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We all agree Greyjoy should be burned this time. But it matters how he get burned. And what extent his wound should be.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It was a very bad place and time to send a fleet. When it got there very bad things happened. Sounds realistic to me.

ORIGINAL: hades1001

OK here is the most problematic morning wave. The whole combat info is attached.

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Morning Air attack on TF, near Sadogashima at 115,54

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 40 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 22
A6M3a Zero x 64
A6M5 Zero x 48
A6M5b Zero x 15
A6M5c Zero x 142
A7M2 Sam x 33
B7A2 Grace x 235
D4Y4 Judy x 34
J2M3 Jack x 48
N1K1-J George x 81
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 21



Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 97
F4U-1A Corsair x 330
F4U-1D Corsair x 129
F6F-3 Hellcat x 72
F6F-5 Hellcat x 555


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5 Zero: 3 destroyed
A6M5c Zero: 2 destroyed
B7A2 Grace: 15 destroyed, 32 damaged
B7A2 Grace: 17 destroyed by flak
D4Y4 Judy: 3 destroyed, 7 damaged
D4Y4 Judy: 4 destroyed by flak
J2M3 Jack: 1 destroyed
N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4U-1A Corsair: 2 destroyed
F6F-5 Hellcat: 1 destroyed

Allied Ships
CV Hancock, Torpedo hits 5, and is sunk
CV Ticonderoga, Torpedo hits 3, and is sunk
CV Yorktown II, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
CV Wasp, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CV Illustrious, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
CV Lexington, Torpedo hits 5, and is sunk
CV Essex, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
CV Wasp II, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 1
CLAA San Diego, Torpedo hits 4, and is sunk
DD Lang
CV Saratoga, Torpedo hits 1
DD Preston II
DD Arunta



Aircraft Attacking:
3 x D4Y4 Judy releasing from 10000' *
Naval Attack: 1 x 500 kg SAP Bomb
17 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
10 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
13 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
6 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
12 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
14 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
14 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
17 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
10 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
10 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
16 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
21 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
17 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
18 x D4Y4 Judy releasing from 3000' *
Naval Attack: 1 x 500 kg SAP Bomb
15 x B7A2 Grace launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo
2 x D4Y4 Judy releasing from 2000' *
Naval Attack: 1 x 500 kg SAP Bomb
4 x D4Y4 Judy releasing from 1000' *
Naval Attack: 1 x 500 kg SAP Bomb

CAP engaged:
VF-17 with F4U-1A Corsair (4 airborne, 16 on standby, 10 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
4 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 20000 , scrambling fighters between 8000 and 20000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 45 minutes
VF-40 with F6F-5 Hellcat (0 airborne, 14 on standby, 13 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 2 being recalled, 4 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 17000 , scrambling fighters between 8000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 42 minutes
VF-1 with F4U-1D Corsair (8 airborne, 20 on standby, 12 scrambling)
8 plane(s) intercepting now.
1 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 18000 , scrambling fighters between 5000 and 18000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 26 minutes
VF-2 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 16 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 12000 , scrambling fighters between 5000 and 13000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 42 minutes
VF-3 with F6F-5 Hellcat (8 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
8 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 7000 , scrambling fighters between 5000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 43 minutes
VF-6 with F6F-5 Hellcat (8 airborne, 17 on standby, 16 scrambling)
8 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 37300 , scrambling fighters between 3000 and 37300.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 42 minutes
VF-7 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 17000 , scrambling fighters between 4000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 63 minutes
VF-8 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 4 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 18000 , scrambling fighters between 6000 and 18000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 51 minutes
VF-10 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 12000 , scrambling fighters between 3000 and 16000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 60 minutes
VF-11 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 19000 , scrambling fighters between 9000 and 19000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 54 minutes
VF-13 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 4 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 27000 , scrambling fighters between 2000 and 27000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 62 minutes
VF-14 with F6F-5 Hellcat (0 airborne, 16 on standby, 16 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 4 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 17000 , scrambling fighters between 4000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 62 minutes
VF-16 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 17000 , scrambling fighters between 3000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 49 minutes
VF-71 with F6F-5 Hellcat (4 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 4 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 12000 , scrambling fighters between 5000 and 17000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 49 minutes
VF-80 with F6F-5 Hellcat (8 airborne, 17 on standby, 17 scrambling)
8 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 27000 , scrambling fighters between 9000 and 27000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 48 minutes
VF-24 with F6F-5 Hellcat (0 airborne, 9 on standby, 9 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 12000 , scrambling fighters between 7000 and 16000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 58 minutes
VF-25 with F6F-3 Hellcat (4 airborne, 12 on standby, 4 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
2 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 8000 , scrambling fighters between 8000 and 16000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 39 minutes
VF-30 with F6F-3 Hellcat (4 airborne, 15 on standby, 2 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 3 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 9000 , scrambling fighters between 7000 and 15000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 52 minutes
VF-50 with F4U-1D Corsair (4 airborne, 10 on standby, 7 scrambling)
4 plane(s) intercepting now.
1 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 21000 , scrambling fighters between 6000 and 21000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 46 minutes
No.834 Sqn-FF-2 FAA with Corsair II (0 airborne, 4 on standby, 1 scrambling)
1 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 11000 , scrambling fighters between 11000 and 15000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 26 minutes

Fuel storage explosion on CV Lexington
Ammo storage explosion on CV Wasp
Fuel storage explosion on CV Lexington
Fuel storage explosion on CV Hancock

By examine the facts, we have:
84 fighters: airborne
303 fighters: standby
259 fighters: scrambling

and they have about 40 minutes to react.

What the number of fighters will you suggest is involved in this combat?

The onus on doing the number crunching rests on those who continue to repeat the incorrect figures. Nonetheless for this initial round (one of many which occurred) the correct figures are as follow.

(A) Only 3 squadrons will be fully in position to meet the enemy. These squadrons are

• VF-1
• VF-25
• No 834

Between them they have a total of

12 airborne
36 on standby
17 scrambling

Therefore all 65 planes will be present at the start of the combat

(B) The remaining 17 squadrons are out of position and will not contribute their full complement to the start of the combat. The only planes of these squadrons which will be present at the start are the planes already airborne and noted in the Combat Report as intercepting now. The total number of planes which fall into this category is 68.

Thus from (A) and (B) the total number of fighters is 133

(C) There is no way to tell from reading a Combat Report how many late arriving fighters will participate in combat either before or after the attack run in. You have to look at the Combat Animation for that information, a point which is always ommitted by people who base their entire argument on the Combat Report, which is subject to FOW anyway. Nonetheless, late arriving fighters, particularly if they arrive in dribs and drabs, tend to do very poorly and more often than not fail to participate. As the delay in arriving for many squadrons is substantial, even without the benefit of watching the Combat Animation, I would expect not too many planes from these 17 squadrons participated in this initial round of combat.

(D) The enemy strike package comprised 474 fighters plus 269 modern bomber. Many of the enemy fighters were superior airframes to anything fielded by the Allies, and this takes no account of the experience and skill levels of the pilots. Again whilst the Combat Report does not identify exactly how many enemy fighters will present at the start of combat, it is rare for escorting fighters to miss the initial combat.

Therefore, contrary to the incorrect figures which have been often repeated, an initial CAP of 133 met a total of 743 enemy planes. In those circumstances the Allied CAP performed quite credibly in downing as many enemy aircraft as it did. In subsequent rounds, as more CAP arrived into position a much heavier toll was taken of enemy planes.

None of this establishes the system is broken. The situation arose out of player decisions, some made in the 24 hour preceding combat, many made many months before.

Alfred

Shit happened during war. Also shit happens in this game, so the game has got something right.

When I look at that complete combat report, I think it's plausible. Definitely not very probable, but still plausible. Shit happens.

EDIT: How silly is that? If I wrote s-h-i-t, it's **** [:D]

So you are suggesting while only a small portion of CAP fighters engages in the initial combat, the 700 hundred attacker planes join the combat from the beginning at the same time so the CAP won't defend them effectively?

I see the the root of the argument now....

ORIGINAL: hades1001

So you are suggesting while only a small portion of CAP fighters engages in the initial combat, the 700 hundred attacker planes join the combat from the beginning at the same time so the CAP won't defend them effectively?

Yes although what actually happens is that the CAP fighters first have to tangle with the escorting fighters. Whilst that is happening the bombers stand off and are not involved in combat. Thus as 133 fighters constitued the initial CAP against 474 escorting fighters, the Allied CAP did well to get to and shoot down any enemy bombers at all. To shoot down 50 enemy bombers as identified by LoBaron is quite a good outcome. And remember these were state of the art Japanese bombers.

If the strike package takes off and is coordinated it almost always arrives together. Luckily for defenders getting a coordinated strike package is not that easy but the better players have a much higher success rate and rader is a very good tactician because he understand the conditions required to achieve coordination.

But again your are misreading the Combat Report because rader did not achieve 100% coordination. Had he done so every Japanese bomber and escorting fighter would have arrived together ina single wave and there would have been only one combat round. Instead there were several later combat rounds where the CAP, by then in position, performed much better.

What rader did was basically put up enough airplanes into the air that at least one raid would be heavy with planes. That he could do so is the direct result of much deeper issues than you have raised. These are issues which I identified in my first post in this thread and the ill effects of those issues arise from player decisions made throughout the entire course of the campaign.

Where rader was lucky to a small degree and GreyJoy conversely unlucky, was that the most coordinated raid was the first one which arrived over the target before most of the CAP could get into position. I've outlined in the AAR how GreyJoy's decisions exacerbated the defensive difficulties but sending carriers against well stocked, interlocking large airbases is always a receipe for disaster whether it is done in December 1941 or September 1944.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: hades1001

I see the the root of the argument now....

Sorry, but this IS really funny...

Maybe I'm totally wrong, this is how I see that kind combat. It's a hell of a mess out there...

Air combat seems to work well up to a certain size (~300 planes). And quite possibly the limit on firing passes helps it work well up to that size.

Would it be a programming challenge to just split both raids and CAP fighting in the same hex in the same air phase up into smaller air to air combats? Micahel, if you made an exe like that I could run a whole series of tests in a sandbox scenario with large numbers of planes and post the results compared with the current default results. Could make for an interesting discussion.

What I find interesting (disregarding the combat rounds) is the extremely large number of planes and types forming a single raid.
Somehow, I would have expected the 'co-ordination' logic to break this down some.

Only thing I can think of (without delving into it) is that the bomber bases must be close together or close to the target.
If all coming from same base, they would be affected by the old over-stacking penalties (about 4 involve too many planes at base). If so, the groups must be big squadrons to absorb the 75% flying reductions.

wonder when both sides, the pro and con, will stop bringing up crazy explanations trying to justify the results. How many years back did you fail to realize that the engine (both WITP and AE) is not able to deal with huge numbers? [&:]

IT CAN'T!

edit: and one more thing to keep in mind would be that the "explanations" the pro engine guys give for the HUGE engagements don't match small or medium sized engagements when EVERYONE thinks those are ok. But hey, being totally stubborn, why should one see this?

The engine isn't broken, it works very well up to one or two hundred aircraft involved, but not when 4000 aircraft engage each other in one turn. Get over your fantasy explanations (or you have to call the engine broken when it comes down to normal sized engagements when the shot down aircraft ratio is five to ten times higher) and accept that the game can't handle late war. WITP couldn't, AE can't (with the IJ aircraft slaughters of WITP exchanged to Allied CV annihilation). A pity, but I think we have to accept that first and then hope to see something improved - except those couple of people that think all is perfect from day one until mid 46.

ORIGINAL: Puhis

Maybe I'm totally wrong, this is how I see that kind combat. It's a hell of a mess out there...

I like this one...

I do not want to simply echo what Alfred has already explained, it is a tough result, it just was a huge mistake to
belive such an attack can be stopped by what was available for defense. Thats basics.



Still I think that one tendency is visible, and I might have an explanation for it:

As soon as there is a large number of escorts in a specific strike, we see relative loss numbers drop.

Why?

IMHO it is because every mediocre player by now knows how to train a fighter pilot. Give him 2 months of escort @ 10k, and then
2 months of sweep @ 100ft. Voila, you got the fighter jock of your wet dreams. 70air, 70def, 60exp.

Has anybody ever wondered how many of the limited attacks available to the CAP are wasted on attacking those pilot types with 70def,
just to get a x engages y, y evades message?

Hm, pilot training, I wonder if there was a thread about this... [:'(]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Guys, let's not take this battle as the perfect "EXEMPLUM".
i am pretty sure i was victim of a very bad dice and roll here.
As Alfred and LoBaron clarified in my AAR (go and take a look - very interesting) i could have done better.
60-70% CAP (these were the percentage with the rest on non-assigned mission) isn't optimal. I should have probably set to 100% CAP (but i feared the 2 days-turn and the consequent fatigue levels)....and the result could have been slighly better.
But the fact is that here i did, imho, everything pretty well in setting my CAP...sic et simpliciter lots of those 60% of allied fighters that were supposed to be in the air were refueling/rearm (stand-by mode) right when the japanese strike arrived...and, among those who were airborne, the biggest majority was out of position (probably due to the altitudes bands i chose).

Bad luck. Simply that imho

no, 100% Cap is not better. 100% Cap is crazy. Play with 100% Cap and watch 60% of your fighters turn around because their moral drops into the 20s because their fat is somewhere up at 50. Those fighters set to rest pass a die roll to scramble and that is what radar and detection range is for. And this works very well.

I may be as sick of those explanations as the explanators are sick of me and I have said it long ago for many times, just let them get into these stages of the war, show their daily combat reports (not only those that fit into their story) and let them TEACH all us dummies that actually have played through the late war, while we dummies for what reason ever were smart enough not to screw up during early/mid war. How comes? Now it would mean to wait for years real time until their games reach those stages (if ever) and then you can only hope to see their combat reports - you might never see them or they might never get there.

So why not just providing them with your save and let them show us what they do to turn it into reasonable outcomes. Oh, sorry, I know there are people thinking this all is reasonable (not only the examples here in this thread but all the uncountable examples more on the forum of HUGE engagements).

ORIGINAL: castor troy
no, 100% Cap is not better. 100% Cap is crazy. Play with 100% Cap and watch 60% of your fighters turn around because their moral drops into the 20s because their fat is somewhere up at 50. Those fighters set to rest pass a die roll to scramble and that is what radar and detection range is for. And this works very well.

Certainly works for land bases, anyway. I generally set CAP at 30%, so long as you have radar in the base, all your squadrons will usually get stuck in, size problems notwithstanding.

I tend to use the CAP percentage not as a 'get more boys in the air' +CAP gauge but more to limit the number of planes allocated to escort duty. The radar will scramble any unassigned.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

I like this one...

I do not want to simply echo what Alfred has already explained, it is a tough result, it just was a huge mistake to
belive such an attack can be stopped by what was available for defense. Thats basics.



Still I think that one tendency is visible, and I might have an explanation for it:

As soon as there is a large number of escorts in a specific strike, we see relative loss numbers drop.

Why?

IMHO it is because every mediocre player by now knows how to train a fighter pilot. Give him 2 months of escort @ 10k, and then
2 months of sweep @ 100ft. Voila, you got the fighter jock of your wet dreams. 70air, 70def, 60exp.

Has anybody ever wondered how many of the limited attacks available to the CAP are wasted on attacking those pilot types with 70def,
just to get a x engages y, y evades message?

Hm, pilot training, I wonder if there was a thread about this... [:'(]

Further to LoBaron's observation, the "issue" is further exacerbated by the recent "enhancement" of upping the pilot array to 70k in a special exe file. GreyJoy and rader are using the increased pilots array exe.

This is one of those enhancements universely applauded by the regular posters in this sub forum. But like all "enhancements" the seeds of further issues elsewhere are contained within the enhancement. The nature and timeframe of the so called current "beta play testing" is not rigorous enough to pick up such connections.

Again it is player decisions, not the code which is at the heart of these decisions.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: Alfred
This is one of those enhancements universely applauded by the regular posters in this sub forum. But like all "enhancements" the seeds of further issues elsewhere are contained within the enhancement. The nature and timeframe of the so called current "beta play testing" is not rigorous enough to pick up such connections.

I really don't think thats very fair. A memory corruption issue is hardly a good thing to leave in the game. now that games games have been able to proceed further and in so doing uncover other issues is neither here nor there really.

The game is great, but all complicated software can usefully receive maintenance. We're just lucky that this game is so well supported. As it's hard to test every eventuality the players do much of the testing effectively, seems fair enough to me. The end result is an even better game for everybody.

Rader: could you tell us if you resized your carrier capable airgroups? It might speak to Michael's comment about the unusually high sortie rate from fields that should be overstacked. It isn't a bad thing to do, but it is sort of important to know all the inputs before we judge the output of the process.

LoBaron: My feeling is that you are right about the impact of high mean pilot skills. I don't think the model was really designed with 70 as an average pilot skill, but that is closer to the floor than the mean for most players. We should know more about the use of defense to judge, as in is it a roll that is 1) strength of success vs air of the attacker (in which case the effects would be muted) or is it 2) a saving throw (ie attacker hit, now roll to see if you dodge) in which case it is a big problem. It would be awesome if some motivated soul set up a test with 2000 planes on a side and varied air and def skills, ran each set 10 times and saw what happens....

Hades et al: stop with 'the game is broken', it is this kind of shrill response that turns people off. In the end, GJ made some mistakes and got punished, you can quibble about the numbers but the outcome is justifiable. this would suggest that the game is working, maybe not perfectly, but far far from 'broken'. It is like when your car is running rough, but still gets you where you are going. It isn't that there is no reason to look at it, but you don't say that the car is 'broken'.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

wonder when both sides, the pro and con, will stop bringing up crazy explanations trying to justify the results. How many years back did you fail to realize that the engine (both WITP and AE) is not able to deal with huge numbers? [&:]

IT CAN'T!

edit: and one more thing to keep in mind would be that the "explanations" the pro engine guys give for the HUGE engagements don't match small or medium sized engagements when EVERYONE thinks those are ok. But hey, being totally stubborn, why should one see this?

The engine isn't broken, it works very well up to one or two hundred aircraft involved, but not when 4000 aircraft engage each other in one turn. Get over your fantasy explanations (or you have to call the engine broken when it comes down to normal sized engagements when the shot down aircraft ratio is five to ten times higher) and accept that the game can't handle late war. WITP couldn't, AE can't (with the IJ aircraft slaughters of WITP exchanged to Allied CV annihilation). A pity, but I think we have to accept that first and then hope to see something improved - except those couple of people that think all is perfect from day one until mid 46.

I've never really liked end game air battles because they are usually far too large and (with WiTP in particular) usually too bloody and skewed in favor of the Allies.

The broken part sounds to be less of the actual raids, but the fact that the raids and cap are allowed to be too large to start with.

However, if we fix the problem by forcing coordination penalties that limit the size of the raids, then we also must have coordination penalties to reduce the size of the defending cap. You can't have a limit on strikes of a couple of hundred aircraft and still allow 1200 on cap is just plain bad.

The engine would have to be fixed in a way that would limit the number of aircraft on both sides of each engagement:

So if the game looks and sees that more than 500 aircraft involved in 1 battle, it needs to break it up into 3-4 different strikes. Question is how do you do that?

In all honesty, an engagement of the size of the one in this threads example would not be a giant furball with thousands of aircraft, but would be a bunch of smaller furballs with dozens or possibly hundreads of aircraft in several different areas, more like Puhis showed with his picture.

So many people think that every cap squadron should engage every attacking squadron, when nothing could be farther from the truth. Many, many times, the scrambled squadrons never get to engage the incoming raid because by the time they are launched and get to altitude, the raid is over.

As you can see, Greyjoy has 1183 planes on CAP mission, but only about 200-300 engage in the first combat. When they are facing the 700 planes raid.

It's totally true that not all CAP will engage enemies at the same time, but it's also true that not all attackers will attack at the same time. Look at my ugly hand drawing pic above, you can't expect the attacker just roll in like a giant metal ball. They should be scattered just like the CAP.

So we have a proven to work system when small-mid size air combat will lead to quite reasonable results. Why should Michael have to figure out a "magical number" and decide how many fire passes should be in 1000 vs 1000 air combat. We just break down the size of raid and CAP and make every engagement a small-mid size engagement.

Take Greyjoy and Radar's combat for example, I would expect Greyjoy to be burned to a certain degree and the losses for both side will look more realistic.

I have no idea how hard this could be achieved on coding part but I would be happy to test it.

I repeat it again:
 
My view (and i was on the recieving side so i am not a JFB) is that i got particularly unlucky this turn. I was prepared to take losses but i was confident that my CAp would do much better.
As far as i read the battle outcome, my bad luck was that most of my CAP was out of position when the first (and second) raids arrived and only during the afternoon, despite the losses of several carriers in the morning, managed to achieve a good coordination with most of the fighters not only airborne but also in a good position to defend their ground (skies).
 
I'm pretty sure if i run the same turn 4/5 times the outcome (in terms of complex damage) could be much much smaller.
 
Didn't the same stuff happened in RL to the Japs at Midway???? As far as i know yes...
 
Rader's AFs were all lvl 9 (or 10) so no overstacking guys...
 
And the CAP isn't borked. With the new Michealm's exe CAP works just fine imho...but it needs to be in the right position to fire...and that thing is left to your orders but also to a dice and roll degree AFAIK...which is why we should love this game! Dice and Roll is what keeps things interesting