Strategic Bombing of Japan

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

For some time, some folks have been harping on "aircraft interceptions" between bases... can anyone actually give any evidence where this occurred in significant numbers by the Japanese (or shoot, even the Allies) in the Pacific Theater during the war?? The only ones i know about were on Guadalcanal by the Allies, and most of the successful interceptions actually depended on coast watchers more than the radar (coast watchers gave more lead time) and even then, the interceptions occurred mainly within a few miles of the base.

i've only found isolated examples by a few planes on occasion where they (the Japanese) actually SAW planes by chance and attacked away from a base ... from what i've read, most Japanese took radios out of their fighter planes to improve performance , which sort of defeats the idea of vectoring in aircraft to make an interception. Some "leader" aircraft retained radios, but making subordinates follow hand signals, etc. was more than a little problematic.

Perhaps i am unaware of large scale interceptions, but:
1) Most US city bombing occurred at night, and there were barely any night fighters available.

2) The city bombing/firestorm model is broken in the game (not sure what AE will do with it) which gives the Japanese a non-historic advantage in the game.

Unless someone can show where the events that are proposed to be modeled actually happened (i.e. - interceptions of formations more than 60 miles from a base, or 45 miles for AE), should we even be debating the question of how to implement something like this??

This is very simply answered, but the weirdness of a raid being at the home base, and then magically appearing at the target is the root of the problem, which I suppose nothing can be done about. How is this simply answered? Have you ever played BTR or USAAF? Even when having fully functional radar for the Germans, you play the game in a visual manner, such that if a raid is just before the Belgium coast when it's first spotted, you have to make up your mind what you think the target will be. IRL, the same thing happened, even if you had absolutely no radar network, that is, everytime one is spotted, you have to make up your mind if you intercept it and from where, especially when the raid is likely to cross one or more land areas before hitting the target. In WITP, that's impossible, yet bombers of all sides skirt by with never having interceptors enroute to the target (or flak enroute for that matter). It doesn't matter if they put up large numbers from other airfields from the historic perspective, because everyone knows they could. And even if the target covered quite a lot of enemy land territory to get there, and the fighters may not have had enough time to get up and intercept them, in such a case they would certainly have enough time to hit them on the way back (which doesn't happen in WITP either).

I've just started reading bits of my old Kamikaze book by Edwin P. Hoyt and he mentions in the early B29 days that IJ had put up 4 squadrons up against them on one raid, so I think that qualifies as possibly not just being squadrons drawn up at the target area, because, afterall, all along the way, assuming there's a good deal of land enroute, and in the early days with the B29's being so far away, they certainly couldn't afford a lot of manuevering around land masses and still get to the target. But again, this just isn't an IJ problem, as any nation that has seen bombers with their own eyes, has to consider that the raid might be hitting their area and not go further.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

There are two parts to strat bombing.  The bombers, and the economy they’re trying to destroy.

No slam on those that have posted previously, but my concern is that most players (myself included), have never even played a PBEM game from 12-07-41 into 1945.  That being the case, the objective call is that most people don't even know the long-term effects, or lack thereof, of strat bombing in WitP.  It’s mostly just theory and conjecture.  We can offer our current in-game experiences, but frankly, most folks only know their side of the coin, and they certainly don’t know the true long term impact.  You really need to look at PBEM games that have run the whole course, an compare where an Allied player focused on strat bombing, and one that didn’t.  And a Japanese player focused on expanding their economy, and one that simply kept things running but didn’t expand substantially.

Firing up a 1945 scenario, and testing the effects of strat bombing in that campaign, yields a very different outcome from a PBEM where a player is allowed to carefully cultivate production and build large reserves of HI points etc, in full anticipation of getting smacked in 1945 (potentially to the point where the effects of strat bombing in 1945 are minimized because of substantial reserves).

My concern is that, has the real issue of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the production model been addressed?  You have to improve the accuracy the *BOTH* elements in tandem, or all you do is bork the system even more.

-F-

Problem is, it's not just a strategy bombing problem. Tactical raids were known to be intercepted during the war. I'm not even sure if any tactical raids can possibly be hit if the target is a land unit not being in a base (LRCAP can obviously cover "at the target" in some of these cases). They could fly over numerous airfields and flak batteries to get there, and all be completely silent except at the target. I don't know about you, but anybody who just instantly knows the target, and therefore sends up fighters to intercept only there, was something which certainly didn't exist in history. Every group that spots raids has to consider that the raid is actually their concern and not some distant place where the raid may actually be going to bomb. Besides, one way to ensure that the raids have a great deal on concentration enroute is to not hit them at the last minute. Yeah, I know, you don't play minutes in this game and it is all half day turns, but it still doesn't make up for the ease bombers have enroute to the target in this game. I would include "over waters" too, but I'm not too sure CV-based squadrons were allowed to intercept raids which may had obviously not been planned for themselves (such a 4E raids, but even 4E raids are dangerous to CV's ion WITP).

[bradfordkay]

Certainly raids against ground troops can be intercepted in WITP. It just takes having a CAP over the target hex (or LRCAP if no base), or a CAP over an adjacent base hex. I've seen it occur on several occasions.

If I have an important troop movement in a non-base hex, I make sure to put LRCAP over it (at least, I do so now after my first attempt to retake Daly Waters was pounded on the march in because I forgot to do so. The second attempt was covered with LRCAP and was successful).

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

For some time, some folks have been harping on "aircraft interceptions" between bases... can anyone actually give any evidence where this occurred in significant numbers by the Japanese (or shoot, even the Allies) in the Pacific Theater during the war?? The only ones i know about were on Guadalcanal by the Allies, and most of the successful interceptions actually depended on coast watchers more than the radar (coast watchers gave more lead time) and even then, the interceptions occurred mainly within a few miles of the base.

one thing about Canal, that is interesting, the Marines, knew where the Bombers were, and if they took off, how long it was going to take, to get to the target, I remember reading about some of the non Aces who flew there, about how the low ranked, and "lesser" pilots pulled all the early morning, late afternoon patrols, where there was very little chance of getting any action, but the Aces and high Ranks always flew the Noon Patrol, as, if the there was a raid coming, it was going to be a little after noon, that it could get there, and the "good" pilots were in the air, of course, the Coastwatchers, let them know if something was coming, and if they needed a max effort or not, but the Aces flew, when the enemy was expected, the less exp guys flew the boring patrols



i've only found isolated examples by a few planes on occasion where they (the Japanese) actually SAW planes by chance and attacked away from a base ... from what i've read, most Japanese took radios out of their fighter planes to improve performance , which sort of defeats the idea of vectoring in aircraft to make an interception. Some "leader" aircraft retained radios, but making subordinates follow hand signals, etc. was more than a little problematic.

Perhaps i am unaware of large scale interceptions, but:
1) Most US city bombing occurred at night, and there were barely any night fighters available.

2) The city bombing/firestorm model is broken in the game (not sure what AE will do with it) which gives the Japanese a non-historic advantage in the game.

Unless someone can show where the events that are proposed to be modeled actually happened (i.e. - interceptions of formations more than 60 miles from a base, or 45 miles for AE), should we even be debating the question of how to implement something like this??

[engineer]

Feinder: 
There are two parts to strat bombing.  The bombers, and the economy they’re trying to destroy.

No slam on those that have posted previously, but my concern is that most players (myself included), have never even played a PBEM game from 12-07-41 into 1945.  That being the case, the objective call is that most people don't even know the long-term effects, or lack thereof, of strat bombing in WitP.  It’s mostly just theory and conjecture.  We can offer our current in-game experiences, but frankly, most folks only know their side of the coin, and they certainly don’t know the true long term impact.  You really need to look at PBEM games that have run the whole course, an compare where an Allied player focused on strat bombing, and one that didn’t.  And a Japanese player focused on expanding their economy, and one that simply kept things running but didn’t expand substantially.

I think that Feinder brings up a good point.  Although my own play is against AI, I've kept an eye on my various pools when playing the Japanese and have occasionally flipped the board when playing the Allies to see what the pools look like on the Japanese side (especially when I wrap a game to see where the Japanese were at the end).  However, if the Japanese have a million points of HI in their pool, and thousands of fighters, etc., then the bombing campaign is reduced to running up victory points for the Allied player. 

Going back to my earlier point about Germany is 1945, the economy collapsed because the cumulative effect of the war and transport crises broke the moving parts in the German  economy so the factories ultimately could only finish assembly of their on-hand inventory of parts and then close up shop. 

In WitP, the pools of HI, resources, and oil are amorphous.  The USAAF was conducting analysis of the transport net in Japan and figured out that hitting key nodes could really bust up their land-bound economy.  The USAAF had not hit the rail network hard but if the Bomb hadn't ended the war, that was coming up next - from the USAAF Strategic Bombing Survey Summary ( http://www.anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#eeoaaatj ):
[blockquote]
Much of Japan's coastal and inter-island traffic had already been forced on to her inadequate railroads. The principal coal mines of Japan are located on Kyushu and Hokkaido. This coal traffic, formerly water borne, was moving by railroads employing the Kanmon tunnels and the Hakkodate-Aomori rail ferry. The railroads on Honshu include few main lines and these lines traverse bridges of considerable vulnerability. Japan is largely a mountainous country lacking automobile roads, trucks or the gasoline to make use of them. A successful attack on the Hakkodate rail ferry, the Kanmon tunnels and 19 bridges and vulnerable sections of line so selected as to set up five separate zones of complete interdiction would have virtually eliminated further coal movements, would have immobilized the remainder of the rail system through lack of coal, and would have completed the strangulation of Japan's economy. This strangulation would have more effectively and efficiently destroyed the economic structure of the country than individually destroying Japan's cities and factories. It would have reduced Japan to a series of isolated communities, incapable of any sustained industrial production, incapable of moving food from the agricultural areas to the cities, and incapable of rapid large-scale movements of troops and munitions.[/blockquote]
This suggests a third part to Feinder's analysis - the strategy of how to use the bombers against the economy they're trying to destroy.  This transport campaign was what was in store for Japan had the war gone into the autumn of 1945. Within the WitP game engine you can't do that, ground transportation nets are invulnerable.  As it was, the strategic bombing campaign accomplished quite a bit:
[blockquote]
Physical damage to plant installations by either area or precision attacks, plus decreases due to dispersal forced by the threat of further physical damage, reduced physical productive capacity by roughly the following percentages of pre-attack plant capacity: oil refineries, 83 percent; aircraft engine plants, 75 percent; air-frame plants, 60 percent; electronics and communication equipment plants, 70 percent; army ordnance plants, 30 percent; naval ordnance plants, 28 percent; merchant and naval shipyards, 15 percent; light metals, 35 percent; ingot steel, 15 percent; chemicals, 10 percent. [/blockquote]
Within WitP you can target weapons factories and HI so this tally sets a scorecard for damage achieved by late July, 1945.  Much of this was accomplished after the switch to incendiary bombing in March, 1945.  But the conventional campaign only kicked off in November of 1944.

However, supplies, broadly construed, were almost invulnerable to air attack. 
[blockquote]
Ninety-seven percent of Japan's stocks of guns, shells, explosives, and other military supplies were thoroughly protected in dispersed or underground storage depots, and were not vulnerable to air attack.[/blockquote]
We can look at what happened via the the Strategic Bombing Survey and examine the operational means employed to achieve those results.  We can make reasonable conclusions about whether it's possible to recreate those results within the WitP engine.  I think the engine gives the Japanese something of an edge since the reasonable abstractions in the economic system make it more robust to strategic bombing.  But that robustness is proportional to the pools that a Japanese player would accrue from his production prior to and in the early phases of the strategic campaign - Feinder's point about how the play of individuals in a particular PBEM game would have on the outcome of any given strategic bombing campaign. 

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Certainly raids against ground troops can be intercepted in WITP. It just takes having a CAP over the target hex (or LRCAP if no base), or a CAP over an adjacent base hex. I've seen it occur on several occasions.

If I have an important troop movement in a non-base hex, I make sure to put LRCAP over it (at least, I do so now after my first attempt to retake Daly Waters was pounded on the march in because I forgot to do so. The second attempt was covered with LRCAP and was successful).

Thanks for answering that, but being as how I have only played no deeper than the first 1 1/2 months I have never seen it, and that would certainly fit, you would think, under the umbrella we have been speaking of, but I doubt very heavily that the AI, which is my opponent, will assign any LRCAP to ground units.

[lastdingo]

CAP should protect all hexes around the assigned hex with a given probability (like 33% to 50%) if a long-range radar (or ship with radar) is in the CAP hex or the target hex.

60 miles hexes are large enough to plausibly deny such interceptions in cases without radar, but radars should make it possible.

That would actually not change much for Japan (as the Japanese player has likely not enough spare fighter power to defeat hundreds B-17/24/29 anyway). It would help in cases liek Lunga/Tassafaronga, Canton/Hong Kong or when a bunch of TFs somehow got slightly separated (like a CV got hit, slowed down, separated into escort mission TF and lags one hex behind the other TFs in PM air phase).

I think the game mechanic would make it too difficult to code for interception of bombers passing by. The game would need to calculate a path, and we all know how stupid paths often look like due to the hexagonal system.

[vettim89]

A couple of points.

First, my ex-wife's uncle was a navigator in a B-24 unit flying out of Okinawa in 1945. When talking to him about it, he said he never attacked an industrial target. His unit was completely tasked with attacking bridges and railroads. So there is some first hand evidence that the USAAF was going after the transportation infrastructure. Also, interesting was the fact that his most harrowing experience was when he got lost in the Sieras in CA while training. The were low on fuel and obviously not many places to land a big bomber in Central CA. My point being that should tell you something about the Japanese fighter defenses in the late war.

Secondly, as has ben stated, it is impossible to start a firestorm in WiTP. From March 1944 on this was the primary tool in the 20th AF box. Dozens of Japanese cities were leveled by this tactic. I think it is safe to say that ALL the factories, HI, and resource centers would have been destroyed by these raids. So, I guess if the ability of the Allied player to hit individual industries more accurately than he should is a reasonable trade off.

Lastly, Japan's economy was on the ropes in the late war from lack of oil,and resources from teh SRA more than the Strategic Bombing campaign. I guess I might make the point that the bombing of Japan was not as inportant as the bombing of Germany.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

A couple of points.

First, my ex-wife's uncle was a navigator in a B-24 unit flying out of Okinawa in 1945. When talking to him about it, he said he never attacked an industrial target. His unit was completely tasked with attacking bridges and railroads. So there is some first hand evidence that the USAAF was going after the transportation infrastructure. Also, interesting was the fact that his most harrowing experience was when he got lost in the Sieras in CA while training. The were low on fuel and obviously not many places to land a big bomber in Central CA. My point being that should tell you something about the Japanese fighter defenses in the late war.

Secondly, as has ben stated, it is impossible to start a firestorm in WiTP. From March 1944 on this was the primary tool in the 20th AF box. Dozens of Japanese cities were leveled by this tactic. I think it is safe to say that ALL the factories, HI, and resource centers would have been destroyed by these raids. So, I guess if the ability of the Allied player to hit individual industries more accurately than he should is a reasonable trade off.

Lastly, Japan's economy was on the ropes in the late war from lack of oil,and resources from teh SRA more than the Strategic Bombing campaign. I guess I might make the point that the bombing of Japan was not as inportant as the bombing of Germany.

If Tokyo wasn't totally destroyed, and it was not, then obviously it's a case of over-statement on your part. Not saying it couldn't happen, but this quote form the Kamikazes by Edwin P. Hoyt should pretty much dash your theory that she could not prodcue anymore pg. 265:

By the end of June, the Japanese army air force had organized 340 suicide squadrons. By August, production was back up to two thousand planes a month. Altogether, the army had 6,150 aircraft at it's disposal, 4,500 of these in the islands of Japan. Standing by were 6,150 pilots with another 2,530 in training.

So the earlier production figures of '44, which subchaser said was around 1,600 - 1,800 a month, at least for august of '45, was better still. Since total production was roughly 1,100 planes a month for the entire war, this might suggest that production figures were much higher later in the war (just like the germans) and that instead the earlier portions of the war were maybe in the 500-600 planes a month category. I guess IJ kept making those torn up roads impervious to bomber attack, that or the factories did the majority of the productin and were missed, or else the hut production became extremely efficient. IJ got a large reserve in planes, ready for Olympic, simply because they often basically decided, especially after there were P51 escorts of B29's, to simply confront very little and await their decisive battle (once more). A great many of the aircraft apparently were placed in caves and there was some mention of a huge amount of camoflage used, combined with often parking aircraft hundreds of yards away from the airfield.

So the quote I have here answered, to a degree, one of the questions I had earlier, that is what IJ had for airplanes apart from the home islands defense. Apparently the army 1,650 planes elsewhere anyway.

Wow, up to 2,000 planes a month, as late as 8/45, in a system, if you beleive it, where the roads were all torn up, and to add insult to injury, were carted off "one at a time" on these roads to mom and pop huts for each part. Nope, just doesn't add up.

[AirGriff]

Looking at the problem of strategic bombing strictly within the confines of WitP and its reality, and the fact that in the game it is mainly used to soften up Japan proper for invaision, how do all you folks plan on tackling it? HI first, or some other target? Air superiority first? Hit airfields and ports to reduce the surely gigantic amount of supplies feeding the troops? I'm still in early '44 in my pbem, so I have a ways to go before I start giving Japan an aluminum overcast everyday.

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: AirGriff
Looking at the problem of strategic bombing strictly within the confines of WitP and its reality, and the fact that in the game it is mainly used to soften up Japan proper for invaision, how do all you folks plan on tackling it? HI first, or some other target? Air superiority first? Hit airfields and ports to reduce the surely gigantic amount of supplies feeding the troops? I'm still in early '44 in my pbem, so I have a ways to go before I start giving Japan an aluminum overcast everyday.

Don't waste you time on airfields and ports (unless there is a big fish ripe for sinking). Depending on what mod you are playing, use the strategic bombing interface to take a snapshot of what the Japanese are building and where (the best spy technology going IMO)... hit the outlying HI in Manchuria / China first, moving more Japanese fighters there, then less developed HI in Japan, making sure to look at where the fighters are based over Japan each day.
Then hit fighter airframes, and lastly engines - this should mess the Japanese enough that the collapse some of you think is impossible is realistic, even overdone.

And don't send in dribs and drabs, send 100-200+ multiple waves of LB, that will destroy it all in one fell swoop, no need to worry about the rule where you it becomes harder to destroy if it is destroyed in one turn.

1000 supply points per day to rebuild each and every damaged factory mounts up to Japan having no supply or no factories or planes.

Leave Oil and Res alone (always), this is not the bottle neck, unless you are in '42 and want to destroy the Oil fields, which will really piss the Japanese off ...

You want to kill your Japanese opponents economy, start targetting the HI from late '42 to early '43, it is possible...too many Allied players hold back from such easy kills. Bombing with small numbers in a half-hearted manner is just too kind.

I'm a JFB, I understand the economy pretty well and I know that if I ever played as the Allies what I'd do...welcome to the girls locker room [;)]

--Damian--

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

ORIGINAL: AirGriff
Looking at the problem of strategic bombing strictly within the confines of WitP and its reality, and the fact that in the game it is mainly used to soften up Japan proper for invaision, how do all you folks plan on tackling it? HI first, or some other target? Air superiority first? Hit airfields and ports to reduce the surely gigantic amount of supplies feeding the troops? I'm still in early '44 in my pbem, so I have a ways to go before I start giving Japan an aluminum overcast everyday.

Don't waste you time on airfields and ports (unless there is a big fish ripe for sinking). Depending on what mod you are playing, use the strategic bombing interface to take a snapshot of what the Japanese are building and where (the best spy technology going IMO)... hit the outlying HI in Manchuria / China first, moving more Japanese fighters there, then less developed HI in Japan, making sure to look at where the fighters are based over Japan each day.
Then hit fighter airframes, and lastly engines - this should mess the Japanese enough that the collapse some of you think is impossible is realistic, even overdone.

And don't send in dribs and drabs, send 100-200+ multiple waves of LB, that will destroy it all in one fell swoop, no need to worry about the rule where you it becomes harder to destroy if it is destroyed in one turn.

1000 supply points per day to rebuild each and every damaged factory mounts up to Japan having no supply or no factories or planes.

Leave Oil and Res alone (always), this is not the bottle neck, unless you are in '42 and want to destroy the Oil fields, which will really piss the Japanese off ...

You want to kill your Japanese opponents economy, start targetting the HI from late '42 to early '43, it is possible...too many Allied players hold back from such easy kills. Bombing with small numbers in a half-hearted manner is just too kind.

I'm a JFB, I understand the economy pretty well and I know that if I ever played as the Allies what I'd do...welcome to the girls locker room [;)]

--Damian--

This response of yours just seems to point out an inadequacy of the game. You have an interface where you know where all the IJ fighters are?????? Then, you attack those points, because you will only encounter fighter opposition only at the target and not along the way or back to base? User Japan was so right about this being a ripoff for air defense; not just for IJ. So you have no intelligence as far as bombers flying over your land is concerned, until they get to the target, and then lose those bombers after the bombing (again!), and, on the other hand, you have uber-intelligence that knows where all the fighters are based (only for the allies I presume), which, if I know this game, means that intelligence is even updated when fighter units have flown from one airfield to the other on the same turn (the IJ going first disadvantage).

[n01487477]

Charles,
well yes, I am pointing out the loopholes and guiding my enemies how to destroy their enemies, but I am still a JFB and it is our task to nullify (put off) the inevitable.

AE does seem to fix some of this (the mouse over a base issue anyway from what I've heard), and even in Witp this is an abstract number, but still worthy of note for AFB's. My issue has never been this feature at the front lines, where the Allies would have had good intell (and possibly through code breaking behind the lines too), but the Strategic bombing interface is too honest (esp. over Japan) as are the fighter numbers in Japan, 100's of miles from Allied bases and spies... (as I say ~ I live in Korea, and even now I stick out like a sore thumb). Some dumb foreign guy robbed an Embassy some time back, they caught him in about 20 mins [:D]

JFB's can see Allied numbers too, but as you say the turn advantage is somewhat "advantageous".[;)]

Still living with an imperfect system, but the best we have, is not so bad... & that is about to change, "Viva la revolution".

--Damian--

[tocaff]

The biggest difference between Germany and Japan as targets was the construction of the buildings and the air defenses.  Besides look up the %s of the cities that were destroyed by the B-29 raids (conventional and fire bombing) versus what happened to Germany.  You'll find that the bombing of Japan was much more effective than that in Europe.  

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Japan

Well, you don't need to fly above the airfields, if im not incorrect in raids like the Schweinfurt raid Germany send aircraft based as much as 200 miles away from the Route of the Bombers, and 2 Groups who was longer away landed to refuel to be part of hitting them aigan on the return.

So, if you fly a huge formation within 180 miles from an Airbase... the Airbase should intercept you.

When I am playing the Japanese I agree with you. When playing the Allies, for some reason I feel a bit differently about it. Funny how that tends to happen [:)]

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

Charles,
well yes, I am pointing out the loopholes and guiding my enemies how to destroy their enemies, but I am still a JFB and it is our task to nullify (put off) the inevitable.

AE does seem to fix some of this (the mouse over a base issue anyway from what I've heard), and even in Witp this is an abstract number, but still worthy of note for AFB's. My issue has never been this feature at the front lines, where the Allies would have had good intell (and possibly through code breaking behind the lines too), but the Strategic bombing interface is too honest (esp. over Japan) as are the fighter numbers in Japan, 100's of miles from Allied bases and spies... (as I say ~ I live in Korea, and even now I stick out like a sore thumb). Some dumb foreign guy robbed an Embassy some time back, they caught him in about 20 mins [:D]

JFB's can see Allied numbers too, but as you say the turn advantage is somewhat "advantageous".[;)]

Still living with an imperfect system, but the best we have, is not so bad... & that is about to change, "Viva la revolution".

--Damian--

YEs, funny how the spies in Japan for the allies (as if there were such a thing) have much better radios to contact their superiors than the coastwatchers or anybody else in Japan does to get fighter opposition up against raids. I guess Japan had their set of Hogan's Heroes POW's which had great radios too.