unrealistic air combat...

[borner]

yeah, good point. I just figure there has to be some answer to give the US an advantage but to take some of the teeth out of the sidewinder armed F4U's out there.
 
 
Brian

[borner]

I read a while back someone talking about an air-to-air result in WiTP that was waaaaay past what could/should normally happen.... allow me to add one to the list.
 
Air combat at Lea Lea
19 F4u's vs 140+ zeros 61 Oscar, 65 nick, 21 tony fighters.....  losses...59 zeros, 16 Oscar, 18 nice, 7 tony. US losses, 1 fighter. There is no way they even carried enough ammo to shoot down that many. I could not believe it. I admittedly have not played may games to this point (7/43),  but this is a shock! At the risk of re-stating what has been said before.. what the ___ were the people at Matrix smoking when they came up with these air-to-air values. I know really understand why players say if you do not go for auto-victory as Japan, you cannot win. What a disappointment. I would love to hear someone justify how this in any way can be near historical.

[Ike99]

Air combat at Lea Lea
19 F4u's vs 140+ zeros 61 Oscar, 65 nick, 21 tony fighters..... losses...59 zeros, 16 Oscar, 18 nice, 7 tony. US losses, 1 fighter. There is no way they even carried enough ammo to shoot down that many. I could not believe it.

I think the Corsair is definately superior to the Japanese fighters, but as you mention, I´m of the opinion they are getting to many shots. They are modelled as carrying too much ammunition. I think this is the major problem with them.

[borner]

I agree Ike, it is far better. No contest. In my view I would take an f4u over a p-51 7 days a week in fact. However, I do not care how good the plane is, when outnumbered 9-1, they are not going to get a 10-1 kill ratio, not to mention 80-1.

[ILCK]

ORIGINAL: borner

I agree Ike, it is far better. No contest. In my view I would take an f4u over a p-51 7 days a week in fact. However, I do not care how good the plane is, when outnumbered 9-1, they are not going to get a 10-1 kill ratio, not to mention 80-1.

The F4U is sort of a game ender. Once I get one squadron I'm good to go because it will, overnight, change the kill ratios in the air combat world so dramatically. The game handles the performance gap between the Zero and F4F poorly (your F4F's are nearly useless) but it handles the F4U - Zero gap even more poorly.

[tocaff]

It would seem to me that the more people play the game the more aware they become of it's weaknesses.  Isn't that true for every game that you've ever delved into deeply?

So if they were to remodel the aircraft and their respective abilities the playing field would change.  If the naval abilities were examined and tweaked that too would change the game.

I wonder what changes CF will offer and what bugs will be brought to the table.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

...I wonder what changes CF will offer and what bugs will be brought to the table.

There will always be bugs, but at least CF won't be an add-on to UV; they will have to go straight to Grigsby's source code to correct/tweak it and not just patch it.

[Tankerace]

If you guys have specific, repeatable bugs with UV that you'd like fixed in CF, send me a save at justinp@matrixgames.com.
 
In the save, please include the following:
 
Game type (Human vs. Jap AI, etc)
Steps to Reproduce
Description of the bug.
 
If we just get heresay of the bug we really have no way to fix it. I can tell my testers to try and reproduce it BUT, if one of you has a save that already reproduces it, it will be a timesaver.
 
So please, if there are any UV bug saves, please send them to me. We can then see if a similar bug exists in CF.

[borner]

yes, there are always bugs, and things that could be made better. Overall UV is very fun up to about Feb or March 43. After that, as ILCK points out, everything changes. If you just up the values of p-40's ane f4f's, turn down the later allied fighters a bit, thing would be much better. Hopefully in carrier force this will be addressed.
 

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

... If we just get heresay of the bug we really have no way to fix it. I can tell my testers to try and reproduce it BUT, if one of you has a save that already reproduces it, it will be a timesaver.

Remodeling some of the Allied aircraft isn't a bug, but it's common knowledge among UV players that the F4U is almost invincible vs. the A6, Oscar, and other enemy a/c.

But the real bug is the loading bug for fast transports, and that's not heresay; anyone who has played UV has seen this bug time and time again: the TF will either load troops, supplies, or sometimes neither w/o any discernable pattern. Even routine transports don't always load troops and supplies, compelling some UV players to load these TFs one ship at a time, and then combine them into one TF; very time consuming.

Just ask tocaff.

[Erik Rutins]

This is part of why air combat was improved in WITP and completely overhauled for the upcoming WITP AE. Unfortunately, for UV this is something we'll have to live with as the development cycle effectively ended quite a while ago. If Justin and his team can fix some issue in the process of working on CF, great, but I wouldn't depend on that.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

This is part of why air combat was improved in WITP and completely overhauled for the upcoming WITP AE. Unfortunately, for UV this is something we'll have to live with as the development cycle effectively ended quite a while ago. If Justin and his team can fix some issue in the process of working on CF, great, but I wouldn't depend on that.

This could be a deal breaker for some gamers.

[tocaff]

It's beyond my feeble thought processes how a new game, which is what CF will be, can ignore faults of the old one that it's built on.  It's sort of like saying that the lesson learned from the Titanic that the new bulkheads on that ship were OK even though they didn't rise to the deck level above them.  Do you think it was a fatal design flaw?

Leave known faults of UV in CF and it's a deal breaker for me also.  Promises of fixing it in future patches will result in my waiting to see.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

It's beyond my feeble thought processes how a new game, which is what CF will be, can ignore faults of the old one that it's built on. ... Leave known faults of UV in CF and it's a deal breaker for me also.  Promises of fixing it in future patches will result in my waiting to see.

My limited understanding of CF is that's it's a Carrier game grafted onto the old UV such that you have the option to play it only as UV; many of us see CF as the next -- and last -- patch for UV.

Sometimes I attribute technical issues in UV to fog of war, but it would be disapointing to say the least if they weren't even addressed for CF.

So the UV development cycle "effectively ended quite a while ago." I realize they're different games, but I thought UV and WitP still shared the same engine? If AGEOD can retro-improve it's old games w/each new release, why not import WitP improvements to CF?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: tocaff
It's beyond my feeble thought processes how a new game, which is what CF will be, can ignore faults of the old one that it's built on.  It's sort of like saying that the lesson learned from the Titanic that the new bulkheads on that ship were OK even though they didn't rise to the deck level above them.  Do you think it was a fatal design flaw?
Leave known faults of UV in CF and it's a deal breaker for me also.  Promises of fixing it in future patches will result in my waiting to see.

I think you guys have misunderstood me. I'm not discussing whether things can be fixed in CF, but whether any fixes in CF can be effectively ported back to UV as a patch. UV's development is effectively at an end, CF's is still in progress. UV received a heck of a lot of development attention in its time.

[tocaff]

OK, I understand and agree that UV was supported for many years after it's release.  I even understand that V2.5 was the final patch for UV and can't gripe about that despite disappointment that bugs remain.  What I and others are concerned about are the known bugs that remain in UV and the hope that they're not imported to CF. 

[Erik Rutins]

The goal is not to carry over any outstanding issues into CF, which is a new project, but given that it's headed off in a new direction it's just not clear whether it will be possible to carry any fixes backward to UV by the time it's released.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: RGIJN

just a little side note on "unrealistic things": why it is impossible in UV to deploy B25 Mitchell bombers on YORKTOWN class carriers...?!?! It was indeed done in RL [;)] And that it was done is more than sufficient documented...

very excited what this gets up [8D]

According to " The Hamlyn Consise Guide to American Aircraft of World War 2" :-

" For this attack 16 modified aircraft, with an autopilot, fuel tankage increased by more than 60% to 1,141 US gallons ( 4,319 litres ) and the ventral gun turret and Norden bombsight removed, took off from the carrier USS Hornet for an 800 mile ( 1,287 km ) flight to their targets at Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama and Nagoya, flying on to China where most force-landed."

I guess it's to do with modeling those modifications.

On another note, several of the larger Japanese submarines ( approx. 13 ( I-7 to I-11 & I-15 to I-35 ) ) carried float-planes ( Yokosuka E14Y ( Glen ) ).
These are not in the game either, although they did several reconnaissance missions with them over Pearl Harbour, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Madagascar and the Aleutians, albeit only Australia is in our "area".

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl



(Edited for the sake of civility).

Did you know that when each post is listed the original goes to those subscribing rather than the edited version? I'll temper my reply due to that change though.

I'm just curious about the parameters of your logical system here. Is it a kind of Dadaist logic in which wholly unrelated things are presumed to be causally juxtaposed because of the disharmonious or possibly absurd imagery they evoke? Or is it more like a kind of Postmodernist Logic in which the heretofore complete absence of any specific mention, by myself, of Michelle Foucault is proof of Foucault's universal-pervasiveness?

[&:][>:]

Anyone could get lucky I suppose, assuming that they, in fact, did that. According to a number of sources (here I offer "Aircraft of WWII" by Stewart Wilson) "The Gekko was initially employed in the South-west and Central pacific where it was effective agianst the B-24 Liberator but not fast enough to trouble the B-29 Superfortress when employed in the home dfence role. Most ended their days as Kamikaze aircraft."

By which I take it that Wilson (like several other sources) regards the JnN1-Sa as strategically ineffectual against B-29s. In my view the Gekko was a poor design and not terribly good even as a night fighter. In part because its successes were few and far between, and also because pretty much every source regards it as a poor entry for the type. But as I noted before. A B-17 here. A B-24 there. Anyone can get lucky.

Many heavy Bombers including B-17's, B-24's & B-29's were lost to the Japanese during the war.
From :- http://jpgleize.club.fr/aces/ww2hbj.htm :-

Table: Japanese heavy bomber killers in WW2

First Name Name Heavies Total Ww2 Note

Fujitaro ITO 13 13 Ki-45 pilot, 1944.
Nagao SHIRAI 11 13
Akihiko KOBAYASHI 10 14 Ki-61 ace, Tokyo, 44-45.
Chuichi ICHIKAWA 9 10
Sachio ENDO 8 8 Night fighter ace.
Sadamitsu KIMURA 8 8 B-29 killer ace.
Shigetoshi KUDO 8 9 J1N1 night fighter ace.
Isamu KASHIIDE 7 7 Ki-45 ace / 4-engine killer
Makoto OGAWA 7 9 Ki-44 B-29-killer ace 44-45
Yuzo KURAMOTO 6 6 Gekko, B-29 killer, 1945.
Shiro KUROTORI 6 6 Gekko night fighter ace.
Nobuji NEGISHI 6 6 Night fighter Ki-45 ace.
Chuwa N. OZAKI 6 19
Isamu SASAKI 6 38 Burma.
Bunichi YAMAGUCHI 6 19
Yoshio YOSHIDA 6 7 Ki-44 B-29-killer ace.
Hannoshin NISHIO 5 5 B-29 hunter ace.
Satoru ONO 5 5
Tadao SUMI 5 6 B-29 killer ace.
Kaneyoshi MUTO 4 23 A5M ace, China, 1937.
------- --------
142 231
------- --------

Totals added by me. All shown above were Aces. Non Ace kills unlisted / unknown. ( EDIT. Apologies for the way the table turned out folks, all my spaces got lost by the matrix system. )
See also the following which confirms several elements of this table :-

From:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_J1N

"The J1N1-S was used against B-29s in Japan, though the lack of good radar and insufficient high-altitude performance handicapped it, since usually only one pass could be made against the higher speed B-29 bombers. However, some skillful pilots had spectacular successes, such as Lt. Sachio Endo, who was credited with destroying eight B-29s and damaging another eight before he was shot down by a B-29 crew, Shigetoshi Kudo (9 victories), Shiro Kuratori (6 victories), and Juzo Kuramoto (8 victories); the last two claimed five B-29s during the night of 25-26 May, 1945. Another Gekko crew shot down five B-29's in one night, but these successes were rare."

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl


The P-70 was a p.o.s. The J1N was another p.o.s. The P-70 was the first of the two with airborne radar. It did not require searchlight assistance from the ground. It carried its own light. Considering that it was bascally an A-20 with some cannons, its failure is no great surprise. The only really good night fighters of the war were purpose built as such, not pathetic conversions (in the P-70s case from a decent ground attack bomber, in the J1N's case from a decent photorecce/trainer).

The Japs used a small plane mounted searchlight too ( sometimes ). See below:-

( From :- http://www.aviastar.org/air/japan/nakajima_j1n.php )

"This version, the J1N1-S, entered production in August 1943 and continued until December 1944, during which period a total of 420 J1Ns were produced, the great majority of them J1N1-S night-fighters. These differed from the earlier reconnaissance version in having the crew reduced from three to two, the observer's cockpit being eliminated and faired over; all aircraft retained the upward-firing cannon, but the downward firing guns (found difficult to aim and seldom used) were omitted from later aircraft, while a third upper gun and a forward-firing 20mm cannon was fitted in the J1N1-Sa. Rudimentary centimetric AI radar was installed in the nose and some aircraft also carried a small nose searchlight."

This information ( and specifically the last sentence ) is confirmed by Japanese Aircraft of WW2 by R.J. Francillon ( of which I have a copy ).

From:- http://www.usaaf.net/ww2/night/nightpg5.htm

"Since the British had been converting Douglas Boston attack bombers to night fighters since 1940, it seemed logical to fill the gap left by the “Night Interceptor Pursuit Airplane” project with the night version of the Boston, known as the Havoc. The RAF had also fitted some Havocs with a powerful searchlight to illuminate enemy aircraft and allow accompanying Hurricane day fighters to attack. Renamed the Turbinlite, these aircraft proved ineffective because the searchlight blinded everyone in the area, friend and foe alike."

This says the searchlight was added to RAF "P-70"aircraft.There is no such comment on the US P-70's information ( as shown on a previous post - same source, different page ).

No one would construe the J1N1-s as remotely comparable to late war radar guided Allied night fighters. They weren't. They stank.

From :- http://www.usaaf.net/ww2/night/nightpg12.htm ( and other pages )

The 16 WW2 US NF squadrons are credited with 158 kills. 70 of these were by the 10 squadrons serving in the Pacific ( 44% of kills with 62.5% of Squadrons ).

This breaks down as follows ( Pacific ) :-

P-70 : 2 , P-38 : 1 ( trial by 6th NFS ), P-61 : 67.

The 10 Pacific squadrons served a total of 148 months during WW2. This equates to 0.473 kills per month each on average. This also equates to 0.047 of a kill per squadron per month.
The P-61's had 2 aces @ 5 each.

From :- http://www.acesofww2.com/japan/Japan.htm

Shows 45 Japanese night fighter kills by Aces alone ( although this should be t/a 39 as two were Pilot & Navigator/Observer in the same aircraft ), these were between approx. 12 squadrons ( source :- Japanese Aircraft of WW2 by R.J. Francillon ) using the Irving ( 6 ) & Nick ( 6 ) night fighters. This equates to 3.55 kills per squadron each on average ( P-61: 6.7 ). A split by type of aircraft is unknown / unavailable, as is the months of service per Japanese Squadron.
Many of these kills were against B-24's & B-29's. Aces listed is 6 ( discounting the know navigator/observer combination).

I guestimate however that the Nick was in service for some 80 months in total, and the Irving 100 months, ( source :- production figures from Japanese Aircraft of WW2 by R.J. Francillon ).
This would equate to 0.22 kills per month on average ( P-61: 0.473 ) and 0.018 kills per month per squadron ( P-61 : 0.047 ).

It is not known however, how many other kills were made by other pilots, as squadron information cannot be traced. ( Such information would decrease the difference between the two aircraft. ) Indeed any information here is very difficult to trace:-

From :- http://usfighter.tripod.com/hiroyoshi_nishizawa2.htm

"The Japanese did not encourage the tallying of individual scores, being more inclined toward honoring a team effort by units. As with the French and Italians, Japanese victories were officially counted for the air group, not for individuals. Generally, attempts to verify personal claims by Japanese airmen can only be conducted from postwar examinations of their letters and diaries, or those of their comrades."

The above shows that the P-61 was a maximum of approx. 2 times more efficient than the Irving / Nick ( proberly due to it's radar advantage ).
It also shows your " They stank" is an exaggeration ( as usual ).
The P-70 was however, approx. a minimum of 5 times worse ( despite it's radar "advantage"). Now that does stink ( to use your phrase ).
Note however, that in UV, P-61's are not available at commencement, or as replacements/reinforcements ( unless you "employ" the game editor ).