Looking for trouble with AFB --> BOUNCE

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: TheElf

Castor,
You said the results still favor you and that your only complaint is that the Bounce goes in Prez's favor is this correct? What kind of losses are you having vs. Prez's Hurricanes?

I ask because there has long been a contention that the bounce message is reversed, and that when it LOOKS like your opponent is getting the bounce, in fact YOU are.

Michaelm, can you comment?

That is not what I´m seeing, not at all.

Here are the conditionas: Of course I don´t know it exactly but after months of fights over Burma and those bases in India I don´t think those British pilots are in a high exp. We should ask Prz but I think this goes under confident. When I think of the replacement pilot rate in Nik´s mod then there should be more green than veteran pilots flying on his side. Next point are the planes. First I used Navy Zeroes, now I got a couple of Tojo Sentais to use. My pilots are very high experienced ones.

My Zeroes shot down those Hurricanes in a rate up to 3 or 4:1 (not over Dacca where the mighty all time bounce is). The Tojo, even better plane than the Zero with more experienced pilots does even BETTER. I know those results weren´t historic and those kill rates are pretty much off, but please don´t start a discussion on that.

So I thought I could attack this base named Dacca where he puts up 50+ planes on CAP, as I knew my planes are achieving tremendous results. The results were kill ratios of 1,5:1. If I would have used Zeroes instead of Tojos the results would have been 1:2 because the Zero isn´t armored and less durable than the Tojo (makes a big difference in Nik 8.0).

Strange I thought, why are my fighters performing far better when they are escorting my bombers somewhere than on this sweep over Dacca. They should suffer more on escort I thought. I did the turn again and watched the combat replay more carefully. With the result that I saw the bounce of the British fighters for perhaps 70 times in this battle. I didn´t count it but it went on for more then 30 minutes, so...

There were also some US Warhawks available that had performed far better before and also did over Dacca (better pilots I think, better plane). So the less experienced British pilots on the bounce achieve results that are 3 or 4 times better than the results without the bounce! [X(][X(]. The Warhawks (there were just a few) were killers on the bounce as the bounce most times results in a "fire from behind" situation and with their high arm value their targets are toast when fired from behind. For me it doesn´t look like the bounce is reversed, not at all.

Now something about the reverse fight that happened. Prz sent in P38!!! (about 40) on escort of about 70 Mitchels, some Wellingtons and 50 B24. Oh shit I thought when the replay popped up. [X(] I had 60+ Tojos on Cap in the air. The fight starts: 23FG bounces a Tojo sentai (damn I thought, even if the US fighters are on escort OVER MY BASE they get the bounce) and came up behind my elite Tojos: boom, boom... two Tojos shot down from behind. This will go on I thought. THIS TIME I THOGHT WRONG. xc Tojo sentai climbs and BOUNCES 23 FG. [X(][X(][X(] Heck, what´s happening??? Tojo firing from behind at Lightning boom, boom, boom... three or four Lightnings shot down from behind with some otheres damaged. Next round, next Tojo sentai climbing and BOUNCES 23 FG... I had four sentais on CAP and all four got the bounce after the first was bounced by the the 23 FG. About 15-17 P38 and 3 Tojos were shot down (several others damaged) during the "bounce phase".

Then the fight went on! After all the fighters involved did one bounce the messages changed: yx Tojo sentai climbs, Tojo engages P38 boom, miss, boom, damaged, P38 engages Tojo, boom, damaged, boom, damaged,... In this phase the difference was obvious, not a single attack from behind. Kill rate nearly equal and together only a couple of planes lost.

After that my fighters went after the bombers and shot down 1 Wellington and a couple of Mitchels, damaging some B24.

So if people believe my words and I´m not day dreaming then you can see a huge difference between bounce and no bounce. And then you can see how important the bounce is and how strange it is when you watch the combat replay for hours seeing the bounce always on one side when you fight over a particular base (I don´t know what makes them bouncing always there, if it´s radar, well, I think radar should get more planes in the air into a better position if they are alerted early enough, but during an A2A combat where 200 planes are involved and the defender is severly outnumbered it´s strange for me that the bounce goes on and on and on.... until the fight is over.

If this bounce orgy is also happening over the carriers later on (perhaps people can have an eye on that) then it´s not surprising to me that there´s an Uber Cap as the bounce also plays in here. Of course this goes for early Jap death stars also if it happens there (but without a working air radar it perhaps isn´t the case here).

Radar has an effect on detection level. Detection level is a primary factor in determining the bounce.

I loaded the stock scenario 15, and Dacca is loaded with LCUs at the start of the game. If your opponent has not moved any of the 10 or so ENG units with radar than your Tojos are Sweeping a base hex with no less than 10 radars which, likely, cummulatively raise your sweeps Detection level to a point where the CAP knows where they are well before they arrive and are ALWAYS in a position to qualify for the bounce.

I would ask Prez to confirm whether he has a lot of radars at Dacca, if he is willing to. If he confirms it then it is likely the reason you have such a hard time at Dacca. You might try hitting a known base hex without radar and see if the results are similar.

I'm no expert, but my experiences have shown the above to be true...

Yes, might be right that radar is my "problem" here. And I can say that I don´t have a problem with the fact that radar gives the one who has one available an advantage (well, as Pauk said, after years of patching the Jap land based radar was never fixed[8|]; knowing that in RL it wasn´t as good as Allied ones, but....).

So the defending fighters should or should not be in a good position to intercept the incoming raid. But here we are again at the fact that 50 defending fighers are bouncing 150 attacking fighters during the WHOLE battle. This is wrong for me. During the battle where all those WWII fighters are engaging each other the radar of this time isn´t an advantage that should give - in this case - the Allied side the bounce all the time. Why should it? They couldn´t even tell which plane is from which side if all those planes are engaging in A2A even if spread out over some miles.

My oppinion: Yes, radar should (or may) give the defender a bonus FIRST! Altitude SHOULD definetely influence A2A (not performance - this goes perhaps too far). NO, the radar shouldn´t result in an all time bounce during the whole fight.

[Sneer]

castor
it is pointless
nothing was really done with less sophisticated issues
game patched but was never close to reworking anything really important apart from subs and i feel subs were done only due to WPO needs

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Grumble, grumble, grumble...[8D]

Ron, you need to devote more time to your charity work, like your selfless devotion in collecting for the Tomb of the Unknown Barkeep...

[Feinder]

But i'm not concerned about that - what makes me worried that we didn't have many answers of the real veterans... do they experienced such problems? how they are handling with such problems?

I don’t know if my Allied aircraft get the bounce more often than my Japanese opponents.  As some have mentioned, I rarely watch the air-to-air replays, and I have never actually tested the frequency of bounces, and whatever may be impacting it.

Be aware that, "Correlation is -not- causation." (* shrug *).

About all I can say is that, in all my current PBEM games as Allies, the Japanese have kill ratio against Allied aircraft, of about 2:1 (meaning that for every 1 Japanese aircraft lost, 2 Allied aircraft are destroyed). 

However, that number includes ops losses and everything else, so it’s fairly pointless for this debate (which would be strictly air-to-air kills, except when you consider the fact that planes damaged in air-to-air, but crash on landing, are often counted as ops losses, but there’s no way to separate those from similarly lost due to flak or weather).

Somebody mentioned the Detection Level thru radar being very high, probably affects air-to-air, just as it does ground losses and bombardments etc.  I think this is very likely having an effect on who gets the bounce (but again, all I can say is, “it makes a lot of sense, but I’ve never tested it”).

Do I think that –if- radar and detection level are part of the cause, should they have an effect?  I’d say yes, radar and DL should increase the chance of a bounce.  Should it be as dramatic as you are seeing, if that is the cause?  Probably not.

One of the problems with WitP is that is –very- detailed (duh).  When you consider that every fricken machine-gun is potentially included in a combat for an Operational Level wargame, you can get some screwy results. 

It’s like the symptom where if you have an issue that’s 1-degree off, it’s not that noticeable at 20m distant.  But take that 1-degree out to 100km, and you have a fairly dramatic error.  WitP has the same issues.  Whether it’s a CV duel of 2-on-2 (happy) or mega-CAP of many CVs (not happy).  Or 6x PTs or 25x PTs.  Or (probably) one or two radar sets vs. 10 radar sets when computing bounce.

It has problems normalizing the minutia between smaller and larger scales.  You just have to be very careful when “adjusting” the algorithms.  People use large scales because it can yield the greatest results (or because they are forced to “play up”, because their opponent is using large scales).  But if you “fix” large scales, it can bork the small scale engaments (either by making them more deadly than they should be, or nerfing them altogether).  If small scales become more deadly, then folks will gravitate towards the small scale engagments, but then folks will complain because they were broken to fix the large scale engagments.

Many of your points are valid.  But I’m glad I’m not sitting the chair trying to make everyone happy, it’s a lost cause.

-F-

[michaelm75au]

I thought that the bounce message was back the front myself.

The way fighter combat unfolds is:

The "climbing", "intercepting" etc messages are displayed first.
These messages don't affect the 'bounce' as curretly designed.

If the attacking (escort/sweep) fighters' Detection Level is more than twice the DL of the CAP (plus some checks against the disruption level), then the 'bounce' goes to the CAP. ie the escorts are more prone/visible to attack. The message " (CAP) bounces (escort) " is shown.

Else if the CAP's DL exceeds that of the DL of the attacking fighters (plus disruption check), then the 'bounce' goes to the attacker. ie the CAP is more prone/visible to attack. The message " (escort) bounces (CAP) " is shown.

LR and area CAP gain a degree of disruption which makes them getting the 'bounce' more difficult (higher disruption adverely affects the bounce check).

The side with the bounce gets to shoot at the other side first.

So in the case mentioned, if Dacca has a lot of radar. And this adds to the DL of the attacking planes, thus it is more likely that the escorts will get bounced.

[pauk]

thanks for the explanation Michael!

So, the more radars you have in the base is better?

Do radars from the ships helps too? (if they are in base hex)


thanks in advance

[pauk]

So, is there any way for japanese player (especially in the late war period) for "raising of enemy DL" and therefore geting bounce instead being bounced?

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: pauk

thanks for the explanation Michael!

So, the more radars you have in the base is better?

Do radars from the ships helps too? (if they are in base hex)


thanks in advance

Yes. Each LCU with radar in hex will add to the DL.
Yes. Ships will add to DL BUT only if formed in a TF.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I thought that the bounce message was back the front myself.

The way fighter combat unfolds is:

The "climbing", "intercepting" etc messages are displayed first.
These messages don't affect the 'bounce' as curretly designed.

If the attacking (escort/sweep) fighters' Detection Level is more than twice the DL of the CAP (plus some checks against the disruption level), then the 'bounce' goes to the CAP. ie the escorts are more prone/visible to attack. The message " (CAP) bounces (escort) " is shown.

Else if the CAP's DL exceeds that of the DL of the attacking fighters (plus disruption check), then the 'bounce' goes to the attacker. ie the CAP is more prone/visible to attack. The message " (escort) bounces (CAP) " is shown.

LR and area CAP gain a degree of disruption which makes them getting the 'bounce' more difficult (higher disruption adverely affects the bounce check).

The side with the bounce gets to shoot at the other side first.

So in the case mentioned, if Dacca has a lot of radar. And this adds to the DL of the attacking planes, thus it is more likely that the escorts will get bounced.

thanks for the explanation ! [&o] Now it´s even worse that the Japs radar isn´t fixed. Not working at all is perhaps still worse than in RL...

[Honda]

That makes a lot of sence. In my game a few days ago I had a strike from Lae over PM bounced completely. Nothing new there. But the secod strike of the same morning phase from Rabaul went the other way. Escorting Zeros bonced teh CAP almost every time. That seems to be the key. Overwhelming the CAP with multiple strikes.

[denisonh]

Now the question turns to DL and fighter CAP.

How do you increase the DL of the CAP for attacking fighters?

Like Honda said, multiple sweeps would be one way.
How does recon missions help?
Would multi daysweep missions benefit from increased DL of the CAP?

It does make sense the way michelm put it. nice to know for future reference.

[pauk]

... and that could be a reason why CAP is efficient against first enemy strike...

Once again, thanks for the explanation Michael!

Castor, yes it is pitty that radar is broken... but we must live with that, it seems...

[pauk]

Sending a recon with attacking fighers? - don't know just a thought.

Having a radar in the range of attacked enemy base?

(btw, what is the range (in hexes please) of the new allied radar types?

ORIGINAL: denisonh

Now the question turns to DL and fighter CAP.

How do you increase the DL of the CAP for attacking fighters?

Like Honda said, multiple sweeps would be one way.
How does recon missions help?
Would multi daysweep missions benefit from increased DL of the CAP?

It does make sense the way michelm put it. nice to know for future reference.

[DaveB]

Nice to see a possible reason ("reaonable" being a completely different word) for the bounce anomaly, thanks to all the sensible posters (including the thread opener) for unravelling another 'not quite right' aspect of the game, which remains my favourite of all time.
 
For what it's worth I totally agree with the initial poster's comments (I rfigure you probably appreciate the support <g>), if you send a sweep in at an altitude that is greater than attainable by the defending CAP, it should be impossible for the defenders to bounce the attacker.... the only way this could possibly work any other way is for the attacker to not actually reach the set altitude prior to the attack. Well done to those posting unagressively who have helped figure this out so far...

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: DaveB

Nice to see a possible reason ("reaonable" being a completely different word) for the bounce anomaly, thanks to all the sensible posters (including the thread opener) for unravelling another 'not quite right' aspect of the game, which remains my favourite of all time.

For what it's worth I totally agree with the initial poster's comments (I rfigure you probably appreciate the support <g>), if you send a sweep in at an altitude that is greater than attainable by the defending CAP, it should be impossible for the defenders to bounce the attacker.... the only way this could possibly work any other way is for the attacker to not actually reach the set altitude prior to the attack. Well done to those posting unagressively who have helped figure this out so far...

wow, you did dig out some old thread, but I´m thinking about the bounce all the time again when looking at the aircombats in my game against Swift and PzJg Hortlund and again (like always before) I see the Allied having the bounce during most of the combat somewhere between 90 and 100% IF there are a couple of base forces in the area with radar present. Radar is one of the best weapons the Allied have and the 1941 radar works as good like the ones now are in use...

[mdiehl]

Bouncing denotes achieving surprise, not just achieving a tactical advantage

Plenty of pilots during ww2 were ambushed from below.

[Dive Bomber1]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: castor troy
And to come back to your comment about the year, even in August 1945 they shouldn´t always get the bounce, there´s no reason why they should get it ALL the time.

I can sympathize with your frustrations, troy..., though I generally feel it's the Allies not getting the "bounce" in 1942 in my games (probably because I play them, I notice it more). But because others are not getting those results you report you need to go back to "square one" and see if you can tell what you might be doing differently. Not doubting your word..., but something must be "different" if you are the only one getting this result on a consistant basis.

Mike - I've seen the same thing as Castor in all of my pbems as the Japanese and right from the beginning of each pbem too. (They are all Dec 7, 1941 starts.)

It doesn't really matter when December 41 Zeros are being bounced by Buffalos because the Zeros usually get on the tail of the Buffalo and shoot it down anyway. But it makes a huge difference against the AVG and causes huge losses to the most experienced Zero pilots.

BTW - I've checked the Allied Base Forces at the start of the game and few have radar, and even at those bases without radar the Allied planes get the bounce most of the time. I wonder if there is a "bounce advantage" given to CAP over its own base? (I've got to remember to watch what happens during Allied air attacks on Japanese bases more closely.)

[DaveB]

Old thread...I didn't see the date, it actually came up in the list of recently updated threads when I checked in and I didn't see that it was hugely old - how very strange!

Yup, looks like radar is the key I guess.

Ambushed from below - quite possiby, but it wouldn't have been a 'bounce'. (edited to add:-)
...and if your aircraft are set to fly higher than the max alt of the intercepting aircraft, then the bullets still shouldn't reach!

[madgamer2]

ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

You're right, I didn't read every detail (actually the real point didn't sink in until now)
This entire thread is about the fact that even though Castor Troy is winning the Air War - when he attacks Przemcio231 at Dacca (where Prz has base forces with Radar) the Allies get the Air Combat 'Bounce' 99% of the time.

That's all this Hallabaloo is about - air action over one specific base with Radar.

Geeze whoa,,,,,I think I'll crash now that the big mess is solved......I think he should get another hobby

Lawrence

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

wow, you did dig out some old thread, but I´m thinking about the bounce all the time again when looking at the aircombats in my game against Swift and PzJg Hortlund and again (like always before) I see the Allied having the bounce during most of the combat somewhere between 90 and 100% IF there are a couple of base forces in the area with radar present. Radar is one of the best weapons the Allied have and the 1941 radar works as good like the ones now are in use...

This afternoon I started up a new stock Campaign (15) with the historical start toggled "on". And sure enough, in the attack on Pearl Harbor, most of the Japanese Zeros were "bounced" by allied CAP. I'm guessing that's just a tiny bit ahistorical? [8D]