The Power of Inexperience / GreyJoy(A)-Rader(J)

[GreyJoy]

Lobaron, i count the numbers of ready fighters. 2900 were present at an avg of 50% CAP. So that should mean imho that 400 were airborne, 400 on stand by and 400 more acrambling... But the rest of them not present in that 50% CAP should have been scrambled... That's how it works with small or medium air battles so i'm pretty sure it should work for monster battles too.

And imho a level 9 AF doesn't mean a single huge AF but a serie of connected AFs.l.
But the point, again, isn't the losses on the ground but the fact that the bombers always get through...and there's no way to prevent it.
Nemo is right. I have tested it the very same thing after my CV fleet defeat: no matter how good your cap is...the CVs willALWAYS get sunk. Always.
Hakodate is overstacked. Ok...but what if rader had sent 400 betties against my BBs at hakodate instead of the Helens? Where should i base my fleet? How should i defend my fleet?
Tell me which is the way to succesfully cover my fleet and i will try it...but at th moment i don't see how...

[desicat]

I'm not sure anything can be drawn from the combat model as 3000 fighters over an airfield is not practical.

Operating with dual runway ops and launching 4 a/c per minute it would take 750 minute to launch the cap - over 10 hours. If you launch 8 a/c per minute (1 a/c every 15 seconds from each runway) it would take 5 hours to launch the CAP. It is possible to take off in multiple a/c formations but it increases the taxi and start up times....continuous take-offs are limited by prop wash and wingtip vorticies after a period of time. This doesn't take into account a/c landing from lack of fuel or staging for takeoffs, fueling, and arming.....

Now try to set the landing patterns and approach avenues, formation rally points and altitudes, patrol areas and vector channels, this doesn't even consider the weather.

If one reads Galland's book "The First and the Last" he notes that most a/c are totally out of position during the defense and attack of bomber groups and the best pilots only engage in moments of combat.

So if you want to fix the combat model you first have to fix the number of aircraft available for the raids - on both sides.

Results of the first Schweinfurt raid from Wiki, so the numbers are approximated. This is tiny compared to what has been going on in this game, and it emptied the airfields across the European continent......

Strength
376 B-17s
268 P-47 sorties
191 Spitfire sorties

Approx. 400 Bf 109, Bf 110, Fw 190 and other fighters

Casualties and losses
60 bombers, 3 P-47s, and 2 Spitfires lost
58-95 bombers heavily damaged
7 KIA, 21 WIA, 557 MIA or POW 25-27 fighters

[Captain Cruft]

If it's not fixable in code how about a scen which does the following?

Much less supply (for both sides). I actually think a 90% reduction would be about right. Also stop Refineries from producing it.
Much less av support (for both sides).
No airfield has an SPS bigger than 5, therefore the number of mega-stack airfields will be 0.

[desicat]

oh, and flak would be irrelevant over the field as it couldn't be brought into action without causing huge numbers of friendly losses considering that the Allied are operating non stop flight ops to maintain the CAP and have to land at the base in question and are engaged in air to air over head.....

[JeffroK]

crsutton, touched on this,

How do you get escort and raid co-ordination, over such a distance and with supposedly crappy pilots?

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: beppi

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Problem 1: overstacked airfield
Problem 2: escorts (and good escort fighters as oscars are maneuverable) outnumbering CAP enough to make it useless.

1- If you're talking about the results of the destroyed on the ground...it is not a problem to me. But with a level 9 AF i shouldn't have any penality with my CAP

2- 2900 fighters on CAP should outnumber the escort and not the other way around (with the best possible radars present, good settings, air HQs etc etc)

You should negotiate a HR with Raeder to deal with that problem.

There is nothing you can do against it. It does not matter how many planes you have on cap. There is a number of escorts which is nessecary to soak up all firing passes and then the strike package will always go throuhg.

If you are bored change the Downfall Scenario. Creat a Hex with 50CV/50CVE or any number of carriers + planes. Fill all the carriers with fighters, extend the carriers capacity. Create a CAP of 5000,8000 or 20000 planes. Numbers do not matter as the CAP will just have no effect. Send in a strike with a 500+ escorts and your carriers will sink.

Or fill a lvl 9 airbase with any number of planes you want (I did a test with 8000 or so planes on cap). If the strike package has enough escorts to soak up the firing passes the bombers will get through.

The engine is how it is and as soon as you start to "exploit" it you have a problem. You either need a fix (size limit of strike or fix on the firing pass limits) or a HR to deal with it.

Btw. just limiting the size of the strike package wont fix the problem either. You either create again some heavy leakiness like it is now or you create an inpenetrable CAP again.

I more or less negotiated a HR in my PBEM but our problem is only carrier related as my opponent does not have the production to just waste a 500 escorts to bring a strike on an airbase through.

I agreebut given the present strategical situation, which would be a good HR?

And Miller...it's nt that i'm not laying historical...it just happened to me to conquer hokkaido...but if i was at iwo jima or okinawa i don't think the situation would be much different...

What do u suggest? Me and rader are really open for any suggested solution cause we badly want to keep on playin...but it's simply becoming impossible...

And the same will apply to japan.
Tomorrow i will be able to waste 400 wildcats and send 800 bombers to fire bomb tokyo...but i simply cannot efford to lose those escorts...

Pretty sad if u ask me

[desicat]

Ok, it's a box rather than a hex, and it's right in the middle of 8th AF country, but that's just the ones that were spottable in five minutes from 20 miles up - I expect a bunch more will have deteriorated since then. Most of them are will-take-a-USAAF-Bomber-Group size, too, not little things...

I mean, realistically in the Hakodate situation you'd have a large number (10? 20? who knows) of airfields spread out along the southwestern peninsula of Hokkaido - it's not a big airfield, then 45 miles, then a big airfield, then 45 miles etc. Hokkaido is not as flat as Cambridgeshire, but then there's likely to be rather less consideration for whoever's on the land already in this sort of situation...

This is a good post but having been to the area in question the topography doesn't support the airfield density that you propose. I can see possibly a few more makeshift airfields but nothing that could support the density of a/c that are being put into play. This doesn't even discuss the fuel and ammo storage issues that makeshift fields have to deal with. Operating in the weather in the tropics is a different question entirely from operating in Norther Japan.........

[Cap Mandrake]

The problem does seem to be one of scope. Though there were 500+ bomber raids, I'm not sure there were ever 500 escorts in a raid.

Can you not move your bombers outside of Helen range, put the fighter squadrons at 100% CAP (unless they are flying a strike mission) and then move squadrons out of range when they get fatgiued. In this fashion, there will be less on the ground if a raid gets through.

How about inventories of senescent bombers? Back-convert to Vildabest and B-18's and put them in a forward airfield as bait. When he loses 500 fighters to kill a bunch of Bolos he will: A) Be pissed off B) Change his strategy. [:D]

[desicat]

Or to put this into GJ's terms....GJ has upgraded his bed from a standard Queen to a King sized waterbed. He has increased the number of women manning his bedroom from 4 to 8 and sometimes overstacks to get 10 women on the mattress. At some point there are so many women involved in the "fur ball" that GJ fails to engage them and they see no action during that sortie.

While it may look good to have so many women "involved", some end up being only being so much eye candy as they are out of position.....

....let alone the ones in the process of undressing or showering are using up GJ's supplies of TP, beer, shaving razors, pretzels, clean shirts, etc....

[Grfin Zeppelin]

ORIGINAL: desicat

Or to put this into GJ's terms....GJ has upgraded his bed from a standard Queen to a King sized waterbed. He has increased the number of women manning his bedroom from 4 to 8 and sometimes overstacks to get 10 women on the mattress. At some point there are so many women involved in the "fur ball" that GJ fails to engage them and they see no action during that sortie.

While it may look good to have so many women "involved", some end up being only being so much eye candy as they are out of position.....

....let alone the ones in the process of undressing or showering are using up GJ's supplies of TP, beer, shaving razors, pretzels, clean shirts, etc....

[Schlemiel]

While I appreciate the effort of such an... ahem... "extended" metaphor, I agree with grafin here.

But since we are playing star wars in the pacific anyway, can't we imagine huge concrete structures with dectuple decked runways equipped with elevators salvaged from all those sunken carriers all over the place? And the AA guns are star wars lasers (which explains why they never hit anything, as accuracy is star wars is exponential proportional to the protagonist rating of the user).

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Svar

And, if there are not penalties then there should be in future patches. The notion of 3,000 planes at one airfield is absurd.

I have been following this AAR for months and kept my mouth shut because I didn't have anything to contribute but this statement is just wrong. In any hex of 40 miles by 40 miles there could be many active airfields. Oahu alone probably had over 10. While some were emergency landing fields there were 4 or 5 big ones if my memory from the mid 1970s is correct when I was stationed there in an aviation unit and spent many hours over the island from which I could see all of them including those no longer in use.

Sorry, not buying it. Oahu is not a good example. You are talking about an airfield complex that was built up over the course of a decade before and during the war. The same thing would not happen at Port Moresby, Siboret Island, Sabang, (all potential level 9) or most anywhere else on the map during wartime and within the time frames we are talking about. Some of the Japanese city hexes could already have the airbase complexes, But to take an undeveloped hex and build it up to level 9 in two months is not the sane as you found at Oahu and should not be considered so. Perhaps some bases in major city hexes should be given large bonuses but for the most part even a level 9 airfield should be very limited. It certainly might help in limiting these massive air battles.

[GreyJoy]

Guys, i think we're losing the point here.
If the cose, the rule, says a level 9 af doesn't get overstacked it's useless to talk about it. The true point here is that CAP isn't efficient anymore above a certain number of escort. Which applies to CVs or to bases. It doesn't matter.
And if this assumption is true, that means that in late war scenarios the allies have no defences for their CVs or their advanced bases.
The same can be said for Japanese cities. Japan cannot defend them against a well escorted raid, no matter how numerous and good the CAP is... Wth the only difference that Japan can easily lose 400 escort fighters 10 times in a month, while the allies can probably efford only 1 of those raid every 2 months.

So my question remains the same: what should i do?

Me and Rader had a long skype chat yesterday. We agree on everything.... But we couldn't find a solution...not even in terms of HR....
Any suggestion?
Cause Rader tomorrow could send 400 oscars piloted by crappy pilots escorting 400 betties...and that would simply be the end of my BB fleet....so i have to evacuate everything in range of the japanese escort...is that a solution?????

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: kfsgo
Ok, it's a box rather than a hex, and it's right in the middle of 8th AF country, but that's just the ones that were spottable in five minutes from 20 miles up - I expect a bunch more will have deteriorated since then. Most of them are will-take-a-USAAF-Bomber-Group size, too, not little things...

I mean, realistically in the Hakodate situation you'd have a large number (10? 20? who knows) of airfields spread out along the southwestern peninsula of Hokkaido - it's not a big airfield, then 45 miles, then a big airfield, then 45 miles etc. Hokkaido is not as flat as Cambridgeshire, but then there's likely to be rather less consideration for whoever's on the land already in this sort of situation...

GreyJoy, kfsgo, re: stacking penalty.

There is no hardcoded penalty on lvl 9/10 (I don´t like that fact but so it is...).
I am aware you can abstract the base hex into several airfields, but game mechanic wise it is not.
Why? because you close a single runway. Increase runway damage + service damage above 100 and no
plane flies, from no abstracted AF. Anyways, how you view it this does not change the problem of
overstacking.

I am not referring to aviation support overstacking or the 50eng/AF level limitation.

Rather I am talking about hit probability depending on A/C concentration in a single hex. The
game enging calculates hit probability on A/C on the ground by using the total # of planes on the
ground. The more are sitting around, the higher the number of hit planes.

A comparision to those ground losses, while disregarding A2A would be operation Bodenplatte.
The Luftwaffe in a much worse shape than rader is now, destroyed hundreds of A/C on the ground
in an area where the Allies had long achived air supremacy.

But since GreyJoy is not concerned with ground losses themselves lets leave it as is.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Lobaron, i count the numbers of ready fighters. 2900 were present at an avg of 50% CAP. So that should mean imho that 400 were airborne, 400 on stand by and 400 more acrambling... But the rest of them not present in that 50% CAP should have been scrambled... That's how it works with small or medium air battles so i'm pretty sure it should work for monster battles too.

And imho a level 9 AF doesn't mean a single huge AF but a serie of connected AFs.l.
But the point, again, isn't the losses on the ground but the fact that the bombers always get through...and there's no way to prevent it.
Nemo is right. I have tested it the very same thing after my CV fleet defeat: no matter how good your cap is...the CVs willALWAYS get sunk. Always.
Hakodate is overstacked. Ok...but what if rader had sent 400 betties against my BBs at hakodate instead of the Helens? Where should i base my fleet? How should i defend my fleet?
Tell me which is the way to succesfully cover my fleet and i will try it...but at th moment i don't see how...

Does the combat report truncate data?
Because if I add the numbers below I get 1192 total fighters.

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 16
Seafire L.III x 3
Mosquito FB.VI x 14
Spitfire VIII x 72
Thunderbolt I x 12
Thunderbolt II x 6
Spitfire VIII x 20
F4U-1D Corsair x 25
P-38J Lightning x 16
P-38L Lightning x 66
P-39N2 Airacobra x 11
P-39N1 Airacobra x 10
P-40N5 Warhawk x 56
P-40N26 Warhawk x 6
P-47D2 Thunderbolt x 21
P-47D25 Thunderbolt x 92
P-51B Mustang x 36
FM-2 Wildcat x 48
F4U-1A Corsair x 93
F4U-1D Corsair x 139
F6F-3 Hellcat x 184
F6F-5 Hellcat x 246


Anyways, what I do agree on is, we have an issue with regards to large strike packages.
The underlying problem looks like one of target selection routine of CAP and/or escort behaviour, or
max size of strike packages.

The recent combat replay displays the issue nicely: You were not able to penetrate the escorts with
CAP numerous enough that this should be possible.
The problem is not number of planes shot down, this is within realistic figures, but that the fight
solely was carried out CAP vs. escort, leaving no fighters to engage the bombers.

This is what has to be looked at.

There are two obvious solutions to this issue:

1) this was already pointed out by hades1001 in the tech forum: limit the maximum possible number
of aircraft in a single raid package, independent on how good coordination is. This would enable
CAP to overwhelm the escorting fighters.

2) change the logic of how CAP selects targets and/or how escorts react to attacking fighters.
I do not know enough of the model here to get an estimate on how predictable modification on this
part would be, so I am unable to guess if this is possible.

What we have to be careful though is not to tilt the balance the other way with the above solutions,
meaning no attack gets through because CAP becomes overpowered.




As to your strategy question, and also to explain why I still am reluctant to view your game as representative
for getting "realistic" results:

In my opinion you should have bogged down in Hokkaido long ago, waging a defensive air war and pose
a threat to Honshu, while exploiting raders comittment to defend the HIs against your invasion on
at least two other fronts.
Germany and Japan broke down because they were forced to fighter on multiple frontlines spreading out
the defensive forces.

I think Germany is a much better example to compare to your current situation.
You are trying to win an air war against "Germany" as the "8th airforce" without the backup of the
Russian front meatgrinder. It is a farfetched analogy but I think a good one.
If Germany had been able to concentrate 90% of the Luftwaffe against the 8th instead of attriting the
units on the SU front, the losses for the US would have been brutal bordering to desatrous.

Your situation is similar: You pose a single threat vector against an airforce as strong as your own.
This makes any decision easy for rader.
I know it is a bit late to point this out, and I have the benefit of hindsight, but you made a brilliant
invasion without maximising the benefit from it. The benefit is, you give rader a problem he needs
to adress, and if only by building up a homeland defense by pulling back units from other fronts thats fine.
But you don´t exploit this required force relocation.
The consequence of a successful invasion of Hokkaido should be an increased pressure on DEI, Burma,
China, the island hopping campaign to the Phillipines, at least two of the above.

You are only beginning to wear rader out, to advance in the mest defended area before this has been
accomplished is the most costly approach, and the most likely to fail.

I know it is late war, but the decision to proceed while the air war hangs in balance was for the
wrong reasons (IMHO a bit of a victory disease on its own, the percieved time pressure, and your
vocal audience).

[apdsfs]

Rader has the same opinion on the CAP problem with you ... that`s a good news
But it`s impossible to limit the total number of crafts used in a single action into a single hex...[:(]
Mayby you can try limiting numbers of japanese escort fighters took off from a single base every turn,that will reduce the chance of a 'unexceptable big wave'...

[:(]

[JeffroK]

Youse Guys are playing with a special CAP patch, has something gone awry ?
From LoBaron
Rather I am talking about hit probability depending on A/C concentration in a single hex. The
game enging calculates hit probability on A/C on the ground by using the total # of planes on the
ground. The more are sitting around, the higher the number of hit planes.

With that many aircraft in the hex, the bombs had to hit something!

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Lobaron, i count the numbers of ready fighters. 2900 were present at an avg of 50% CAP. So that should mean imho that 400 were airborne, 400 on stand by and 400 more acrambling... But the rest of them not present in that 50% CAP should have been scrambled... That's how it works with small or medium air battles so i'm pretty sure it should work for monster battles too.

And imho a level 9 AF doesn't mean a single huge AF but a serie of connected AFs.l.
But the point, again, isn't the losses on the ground but the fact that the bombers always get through...and there's no way to prevent it.
Nemo is right. I have tested it the very same thing after my CV fleet defeat: no matter how good your cap is...the CVs willALWAYS get sunk. Always.
Hakodate is overstacked. Ok...but what if rader had sent 400 betties against my BBs at hakodate instead of the Helens? Where should i base my fleet? How should i defend my fleet?
Tell me which is the way to succesfully cover my fleet and i will try it...but at th moment i don't see how...

Does the combat report truncate data?
Because if I add the numbers below I get 1192 total fighters.

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 16
Seafire L.III x 3
Mosquito FB.VI x 14
Spitfire VIII x 72
Thunderbolt I x 12
Thunderbolt II x 6
Spitfire VIII x 20
F4U-1D Corsair x 25
P-38J Lightning x 16
P-38L Lightning x 66
P-39N2 Airacobra x 11
P-39N1 Airacobra x 10
P-40N5 Warhawk x 56
P-40N26 Warhawk x 6
P-47D2 Thunderbolt x 21
P-47D25 Thunderbolt x 92
P-51B Mustang x 36
FM-2 Wildcat x 48
F4U-1A Corsair x 93
F4U-1D Corsair x 139
F6F-3 Hellcat x 184
F6F-5 Hellcat x 246

Don't know why but it seems that only those fighters included in the 50% CAP are listed above, while all the others (which are supposed to be ready to be put into action when not having other missions to accomplish) are left completely out of the combat.
This doesn't happen in small raids. If you put a single squadron of 25 fighters on 50% CAP with no other missions to perform, 13 planes will be devoted immediately to CAP while the other 12 will be scrambled later. This doesn't happen with big raids... it is exactly the same thing that happened (if you remember) with my CVs...a lot of units didn't perform...there seems to be an inner code that limit the total number of CAP to be engaged...

However i do agree that probably the only good way to deal with this problem is to divide both the attacking raid and the CAP into smaller packages, so that the combat model (which works well for small raids) won't be bogged.

And Jeffk, no, the new exe we're using actually gives MORE passages to CAP (300 against 200 i believe)...so in the normal exe everybody is playing the problem should be even bigger!!!!

However it's pretty easy to reproduce this problem, as Nemo and Beppi pointed out.
Simply take a late war scenario like Downfall and place 400 Betties and 400 Zeros with 60exp at Tokyo. Then sail in range the mighty allied DS and put every fighter squadron on 100% CAP (or whatever) and see the results...always the same: no matter what you do the CAP will deal with the escort (mauling it well above any logical level) and won't be able to fire a single shot to the bombers.... and i mean A SINGLE BULLET!

The strategical situation doesn't change the fact that you cannot defend a fleet or a base against these large raids. If, after i took Hokkaido, i had gone for the PI with 25 CVs and 60 CVEs covering my invasion, it would have been the same: CV/CVEs all sunk and the invasion fleet doomed.

Everybody can easily reproduce this problem...and i seriously think it should be addressed cause in late war scenarios this feature makes impossible for the allies to advance

To be clear: with a raid like this last one, i would expect less oscars shot down (is it possible that every single escort fighter out of 500 gets shot down!?!?) and more bombers damaged, shot down, forced to turn back etc...

Flak is another issue...clearly a problem

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: apdsfs

Rader has the same opinion on the CAP problem with you ... that`s a good news
But it`s impossible to limit the total number of crafts used in a single action into a single hex...[:(]
Mayby you can try limiting numbers of japanese escort fighters took off from a single base every turn,that will reduce the chance of a 'unexceptable big wave'...

[:(]

Very very difficult...how can you force Rader not to escort his bombers in the best possible way?

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
The strategical situation doesn't change the fact that you cannot defend a fleet or a base against these large raids. If, after i took Hokkaido, i had gone for the PI with 25 CVs and 60 CVEs covering my invasion, it would have been the same: CV/CVEs all sunk and the invasion fleet doomed.

What I find funny is that nobody until now has found the most obvious solution on the topic.

About the first thing I concluded when reading about problems with the combat model on high force concentration,
was: avoid high force concentration. [;)]

Everybody knows now that - independent on whether this is a correct representation of reality or not - putting
60 CVE in one hex does not achieve the desired result.

What is the solution for the problem?

Its easy: don´t do it. Who forces any player to put 60 carrers into a single hex? Absolutely noone.

Naval attack does not allow target hex selection. By spreading out large fleet concentration over several
hexes you either achieve the same thinning/spread out of naval strikes, and so reduce strike size accordingly,
or, if there still is a single strike, only present a certain percentage of ships as targets.
Whichever way the naval strike(s) go, you will not end up losing the number of ships you did.

The reason you lost 60 carriers to one large strike in a single hex was, that there were 60 carriers in a single
hex in the first place, so that basically forced the result.

To be clear: with a raid like this last one, i would expect less oscars shot down (is it possible that every single escort fighter out of 500 gets shot down!?!?) and more bombers damaged, shot down, forced to turn back etc...

Definitely. This should be adressed by either capping max package size or adapting CAP target selection/escort behaviour
logic, where personall I would prefer the former as it sounds like less tangling with a complex system.