goodbye heavy bomber force, your AAA defenders have deserted you

[jetjockey]

Apretzo, one other possible thing to look at is the caliber of the “active” guns, not necessarily the number. I have found that to understand how some things work in AE all I need do is look toward RL. The Devs seem to have gone to great lengths in order to make the two mesh as closely as possible (kudos). Large caliber guns are not very effective direct-fire AAA, especially against small, fast moving and maneuvering aircraft. They are best employed en-mass to create “Flak-box” killing fields through which enemy (hopefully) aircraft must pass. By glide-bombing, the enemy Kates complicated your AAA gunners firing solution by 1) accelerating toward the Kate’s max-airframe airspeed and 2) changing altitude rapidly. Normally this would have brought the Kates into the firing envelopes of your smaller AAA, but my guess is that most if not all of these smaller guns were at rest with your infantry. I think this may explain the lighter-than-expected enemy losses due to flak. Or, a rather more likely scenario is that I am completely whack and well of the mark. In either case, have fun!

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

It wasn't directed at you BUT there are people ( who posted to the thread ) who routinely blame everything on the game engine and continuously shout throughout the forum that it must be broken etc etc ( from sweeps to the performance of FlAK to the performance of ASW etc ) and, yeah, I find that annoying after the nth time when it is clear that others who put the time and effort into proper force mixes ARE able to get reasonable results from their forces in-game.

Since my comment doesn't apply to you I wouldn't take it personally if I were you but, as ever, humans are strange creatures and often insist on taking personally that which isn't. Its your choice, I wouldn't dream of impinging on your right to take something personally which isn't. Personally though I hope you accept it wasn't aimed at you and move on... but when push comes to shove its up to you.

Honestly it did look as if you meant it for the thread starter and perhaps others. Just FYI.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Just as an aside.... the lethality of FlAK is determnined by a combination of numbers, effective ceiling and the level the enemy bombers fly at.

I've got lots of FlAK at Palembang and even at 11 or 12,000 feet I am destroying between 33% and over 50% of the IJNAF Betties. I'd expect to destroy far more than that if they sent in Vals or Kates.

I've got several other FlAK traps which also claim about 33% of the IJNAF or IJAAF planes committed against them.

Perhaps you guys need to look at the design of your FlAK traps?


As to naval FlAK... Hmm, i'm not convinced it is right either but land-based FlAK CAN be an utter killer if you plan it out properly. I would suggest the players here failing to achieve the results they want need to look at their planning and opponent's play and not the game.


I'm just waiting for anyone to actually have something go wrong and do something other than blame the game. Seriously, how can you expect to improve when that's your first port of call? [8|][8|][8|]

I don´t know how many flak units you´ve put into Palembang but I´ve already felt gamey when I got 200 3.7 inch flak guns (which means probably another 400+ smaller flak guns too) into my bases in Burma and they just do "nothing" against 50-70 IJAAF bombers. Stacking even more AA units into one base is off IMO but to each his own. And yes, I would expect to see 200 3.7 inch guns at a base do more damage than the average 1.5 enemy bombers lost out of 50-70 incoming. I´m not trying to create a flak trap (like you seem to do with I have no clue how many thousand of flak guns), I´m only trying to defend my base with something else than being complete useless. Of course it´s the players do something wrong, perhaps I didn´t know how to swap into arkade mode to man one of the 200 3.7 inch flaks to take down 49 out of 50 bombers at 11000ft. Could be. 200 3.7 inch flak guns is something I would call an UBER flak defense in real life and I´m sure none of the base in Burma ever had that many in real life. Heck, I´ve massed all flak units with heavy flak (the light AA doesn´t count at all as they will never fire if your enemy isn´t a total dork) that I could find in India at the front in Burma and they do more or less nothing. Hundreds! of heavy calibres.

All units are OF COURSE in combat mode, the only guns actually firing at the enemy are of course the 3.7 inch guns as all the small stuff can´t reach the enemy at 11000ft, hence the standard alt for the Japanese at 11000ft and the Allied at 10000ft.

[castor troy]

Don´t know what would have had to happen in real life to have 200 3.7 inch and 400-500 (40mm and 20mm) guns to defend a base but Berlin with one of the strongest flak defenses (the strongest?) for example had something like 600 heavy flak guns in 44.

edit: and 600 is only true if we´re talking about "reinforced batteries" that were brought to 6 guns each instead of 4. IIRC the highest number in Berlin was 100 heavy batteries, which means 400-600 guns.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

My initial questions would be what mode were they in and how many decent guns did you have.

If all the AA units are in move/rest or strat mode forget it they wont fire

If they are in combat mode did they have anything heavier than an AA MG ?

You need lots of 40mm, 20mm or 3.7" (Assuming CW AA units) to have an impact in Comabt mode

I was shooting down a lot of Strings aircraft over Colombo to the extent he was picking his raids pretty carefully

don´t know what your opponent has to do not being able to figure out that 40 and 20mm guns won´t do anything when he comes in at 10-11000ft so the only guns that really count in most if not all level bomber attacks would be the 3.7 inch, the 75mm and the 90mm I guess. The Bofors and Oerlikons are only usefull against KB if the Japanese player is foolish enough to attack a land base with Vals.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

I brought up two AA units with 48 3.7" total to Cairns, and after losing a number of bombers in one turn my opponent quit sending bombers. [:)]

I´ve brought 4 times this number of 3.7 inch flak to my Burmese bases but that hasn´t kept my opponent from bombing them at all. No wonder when suffering 1.5 losses on average. [:(]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Also, FlAK ramps up logarithmically. 200 x 3.7 inch FlAK are a LOT more than twice as effective as 100 x 3.7 inch FlAK. The reason is that if the 100 FlAK create a lot of damaged planes then the next 100 turn a lot of those damaged planes into destroyed planes.

But, really, if you make a good plan and pick your FlAK units in order to deter the raids and raid altitudes your opponent uses then you should have success... If you pick the wrong mix of units and deploy them improperly then, yes, you will fail to have success... which is as it should be.

which obviously means that 200 3.7 inch flak guns (together with the hundreds of stuff that won´t fire at level bombers at appropriate alt) seems to be "the wrong mix of units" or what?

Perhaps I should ask my opponent how scared he is attacking my favourite Burmese bases... guess he isn´t, otherwise he wouldn´t keep bombing at 11000ft against such defense.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

What dates are you talking about for naval flak?  Early war naval flak was poor on both sides.  Allied flak didn't start to improve until the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and proximity fuses didn't come into use until 1944.  If you're expecting late 44 effectiveness in early 42, you're going to be disappointed.

Also an important thing for land units is what mode the units are in.  If anything other than Combat, they aren't going to fire.  So the question is not how many AA guns you have in your hex, but how many do you have in combat mode?  Some people are reporting very good success with land based flak and others not.  I suspect mode of the units is a factor for those who are getting poor effectiveness.

Bill

never had my units in wrong mode, usually checking with tracker what arrived where to enable me to change into combat mode immediately.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

It wasn't directed at you BUT there are people ( who posted to the thread ) who routinely blame everything on the game engine and continuously shout throughout the forum that it must be broken etc etc ( from sweeps to the performance of FlAK to the performance of ASW etc ) and, yeah, I find that annoying after the nth time when it is clear that others who put the time and effort into proper force mixes ARE able to get reasonable results from their forces in-game.

Since my comment doesn't apply to you I wouldn't take it personally if I were you but, as ever, humans are strange creatures and often insist on taking personally that which isn't. Its your choice, I wouldn't dream of impinging on your right to take something personally which isn't. Personally though I hope you accept it wasn't aimed at you and move on... but when push comes to shove its up to you.

it´s a pity though that the people who "put the time and effort into proper force mixes" so far haven´t done a detailed combat report AAR. Those who are to dumb to employ proper force mixes could learn how to sweep, coordinate, flak, ASW, etc. [:'(]

[Walloc]

Hi Castor,

Could u check the general moral level of ur AA units in burma, please and give some feed back.
You could suspect that cuz of malaria weaking units in combat mode, required for AA to fire.
That over time they would have very low moral, taking away their effectiveness.


Kind Regards,

Rasmus

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

Hi Castor,

Could u check the general moral level of ur AA units in burma, please and give some feed back.
You could suspect that cuz of malaria weaking units in combat mode, required for AA to fire.
That over time they would have very low moral, taking away their effectiveness.


Kind Regards,

Rasmus

Overall morale, fat and disruption is excellent as these units are fully supplied, got full support due to having lots of base forces at the bases and are situated at level 7 or bigger airfields. And Rangoon isn´t even a malaria base IIRC.

[John Lansford]

I sent multiple 2E and 4E bomber squadrons to Mandalay on airfield attack since that was the main IJA bomber base that has been hitting my bases at Chittagong and Akyab.  Very little AAA damage, then the B25D1 squadron went in at 100'.  Immediately lost the first bomber to AA fire, and I expected a blood bath.  Instead, the remaining 15 bombers shot up the entire base, destroyed 4 planes on the ground, and got out without losing another plane.
 
I've got 3 heavy AA and 2 light AA units at Chittagong, and the IJA doesn't appear deterred from bombing the base with impunity (if not effectiveness).  The AI is sending mostly light bombers escorted by dozens of Oscars there, and my AAA is rarely shooting down more than 2-3 planes per raid.

[tigercub]

i was going to go back to my campain ...but i see it will be a waste of my time...[:(]


Tigercub!

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: tigercub

i was going to go back to my campain ...but i see it will be a waste of my time...[:(]


Tigercub!

not a waste of time! only some nuissances... [;)]

[oldman45]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

What dates are you talking about for naval flak?  Early war naval flak was poor on both sides.  Allied flak didn't start to improve until the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and proximity fuses didn't come into use until 1944.  If you're expecting late 44 effectiveness in early 42, you're going to be disappointed.

Also an important thing for land units is what mode the units are in.  If anything other than Combat, they aren't going to fire.  So the question is not how many AA guns you have in your hex, but how many do you have in combat mode?  Some people are reporting very good success with land based flak and others not.  I suspect mode of the units is a factor for those who are getting poor effectiveness.

Bill

I agree that you cannot compare the power of naval AA in 1942 with 1944/45 but I think in my case its more of it doesn't "feel" right. Just like there are times when naval combat doesn't "feel" right. There is no easy fix but I look at the results and find that there should be more damage to a/c. A player just can't go in a tweek it because there are so many unkown variables involved. I have not run into kamaikazes yet so I will be interested to put JohnD's theory to test.

[Nemo121]

witpqs,
Ok, I certainly don't read it that way but I am more than happy to clarify it wasn't, AT ALL, aimed at Azprezto. It was aimed squarely at Castor Troy who is really developing a habit of making all sorts of accusations with very limited evidence to back them up and then fails to engage in rational, evidence-based discussion free of hyperbole about the issues. Another good example of this is:

It´s a pity though that the people who "put the time and effort into proper force mixes" so far haven´t done a detailed combat report AAR.

Hmm, so actually listing the number of guns of each calibre you have deployed in the various bases and then comparing that with the results of bombing missions vs those bases ( as I did in my AAR ) doesn't qualify as a detailed AAR which can show effectiveness of the right force mix? Sorry Castor but you're just speaking a pile of Bullsh*t now.

And now I'll quote from an assessment of a base which enemy bombers have attacked and which has claimed between 33 and 50%+ of each attacking IJNAF or IJAAF raid against it. This is taken verbatim from my AAR

Artillery: This is pretty weak since I don't need lots of arty to impale large shipping here....
3 " mortar: 70
2lbr ATG: 40
18 Lber: 29
25 lber: 30
3.7" Mountain Guns: 16
75mm CD GUNS: 8


AAA:
40mm: 169
3.7" AAA: 155

In the last month when he launched bomber raids against Palembang before all of the 3.7" guns were fully ready each raid was suffering between 50 to 66% loss rates. So, if he hits with Oosthaven or Palembang with bombers I expect them to destroy about 50% of each raid with just FlAK alone or force the bombers up so high they achieve nothing.

I'm certain that Castor Troy will, again, decry that as insufficient proof etc etc despite the fact that the CRs I refer to can be read in my AAR but, really, why does one person who is not amenable to reason get to be taken seriously when he makes yet another claim unsupported by much other than vitriol?



John Lansford,
Have you ever read a day by day report of the Pacific or European Air War? I have and, to be honest, a day in which an attack on an airbase cost more than 1 or 2 bombers to FlAK was a VERY bad day. Most of the time losses in the air in Europe or the Pacific really weren't that high and yet bombers flew lots of missions. I think sometimes our expectation of what FlAK can do is based on myth and not on the actual reality of what it did, actually, do.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I believe AA is not very effective against single engine aircraft.

Not my experience, SBD Dauntlesses get slaughtered if they dive bomb just about anything which has AAA.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

witpqs,
Ok, I certainly don't read it that way but I am more than happy to clarify it wasn't, AT ALL, aimed at Azprezto. It was aimed squarely at Castor Troy who is really developing a habit of making all sorts of accusations with very limited evidence to back them up and then fails to engage in rational, evidence-based discussion free of hyperbole about the issues. Another good example of this is:

It´s a pity though that the people who "put the time and effort into proper force mixes" so far haven´t done a detailed combat report AAR.

Hmm, so actually listing the number of guns of each calibre you have deployed in the various bases and then comparing that with the results of bombing missions vs those bases ( as I did in my AAR ) doesn't qualify as a detailed AAR which can show effectiveness of the right force mix? Sorry Castor but you're just speaking a pile of Bullsh*t now.

And now I'll quote from an assessment of a base which enemy bombers have attacked and which has claimed between 33 and 50%+ of each attacking IJNAF or IJAAF raid against it. This is taken verbatim from my AAR

Artillery: This is pretty weak since I don't need lots of arty to impale large shipping here....
3 " mortar: 70
2lbr ATG: 40
18 Lber: 29
25 lber: 30
3.7" Mountain Guns: 16
75mm CD GUNS: 8


AAA:
40mm: 169
3.7" AAA: 155

In the last month when he launched bomber raids against Palembang before all of the 3.7" guns were fully ready each raid was suffering between 50 to 66% loss rates. So, if he hits with Oosthaven or Palembang with bombers I expect them to destroy about 50% of each raid with just FlAK alone or force the bombers up so high they achieve nothing.

I'm certain that Castor Troy will, again, decry that as insufficient proof etc etc despite the fact that the CRs I refer to can be read in my AAR but, really, why does one person who is not amenable to reason get to be taken seriously when he makes yet another claim unsupported by much other than vitriol?



John Lansford,
Have you ever read a day by day report of the Pacific or European Air War? I have and, to be honest, a day in which an attack on an airbase cost more than 1 or 2 bombers to FlAK was a VERY bad day. Most of the time losses in the air in Europe or the Pacific really weren't that high and yet bombers flew lots of missions. I think sometimes our expectation of what FlAK can do is based on myth and not on the actual reality of what it did, actually, do.

well, with "people" I didn´t want to include you because afaik you´ve done some wonderworld mods in WITP and probably so in AE so I don´t know what you have all changed and wouldn´t take that for serious to compare to vanilla AE. That and the (at least in WITP) more than "unconventional" approach to how deploy things and creating more than unrealistic situations (like 700 fighter CV TFs without any bombers?) is for me more going into Command & Conquer than what I would expect from a WITP or AE game.

But I certainly would take a look at your AAR to see the 3.7 inch guns destroying the IJ bombers every time when they show up if you are playing vanilla. Because that would really be funny, as 200 of these guns just do "nothing" (nothing is of course not true) in other vanilla games. And it would also be of help to know at which alt your opponent attacks because if he´s smart then the smaller guns do nothing. At least I admit that I felt gamey to place so many guns in a base in Burma, heck, I bet you feel realistic to have nearly 40 heavy flak batteries at Palembang.

And why should I take one serious that probably thinks that giving the IJ a Battlestar Galactica together with Spaceship Enterprise to put 700 fighters without bombers onto them? Vitriol? Sounds funny, can you recommend that?

[castor troy]

Nemo, that´s an example from my vanilla AAR:

I´ve dispersed all my flak units in the meantime because a) I couldn´t see much effect of massing them and b) it´s highly unrealistic anyway. In this example, there were even more 3.7 inch guns at Prome than you show at Palembang. Having units with 72 3.7 inch guns.

Afternoon Air attack on Prome , at 55,50

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 42 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-21-IIa Sally x 15
Ki-21-IIb Sally x 12
Ki-43-IIb Oscar x 17
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 36



Allied aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-21-IIa Sally: 12 damaged
Ki-21-IIb Sally: 5 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Hudson IIIa: 1 destroyed on ground


Allied ground losses:
32 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 6 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled


Airbase hits 8
Runway hits 12

Aircraft Attacking:
15 x Ki-21-IIa Sally bombing from 11000 feet
Airfield Attack: 4 x 250 kg GP Bomb
12 x Ki-21-IIb Sally bombing from 11000 feet
Airfield Attack: 4 x 250 kg GP Bomb



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on Prome , at 55,50

Weather in hex: Light rain

Raid spotted at 13 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 3 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-48-IIa Lily x 17
Ki-49-IIa Helen x 15



Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-48-IIa Lily: 13 damaged
Ki-49-IIa Helen: 8 damaged



Airbase hits 3
Runway hits 20

Aircraft Attacking:
15 x Ki-49-IIa Helen bombing from 11000 feet
Airfield Attack: 4 x 250 kg GP Bomb
17 x Ki-48-IIa Lily bombing from 11000 feet
Airfield Attack: 4 x 100 kg GP Bomb


11000ft standard attack alt, seemed like a lot of damaged bombers...





and yes, that is the loss list of the right day. It was a very bad day for my flak though, they usually claim 1.5 bombers on average in such an attack (with my units still stacked and of course all in combat mode). But hey, perhaps I can do anything else? What you also should note is that the "damaged" bombers probably aren´t all damaged anyway because the funny FOW even shows dozen of bombers damaged if single units in a hex WITHOUT any flak at all are attacked so I doubt that the number of damaged bombers is spot on.


And like you point out to John Lansford, I could also ask you if you have ever read about the total losses to flak, ops and A2A? Not in a hundred years could you achieve that in vanilla with flak, only if you play the AI perhaps and it keeps sending bombers en masse against one of your Palembang approach bases to see 50% downed each turn... [8|] Doesn´t such a statement make you think?

In above´s screen you can see 83 flak losses for the Dinah, IIRC that´s the highest loss in my PBEM and that game is in 4/43. A rough guess would be that out of the nearly 5000 Japanese ac destroyed so far, around 300-400 perhaps destroyed by flak. Can´t check it at the moment because I´m at work but going to do some screens later on.

And no, flak surely isn´t my pet peeve, it´s the air routine... [:'(] And I also don´t say flak is broken, but it sure is too weak (for both sides IMO).

[herwin]

The purpose of flak is to protect the assets being defended, not to shoot down aircraft. The RN learned this after initially getting it wrong--they found that putting 4" AA under local control on merchies did little to kill attacking aircraft, but increased the survivability of the ship by a factor of about 2.5x, which was the important thing in the end.