Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition
ORIGINAL: goran007
Could someone confirm when actually that plane comes to theatre and is it any good.
thx.
ORIGINAL: xj900uk
Agreed. In order to knock down a US 4E bomber you are going to need someting with 4 x 20mm cannon at least.
The Shiden was used a lot in home defence against 4E high altitude raids and was fairly successful against them, although was not that manoueverable and tended to suffer high losses against the escorting P51's (although there were a few exceptions). Also the Shiden was not a forgiving plane and non-combat losses amongst the fledgling Jap pilots were also very high
ORIGINAL: invernomuto
ORIGINAL: TheTomDude
ORIGINAL: invernomuto
Nick (4/42) and Tojo (great climb rate and good speed, but not so good firepower) IMHO.
The Zero is useful but you have to be on CAP at high altitude when bombers arrive...
What's "high altitude" for you? My Zeros usually fly CAP between 20 and 25'000 ft. and can't down the B-17s.
The Nick is not available until the end of 42 if you play with "player defined upgrades" ON. There is no Jap Squadron that could use the Ki-45a version as I already wrote in an other thread. Dunno why this is and there is no explanation from the devs so far. So the Japs have virtually no plane until the end of 42 that is capabable to pose a threat to B-17s (with PDU on that is).
I use my Zeros at 20.000 fts. I play agains the AI, I have a total of 41 B-17D and 17 B-17E downed mostly to Air kills and ops. (EDIT: I am mid Feb 42.) As Japanese however, you should begin to think that you cannot truly stop those monsters, you will always lack firepower and good interceptors. You can damage them (and in AE they need a lot of time to repair), hope in ops losses and occasionally some air kills.
As for the nicks, I found at least 2 units in Japan that can upgrade to Ki-45 KAIa (avaliability from 5/54), 13th Sentai and 4th Sentai (they're nates), they should upgrade even with PDU OFF. A list of Air Squadron with upgrade paths wuould be very useful.
Bye
ORIGINAL: TheTomDude
Read my post again. The Ki-45 KAIa (a-version) is available from 05/42 BUT NO SQUADRONS upgrade to them when PDU is ON. Those sqdns. mentioned above (84th chutai, 4th and 5th and 13th sentai) are all upgrading to the Ki-45 KAIb,c or d version of that plane which are not available before the end of 42 and later. IF you play with PDU OFF I have been told those squadrons auto-upgrade to the a-version. But I was talking about PDU ON where there's no option to upgrade to the a-version. Why there's even a difference in PDU on and off, I don't know. And devs did not explain.
ORIGINAL: crsutton
I have yet to see a bomber shoot down a fighter......Anyone?
ORIGINAL: crsutton
I have yet to see a bomber shoot down a fighter......Anyone?
ORIGINAL: stuman
I am assuming that it was mainly ME 109s and FW 190s in their many variations that shot down so many Allied 4E bombers over Europe. How were those fighters generally configured ? Didn't , generally speaking, the 109 have 1 20mm cannon and the FW 2 ( alonf with 2 machine guns ) ? Or something like that ?
ORIGINAL: crsutton
I have yet to see a bomber shoot down a fighter......Anyone?
ORIGINAL: stuman
I am assuming that it was mainly ME 109s and FW 190s in their many variations that shot down so many Allied 4E bombers over Europe. How were those fighters generally configured ? Didn't , generally speaking, the 109 have 1 20mm cannon and the FW 2 ( alonf with 2 machine guns ) ? Or something like that ?
ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
German fighters were better armed and better armored that the Japanese fighters. But more importantly, they had a MUCH LONGER "window of engagement" that the Japanese could ever hope for. Allied bombers had to fly for hours over German-occupied Europe just to reach their targets..., and hours more to return to their bases.
In the Pacific this was rarely the case. Even when B-29's were bombing Japan from the Marianas, 90% of the trip was over neutral ocean. So any comparison of bomber actions must also keep this fact in mind. In Europe the "engagement" would last for 6-12 hours..., in the Pacific more like 10-20 minutes. And even with these advantages, the Germans failed to turn back even one single bomber raid!
ORIGINAL: mullk
What year are you in? I'm in mar of 42 and I have less then 70 B-17E's in the pacific. I have used my bombers only once or twice then have to wait a couple of weeks for replacements and repairs. Even the A24's I received in Australia ware wiped out in 2-3 days of fighting, never received a single replacement and were withdrawn with 1-2 planes in each squadron. I've had to abandon Port Moresby it's only got 50 fights at the base with no replacements in the pool while the Japanese are sending 70 Zeros everyday doing sweeps with 1000 fights in the pool. Isn't hard to figure out how that one's going to end. Can't get ships to the port as the betties sink every thing within range wither it has fighter cap or not (in my current game betties have a 50-80% hit rate, 10 get through your going to loose 3-5 ships, and they always attack with torpedoes)
ORIGINAL: Puhis
I think german fighters had one disadvantage compared to japanese, and that is range. Both Bf-109 and FW-190 had a range about 1000 km or less. Zero's max range was 3000 km, and both Frank and George had a range over 2000 km.
