State of the Air War in AE

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

Nik has interesting solution to some aspects of massive air combats in his modded scenario, dramatically increasing the service ratings of planes. Very rarely in Pacific an air unit had more than 70% of it's planes fully functional same time. This would cut down the numbers somewhat..and with stacking limits, would make truly massive air raids more difficult to achieve.

I whole heartedly agree. In fact I have thought the same thing for quite a while. If I could snap my fingers I would increase ALL a/c by 1 in Service Rating. in fact the felxibility of doing just that was the whole reason I came up with the Service Rating in the first place. It was a simple variable that affected the sortie rate of a an A/C and it could be applied across the board or individually.

Agreed, but I am fearful that this would severly penalize the Allies as in my experience the difference between a 2 service rating fighter vs a 3 is much more severe than the difference between a 1 service rating over 2. I already think that the air war in 1942 the Japanese player holds a distinct advantage due to superior service ratings for fighters. An already outnumberd Allied player might suffer more than what would be considered realistic. This is especially true for we "fools" playing scen #2. [;)] I think service ratings are one of the most elegant and simple improvement over WITP but I would urge you to not make changes too quickly.

I want to add that I am pleased to see this sort of thread here in the forum, and am the first to admit that I am amazed at some of the dumbassed statements that I made about the air model a year and a half ago. We must drive you crazy at times....I will say that after two years of campaigning that the air model is a lot better than I thought and that the changes that are needed are only minor in my mind. Perhaps it takes two years to really filter out the issues in a game this complex.

[Dan Nichols]

In post #435 of this thread tm.asp?m=2817344&mpage=15&key= Radar states he purposely sent green pilots in Oscars since having 200 fighters would guarantee that the bombers would not be touched. That is his statement, I am completely on the sideline trying to figure out what to do in the end game as Allies.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

Nik has interesting solution to some aspects of massive air combats in his modded scenario, dramatically increasing the service ratings of planes. Very rarely in Pacific an air unit had more than 70% of it's planes fully functional same time. This would cut down the numbers somewhat..and with stacking limits, would make truly massive air raids more difficult to achieve.

I whole heartedly agree. In fact I have thought the same thing for quite a while. If I could snap my fingers I would increase ALL a/c by 1 in Service Rating. in fact the felxibility of doing just that was the whole reason I came up with the Service Rating in the first place. It was a simple variable that affected the sortie rate of a an A/C and it could be applied across the board or individually.

Agreed, but I am fearful that this would severly penalize the Allies as in my experience the difference between a 2 service rating fighter vs a 3 is much more severe than the difference between a 1 service rating over 2. I already think that the air war in 1942 the Japanese player holds a distinct advantage due to superior service ratings for fighters. An already outnumberd Allied player might suffer more than what would be considered realistic. This is especially true for we "fools" playing scen #2. [;)] I think service ratings are one of the most elegant and simple improvement over WITP but I would urge you to not make changes too quickly.

I want to add that I am pleased to see this sort of thread here in the forum, and am the first to admit that I am amazed at some of the dumbassed statements that I made about the air model a year and a half ago. We must drive you crazy at times....I will say that after two years of campaigning that the air model is a lot better than I thought and that the changes that are needed are only minor in my mind. Perhaps it takes two years to really filter out the issues in a game this complex.

What I proposed some time ago was to up the numerical values of service rating, but decrease the impact the numbers represent.


We currently have SR:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
If these values could be increased to, say:
10, 20, 30, 40, 50
then this would enable less granular values:
10, 15, 20, 25, you get the picture.

If I understood Nik, tho whom I proposed this as he was experimenting with the SR values back then, this was
not possible without adressing/impacting a too large area of code.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Jzanes
In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Quite.

I think there are real issues and I'm attempting to be constructive, but I'm not finding this a very constructive thread, tbh.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Dan Nichols

In post #435 of this thread tm.asp?m=2817344&mpage=15&key= Radar states he purposely sent green pilots in Oscars since having 200 fighters would guarantee that the bombers would not be touched. That is his statement, I am completely on the sideline trying to figure out what to do in the end game as Allies.

Attrit without presenting high value targets, destroy the reason for the number of airframes available to the enemy - A/C and engine factories, while destroying
as many enemy a/c on ground and air within the limitations of the losses you can bear.

If the above is out of range or reach, slowly establish a position from which to achieve the above.


WWII wasn´t won like a cobra attacks, more like a glacier growing over rock in the ice ages.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I think what is being lost here is that, while they have successfully explored the frontier of lunacy in terms of over stacking and uncovered the limits of computer processing power vis a vis AE, GJ and Rader did so by cramming an unrealistic number of aircraft into a relatively small space. In all likelihood, and I am guessing it sounds like they overcame all the little controls we put in place to break up Uber Air Battles in a unique set of circumstances that existed in their game.

What you are all advocating is hard coding essentially. We are talking about rewriting code for the game to accommodate gameplay that is aberrant. I admit that there are situations where large numbers of A/C come together regardless of how you play, and that others have begun to experience the same effects, but should we as developers risk making a change that could have 2nd and 3rd order effects on the rest of those that haven't seen this sort of thing in their game?

Development/support of this product is essentially over save for Michaelm's gracious charity. I can't just go in with a scalpel and start monkeying around with the code. Do I have ideas? yes. But it isn't my call.

Until something changes you all as players have to understand the limitations and try to live within them. That is the only way.

I don't think the GJ/Rader result is all that aberrant. I think everyone reaches a point where the forces on both sides are massive and the battlefield becomes very very congested as the allies vector in on the home islands. You don't have to "cram" planes into a single base to run into this problem. Dispersing your aircraft over a large # of airfields will lead to the same end result. It's just too easy to get the "golden" # of escorts you need to overcome any CAP. Changing service ratings, coordination penalties, overstacking penalties, etc. isn't gonna fix this issue. IMHO the coding for combat itself needs to be reviewed.

Anyways, add my game as a datapoint in support of reviewing the current "firing passes" coding. Could someone at least go into the code and see what kind of results you get when you fiddle with the numbers? IMHO without some change, late war games are going to be getting abandoned on a regular basis.

I am not saying their result is aberrant I am saying the circumstances of the combat is aberrant. In terms of how they massed EVERYTHING into one small space.

I also noted that Rader seemed to have the technological upperhand in many cases having fielded several new types of IJ planes. There was NOTHING historical about the battle. It was completely in fantasy land. No precedent for it. and I can't even see behind the curtain. What were the pilots like? how healthy was Rader's pilot corps? What was his supply situation?

Maybe he had ALL the odds stacked in his favor because he played an excellent game, and GJ didn't? I don't know.

Yes, I don't think it is productive to keep citing this particual game which I doubt very few players here will be able to replicate. Greyjoy pulled off a total surprise and thrust every thing he had into Rader's gut and Rader replied with everything he had. I should point out though that Greyjoy did this without cutting off the lines of communication to the home islands or without doing any damage at all to Japanese oil supplies and production- in an already unrealistic scen #2 game. (some aircraft factories but not enough) I for one am not going to try and invade Japan without trying to turn off the oil flow. The AAR was fun and a great read but it also convinced me not to try that at home.

Now if I starve Japan of oil and still can't deal with her air power then we will have something to talk about.

I should add that if there are to be changes to the air model, then should it be even considered without considering other factors-such as flak. Or any other number of factors that make up a battle. I welcome any refinments but it always should be a holistic approch as much as possbile.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
Now if I starve Japan of oil and still can't deal with her air power then we will have something to talk about.

If there hasn't been a CV wipeout then both sides will have CV forces big enough to hit the limits. So it's going to have an impact, even assuming a traditional island hopping along a line of advance with limited ability to base aircraft.

I agree Greyjoy is a special case but I don't think the escort issue is limited to that case.

[denisonh]

I would submit that as we start tinkering with the inputs that are the quantitative implementation of our modified assumptions, that there be some testing of the model to establish a baseline, then do a sensitivity analysis on the impacts of the changed variable to the outcomes.

I am not sure that a substanative analysis on the model has been done (I mean something like holding ALL variables steady for both sides and do 30-40 runs of the same situation). It would require some work to develop the scneario, adjust/list ALL the inputs, and some patience to actually do the runs and collect the data.

One or two runs in a game are simply worthless as a way to analyze the model. All the factors that inmpact the outcomes must be identified and controlled, and adequate number of runs needs to be made to estsablish the mean outcome and the nature of the outcomes outside 2 standard deviations and into the "tails".

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: denisonh

I would submit that as we start tinkering with the inputs that are the quantitative implementation of our modified assumptions, that there be some testing of the model to establish a baseline, then do a sensitivity analysis on the impacts of the changed variable to the outcomes.

I am not sure that a substanative analysis on the model has been done (I mean something like holding ALL variables steady for both sides and do 30-40 runs of the same situation). It would require some work to develop the scneario, adjust/list ALL the inputs, and some patience to actually do the runs and collect the data.

One or two runs in a game are simply worthless as a way to analyze the model. All the factors that inmpact the outcomes must be identified and controlled, and adequate number of runs needs to be made to estsablish the mean outcome and the nature of the outcomes outside 2 standard deviations and into the "tails".

Absolutely.

Just pointing out that in this specific proposal we already have advantages compared to stuff like randomly increasing numerical values such as number of firing passes:

- There is a high consensus that average mission fruequency is too high ingame, confirmed by comparisions to similar WWII situations
and number of missions flown, so we know already quite precicely what we are trying to adress.

- We already have a quite nice ammount of experience tinkering with these values, thanks to Nikademus who did a lot of testing in this area.

- The impacted areas of the game can be evaluated quite reliably as compared to completely new ground.

[aztez]

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

I think that a contributor to the problem is the expectation that Japan should always be something that you can approach / bomb / invade by 1945, even if the war hasn't progressed anywhere near historical lines. By the time the Allies were planning Downfall, Japan had practically zero skilled pilots and were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of air-frames, and yet the Allies STILL expected a million or so losses and STILL came up with the Big Blue Blanket CAP strategy.

Now, if we grant that the Japanese player still has a sizable air-force and moderately skilled pilots, because WITP is not on historical rails, then shouldn't we also grant that maybe Japan can be fortified to a point where it *is* untouchable? Or at least, untouchable in 1945, when there's still more than enough supplies to fly thousands of sorties.

As TheElf said, part of it is setting your expectations accordingly. If the KB is still alive, and the IJ LBA hasn't been pissed away in the Marianas and the Air Battle Over Formosa, then maybe we have to expect that pulling off a Downfall isn't simply a matter of time and fate.

In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Not been that much lately but have 100% agree with Jzanes.

I'am in past mid 1945's in my game as allied and have experienced and experiencing same stuff you stated here.

Allthough your views does not seem to sink in that well with the crowd here.

As said what it is worth I agree completely with your statements in this thread.

[denisonh]

An issue that impacts the situation of a scenario 2 where the Japanese player has achieved significant success on the battlefield AND in the R&D/economic front is the situation where the Allied player runs out of airframes for primary aircraft. With the improved and increased number of Japanese airframes, it is expected to see a significant increase over historical for aircraft losses.

If the Allied is capped by historical outputs, then is production is predicated on Alied success with a siginificant reduction in the Japanese threat by 1944 and may be as such of an issue by 1945, as the Allied player cannot wage a war of attrition using LBA, which is what would most likely have been the likely strategy.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Jzanes




I don't think the GJ/Rader result is all that aberrant. I think everyone reaches a point where the forces on both sides are massive and the battlefield becomes very very congested as the allies vector in on the home islands. You don't have to "cram" planes into a single base to run into this problem. Dispersing your aircraft over a large # of airfields will lead to the same end result. It's just too easy to get the "golden" # of escorts you need to overcome any CAP. Changing service ratings, coordination penalties, overstacking penalties, etc. isn't gonna fix this issue. IMHO the coding for combat itself needs to be reviewed.

Anyways, add my game as a datapoint in support of reviewing the current "firing passes" coding. Could someone at least go into the code and see what kind of results you get when you fiddle with the numbers? IMHO without some change, late war games are going to be getting abandoned on a regular basis.

I am not saying their result is aberrant I am saying the circumstances of the combat is aberrant. In terms of how they massed EVERYTHING into one small space.

I also noted that Rader seemed to have the technological upperhand in many cases having fielded several new types of IJ planes. There was NOTHING historical about the battle. It was completely in fantasy land. No precedent for it. and I can't even see behind the curtain. What were the pilots like? how healthy was Rader's pilot corps? What was his supply situation?

Maybe he had ALL the odds stacked in his favor because he played an excellent game, and GJ didn't? I don't know.

Yes, I don't think it is productive to keep citing this particual game which I doubt very few players here will be able to replicate. Greyjoy pulled off a total surprise and thrust every thing he had into Rader's gut and Rader replied with everything he had. I should point out though that Greyjoy did this without cutting off the lines of communication to the home islands or without doing any damage at all to Japanese oil supplies and production- in an already unrealistic scen #2 game. (some aircraft factories but not enough) I for one am not going to try and invade Japan without trying to turn off the oil flow. The AAR was fun and a great read but it also convinced me not to try that at home.

Now if I starve Japan of oil and still can't deal with her air power then we will have something to talk about.

[Jzanes]

ORIGINAL: aztez

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

I think that a contributor to the problem is the expectation that Japan should always be something that you can approach / bomb / invade by 1945, even if the war hasn't progressed anywhere near historical lines. By the time the Allies were planning Downfall, Japan had practically zero skilled pilots and were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of air-frames, and yet the Allies STILL expected a million or so losses and STILL came up with the Big Blue Blanket CAP strategy.

Now, if we grant that the Japanese player still has a sizable air-force and moderately skilled pilots, because WITP is not on historical rails, then shouldn't we also grant that maybe Japan can be fortified to a point where it *is* untouchable? Or at least, untouchable in 1945, when there's still more than enough supplies to fly thousands of sorties.

As TheElf said, part of it is setting your expectations accordingly. If the KB is still alive, and the IJ LBA hasn't been pissed away in the Marianas and the Air Battle Over Formosa, then maybe we have to expect that pulling off a Downfall isn't simply a matter of time and fate.

In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Not been that much lately but have 100% agree with Jzanes.

I'am in past mid 1945's in my game as allied and have experienced and experiencing same stuff you stated here.

Allthough your views does not seem to sink in that well with the crowd here.

As said what it is worth I agree completely with your statements in this thread.

Thanks for the support. Hoping that someone will at least consider playing with the code a little bit.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Can you stack 20 CVs in a hex in 1945? Yes. Should you? No.

It makes no odds if you do or not. It's the 300 escort max limit which is the issue, not glomming 20 CVs into one hex. The problem if anything is on the LBA side, not the CVs.

If you split your 20 CVs into eight or nine TFs, some in the same hex, some not, you get the LBA targeting model working for you and not against you. If when you use nine TFs the Japanese can still get 300 escorts per raid, then, as the Elf says, don't go there yet. You aren't ready.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.

You're forgetting the macro view of the game. You don't have to invade the HI to win. The Allies never did. GJ and rader made an intra-game decision to ignore VPs and not care about coded win conditions. That was their decision, but it sets up the necessary background for any debate about their theater tactics.

GJ faces an opponent who didn't bleed in China. He faces an opponent who had Indian HI and other industrial "farming" for a long period of time. He went for the HI early in 1944 before he had third-generaiton fighters or B-29s or his full carrier fleet. He did not attrit Japanese air stocks iin other theaters after he struck Hokkaido; he let the rest of the map go. He confined his offensive to a tiny, well-defined front, with no VP cost considerations either way, and then added sauce to the sundae by invading Honshu long before he had eaten rader's vitals away. Of course he got clocked.

You can't toss away core pieces of the game architecture, specifically the victory condition model, and then complain it doesn't behave itself. If the USN had faced 20,000 Japanese kamikazis which burned grass and not avgas they never would have gone near the HI either.

[denisonh]

Changing the Air Combat model becausethe Allied player has not been able to create the conditions to approach the Home Islands with acceptable risk is not a good idea.

The action around Okinawa with the success of the Kamikaze attacks gave the USN pause to the idea of having CVs hanging around the home islands for successive days without first changing the conditions.

In and out raids are one thing, hanging around is another.

ORIGINAL: aztez

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

I think that a contributor to the problem is the expectation that Japan should always be something that you can approach / bomb / invade by 1945, even if the war hasn't progressed anywhere near historical lines. By the time the Allies were planning Downfall, Japan had practically zero skilled pilots and were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of air-frames, and yet the Allies STILL expected a million or so losses and STILL came up with the Big Blue Blanket CAP strategy.

Now, if we grant that the Japanese player still has a sizable air-force and moderately skilled pilots, because WITP is not on historical rails, then shouldn't we also grant that maybe Japan can be fortified to a point where it *is* untouchable? Or at least, untouchable in 1945, when there's still more than enough supplies to fly thousands of sorties.

As TheElf said, part of it is setting your expectations accordingly. If the KB is still alive, and the IJ LBA hasn't been pissed away in the Marianas and the Air Battle Over Formosa, then maybe we have to expect that pulling off a Downfall isn't simply a matter of time and fate.

In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Not been that much lately but have 100% agree with Jzanes.

I'am in past mid 1945's in my game as allied and have experienced and experiencing same stuff you stated here.

Allthough your views does not seem to sink in that well with the crowd here.

As said what it is worth I agree completely with your statements in this thread.

[aztez]

ORIGINAL: denisonh

Changing the Air Combat model becausethe Allied player has not been able to create the conditions to approach the Home Islands with acceptable risk is not a good idea.

The action around Okinawa with the success of the Kamikaze attacks gave the USN pause to the idea of having CVs hanging around the home islands for successive days without first changing the conditions.

In and out raids are one thing, hanging around is another.

ORIGINAL: aztez

ORIGINAL: Jzanes




In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Not been that much lately but have 100% agree with Jzanes.

I'am in past mid 1945's in my game as allied and have experienced and experiencing same stuff you stated here.

Allthough your views does not seem to sink in that well with the crowd here.

As said what it is worth I agree completely with your statements in this thread.

True. Allthough that is not the point of what I was refering nor jzanes in that matter.

The thing is that the air combat model currently in place has nothing to do with HI raids or such.

It is general thing how it works.

There severe problems how the CAP works (firing phases.. the poor performance on how AAA guns work in stock scenario...). Those things add up.

I have invested about 2 years into game to advance into 1945's to see this.. I do have another game in early 1944's which will eventually phase the same problem(s).

Definately an problem.. and since people are refering to the GreyJoy's game.. that is extreme of it but trust me you will hit that eventually.

Those issues and RL work has kept me from updating AAR lately. Maybe I get inspired to start more frequent updates or well maybe not... time will tell.

Well.. I have played this game many years and doubt that many actually will ever enter later parts of the game via PBEM games due to diffrent reasons.

There are also still severe problems how submarines and ASW work too but that is off topic in this thread.

Anyway.. been here long enough to see that this will not get looked nor changed. Unfortunately so and was not looking for arguments or such either.

Just popped in to state that definately seeing the same things jzanes mentioned and to show him "support" since he was jumped by the crowd here which I felt was unfair.

Everyone have a nice day though.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: Jzanes
In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

Quite.

I think there are real issues and I'm attempting to be constructive, but I'm not finding this a very constructive thread, tbh.

That is too bad. I am disappointed to hear that is your opinion. I happen to think this has been VERY constructive. Just because you haven't convinced everyone here to your way of thinking doesn't mean the dialogue hasn't been constructive. [;)]

What I have found interesting is that we are in the midst of this discussion and I don't sense a floodgate opening. I haven't seen a lot of people piling into this thread with pitchforks and torches demanding a swift change. We're upwards of 75 replies, but the participation is low. It's still early, but I guess we'll have to see how this thread matures....

[Alfred]

TheElf,

Please, please, oh please do not fall for the old conjuring trick being presented with the aim of pressuring you into changing things when there is no sound fundamental good reason to do so. Too often in the past code has been changed to accommodate poor players who complain when their lack of skill/understanding is exposed. To put up now the detailed reasons for my plea would be too time consuming but here are a few briefly presented reasons.

1. You were generous in dismissing kindly in the other related thread the validity of the so called air combat tests. I shall be much more direct. For the reasons you gave plus a few other reasons you did not state, those tests had zero validity. They have been described by a well known forum contributor as "vanity tests". They prove absolutely nothing.

2. All the proposed coding solutions are difficult to code because they are arbitrary, and there is no development team available to do all the work. Plus they all fail because they fail to address the fundamental problem which is that RTS style players who attempt to play a game which is grounded in real world parameters will always, at some stage, reach the edge of the cliff.

3. The game already has the solution to the perceived problems. Unfortunately it requires players to do all the necessary unsexy things which the RTS crowd don't like to do. Those game areas which could be further improved involve zero coding but an awful lot of OOB reconfiguring a la the DaBabes family of mods. No one, and I mean no one, is volunteering their services to undertake all that hard yakka for the official scenarios.

4. Some posters in this thread and elsewhere have repeatedly poointed out the incorrect strategy and tactics employed. Those who continuously shout down the messengers of what is the correct approach fail to understand the points. Here are a few common errors.

(a) Attrition of the Japanese forces is cited as the correct approach. This is wrong because attrition is a very dumb military strategy. Ask Haig, Joffre and Falkenhayn. What advocates of attrition really should be iterating is that degradation of the enemy force structure, plus misdirection of the enemy military assets, plus pinning enemy forces elsewhere is required before a direct approach to the Home Islands can be undertaken with any reasonable comfort level. None of these elements has anything to do with attrition. In fact given the basic game design, compounded by playing the ahistorical scenario 2, attrition particularly of air assets is to the benefit of Japan.

(b) Several posters are advocating coding additional air coordination penalties. Mein Gott, they already exist in the game. Instead because a player places over 4000 aircraft in a single airbase and has the need for only 250 aviation support personnel present at that same airbase to maintain this surreal air fleet, you are being asked to undertake complex recoding. All that is required in this instance is two things, firstly properly implement the AE decision to remove the 250 aviation support upper cap for human players, and secondly adopt the DaBabes treatment of the multifacets of engineers. The first might be relatively easily accomplished but the second isn't (see point 3 above).

(c) Others are practically demanding that coding be introduced to guarantee carrier fleets will be able to utilise fully 1000 fighters on fleet CAP. Again a misunderstanding of the real world and what the existing game engine is capable of. Just how long would it be before an Allied player sends a 20 CV fleet to act as an air combat trap deploying only fighters, approximately 2000. Would we then have demands to up the limits? Whatever limits are introduced, someone will sooner rather than later come up with a counter. The only correct way to deal with that sort of a problem is with skillful play.

(d) Others complain about the ablative armour effect to the bombers provided by the escorts. This too can be defeated. The days of when a battle incurred entirely within a day, usually over just 1-2 hours are long gone. Battles can and do rage for days, weeks. Campaigns for months. Let the strike package approach with its ablative armour. On day 1 the bombers will get through, the ablative armour will be hacked out of the sky. The escorting fighter groups will return to their airbases and perhaps will be able to draw in replacements or be rotated out and replaced by fresh fighter units. So on day 2 of the battle another strike package could possibly be assembled with its supporting ablative armour. Same result. However this time, the fighter losses, even if supply is present and the pools contain airframes, cannot immediately be made good as there is already in the game a 7 day restocking limit on airframes. The skillful recipient of these huges strike packages factors into his planning these game elements and assembles his forces to absorb the impact of day 1, day 2 ... to come out ultimately on top.


5. All this has come to a head as a result of the rader-GreyJoy match. The single biggest reason why that match has a problem, is due to a single fact which no one ever comments upon. That is they have no "objective" victory conditions. An old thread by Bullwinkle argued, and in my view, quite correctly that a game such as AE needs auto victory. Section 17 of the manual deals with the game's victory conditions. Unfortuneately far too many players like to puff up their chests and declaim s.17 doesn't apply to me, I'll know when I have "won". Well guess what the fundamental sillyness of that approach is exceedingly well demonstrated in the rader-GreyJoy match. When GreyJoy landed on Hokkaido the peanut gallery said the war was now won by the Allies. Now after the failure of the subsequent follow up Allied strategy and tactics there is much wailing that the Allies can't win. The victory conditions outlined in s17 of the manual fairly represent the historical outcome of WWII. In mid August 1945 Japan surrendered because it was totally defeated (except in the eyes of certain fanatical suicidal elites) without the need for an Allied landing on the Home Islands. GreyJoy couldn't adopt that approach because he had been outplayed by his opponent and could not achieve a victory as per s.17 of the manual. Instead he chose a Hail Mary to bypass s.17 of the manual. The results of the poor play has come home to roost.

Alfred

[AcePylut]

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.

tm.asp?m=3018547

Walked right up to 1 hex from Kyushu with all my carriers - Japan attacked - all my carriers walked back to Okinawa with a cve or two taking a bomb hit.

Dispersal is the key to survival. Agree with ELF.... if you approach the homelands, better have your CV's spread over multiple hexes and better have plenty of pickets out in front of the CV's.

Took a quick look but didn't see an applicable CR. On what dates did your carrier CAP face a raid with 100 or more escorts? I would be curious to see how your CAP performed in this instance.

Post #24 details the combat results of the days events when my entire fleet was off Fukue-Jima. Post #25 shows the position of my fleets during the days events The very first strike by Japan came in with 125ish fighters escorting 20ish bombers. The results were not good for Japan. Granted this is downfall and his pilots have terrible exp – but still. If you read the rest of that CR on Page 24 – Japan sent in multiple attacks, and iirc only about 1/3 to ½ of them targeted the ships in Fukue-Jima’s hex. The rest attacked my fleets on the periphery. A number of attacks went after my rinky-dink 2-4 DD fleets roaming around Japans coast.


Then if you look at the next day (post 33), you’ll see that my opponent tried to kami my fleets, but most of those raids went off after my 1CL/3DD fleets and not my important ships.



The real reason I posted this is because of my fleet dispersal, the “dispersal” Elf talks about and I am now a 100% believer. ***because *** my fleets were spread out, I like to think that I prevented the massive “1 strike of 10000 planes” that we’ve seen when peeps put 40CV’s, 40BB’s, 200DD’s into 1 hex.

That’s the point I’m getting at – by presenting numerous targets (with all valuable targets covered by interlocking, multi-fleet provided CAP) - the chances of having that “one massive coordinated strike” hitting one “massive hex filled with 40 CV’s” is zero. At best, Japan can hope for one massive coordinated strike against 1 hex, and only get 1/7th of the ships I have in that area, not all of them.

By dispersing my fleet over multiple hexes, the safety of my entire fleet is dramatically increased. This playing style of dispersal is anathema to nearly all computer gamer – even WITP-AE’ers…

And I think it stems from this “IF you want to have a chance as Japan, don’t split the KB” that gets pounded over and over into people’s heads. So people take that and instead of thinking “don’t split the KB between Deigo Garcia and Tahiti operations”, they think, “keep all Jap CV’s in one hex” and not “go ahead and have 2-3 task forces that comprise the KB chained 1 hex apart at all times”.

So this belief of “keep the KB together for safety” morphed into “keep everything in one hex cuz that’s the safest thing you can do”, and I think that's a bad thing that happened. What you do with the KB in '42 is not what you do with the Allies in '45.

But as this simple logic shows, that’s not really the case. Look above and consider if Japan had that “one massive strike” against my dispersed fleet – I’d lose a hex’s worth of ships, or, 1/7th of the ships I have…. Vs… “keep everything in one hex” and I’d lose everything.

Dispersal is the key !!!

[Jzanes]

Yup, what Aztez said. This isn't about the HI, it's not about one player doing good or bad, or about the allies or the japanese. It's a game mechanic issue that I wish would at least be playtested and fiddled with by someone upstairs. I hope all those that disagree with my points, have at least played into 44-45 and seen the kinds of environments that exist in the late war.