The rush to replace the F4F and P40 was driven by the absolute knowledge (already demonstrated in Europe and in US a/c design bureaus) that better aircraft could be produced, by the reasonable assumption that the enemy might be producing better aircraft, and by the conviction that even if the enemy was not producing a better aircraft, reducing friendly combat losses is always a good plan.
The drive to replace the P40 was particularly acute because it was used in the European theater, where lend-lease P40s given to the British were found to be inadequate when used against later model ME109s and against all models of the FW190. The P51 project was undertaken at the request of the Brits. The XP38 was already a tested and "accepted" design in 1940, and subsequent design modifications and production were motivated by the need for a lonnger-range escort for ETO bombers.
In short, the Japanese were the distant last place finishers in a technological arms race spurred largely by developments in the ETO.
Aircraft comments
and like Major Tom and other's have tried to explain, the actual losses suffered by both sides were influenced by a variety of other factors that PacWar cannot simulate.Originally posted by mdiehl:
Nikademus. The figures that I quote are from Frank's (1990) book on Guadalcanal. His sources were not "US Sources only." According to the introduction, appendices, bilbliography, and notes, the Japanese loss records that Frank provides come from and ONLY from operational histories published by members of the Japanese general staff in the 1960s, and original unit records written in Japanese by the logistics personnel attached to the 25th Air Flotilla and the 11th Air Fleet (to which the 25th was subordinate) from August 1942 through January 1943. The American loss records come from logistical records of the combat units assigned to Guadalcanal. I do not see how the data on Japanese a/c losses could be any better.
I'm not taking away anything from the US pilots who held the line in the dark days of 42. But to take these raw numbers and draw conclusions like "average US pilots will beat IJN elite" pilots or that the A6M was a dud of a plane are not justifyable.
But i digress, i've said my piece on the subject. my arguments are already posted as are others. In a way its moot, as MT said, if one truely feels there's an inaccuracy in the game they can edit the PacWar file to suit.
Often times while attempting to explain a phenomena, people tend to focus on small elements of that phenomena, while ignoring outside considerations. This can be a useful tool of analysis, if all outside variables can be quantfied and controlled. Rarely is this the case, especially in operational research of combat. Sometimes it is best to step back from the 'tree' and take a look at the whole 'forest', in order to gain perspective and enable new insights to be gained. In my opinion, this is what is needed in the current debate concerning air to air exchange rates.
There are many considerations which go into determining the combat effectiveness of a military unit, be it air, land or sea. The current debate on exchange rates has focused exclusively on aircrew and aircraft quality. These are but two variables which determine overall combat effectiveness. Other variables would include national doctrine, aircraft maintainability, prevaling weather conditions, in commission rates, maintenance infrastructure, logistical support, offensive posture and operational tempo. There are a host of other variables that I haven't listed. In attempting to explain the phenomena of air exchange rates, all of these factors, and many others, must be quantified and statistically controlled.
The overall consideration of airframe destruction must consider the phenomena that a significant percentage of destroyed aircraft are not destroyed due to enemy action. Up to 25% of airframes destroyed were not due to enemy action. In certain theaters, the Nothern Pacific for one, the climatic conditions were the primary agent responsible for aircraft destruction, and here the vast majority of destroyed aircraft were due to the weather. This percentage differed according to many variables, but the two most significant were aircrew quality and, as previously described, prevaling weather conditions. Late in the war, the Japanese would experience significant aircraft losses in training if inexperienced trainees were caught in the air when the weather turned bad. In a simulation that is as constrained as PacWar, representing and quantifing all of these variables simply cannot be done, and I imagine that the current development of WitP is experiencing the daunting task of attempting to account for as many variables as possible. I'm going to suggest that an analysis of operational ready rates be considered. Ready rates had a considerable effect on overall combat effectiveness, and may help to explain why the Japanese weren't able to 'steam roller' the inexperienced US groups in 1942.
Throughtout WWII, and even today, combat flying units struggle to maintain their aircraft in an operational ready status. The effects of maintenance needs, aircraft maintainability, maintenance personnel availability and quality, availability of spare parts, flying tempo of the aircraft and posture of the unit all have a cumulative adverse effect on overall availability rates. Throughtout WWII, generically speaking, land based air units were doing well to maintain 2/3rds of their aircraft in a ready state. USN carrier based groups varied between 70 and 90 percent readiness rates, largely determined by operational tempo and the need to provide combat air patrols if under the threat of air attack. The carriers had the 'luxury' of having protected maintenance facilities and the provision of 1,000+ highly trained maintenance personnel for the air group. USAAF groups had to deal with the adverse effects of weather and austere ground facilities, which tended to reduce ready rates of the aircraft. Even with a ratio of maintenance personnel to aircraft like the USN's, the USAAF 's ready rates suffered due to the effects of the previously mentioned conditions. When the USAAF and USMC air groups had their bases subjected to air attack, ground attack, or the rare instance of naval bombardment by the Japanese, availability rates suffered accordingly. This is accurately accounted for in PacWar by the '*', or '**' you see after an attack.
Aircraft availability has a tremendous effect on the combat performance of an air unit. This is where I believe that the explaination for exchange rates needs to be focused. It is true that the IJN had the best trained aircrew in the world in 1941-42; but their maintenance infrastructure wasn't nearly as proficient as their aircrew. The Japanese were operating aircraft which were made to lower manufacturing standards than US and British Commonwealth aircraft. The engines in Japanese aircraft were more prone to breakdown or performance degradation, resulting in lower ready rates. The high precision manufacturing standards that the US possessed simply didn't exist in Japan during WWII. Only in the 1930s did the Japanese begin to manufacture any significant quantities of aircraft. The maintenance personnel in the IJN groups were not as proficient as their counterparts in the American or Commonwealth groups. The Japanese were operating their air groups at a peak tempo throughout 1942, increasing the need for routine maintenance, and putting off long term maintenance. And finally, the rapid expansion of the Japanese perimeter in 1942 stressed the shipping capabilities, and thus the logistical support of forward air groups, to the breaking point. The Japanese simply were not able to keep the aircraft they had flying as often as needed, or as often as opposing US aircraft. This is where I believe that the 'fix' needs to be put into PacWar. While the quality of the IJN aircrew was without equal in '42, the availability rate of the aircraft for these aircrew wasn't equal to the US/Commonwealth.
PacWar 'seems' to do a good job of modeling group vs. group air combat; so I cannot offer any research or speculation to suggest an alternative. The performance ratings of the individual aircraft are derived with a logical model and consideration of historical performance. I have commented on performance characteristics of certain aircraft in previous posts. What is not sufficiently accounted for is the difference in ready rates between Japanese and US air groups.
PacWar does consider operational tempo, but in a manner that is difficult to detect unless the player 'looks' closely. Air units participating in combat consume some of the 'Preparation Points' of the controlling HQ. The full strike, 3/4 strike, 1/2 strike of a CV TF abstractly represents the difficulty of maintaining high operational rates in sustained operations. Rather than showing aircraft which are not 'operationally ready' as damaged, PacWar produces a strike with a proportion of the total aircraft in a group. This is a very elegant yet simple implementation of the difficulties of generating sorties while dealing with the logistical and maintenance considerations of air operations. Land air groups operate in a like fashion.
What I contend, is that the Japanese side has an artificially high ability to generate high sortie rates, especially in the 'first' strike of each week. This ability to generate a high sortie rate for land based groups, unrealistically - in my opinion- elevates the overall combat effectiveness impact of Japanese air groups, especially land based groups. When, as part of the opening air phase of each week, the Japanese are able to send whole and intact airgroups on missions week after week to hammer the US bases and groups, the overall combat effectiveness of the Japanese groups is magnified. This is what I believe accounts for the phenomena of observed unequal exchange rates. The ability of land based groups to generate a 'full' strike is somewhat overstated in PacWar. Everyone has seen the impact of an intact group of 40 A6m2s at 85 experience levels cut through opposition. What I believe needs to be done is to realistically model the decreased ability of the Japanese to maintain their aircraft in operational ready states. If this same group was only able to generate 32 sorties, I suggest that the air combat model would generate results more in keeping with historical norms.
I entertain the possibility of two solutions to arrive at my contention. First, increase the Preparation point cost for the Japanese to generate an air strike. This has two undesired consequences that I forsee; the ability to launch at least one large 'full' strike will remain unchanged, and for combined arms HQs, land operations would have a significant impact on air operations. Under this option, if the Japanese side activated large numbers of LCUs, the air groups attached to that HQ would be 'paralyzed'. This leads to my second possible solution; reduce the repair rate for damaged aircraft at the end of each week for the Japanese side from the current 75% to 50%. This difference in repair capability, as opposed to the US/Commonwealth side in PacWar, would accurately reflect historical capabilities. Given my A6m2 group example, if this group had 44 aircraft, lost 10 in operations and had 16 damaged; it could currently start the next week with 40 aircraft operational and 4 damaged. This doesn't adequately reflect the impact of a week of hard combat on a group which experienced 60% of it's aircraft destroyed or damaged. If the repair rate for the Japanese side were 50%; in this example the Japanese group would have 36 operational aircraft and 8 damaged aircraft at the beginning of the next week. If during that week the group experienced 9 destroyed and 14 damaged; at the beginning of the third week it would have 34 operational and 11 damaged. This progession of an increasing amount of 'damaged' aircraft occurring in Japanese air groups would reflect the historical phenomena of the difficulty of maintaining airgroups in sustained high loss rate combat situations. Thus, the US/Commonwealth airgroups opposing these Japanese groups would eventually be going up against fewer aircraft as time progresses. The combat loss ratios would begin to become less favorable for the Japanese side, and PacWar would come that much closer to representing historical trends.
I realize that the 'community' would see a way around this, rotate the airgroups so that a large number of damaged aircraft would not accumulate. This would acutally help to model historical events. Many aircraft that were beyond the capability of the field units to repair were sent back for depot level repair, thus being shown as reappearing in the pools for PacWar. More importantly, if the airgroups were rotated while having a significant number of damaged aircraft, the process of 'rebuilding' these airgroups with fresh aircraft would have adverse effects on that airgroup's experience rating. All of this would increase the fidelity of PacWar as a simulation while not having the dreaded 'ripple effects' on other aspects of the simulation. I believe that implementation of this small change would go a long way to produce the results that many have been clamoring for, without the need for major code changes.
I decided to present my arguement in this long, semi-detailed format in order to provide sufficient illustration for the seeming simple suggestion of changing repair rates from 75 to 50 percent. Many of the arguements in this thread have focused on the 'tree' of single event combat exchange rates, rather than the 'forest' of what caused those combats to occur as they did. I don't propose, nor support changing the repair rates for carrier based Japanese aircraft. The carrier air arm would've been maintained at high operational rates, even at the expense of the land based units. While changing the land based repair rates of US/Commonwealth to 66% would in some ways better reflect reality, the US practice of discarding aircraft which couldn't be effectively repaired at the unit level, effectively counters any need for reduction in the repair rates for land based airgroups. Essentially, the US replaced heavily damaged aircraft with new aircraft, and it is beyond the capability of PacWar to replicate this outside the artificially high repair rate of 75 percent.
There are many considerations which go into determining the combat effectiveness of a military unit, be it air, land or sea. The current debate on exchange rates has focused exclusively on aircrew and aircraft quality. These are but two variables which determine overall combat effectiveness. Other variables would include national doctrine, aircraft maintainability, prevaling weather conditions, in commission rates, maintenance infrastructure, logistical support, offensive posture and operational tempo. There are a host of other variables that I haven't listed. In attempting to explain the phenomena of air exchange rates, all of these factors, and many others, must be quantified and statistically controlled.
The overall consideration of airframe destruction must consider the phenomena that a significant percentage of destroyed aircraft are not destroyed due to enemy action. Up to 25% of airframes destroyed were not due to enemy action. In certain theaters, the Nothern Pacific for one, the climatic conditions were the primary agent responsible for aircraft destruction, and here the vast majority of destroyed aircraft were due to the weather. This percentage differed according to many variables, but the two most significant were aircrew quality and, as previously described, prevaling weather conditions. Late in the war, the Japanese would experience significant aircraft losses in training if inexperienced trainees were caught in the air when the weather turned bad. In a simulation that is as constrained as PacWar, representing and quantifing all of these variables simply cannot be done, and I imagine that the current development of WitP is experiencing the daunting task of attempting to account for as many variables as possible. I'm going to suggest that an analysis of operational ready rates be considered. Ready rates had a considerable effect on overall combat effectiveness, and may help to explain why the Japanese weren't able to 'steam roller' the inexperienced US groups in 1942.
Throughtout WWII, and even today, combat flying units struggle to maintain their aircraft in an operational ready status. The effects of maintenance needs, aircraft maintainability, maintenance personnel availability and quality, availability of spare parts, flying tempo of the aircraft and posture of the unit all have a cumulative adverse effect on overall availability rates. Throughtout WWII, generically speaking, land based air units were doing well to maintain 2/3rds of their aircraft in a ready state. USN carrier based groups varied between 70 and 90 percent readiness rates, largely determined by operational tempo and the need to provide combat air patrols if under the threat of air attack. The carriers had the 'luxury' of having protected maintenance facilities and the provision of 1,000+ highly trained maintenance personnel for the air group. USAAF groups had to deal with the adverse effects of weather and austere ground facilities, which tended to reduce ready rates of the aircraft. Even with a ratio of maintenance personnel to aircraft like the USN's, the USAAF 's ready rates suffered due to the effects of the previously mentioned conditions. When the USAAF and USMC air groups had their bases subjected to air attack, ground attack, or the rare instance of naval bombardment by the Japanese, availability rates suffered accordingly. This is accurately accounted for in PacWar by the '*', or '**' you see after an attack.
Aircraft availability has a tremendous effect on the combat performance of an air unit. This is where I believe that the explaination for exchange rates needs to be focused. It is true that the IJN had the best trained aircrew in the world in 1941-42; but their maintenance infrastructure wasn't nearly as proficient as their aircrew. The Japanese were operating aircraft which were made to lower manufacturing standards than US and British Commonwealth aircraft. The engines in Japanese aircraft were more prone to breakdown or performance degradation, resulting in lower ready rates. The high precision manufacturing standards that the US possessed simply didn't exist in Japan during WWII. Only in the 1930s did the Japanese begin to manufacture any significant quantities of aircraft. The maintenance personnel in the IJN groups were not as proficient as their counterparts in the American or Commonwealth groups. The Japanese were operating their air groups at a peak tempo throughout 1942, increasing the need for routine maintenance, and putting off long term maintenance. And finally, the rapid expansion of the Japanese perimeter in 1942 stressed the shipping capabilities, and thus the logistical support of forward air groups, to the breaking point. The Japanese simply were not able to keep the aircraft they had flying as often as needed, or as often as opposing US aircraft. This is where I believe that the 'fix' needs to be put into PacWar. While the quality of the IJN aircrew was without equal in '42, the availability rate of the aircraft for these aircrew wasn't equal to the US/Commonwealth.
PacWar 'seems' to do a good job of modeling group vs. group air combat; so I cannot offer any research or speculation to suggest an alternative. The performance ratings of the individual aircraft are derived with a logical model and consideration of historical performance. I have commented on performance characteristics of certain aircraft in previous posts. What is not sufficiently accounted for is the difference in ready rates between Japanese and US air groups.
PacWar does consider operational tempo, but in a manner that is difficult to detect unless the player 'looks' closely. Air units participating in combat consume some of the 'Preparation Points' of the controlling HQ. The full strike, 3/4 strike, 1/2 strike of a CV TF abstractly represents the difficulty of maintaining high operational rates in sustained operations. Rather than showing aircraft which are not 'operationally ready' as damaged, PacWar produces a strike with a proportion of the total aircraft in a group. This is a very elegant yet simple implementation of the difficulties of generating sorties while dealing with the logistical and maintenance considerations of air operations. Land air groups operate in a like fashion.
What I contend, is that the Japanese side has an artificially high ability to generate high sortie rates, especially in the 'first' strike of each week. This ability to generate a high sortie rate for land based groups, unrealistically - in my opinion- elevates the overall combat effectiveness impact of Japanese air groups, especially land based groups. When, as part of the opening air phase of each week, the Japanese are able to send whole and intact airgroups on missions week after week to hammer the US bases and groups, the overall combat effectiveness of the Japanese groups is magnified. This is what I believe accounts for the phenomena of observed unequal exchange rates. The ability of land based groups to generate a 'full' strike is somewhat overstated in PacWar. Everyone has seen the impact of an intact group of 40 A6m2s at 85 experience levels cut through opposition. What I believe needs to be done is to realistically model the decreased ability of the Japanese to maintain their aircraft in operational ready states. If this same group was only able to generate 32 sorties, I suggest that the air combat model would generate results more in keeping with historical norms.
I entertain the possibility of two solutions to arrive at my contention. First, increase the Preparation point cost for the Japanese to generate an air strike. This has two undesired consequences that I forsee; the ability to launch at least one large 'full' strike will remain unchanged, and for combined arms HQs, land operations would have a significant impact on air operations. Under this option, if the Japanese side activated large numbers of LCUs, the air groups attached to that HQ would be 'paralyzed'. This leads to my second possible solution; reduce the repair rate for damaged aircraft at the end of each week for the Japanese side from the current 75% to 50%. This difference in repair capability, as opposed to the US/Commonwealth side in PacWar, would accurately reflect historical capabilities. Given my A6m2 group example, if this group had 44 aircraft, lost 10 in operations and had 16 damaged; it could currently start the next week with 40 aircraft operational and 4 damaged. This doesn't adequately reflect the impact of a week of hard combat on a group which experienced 60% of it's aircraft destroyed or damaged. If the repair rate for the Japanese side were 50%; in this example the Japanese group would have 36 operational aircraft and 8 damaged aircraft at the beginning of the next week. If during that week the group experienced 9 destroyed and 14 damaged; at the beginning of the third week it would have 34 operational and 11 damaged. This progession of an increasing amount of 'damaged' aircraft occurring in Japanese air groups would reflect the historical phenomena of the difficulty of maintaining airgroups in sustained high loss rate combat situations. Thus, the US/Commonwealth airgroups opposing these Japanese groups would eventually be going up against fewer aircraft as time progresses. The combat loss ratios would begin to become less favorable for the Japanese side, and PacWar would come that much closer to representing historical trends.
I realize that the 'community' would see a way around this, rotate the airgroups so that a large number of damaged aircraft would not accumulate. This would acutally help to model historical events. Many aircraft that were beyond the capability of the field units to repair were sent back for depot level repair, thus being shown as reappearing in the pools for PacWar. More importantly, if the airgroups were rotated while having a significant number of damaged aircraft, the process of 'rebuilding' these airgroups with fresh aircraft would have adverse effects on that airgroup's experience rating. All of this would increase the fidelity of PacWar as a simulation while not having the dreaded 'ripple effects' on other aspects of the simulation. I believe that implementation of this small change would go a long way to produce the results that many have been clamoring for, without the need for major code changes.
I decided to present my arguement in this long, semi-detailed format in order to provide sufficient illustration for the seeming simple suggestion of changing repair rates from 75 to 50 percent. Many of the arguements in this thread have focused on the 'tree' of single event combat exchange rates, rather than the 'forest' of what caused those combats to occur as they did. I don't propose, nor support changing the repair rates for carrier based Japanese aircraft. The carrier air arm would've been maintained at high operational rates, even at the expense of the land based units. While changing the land based repair rates of US/Commonwealth to 66% would in some ways better reflect reality, the US practice of discarding aircraft which couldn't be effectively repaired at the unit level, effectively counters any need for reduction in the repair rates for land based airgroups. Essentially, the US replaced heavily damaged aircraft with new aircraft, and it is beyond the capability of PacWar to replicate this outside the artificially high repair rate of 75 percent.
If I can not achieve a result different than history....why play...one of the Japanese mistakes was not being agressive enough early. If my strategy/ tactics are different history should be different.
Seth
Seth
Originally posted by mdiehl:
Yes the Japanese destroyed thousands of Allied a/c early in the war. Yes, while doing so, they lost thousands of a/c. Leaving aside the carrier battles, which, people have said, make lousy examples because the a/c loss rate is heavily influenced by the survival of the parent CV, Allied kill ratios in FIGHTERS from August 1942 through January 1943 over the canal were 1:1. That's primarily Zekes vs F4Fs and P40s, with some P39s (and, heaven help their pilots, some P400s) thrown in.
GGPW does not produce historic results with engagements contrived to be the hirstoric units.
On amore general level, there comes apoint where no previous combat experience can prepare a pilot for the situation where his antiquated crate is horribly out-classed by his opponent. The determing factors over the years (even for gun combat) have been durability, cannon strength and airspeed. The early war P40s were slightly faster and their pilots somewhat less able than the early war IJN pilots. The factors should cancel out because, historically, THEY DID.
Manfred von Richtofen in a DIII vs. any Allied pilot in a P40 just out of basic combat training would have a zero percent chance of killing the P40 in ten thousand encounters. He might escape alive, and he might hope that the P40 pilot would fly his plane into the ground. But a shoot down?
Never.
So GGPW doesn't have to revamp the system. Just monkey with the system to teh point where historical engagements produce historical attrition rates. If that means changing the exp ratings, dogfight ratings, or just declaring a result. Whatever it takes to get historically accurate results.
Bravo Ricochet!!!
You stated the case much better than I did.
I touched on some of the topics you did but your explanation is far superior and your suggestion has merit, however I am pleased overall with the improvements Matrix has done with PacWar (of course until WitP comes out) Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts here... I for one appreciated them.
Jim
You stated the case much better than I did.
I touched on some of the topics you did but your explanation is far superior and your suggestion has merit, however I am pleased overall with the improvements Matrix has done with PacWar (of course until WitP comes out) Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts here... I for one appreciated them.
Jim
Nobody disputes that experience is important, though I disagreee with some of you about how well experience can compensate for a bad a/c.
Training and doctrine are important. For example a US P40 pilot trained in May 1942 would know that his a/c is both faster than an A6M2 and has a tighter turning radius and a better climb rate at high speed. (Spare me the usual rhetorical reaction... see Fire in the Sky by Bergerud).
The GGPW air to air combat system an arithmetic mechanism for *otherwise simulating the reasonable expected outcomes of an engagement.* I stress that the goal is *simulation.* It is an implicit and usually explicit assumption of a simulation that, to the degree that one can create a test case with the same "initial conditions" that were present in some historical situation, the simulation more or less replicates historical results. We already know what variables enter the equation *in the game.* Exp, cannon, maneuverability and durability.
That you can take that equation, throw historically identical units into the fray, and come up with results that are *way* out of sync with historical results proves that the equation is incorrect or the assumptions about the variables are incorrect or both.
The comment "Why play a game if you must duplicate history?" is an idiotic one. I can only assume that it is a deliberate attempt to stupify the audience by pretending that the goal of *striving for a better simulation* somehow forces a player to choose all the same stupid mistakes or brilliant maneuvers that his faction chose.
Why not just ratchet up Japanese production to late 20thC values? Or make the US swap carriers and plane types with the Japanese? Or give the IJNAF compact nuclear weapons in 1941 and make Pearl Harbor a *real* surprise? Answer: because they are such extreme deviations from history that they violate common sense.
The combat losses that the Allies experience using F4F USMC and USN units against IJNAF air flotilla Zekes violate historical results to such a degree as to violate common sense.
Training and doctrine are important. For example a US P40 pilot trained in May 1942 would know that his a/c is both faster than an A6M2 and has a tighter turning radius and a better climb rate at high speed. (Spare me the usual rhetorical reaction... see Fire in the Sky by Bergerud).
The GGPW air to air combat system an arithmetic mechanism for *otherwise simulating the reasonable expected outcomes of an engagement.* I stress that the goal is *simulation.* It is an implicit and usually explicit assumption of a simulation that, to the degree that one can create a test case with the same "initial conditions" that were present in some historical situation, the simulation more or less replicates historical results. We already know what variables enter the equation *in the game.* Exp, cannon, maneuverability and durability.
That you can take that equation, throw historically identical units into the fray, and come up with results that are *way* out of sync with historical results proves that the equation is incorrect or the assumptions about the variables are incorrect or both.
The comment "Why play a game if you must duplicate history?" is an idiotic one. I can only assume that it is a deliberate attempt to stupify the audience by pretending that the goal of *striving for a better simulation* somehow forces a player to choose all the same stupid mistakes or brilliant maneuvers that his faction chose.
Why not just ratchet up Japanese production to late 20thC values? Or make the US swap carriers and plane types with the Japanese? Or give the IJNAF compact nuclear weapons in 1941 and make Pearl Harbor a *real* surprise? Answer: because they are such extreme deviations from history that they violate common sense.
The combat losses that the Allies experience using F4F USMC and USN units against IJNAF air flotilla Zekes violate historical results to such a degree as to violate common sense.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
LOL, why on earth would anyone dispute anything with you "mdiehl"...you'll simply misquote source material, take items out of context, twist data to support your argument (which seems to vary), misquote posts, and when that fails post snide or abusive crap about others posts.
Yes...we all agree with you 100%. You win, you're the thread God, we all bow to your mighty intellect. The Zero was a totally worthless piece of junk which was outperformed by the P40 in every conceivable respect, Jps. pilots were untrained human garbage, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour, we're all victims of the "conventional myth" that the Jps. kinda sorta gave the US a hard time during the early years of WW2 when the truth is that the US whipped the Jps. bumbling little yellow butts all across the Pacific starting in December '41 with their mighty P40's and F4F's, and Matrix should completely redo the source code for the entire game before they have the gall to put out another free undate of the game (they did it just to annoy you BTW).
Yes...we all agree with you 100%. You win, you're the thread God, we all bow to your mighty intellect. The Zero was a totally worthless piece of junk which was outperformed by the P40 in every conceivable respect, Jps. pilots were untrained human garbage, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour, we're all victims of the "conventional myth" that the Jps. kinda sorta gave the US a hard time during the early years of WW2 when the truth is that the US whipped the Jps. bumbling little yellow butts all across the Pacific starting in December '41 with their mighty P40's and F4F's, and Matrix should completely redo the source code for the entire game before they have the gall to put out another free undate of the game (they did it just to annoy you BTW).
Babyseal is right. My last post was over the top & I was looking for a delete option right after I posted it. Apologies to all.
Babyseal, if you've got better data or more data or a better way of analyzing operational information & these substantially contradict my hypothesis, let's hear it.
By the way, I have *not* misquoted any source. For my analysis of the F4F/A6M2 results from Guadalcanal the appropriate page numbers are all fully referenced. Feel free to look 'em up. If you want a page number reference for the pilot interviews in "Fire in the Sky" in which USAAF P-40 pilots discuss out-maneuvering Zekes at high speed I could look them up too, but then, so can anyone else.
I enjoyed this discussion when people started to talk about real data. Seems like facts ought to drive conclusions rather than the other way around. Oh well.
Babyseal, if you've got better data or more data or a better way of analyzing operational information & these substantially contradict my hypothesis, let's hear it.
By the way, I have *not* misquoted any source. For my analysis of the F4F/A6M2 results from Guadalcanal the appropriate page numbers are all fully referenced. Feel free to look 'em up. If you want a page number reference for the pilot interviews in "Fire in the Sky" in which USAAF P-40 pilots discuss out-maneuvering Zekes at high speed I could look them up too, but then, so can anyone else.
I enjoyed this discussion when people started to talk about real data. Seems like facts ought to drive conclusions rather than the other way around. Oh well.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Regarding the Ki-51 Sonia.
In PacWar there are many aircraft that do not seem feasible to construct. Ki-51, Ki-48, Ki-21, P-39, etc. yet, they are included as medium era aircraft.
When you have P-40's why build P-39's? Why did the USAAF have a lot of P-39's in the Pacific? Why? Because that is all they had on hand. There weren't enough P-40's to go around. But, the P-39 did have some virtues that the P-40 lacked. Its heavy 37mm gun was excellent in the ground support and anti-shipping role. Possibly some modifications to the P-39 should be to increase bomb load, to represent its good capability for attacking shipping and ground targets.
Regarding Japanese bombers, the Ki-49 is the only one worth while to build (until the Ki-67 comes around), however, just try and get all IJAAF groups to have them! I tried once, and it wasn't until 1943, with a lot of trouble, to get all IJAAF tactical bomber groups equipped with the Ki-49. It is actually much better to leave production as it is, as, it takes a long time to get the Ki-49 pool up to size, and without producing Ki-21 and Ki-48 bombers the number of availible aircraft severely dwindles (and group numbers and combat operations really suffer).
Historically, the Ki-21 wasn't totally replaced by the Ki-49, even though it was obsolete. The Ki-48 was a really good short range bomber, but was weak in bomb load (until the Ki-48-II version). It was a fairly manuverable aircraft, with pretty good durability, so, it should be able to survive pretty well.
The Ki-51 Sonia was actually a very well liked aircraft. It was noted for its high durability (which isn't represented in PacWar though) and good manuverability. But, like all dive bombers, it was weak to enemy fire. Realistically, the only thing that truely matters to IJAAF bombers is bomb capacity, since, if they were ever caught by allied fighters they would be shot out of the sky, no matter what version you use.
In the original there was a problem regarding certain Japanese fighter aircraft. There was absolutely no reason to build the Ki-61, as, the Ki-44 appeared earlier, and was better all around except for a slightly less durability. The new version has these planes more closely related, and neither one is a clear victor. The Ki-44 is the better attack fighter (due to longer range and bomb capacity), while the Ki-61 is the better base defence fighter (due to better manuverability and cannon).
The G3M was quickly replaced by the G4M, wherever possible.
I usually have the Ki-27 factory building the Ki-43 and other IJAAF types. The new and better IJAAF appear much sooner than the good IJNAF types, and it is better to focus more production on these planes, to get them out early enough in large numbers (to the still relatively well trained groups) to have an impression. As I said earlier, the Ki-44 and Ki-61 appear fairly soon (late 1942, early 1943), and also the much under rated Ki-45 that appears in mid 1942. The Ki-45 does really good against USAAF heavy bomber aircraft, due to their relatively high Cannon rate and durability. If you notice a base getting pounded by B-17's just plump a few Ki-45 groups there and the B-17 problem should be gone soon.
In PacWar there are many aircraft that do not seem feasible to construct. Ki-51, Ki-48, Ki-21, P-39, etc. yet, they are included as medium era aircraft.
When you have P-40's why build P-39's? Why did the USAAF have a lot of P-39's in the Pacific? Why? Because that is all they had on hand. There weren't enough P-40's to go around. But, the P-39 did have some virtues that the P-40 lacked. Its heavy 37mm gun was excellent in the ground support and anti-shipping role. Possibly some modifications to the P-39 should be to increase bomb load, to represent its good capability for attacking shipping and ground targets.
Regarding Japanese bombers, the Ki-49 is the only one worth while to build (until the Ki-67 comes around), however, just try and get all IJAAF groups to have them! I tried once, and it wasn't until 1943, with a lot of trouble, to get all IJAAF tactical bomber groups equipped with the Ki-49. It is actually much better to leave production as it is, as, it takes a long time to get the Ki-49 pool up to size, and without producing Ki-21 and Ki-48 bombers the number of availible aircraft severely dwindles (and group numbers and combat operations really suffer).
Historically, the Ki-21 wasn't totally replaced by the Ki-49, even though it was obsolete. The Ki-48 was a really good short range bomber, but was weak in bomb load (until the Ki-48-II version). It was a fairly manuverable aircraft, with pretty good durability, so, it should be able to survive pretty well.
The Ki-51 Sonia was actually a very well liked aircraft. It was noted for its high durability (which isn't represented in PacWar though) and good manuverability. But, like all dive bombers, it was weak to enemy fire. Realistically, the only thing that truely matters to IJAAF bombers is bomb capacity, since, if they were ever caught by allied fighters they would be shot out of the sky, no matter what version you use.
In the original there was a problem regarding certain Japanese fighter aircraft. There was absolutely no reason to build the Ki-61, as, the Ki-44 appeared earlier, and was better all around except for a slightly less durability. The new version has these planes more closely related, and neither one is a clear victor. The Ki-44 is the better attack fighter (due to longer range and bomb capacity), while the Ki-61 is the better base defence fighter (due to better manuverability and cannon).
The G3M was quickly replaced by the G4M, wherever possible.
I usually have the Ki-27 factory building the Ki-43 and other IJAAF types. The new and better IJAAF appear much sooner than the good IJNAF types, and it is better to focus more production on these planes, to get them out early enough in large numbers (to the still relatively well trained groups) to have an impression. As I said earlier, the Ki-44 and Ki-61 appear fairly soon (late 1942, early 1943), and also the much under rated Ki-45 that appears in mid 1942. The Ki-45 does really good against USAAF heavy bomber aircraft, due to their relatively high Cannon rate and durability. If you notice a base getting pounded by B-17's just plump a few Ki-45 groups there and the B-17 problem should be gone soon.
How bout the irving? A good bomber killer?
Mary is way beter than the sonia...range payload etc. Nicks are good bomber killers...hm maybe I will switch that nick facktory back from zeros
Mary is way beter than the sonia...range payload etc. Nicks are good bomber killers...hm maybe I will switch that nick facktory back from zeros
Originally posted by Major Tom:
Regarding the Ki-51 Sonia.
In PacWar there are many aircraft that do not seem feasible to construct. Ki-51, Ki-48, Ki-21, P-39, etc. yet, they are included as medium era aircraft.
When you have P-40's why build P-39's? Why did the USAAF have a lot of P-39's in the Pacific? Why? Because that is all they had on hand. There weren't enough P-40's to go around. But, the P-39 did have some virtues that the P-40 lacked. Its heavy 37mm gun was excellent in the ground support and anti-shipping role. Possibly some modifications to the P-39 should be to increase bomb load, to represent its good capability for attacking shipping and ground targets.
Regarding Japanese bombers, the Ki-49 is the only one worth while to build (until the Ki-67 comes around), however, just try and get all IJAAF groups to have them! I tried once, and it wasn't until 1943, with a lot of trouble, to get all IJAAF tactical bomber groups equipped with the Ki-49. It is actually much better to leave production as it is, as, it takes a long time to get the Ki-49 pool up to size, and without producing Ki-21 and Ki-48 bombers the number of availible aircraft severely dwindles (and group numbers and combat operations really suffer).
Historically, the Ki-21 wasn't totally replaced by the Ki-49, even though it was obsolete. The Ki-48 was a really good short range bomber, but was weak in bomb load (until the Ki-48-II version). It was a fairly manuverable aircraft, with pretty good durability, so, it should be able to survive pretty well.
The Ki-51 Sonia was actually a very well liked aircraft. It was noted for its high durability (which isn't represented in PacWar though) and good manuverability. But, like all dive bombers, it was weak to enemy fire. Realistically, the only thing that truely matters to IJAAF bombers is bomb capacity, since, if they were ever caught by allied fighters they would be shot out of the sky, no matter what version you use.
In the original there was a problem regarding certain Japanese fighter aircraft. There was absolutely no reason to build the Ki-61, as, the Ki-44 appeared earlier, and was better all around except for a slightly less durability. The new version has these planes more closely related, and neither one is a clear victor. The Ki-44 is the better attack fighter (due to longer range and bomb capacity), while the Ki-61 is the better base defence fighter (due to better manuverability and cannon).
The G3M was quickly replaced by the G4M, wherever possible.
I usually have the Ki-27 factory building the Ki-43 and other IJAAF types. The new and better IJAAF appear much sooner than the good IJNAF types, and it is better to focus more production on these planes, to get them out early enough in large numbers (to the still relatively well trained groups) to have an impression. As I said earlier, the Ki-44 and Ki-61 appear fairly soon (late 1942, early 1943), and also the much under rated Ki-45 that appears in mid 1942. The Ki-45 does really good against USAAF heavy bomber aircraft, due to their relatively high Cannon rate and durability. If you notice a base getting pounded by B-17's just plump a few Ki-45 groups there and the B-17 problem should be gone soon.