Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

Use M2 Zeros to escort your bombers. They have the longest range of anything resembling a fighter and 12 firepower to boot. I don't stop Oscar production either (until the Tojo is out anyway), after all they are better than the Nate, but neither will I expand it. From what I have seen of AE just intercepting a bombing strike greatly reduces its accuracy. Since the Tony is a maintenance hog, scatter them at level 1 and 2 airfields near where you want them to CAP (with adequate av support of course). You don't want to cluster a lot of planes at 1 airfield anyway, plus if you have rain at 1 field others will be open so you aren't risking an all or nothing CAP.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I don't think you guys are paying attention to the service ratings. I think it is a big deal in AE and you should be looking at it in every plane you consider. Just ask any AFB about the trouble keeping brewster buffalos and P38 flying. It was not unusal for my early war carrier brewsters to have 20% of their compliment in the hangar after running 30-40% CAP for a few days. P-38 proves the same. It is not a great fighter to base at small front line bases-especially if the Japanese player has local air superiority. Tony, Frank, George, Jack all have a service rating of 3 (I think).

Tony vs Tojo, is a no brainer. I go for the Tojo. In my games it seems to handle hurricanes and P40s fairly well and it is about the only 2nd generation fighter that has a service rating of 1. Too bad about this as I think a lot of JFBs will opt for tojos and we won't see the tony much in our games. I sort of like the way the Tony looks.

Zero and Oscar soon become outclassed but it is hard to walk away from that 1 service rating. When Allied air power starts to crank up I don't think you want a bunch of broken planes sitting on the tarmac.[:-]

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

Don't need the Zero to escort army bombers. Army bombers don't have a range of 14+ hexes like Nells/Bettys do.

ORIGINAL: Who Cares

No problem, but my statement was in response to Q Ball and he was talking about using Oscars to escort "Netties" (ie Navy bombers). An Allied game I have going right now the Jap player has been raiding Akyab on a regular basis with Sallys escorted by Zeros, so I'm not all together convinced you are right though about the army navy thing. I would guess you have other factors interfering with your escorts (like leader, morale, stacking, altitude or some such).

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I don't think you guys are paying attention to the service ratings. I think it is a big deal in AE and you should be looking at it in every plane you consider. Just ask any AFB about the trouble keeping brewster buffalos and P38 flying. It was not unusal for my early war carrier brewsters to have 20% of their compliment in the hangar after running 30-40% CAP for a few days. P-38 proves the same. It is not a great fighter to base at small front line bases-especially if the Japanese player has local air superiority. Tony, Frank, George, Jack all have a service rating of 3 (I think).

Tony vs Tojo, is a no brainer. I go for the Tojo. In my games it seems to handle hurricanes and P40s fairly well and it is about the only 2nd generation fighter that has a service rating of 1. Too bad about this as I think a lot of JFBs will opt for tojos and we won't see the tony much in our games. I sort of like the way the Tony looks.

Zero and Oscar soon become outclassed but it is hard to walk away from that 1 service rating. When Allied air power starts to crank up I don't think you want a bunch of broken planes sitting on the tarmac.[:-]

I´m using P-38s for two and a halve months already and have not had a problem with them. 50% Cap is no problem at all if there is enough air support. Same goes for my service rating 4 heavy bombers like the B-17, I keep them flying all the time. I have not had a problem with maintaining any of my (Allied aircraft). This may be different if you don´t have enough airsupport (surely a bigger problem for the Japanese). What killed my P-38 isn´t their service rating but the pilots that can´t fly 50% Cap over a longer period than two days without having their morale pummeled, but that´s a different story.

ORIGINAL: undercovergeek

as long as AFBs are complaining Tojos are kicking their ass - then thats what im building - heard no tales of an uber Tony, only uber Tojo [:D]