'd take the Tomahawk any day. Wouldn't you?

It also depends on the mission. Aircraft escorting bombers are handicapped whereas the intercepting bombers are more able to select the conditions under which they intercept. AVG pilots to a man all said they refused combat if they couldn't get a height advantage so as to zoom through the bomber formations.

The AVG also had some other very significant advantages over the Japanese that can't be modeled in the game. One was their early warning system. Primitive and crude, it did normally give the AVG 30 minutes or more to get into position. Given the P-40s abysmal rate of climb (20 minutes to 20K feet), it needed all the advance warning it could get so as to intercept. Without this advantage it is unlikely that the AVG would have been as effective. Over Rangoon, where they didn't have an extensive warning net, they had to maintain standing combat patrols. That's hard on planes, pilots and supplies.

The point that I'm trying to make is that the when you look at the types of fighters the AVG encountered, one fact stands clear: the majority of AVG kills came against the Ki-27 Nate, an obsolete, fixed-gear aircraft that was woefully undergunned with only two 7.7mm guns. Over 60% of AVG's CLAIMED kills by their top 15 aces were Nates. The kill ratio here was on the order of somewhere around 20:1. Against the Ki-43 Oscar, the AVG didn't fair as well, claiming only 21 kills total for 3.5:1 kill ratio. The Oscar was also very undergunned having only two 7.7mm guns at the time of the AVG.

The AVG had 18 aircraft shot down. 4 by Nates, 6 by Oscars, 5 by ground fire and 3 by bomber defensive fire. 4 pilots were killed. These totals do not include the large number of P-40s that returned so shot up that they never flew again. When you compare the P-40s durability with the total lack of Japanese firepower, the P-40 pilot had an excellent chance of surviving. But ask yourself, what could two 20mm cannon and two 7.7mm guns do to a P-40? And could it be this increased armament that was the reason Australian and US P-40s in the PI were shot down in large numbers by the A6M2 Zero?

I use the above information in support of my contention that the P-40 is over rated in the game. The game has the P-40B effectiveness against the Oscar pretty close, maybe slightly high: 58% vs 49% because of the Oscar's lack of firepower. Against the Nate's 43%, it is probably correct given how effective the P-40 was against the Nate.

But the game shows the P-40B as being 6 percentage points better then the A6M2 and 1 percentage point better than the A6M5c. This is assinine when you consider that the A6M5c was faster in level flight than the P-40, could dive at 460mph, had armored windshields and pilot armor, self-sealing tanks, automatic fire extinguishers, better armament while maintaining excellent maneuverability. Every disadvantage the Zero had against the P-40 had been addressed while reatining its advantages yet the game still models it worse than the P-40, a fighter that was withdrawn by the USAAF from combat service in October 1942 and used only for photo recon. Does that seem like accurate modeling to you? Even with the max Zero bonus, the P-40 retains a higher rating vs the Zero, something that allied pilots serving in the SRA and Phillipines probably would have disagreed with had they survived.

Chez

[Armorer]

Unless I'm misunderstanding Feinder's numbers, these are HIS percentages, not the game's. Unfortunately, we have no real idea what weight the game engine assigns the variables that the spreadsheet factors in. If I am misunderstanding, and these are somehow the game's percentages, I'll be very surprised.

Regards,
Randy

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Now you're getting into semantics Trist. [;)]

Yes, everything you are indicating is correct. There are many facets of experience, and how it helps you in most ways, but everybody can have a bad day and forget to check-6 the one time you should. And yes, the Allies had superior techonolgy as the war progressed, and quickly developed superiour tacticts, all which contribute to over-coming an experience advantage of the individual.

I will reitterate for the 3rd time. I'm just using the spreadsheet to create parings in WitP. Historical anecdotes are not relevent to the spread sheet. It is simply a reflection of what I feel is important in how I "grade" my own aircraft. Allied technolgoy is reflected in better speed/maneuver/gun ratings. There is -no- way that WitP accounts for superiour group tactics (except perhaps thru leader ratings, but the Allies aren't being given a specific advantage there).

-F-

It's hardly "semantics," and what's actually important in the game is how Gary co-relates the various ratings for aircraft and pilots and leaders. I'm interested for the reason the game model doesn't work very well, and just for the sake of argument I'd like to pick it apart and see how we might (in a perfect world--it isn't going to happen, actually) make it more functional.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Now you're getting into semantics Trist. [;)]

You may call me Tris or John or Schuler or "guy" if you must [8D] but "Trist" doesn't make it by half.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

There is no comparison between the F2A and the A6M. Any pilot worth a salt knows which plane would win. The A6M Zeros tore through every P-40 squadron they ever came across. The AVG never engaged A6Ms in combat so no comparison can be made there. Navy Wildcats barely held there own against the Zero. They did so because they learned that if they didn't have a height advantage, it would be suicide to engage.


Chez

This is a generalization and not a very good one. Early war zero pilots had success against P40s but that was about it. Other than that, P40 had a very decent success rate against zeros. What about the air battles over Darwin where ANZAC P40 pilots did a very credible job of shooting down zeros?

In general the P-40 did well against the best the Japanese had early in the war when flown properly.

To say the zero was superior is without merit.

Well, it was superior in certain circumstances. The problem with many of these types of discussions (and the game always) is that few bother to really analyze the facts and be careful as to their proclamations. Some simply don't understand the subject.

The zero certainly had advantages-long range and maneuverabilty certainly come to mind. but I can't think of much more.

That was about it. Though we need to also throw in ignorance by many Allied pilots early on as how to best engage the Zero (a kind of collateral advantage by extension).

The P40 was just as fast if not slightly faster in level flight . . .

The P-40 was faster and could outrun the Zero any time it wanted to.

. . . could dive away with ease from the zero and most important had a much better roll rate at high speeds (a much underated asset when comparing maneuvering ability of both planes) Since any turn begins with a roll, a well flown P40 could intially turn faster than a zero and get off a valuable shot inside of the turning zero's arc. When you factor in the far superior firepower and overall structrual soundness of the P40, it comes out looking better.

Much better!

The zero was a capable aircraft in the hands of a skilled pilot but it was poorly armed (later models are better), had a weak airframe and in the cruical period of the war, had no sealing gas tanks.

Quite frankly, the zero was designed for the past war. Yes, it was trememdously agile but only at mid and low speeds. That is, it was a dogfighter in a era when dogfighting had become all but obsolete. The secret to fighting a zero in a P40 was to keep the speed up. At high speed the zero was a poor performer and turning ability dropped off significantly. At high speeds the p40 could fly rings around it. Once the Allied pilots understood this simple fact, the p40 was more than a match for the zero.

More or less.

And, I might add, (I have already beat this one to death) that P40s generally had working radios where most zeros had none or had radios that did not work very well. With dogfighting growing obsolete and the greater reliance placed on formation flying, this was a tremendous tactical advantange. It is almost entirely overlooked in this and other forums when discussing the merits of WWII aircraft. Modern aircraft fighting aircraft without radios!

Good point. This was discussed at length, however, back in the UV forums. In fact this entire debate is such old hat I almost want to [>:]

You might as well have equipped the japanes pilots with wooden rifles.

All things considered, perhaps it is only a marginal difference, but the P40 was a better plane. Any pilot worth his salt knows that[;)]

Not necessarily a better plane. A better built aircraft for sure, and when flown with intelligence it was a good match for the Zero. The laughable part (tragic for Japanese pilots) is that the P-40 itself was widely known to be "obsolete" at this time. And you see, that's the big difference. The Japanese were so dense they didn't see this for well over two years of combat. By the time changes were in the pipeline it was a case of too little too late. (Same same, of course, with respect to Japanese fighter doctrine.)

[Feinder]

Pardon me. No disrespect intended. I was just abbreviating, the fact that "trist" is a word meaning a shallow, superficial relationship, didn't actually occur to me when I originally typed it.

That's not to say that there isn't much to be said for "shallow, superficial relationships".

(* sigh *)

19 minutes to go.

-F-

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Think about this. Gary gives a "maneuver" rating for planes, as if the ability of a plane to "maneuver" might be something absolute when in fact it should not be represented as something absolute but rather something which needs to be qualified according to the circumstance. It's like polling. If you ask bad questions of the sample the poll results will come out skewed. "Was the Zero better at maneuvering than the P-40?" a question might go. Well, it depends on what altitude the planes were at and what air speed we're talking about, right? But Gary never takes that into consideration. At 15,000 feet in a vertical space, diving, with a P-40 pilot who understands the flying dynamics of both his plane and that of the enemy, I'd take the Tomahawk any day. Wouldn't you?

It also depends on the mission. Aircraft escorting bombers are handicapped whereas the intercepting bombers are more able to select the conditions under which they intercept. AVG pilots to a man all said they refused combat if they couldn't get a height advantage so as to zoom through the bomber formations.

The AVG also had some other very significant advantages over the Japanese that can't be modeled in the game. One was their early warning system. Primitive and crude, it did normally give the AVG 30 minutes or more to get into position. Given the P-40s abysmal rate of climb (20 minutes to 20K feet), it needed all the advance warning it could get so as to intercept. Without this advantage it is unlikely that the AVG would have been as effective. Over Rangoon, where they didn't have an extensive warning net, they had to maintain standing combat patrols. That's hard on planes, pilots and supplies.

The point that I'm trying to make is that the when you look at the types of fighters the AVG encountered, one fact stands clear: the majority of AVG kills came against the Ki-27 Nate, an obsolete, fixed-gear aircraft that was woefully undergunned with only two 7.7mm guns. Over 60% of AVG's CLAIMED kills by their top 15 aces were Nates. The kill ratio here was on the order of somewhere around 20:1. Against the Ki-43 Oscar, the AVG didn't fair as well, claiming only 21 kills total for 3.5:1 kill ratio. The Oscar was also very undergunned having only two 7.7mm guns at the time of the AVG.

The AVG had 18 aircraft shot down. 4 by Nates, 6 by Oscars, 5 by ground fire and 3 by bomber defensive fire. 4 pilots were killed. These totals do not include the large number of P-40s that returned so shot up that they never flew again. When you compare the P-40s durability with the total lack of Japanese firepower, the P-40 pilot had an excellent chance of surviving. But ask yourself, what could two 20mm cannon and two 7.7mm guns do to a P-40? And could it be this increased armament that was the reason Australian and US P-40s in the PI were shot down in large numbers by the A6M2 Zero?

I use the above information in support of my contention that the P-40 is over rated in the game. The game has the P-40B effectiveness against the Oscar pretty close, maybe slightly high: 58% vs 49% because of the Oscar's lack of firepower. Against the Nate's 43%, it is probably correct given how effective the P-40 was against the Nate.

But the game shows the P-40B as being 6 percentage points better then the A6M2 and 1 percentage point better than the A6M5c. This is assinine when you consider that the A6M5c was faster in level flight than the P-40, could dive at 460mph, had armored windshields and pilot armor, self-sealing tanks, automatic fire extinguishers, better armament while maintaining excellent maneuverability. Every disadvantage the Zero had against the P-40 had been addressed while reatining its advantages yet the game still models it worse than the P-40, a fighter that was withdrawn by the USAAF from combat service in October 1942 and used only for photo recon. Does that seem like accurate modeling to you? Even with the max Zero bonus, the P-40 retains a higher rating vs the Zero, something that allied pilots serving in the SRA and Phillipines probably would have disagreed with had they survived.

Chez

I'd suggest when the P-40 did poorly it had more to do with pilot ignorance of the proper doctrine than the plane itself. Everything we know from FvF encounters in the war tells us this was the true key to success in the air--a doctrine which maximized your plane's strengths while capitilizing on the weaknesses of the enemy's aircraft. And to this day that truth maintains, does it not?

It's all about doctrine. Sure, planes make a difference, but it's training that cuts ice when push comes to shove. (A quick and more contemporary example would be the rather miserable showing by the USAF in Vietnam. Or of the Arabs versus the Israelis or the Coalition. Inferior training/doctrine all the way around. At least the USAF took steps to correct this nonsense, a kind of intelligent response to experience.)

As for rating the A6M5c: I'll need to go into the game and study that comparison vis-a-vis the P-40. But again, that study must stand in ignorance of how Gary inter-relates all those ratings. And besides, nobody (here at least) ever said Gary knew what he was doing when it came to the air model. [:D]

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Armorer

Unless I'm misunderstanding Feinder's numbers, these are HIS percentages, not the game's. Unfortunately, we have no real idea what weight the game engine assigns the variables that the spreadsheet factors in. If I am misunderstanding, and these are somehow the game's percentages, I'll be very surprised.

Regards,
Randy

That is precisely correct. Unless we had Gary's formulas in hand we wouldn't be able to know exactly what we were talking about in regard to the game model. (We know the game model is not especially strong, but the whys and wherefors escape us absent Gary's formulas.)

[Tristanjohn]

Sorry. A mistake. (Why won't they let people delete posts?)

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Pardon me. No disrespect intended. I was just abbreviating, the fact that "trist" is a word meaning a shallow, superficial relationship, didn't actually occur to me when I originally typed it.

That's not to say that there isn't much to be said for "shallow, superficial relationships".

(* sigh *)

19 minutes to go.

-F-

The root of Tristan winds back to Latin and refers to something "sad." It's found in all languages wherever the Romans traveled. An ancient name.

No offense was taken, by the way. [:)]

[CapAndGown]

Would it be possible to use the air balance numbers given for each base to try to figure out how various planes are rated? You could play H2H and park an equal number of Zeros and P40s, for instance, on adjacent bases and compare the air balance numbers. Do the same for Zeros and F4F4s and so on. Might this not reveal the relative ratings of the fighters?

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez
But the game shows the P-40B as being 6 percentage points better then the A6M2 and 1 percentage point better than the A6M5c. This is assinine when you consider that the A6M5c was faster in level flight than the P-40, could dive at 460mph, had armored windshields and pilot armor, self-sealing tanks, automatic fire extinguishers, better armament while maintaining excellent maneuverability. Every disadvantage the Zero had against the P-40 had been addressed while reatining its advantages yet the game still models it worse than the P-40, a fighter that was withdrawn by the USAAF from combat service in October 1942 and used only for photo recon. Does that seem like accurate modeling to you? Even with the max Zero bonus, the P-40 retains a higher rating vs the Zero, something that allied pilots serving in the SRA and Phillipines probably would have disagreed with had they survived.

First of all, the A6M5 series did not maintain the same advantages as the A6M2 or A6M3. The weight went up by over four hundred pounds and the wing span/surface areas were both reduced. So the A6M5c, while it was made to be faster at altitude than the fabled Type 11, say, and could dive better by far, still in all this latter-model Reisen could not "maneuver" as well at lower speeds in a horizontal plane or anything close to it, and as far as I know it wasn't faster (or even as fast) as the P-40B. And why would anyone be expect it to? It was just one more underpowered redesign of the A6M3 crap with various tradeoffs, many of them bad as far as I'm concerned. In other words, another dubious variant in a long and continuing series of obsolete designs. In my view it represented a complete waste of R&D resources. (What I really find absurd is that we're competitively comparing the A6M5c to 1930s technology here. What should that tell us right off the bat? [8D])

The dive speed for the A6M5a was 460 mph. Not sure if that changed for the "c" or not. Assuming its wings hadn't been pulled off then for all I know the latter model might well have eclipsed that 460 mph mark--look how heavy it was, it would have fallen like a rock without an engine.

The pilot armor was only behind the seat. Don't know about the armored windscreen. The fuel tanks were somewhat larger and not self-sealing (they had them but these were never fitted because of lack of experienced ground support), so right away there's more weight to factor in with no increased protection; guns were larger, with another corresponding increase in weight; and all the while there was no corresponding increase in horsepower. So performance of the A6M5c was, if anything, worse than its "b" and "a" cousins. (A couple of more powerful engines were discussed for the A6M5c but nothing actually was done about it, and so the production pllanes rolled out with the old Sekae 21 powerplant. Looking at all that extra weight that was not a good deal in terms of performance.)

In a nutshell, the A6M5c was a huge disappointment and in fact less than 100 were turned out. And no big news that. Again, these were just half-assed attempts to buck up already obsolete airplane technology. And this all happening in the fall of 1944!

Give me a break. [:D]

Getting back to the game and how the A6M5c compares to the P-40B: WitP has the speed about the same (probably incorrect--the Allison 1710 produced 1160 HP whereas the Sekae 21 only gave out 1100 HP); climb rate a bit better for the P-40 (not sure about that, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit [;)]); maneuver two points higher (33:31) for the A6M5c; durability better (30:27) for the P-40 (that could be true, but how does one ascertain that anyway?); armor 1:0 for the Model 52c (as far as I know that is incorrect, as the P-40B introduced cockpit armor, while the P-40C introduced self-sealing tanks); endurance 290:200 for the Warhawk (not sure about that, either, but it wouldn't shock me if the P-40B could travel farther--afterall, the A6M5c specs out as a lumbering pig); load vastly in favor of the Japanese plane (and how would it perform carrying all that stuff?); finally, gun value follows suit in favor of the Reisen.

But again, without knowing how Gary interprets this data inside the game engine I don't see the profit in debating the bald figures. What exactly do they mean to say? I don't know. Do you? If so, please fill us in.

I only know one thing. The air model hardly makes sense at all. In certain specific areas it's downright wacko. (As you readily agree, right?) So however Gary's plugging that data into the engine, the bottom line is it doesn't work so hot. That's what I'm concerned with. Which plane might have "better" than the next is only a problem I care to address insofar as it might seriously impact game play.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

Would it be possible to use the air balance numbers given for each base to try to figure out how various planes are rated? You could play H2H and park an equal number of Zeros and P40s, for instance, on adjacent bases and compare the air balance numbers. Do the same for Zeros and F4F4s and so on. Might this not reveal the relative ratings of the fighters?

I must be having a bad afternoon because I don't understand what you mean by "air balance numbers." What is that? Have I missed something obvious all along?

Whatever those air balance numbers are, how would we derive from these relative scores the truth as to how Gary plugged all that plane data in? Is that a logical step that I just can't see? Speak to me.