Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Miller

Philippine Sea? Maybe 150 Jap escort fighters facing 300?? Hellcats.......In a series of 4 seperate strikes. Maybe if the game split these huge air armadas into "chunks" the engine would give better results.

doesn't it already do this? We've got so much "uncoordination" (which it isn't I was told) I wonder if it could do any worse in terms of how strikes look like. Of course if there are 2500 available aircraft there is always the point when you get one or two huge strikes out a day. One might be enough to sink 80% of all escort carriers the Allied built during the war. I would like to see BoB bombing the Reich strikes, those actually make sense. In AE you see 800 fighters escorting 20 bombers, squadrons failing to fly as a whole squadron daily and so on. But that is a different story than the Cap issue in battles >300 aircraft. And yet it is still better than all ac in one strike per phase like WITP was. I think they've tried their best, it became better but it is still, well...

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Miller

Philippine Sea? Maybe 150 Jap escort fighters facing 300?? Hellcats.......In a series of 4 seperate strikes. Maybe if the game split these huge air armadas into "chunks" the engine would give better results.

doesn't it already do this? We've got so much "uncoordination" (which it isn't I was told) I wonder if it could do any worse in terms of how strikes look like. Of course if there are 2500 available aircraft there is always the point when you get one or two huge strikes out a day. One might be enough to sink 80% of all escort carriers the Allied built during the war. I would like to see BoB bombing the Reich strikes, those actually make sense. In AE you see 800 fighters escorting 20 bombers, squadrons failing to fly as a whole squadron daily and so on. But that is a different story than the Cap issue in battles >300 aircraft. And yet it is still better than all ac in one strike per phase like WITP was. I think they've tried their best, it became better but it is still, well...

I think that sums it up. Still way better than the WITP "Everyone dies" nonsense.

Thats about right. There were a large number of badly co-ordinated strikes that got mauled. Similar to what happens when stragglers come in now, they get treated very rudley, on both sides. Hundred bomber formations seem to behave similar to real life in the European air war. Interceptors mix it up, the bombers get through and a small number get shot down. When the bomber stream come in unescorted, bad things happen

Worst historical losses for a 4E strike of appreciable size was, what, 13% at Schweinfurt?

ORIGINAL: castor troy

don't worry greyjoy, you got enough experience (more than many of those saying the world is beautiful and perfectly right) because of the fact you have driven your game well into 44 while the "experts" mostly dump around in 42 never seen a bigger air engagement than 100 ac on one side and 120 on the other side.

Now a 6 year old that roughly got a clue about numbers (and no clue about air battles) would smell the flaw when you see 50 ac shot down when 200 ac clash in the air but only 20 are shot down when 1000 meet each other, of the same types, same pilots, same conditions. But hey, seriously, there can't be something wrong... NO WAY CAN THERE BE SOMETHING WRONG THEN. Heck, people even argued months after the pre Cap flak BUG was squashed that there was no problem. Not even the official statement there was a bug made a difference. Same for strato sweeps, for 12 months, all was so perfectly well and then the official statement it would be an "exploit" to use them which implies there isn't all so perfectly well. Be aware, it seems you either are joining the vocal PBEM minority or the dark side, where you have to close your eyes and ears or shut down common sense.

C'mon now, Castor Troy-let's not be binary or polemic in this.

From a subjective POV, it does look like there are fewer aerial losses than would be expected based upon the number of combatants. I hear you about efforts to explain this away not passing the 'sniff' test and I agree with your previous examples of apologists / deniers of admitted bugs.

Having played a number of scenarios in the 1944 time frame (notably the AE Tournament II versus Captain Mandrake), I can tell you that large CV/CV + LBA clashes do occur with hundreds of aircraft on both sides involved in the scrum and they're extremely bloody, as I would have expected. I've not been disappointed in the modeling of my 1944 air battles from the scenarios.

I've played deep into 1943 and, in May 1943 in my Scenario 1 PBEM had a major carrier clash: 600 IJNAF aircraft versus ~450 USNAF. The combat(s) were modelled well and extremely bloody to both sides.

So, yes, if I extrapolated the template of my expected aerial losses to GreyJoy's game, I'd expect greater losses than this one combat demonstrated. Does this mean the game is borked? Hardly.

For me to admit that the game is borked, I'd have to see that other-most-of these large combats resulted in losses / intercepts that were well below expected. Then I'd want to see if this was a systematic problem (other PBEMs in 1944 witnessing the same thing or just a few exceptionally vocal people?). I'd want to compare game versions (which I believe is an underrated cause of some buggy behavior) and whether the game had been upgraded to a beta patch or if it was operating on an official patch too.

To summarize: while this one combat does seem off, so what? If this isn't a systematic problem-almost universally experienced-what do you expect to come of it? There's not enough PBEMs going deep into 1944 to troubleshoot these mega-aerial fights for the Devs to get a handle on how much of a problem it is. My experiences in 1944 (scenarios) do not suggest a problem, so maybe it's an individual thing.

Recognizing an aberrant event is not a solution, but merely the first stage in exploration of one.

Would it be possible to move this discussion to another thread and not hijack GreyJoys AAR?

ORIGINAL: Miller

Philippine Sea? Maybe 150 Jap escort fighters facing 300?? Hellcats.......In a series of 4 seperate strikes. Maybe if the game split these huge air armadas into "chunks" the engine would give better results.

Viperpol and I have a game going and he has suffered his share of turkey shoots as the Japanese player-as have I on a smaller scale as the Allies. Our last turn my CAP took out 350 of his attacking planes. The problem for him was that the attack went in uncoordinated. However, given strong enough CAP, I have on plenty of occasions shredded his coordinated attacks as well.

However, there have been some strange attacks where both of us have sent in attacks facing large CAP (some big-some small) where the CAP has not done anything. In this last battle I had a dozen cats attack his carriers and 200 zeros on CAP only tweaked them before one cat torpedoed a carriers. However, there may be other factors such as altitude, weather, radar working or not. I will say that so far CAP is effective about 80% of the time and that seems to me to be about the way it should be. One thing I like about the game is the fact that things just don't always work as planned.

Now, let me say that we have yet to reach the point of super massive air battle in our game so I can't comment on that experience.

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

Would it be possible to move this discussion to another thread and not hijack GreyJoys AAR?

ORIGINAL: soticrandy

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

Would it be possible to move this discussion to another thread and not hijack GreyJoys AAR?

Well I think this is a carry over in context of GreyJoy's discussion in the Tech forum and so posters are mixing the two threads in context ...not as much as an internet etiquette violation as say a complete hijack ...[;)]

I assume this will get back on track with GreyJoy goes back to operations ...

22, 23 July 1944
 
A quiet turn. My AF at Hakkodate, despite having 250 engineers, is still very much damaged...pretty strange![&:]...
 
Nothing happened this turn....
 
Tomorrow our 2Es will bomb again Ominato, while our 4Es will rest again...lots of damaged big boys there.
 
Our Fleet is re-grouping at Bihoro, under 860 strong CAP (really can't do anything more than that for my defence...)
I have 15,000 AVs ready for the invasion of Japan. The 5th USMC Div is the last division i'm waiting before committing.... the scheldue remains the same. 1 more month and we'll be ready.
Supply isn't an issue and i'm swimming with fuel and transports... i just fear my CAP inefficiency [:D]
 
Anyway...have to decide how to use my CVs in the invasion.... we're gonna have for sure thousands of enemy planes from Tokyo area attacking our ships...and we know i cannot hope to close all those lvl 9 AFs....so we have to live with that threat.... but the KB will for sure operate in close conjunction with the LBA...so i cannot really hope to chase the KB without exposing my CVs to the terrible effect of a massive torpedo bombing attack by his LBA+KB combo.... should i disembark all my CV Hellcats and use them from Hakkodate? Would it be worth?....

Actually...I think it was very valuable spending one attack on an airfield....I think GreyJoy needs to keep 80-90% of the 4E attacks on airplane factories but the threat (and actually destruction) of airfields away from factories might force Rader to not be as concentrated on defending the factories..Or if he does..Have a few turns where he loses 300 planes....

GJ, make sure all of those 250 engineers at Hakkodate are set to Combat mode, or they won't do any repairs.

Greyjoy, are you planning on keeping a floating reserve? Say an extra 5k to throw into the mix if any opportunity presents itself, of a disaster..

ORIGINAL: USS America

GJ, make sure all of those 250 engineers at Hakkodate are set to Combat mode, or they won't do any repairs.

Yup...they are....let's see if next turn brings some improvements...

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

Greyjoy, are you planning on keeping a floating reserve? Say an extra 5k to throw into the mix if any opportunity presents itself, of a disaster..

Yes, the proximity of the landing site gives me the chance of using multiple invasions. I won't committ my whole forces all togheder. I'll split the landings into 3 different waves so that every invasion will have all the proper ship support needed.

Yes, the proximity of the landing site gives me the chance of using multiple invasions. I won't committ my whole forces all togheder. I'll split the landings into 3 different waves so that every invasion will have all the proper ship support needed.

Please take this in the spirit in which it is intended. Why should we believe a word you say about invasion locations?

GJ, consider the fact that multi-wave invasions will mean more time with ships exposed to air attack from KB and LBA. I'm sure you're planning for this, but feel like stating the obvious today. [;)]

24, 25 july 1944
 
Another slow turn...both sides are getting ready for the next step...
 
We sent 250 2Es to bomb Ominato in order to keep that damned AF suppressed. Some flak losses but a part from that no opposition found.
150 P-47s swept Tokyo and found a stiff opposition. We went in very uncoordinated and we only achieved a 2,5-1 kill ratio...not that good...
 
Tomorrow we'll keep on bombing Ominato while our fighters and our 4Es will rest again...
 
crib...i know...but the idea is to have an overcommittment of ships so that our soldiers will be all unloaded in a turn...so the exposure time should be lower... that's the general idea btw [:)]
 
John.... well, this time it's pretty impossible to do a feint...so the landing site is pretty much obvious...Hachinoche is my first choice!
 
My CVs are being requipped with the new Hellcats-5....hopefully these guys will perform bettern than their cousins...even tough i can't wait to have the brand new Corsair that comes online in november!

Roughly how many a/c do you field at this point in time? Any rough idea of Rader's numbers?

Happy New Year!

Well if you are going to invade Honshu then bombing AC factories might turn out to be a grave strategical error. Armament and especialy vehicle production should have been the target. ACs dont win a ground war and Japan gets how many divisions in the first half of 44 at the home islands ? twenty ? Thirty maybe with the emergency reinforcments.Perhaps even more in scen 2 O.o

Anyway, I wish you good luck and maybe I am wrong.