Changes to B-17s in 1.5

[Bombur]

How do you guys feel about modifying both US Heavy Bomber and Japanese Medium Bomber Torpedo effectiveness? Would that be a balanced approach?

-I personally believe that both planes are too powerful. I think Betties and Nells must have their durability resulted. Those planes were very vulnerable due to excessive amount of fuel they carried and lack or armor or slef sealing tanks. We also could reduce the accuracy of their torpedoes (you create a torpedo with the same name in another slot to give it to Betties and Nells). They still should be dangerous foes if properly escorted, but their attacks should have worse results at a higher cost. This is easy to modify in the scenario. On heavy bombers, I think we have two troubles (1) they are extremely accurate, to the extent they can decimate hundreds of enemy planes by flying night missions. It would be interesting to see how many Japanese planes were destroyed in the ground by USA bombardments against Rabaul in 1943, but it seems to be that relatively few Japanese aircraft were destroyed in this way (actually 60% of Japanese aircraft losses in WW2 were non combat losses, and most of the remaining were A/A losses). B-17´s are too effective against ships. I don´t know to what extent allied medium bombars also have "superpowers" . In the old Pacific war there was a rule that heavy bombers were less accurate against ships, as compared with other bombers. (2)the game cannot simulate the troubles of maintenance for these monsters.

[scout1]

If you use a single-engined fighter as the "base" for calculation, then it would be far more accurate if the game "charged" twice as much in base level and support for twin-engined A/C, and 3 times as much for 4-engined A/C.

Excellent point, though I have one question to the historians on the site. Roughly, what percentage of maintance on single engine, dual and quad engine aircraft was traditionally
geared towards the engines ? If it was significant (which I'm guessing it was) then I'd suggest that the multiplier track the # of engines. Thus, 4 engine birds would take 4x the support as compared to the single engine a/c.

[Bombur]

Some data on the effectiveness of raids against Rabaul/Munda by the big birds. No mention to Japanese planes destroyed in the ground at hundreds....

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USS ... JO-46.html
Munda-Rabaul
Q. How many fields did you have at MUNDA?
A. Two. One at MUNDA and one at KOLOMBANGARA. We had 24 fighters based there but they were all damaged a week after their arrival. After that, planes did not base there. It was used to service planes from RABAUL after attacking GUADALCANAL.
Q. How many anti-aircraft guns did you have there?
A. 18x75mm, 50x25mm, 20x40mm, single and twin mounts. A large number of the machine guns which gave better results against dive-bombers. We think we shot down about 300 planes during the 5 month period beginning February.

Q. Did you have any radar equipment?
A. We had none at MUNDA. We received notice of your airplanes by radio from our spotters on other islands.

Q. How much damage was caused by our bombing raids?
A. We were not often attacked by heavy-bombers at MUNDA, but the dive-bombers and torpedo bombers made very serious attacks. Food and ammunition dumps were also constantly destroyed. Runways were badly damaged by raids but were usually fixed again within 48 hours.

Q. Were you present at MUNDA when any of the ship bombardments occurred?
A. I left there 27 June 1943 and went to RABAUL, but I was present during some. Many did not do much damage except to runways. Much damage there, but was repaired in two or three days. Men became restless during shelling.

Q. Were any ships sunk by aircraft during that period?
A. Yes. In May 1943 the destroyer Kagero was sunk by mines between KOLOMBANGARA and GIZO. The destroyers Kuroshio and Oyashio went to help it but dive-bombers came out of a rain squall and sank them at the same time. They didn't expect dive-bombers in such heavy rain. The Michishio (DD) was badly damaged in the same attack.

A small cargo vessel was also sunk by dive-bombers off the northern coast of VELLA LAVELLA about the same time. The transport Kirigawa Maru was sunk by dive-bombers in early February 1943 off east coast of VELLA LAVELLA.

Q. Do you know of any ships sunk or damaged during the night surface action in that area?
A. In March 1943, the DDs Minegumo and Murasame were sunk during a bombardment by your cruisers. That is all I know about.

Q. Did you sweep the mines after they were laid?
A. No, we had no mine sweepers in that area. Because it was near GUADALCANAL, it would not have been safe to operate them. We saw mines being laid by ships and planes but could do nothing about it. It made it very difficult to get supplies. I had to leave MUNDA in a small wooden cargo boat.


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Q. Did you have sufficient supplies to continue fighting?
A. When I left MUNDA in June 1943, we had about 3 months food supply but only about 1 months supply of anti-aircraft ammunition. We expected you to occupy MUNDA soon. We had about 12,000 men in the area but not much ammunition. We lost about 200 men on anti-aircraft guns from strafing between February and June 1943. It was difficult to maintain anti-aircraft gun crew discipline.
Q. How effective was the bombing upon RABAUL?
A. I was only there December 1943 to January 1944. The horizontal-bombers did damage to the runways because they carried more big bombs. We couldn't fire machine guns at them because they were too high. We just had to sit and watch. The dive-bombers did some damage to the landing strips but not as much as big bombers. The dive-bombers did much damage to shipping and supply dumps. Strafing planes did some damage to machine gun crews when they came in less than 1000 meters.

Q. How effective were the night attacks?
A. At RABAUL they did very little damage. At MUNDA food dumps were burned. Lost more sleep than supplies.

Q. Did you have any Japanese Army pilots operating in that area?
A. Except during the first week at MUNDA when we had only Navy pilots, there were no pilots there. Just landed and flew away again. Some Army pilots were on KOLOMBANGARA but they did not do much.

[afspret]

GOOOLLY[:D]! All I wanted to do was post a suggestion for a change to be included in 1.5. I didn't think it would generate 3 pages of replies and other comments! As far as the Jap Fan Boys whining about the accuracy of US heavy bombers and having it downgraded in 1.3, I don't know what they are complaining about, in the early stages of my scen 15 (v1.21) game vs tha AI (historical setting), my B-17/LB-30s can't hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle? Heres an example, I recently sent a force of 28 LB-30s, with escorts, from Chandapur on an airfield raid to Rangoon. This force obtained only 12 runway hits, where as a force of 12 Lilys obtained 18 runway hits at Mandalay. Where's the equity in those numbers? How can a small force of medium bombers with a smaller bomb load obtain a higher percentage of hits compared to a larger force of heavy bombers with their larger payload? I know experience, morale, fatigue, , so if anything the Jap accuracy should be scaled back some. (to be continued)

[afspret]

Naturally as training, tactics and experience improved accuracy rates improved. Only the early high altitude raids by B-29s on the home islands suffered, due mainly to the west to east jet stream at the altitudes the B-29s were flying at. Once LeMay took over and changed tactics things improved. Heck, even some of the early raids by the 8th AF were not that spectacular!

[Zeta16]

ORIGINAL: afspret

GOOOLLY[:D]! All I wanted to do was post a suggestion for a change to be included in 1.5. I didn't think it would generate 3 pages of replies and other comments! As far as the Jap Fan Boys whining about the accuracy of US heavy bombers and having it downgraded in 1.3, I don't know what they are complaining about, in the early stages of my scen 15 (v1.21) game vs tha AI (historical setting), my B-17/LB-30s can't hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle? Heres an example, I recently sent a force of 28 LB-30s, with escorts, from Chandapur on an airfield raid to Rangoon. This force obtained only 12 runway hits, where as a force of 12 Lilys obtained 18 runway hits at Mandalay. Where's the equity in those numbers? How can a small force of medium bombers with a smaller bomb load obtain a higher percentage of hits compared to a larger force of heavy bombers with their larger payload? I know experience, morale, fatigue, , so if anything the Jap accuracy should be scaled back some. (to be continued)

As playing far with Japan I have never shut down a field with my bombers at most they do little damage. Yes the Betties will get hits if there are is no CAP but why have no CAP. After mid 42 if they get hits they will still lose half to AA. In my game they rarly fly, and it is death to fly them even with escorts aganist CAP. I am in 44 and now I am saving them Kamikaze missions. I play equal amont of games as both sides in PBEm and Betties have never caused me a problem as the allies becasue I know if I have CAP they will get killed.

[Bombur]

ORIGINAL: afspret

GOOOLLY[:D]! All I wanted to do was post a suggestion for a change to be included in 1.5. I didn't think it would generate 3 pages of replies and other comments! As far as the Jap Fan Boys whining about the accuracy of US heavy bombers and having it downgraded in 1.3, I don't know what they are complaining about, in the early stages of my scen 15 (v1.21) game vs tha AI (historical setting), my B-17/LB-30s can't hit a bull in the butt with a base fiddle? Heres an example, I recently sent a force of 28 LB-30s, with escorts, from Chandapur on an airfield raid to Rangoon. This force obtained only 12 runway hits, where as a force of 12 Lilys obtained 18 runway hits at Mandalay. Where's the equity in those numbers? How can a small force of medium bombers with a smaller bomb load obtain a higher percentage of hits compared to a larger force of heavy bombers with their larger payload? I know experience, morale, fatigue, , so if anything the Jap accuracy should be scaled back some. (to be continued)

-Up to now my tests tell us exactly the opposite. See my thread in the Editor section (using the editor to fix the night bombing bug). Japanese medium bombers seem (I say seem, because I didn´t make enough testing) to destroy less aircraft in ground even when adjusted for payload (of course, the smaller durability of Japanese aircraft may explain this). However, it´s very hard to explain as "historical" a situation where small night raids by 10-20 heavy bombers result in about ten planes destroyed in the ground each day withouth any losses to attackers (in daylight bombing this is even worse, althought unescorted 4E bombers suffer fairly high combat losses). I´ve been asking for data on planes destroyed in the ground by USA heavies but the up to now I´ve got nothing.