Is 4e night bombing gamey?

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castor troy
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by castor troy »

ORIGINAL: VSWG
ORIGINAL: castor troy

Sorry VSWG but this result is just not realistic. This is a result from the war between the republic of mars and venus...
It is extreme, but not unthinkable.


unless the US bombers didn´t encounter a hurricane on their way home it is 100% unthinkable. Please look at the numbers again. 90 B-24 shot down. This is as if Austria would beat the US in American football. This won´t happen. Correct myself: this would either happen than 90 B-24 being shot down by those Japanese fighters. This is 100% (again) UNTHINKABLE AND BS...
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by TommyG »


My chief complaint is the lack of damage the bombers do. No matter how experienced his 100 fighters are, they should not come off so lightly against 120 B-24s. The issue, within the framework of the game, is that the japs get to keep their experienced pilots and there is nothing the allies can do until late in 43 to even gain experience. I can live with my losses so long as I inflict a reasonable amount on the enemy. I think it is either a defect in endurance of IJ fighters (too high) or more likely an algebraic combination of experience, leadership, and, most importantly, numbers, that the allies can not match and that creates skewed results. CHS makes it worse because of the increased endurance.
When night bombing creates an non historical result, an HR is required. When A2A reults are even more out of wack, it is a game feature that I should learn to live with. I don't think so.
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VSWG
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by VSWG »

ORIGINAL: castor troy

unless the US bombers didn´t encounter a hurricane on their way home it is 100% unthinkable. Please look at the numbers again. 90 B-24 shot down. This is as if Austria would beat the US in American football. This won´t happen. Correct myself: this would either happen than 90 B-24 being shot down by those Japanese fighters. This is 100% (again) UNTHINKABLE AND BS...
I stand by what I said.

Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd add some rationale to your posts, instead of just posting "BS" and UNTHINKABLE". No offence, but you're not arguing, you're trying to"kill by hyperbole".

Let's just agree to disagree. AE will solve this problem anyway.
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by HansBolter »

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
So 250 fighters on LRCAP were waiting for him.

That is particularly unrealistic. I wondered where the fighters came from. That there would be more than a squadron at Milne Bay seemed to reflect a simulation's optimism about Japanese engineering that isn't supported by anything in the real war. That large numbers of a.c. were in effect coordinated as "l.r. cap" (a peculiar WitP mission that seems vastly more effective than anything of that nature ever attempted during the war) is even more unrealistic. Where'd they come from? Does Japan have a whole suite of High Wycombe class airbases in New Guinea or is this CAP being miraculously maintained 600 miles from New Ireland?

The logistical and command-and-control wonders of the world that the Axis player can accomplish in WitP (in stark contrast to anything that the Japanese ever did achieve or ever could have achieved in the time frame of WW2) is at the root of much of this sort of thing.


I couldn't agree more. I have put forth the same argument regarding the absurdity of LRCAP in Uncommon Valor. It is a common tactic in UV for the Japanese player to make unopposed surface bombardment runs on Port Morseby with the bombardment TF starting from a position a few hexes south of Gili Gili completely impervious to the bombers based at PM because the tactical AIs assessment of the escort/cap ratio prevents the bombers from ever flying. The failure to sorty results from the TF being conveniently out of escort range but absurdly within the LRCAP range of the Zeros based at Rabaul.

I have repeatedly argued that LRCAP should have a hard range limit for all sides and NOT be based on the the normal range of any given fighter type.

Projecting effective LRCAP over a distance of 400+ miles over a moving target is simply beyond ludicrous.

It's the single biggest thing that needs to be fixed in AE.
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castor troy
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by castor troy »

ORIGINAL: VSWG
ORIGINAL: castor troy

unless the US bombers didn´t encounter a hurricane on their way home it is 100% unthinkable. Please look at the numbers again. 90 B-24 shot down. This is as if Austria would beat the US in American football. This won´t happen. Correct myself: this would either happen than 90 B-24 being shot down by those Japanese fighters. This is 100% (again) UNTHINKABLE AND BS...
I stand by what I said.

Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd add some rationale to your posts, instead of just posting "BS" and UNTHINKABLE". No offence, but you're not arguing, you're trying to"kill by hyperbole".

Let's just agree to disagree. AE will solve this problem anyway.


We certainly disagree. There´s no need to add some rationale to my post because it would be the same to say that this is realistic as if I would say Germany had a chance to defeat the Allies. There´s nothing to argue about with this result. I wonder if you really think that this is right. If so, then what have you done the last two years?

I guess you know what it takes to shoot down a B-24, no?

And why does AE change it when it´s so perfectly modelled. Sorry, those results are BS. I can´t find another word.
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by TommyG »

Does AE fix this? If so, how?
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by FeurerKrieg »

I think that:

1) There will generally be a lot less planes in the air as they require greater maintenance and support (the logistical problem)

2) The air combat model itself should be less bloody as plane to plane encounters should happen less than they do in stock.

But read up on the air thread in the AE subforum for more details.
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by VSWG »

ORIGINAL: TommyG

Does AE fix this? If so, how?
By making it much harder to keep so many 4Es flying from a single base - especially 2 turns in a row (if I understood jwxspoon's post correctly).

Unmitigated slaughter of unescorted bomber raids by a prepared and experienced enemy will - and should - be still be possible.
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by jwilkerson »

TommyG, are these results from our game of 3 years ago - or a newer one?

Either way, if you want some tips on what to do in the game - and can tell you what Moses did in our game (I've still only been playing Japanese - so Moses was the Allies).

He avoided long range unescorted attacks against big fighter bases.

But that being said - I avoided big fighter bases - I found that spreading my fighters out got better results (less of mine shot down - more of his shot down) - and I'm talking mid 1943 when there are plenty of Corsairs and P38s and even P47s running around.

Put lots of air near the enemy airbases - fight them as close up as you can. Like Moses hit me EVERY DAY in Burma from his bases in India. I'd train up one of my fighter groups - it might last at the front for 1 turn - or maybe a little longer with luck.

Don't fly large unescorted strikes and the enemy airbases - we both saw what happened three years ago - no need to validate that it still works that way - it does!

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mdiehl
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by mdiehl »

mdiehl I believe that everything is unrealistic to you within this game unless it involves the Allies steamrolling the Axis at virtually every turn.


You believe incorrectly. I completely support all manner of Axis game successes provided that the underlying framework for these successes are within the bounds of plausibility. Coordinating LR CAP from airbases over a distant target is not within the plausible bounds of WW2 Japanese capability.
There are four different fighter bases involved here.


That's three too many, by real world examples.
Pardon me for not consulting a realism coach in deciding where or how to base my fighters.


I'm not knocking your strategy. I'm knocking the design that permits it.
As Tom himself said regarding his deployment of hundreds of 4E bombers to Cooktown, I am 'God' in my game and can deploy my fighters as I wish.


Quite so. I wonder why the consim thinks the Allied player is going to have hundreds of 4Es at Cooktown when they'd only be concentrated to that extent for important strategic targets, most of which were presumed to be in Europe (although I could see an argument for the Allied player attempting to build up good enough logistics such that by mid-1943 he might hammer Tarakan, Balikpapan, or some of the other Indonesia-SRA barrier resources --- in effect the low hanging fruit from Australia.

But in your game, given that you have concentrations of laughably unrealistic masses of laughably overrated Japanese fighters, I don't have a problem with your opponent massing 4EBs for night bombing raids. I think he was a bit of a sucker to agree to your demand that he only use them in daylight ops mode, precisely because I know that the Japanese has the unrealistic capability of making a wholesale hash of daylight 4EBs.
There is plenty of unrealism here in this game. It is unrealistic that Tom has parked every allied CV until he has hellcats and avengers on all of them. But that is his preroggative.


Agreed. But parking every Allied CV until the Hellcats arrive is a realistic solution to an unrealistic problem regarding exaggerated IJN fighter capabilities. "Sir Robin" is a choice that the real world USN did not embrace because the real world USN expected (and achieved) far better results than the virtual USN represented in the game -- wherein the Allies 1942 choice it to play "Sir Robin" or else play the "Invincible" Black Knight as his limbs are predictably shorn away.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.

Didn't we have this conversation already?
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by jwilkerson »

For those so inclined here - from the deep dark past - is a thread about this same topic - as many of these do - this one went on far too long - and got locked - not my me - I was fortunate in those days not to have to wear my "badge" - but it shows where we were as a group on this topic way back way - so is interesting to me as a "history" lesson on this issue.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=871580
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by TommyG »

Quote "TommyG, are these results from our game of 3 years ago - or a newer one? "

Hi Joe; New game similar issue. Funny though, it was our game that started the last thread! The reason I got so mad this time was that the problem was suposed to have been fixed; first by a patch, then by the endurance changes in CHS. Now, three years later it is almost exactly the same problem. Milne this time, in our game it was PM. Maybe I should just stop bombing New Guinea.
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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by jwilkerson »

Ah, you're playing CHS - well - another option to consider is NikMod - bombers rule in NM!!!

BTW I don't recall any fix to this in a patch (and I've been directly involved in all the patches - so I ought to know) but one of our highest priorities for AE was to address the general problem of "Uber Air Battles" ... and I will say ... so far ... I see improvement ... does this mean that all the "loop holes" are closed ... not sure yet ... but we have found some problems and been able to fix them fairly easily, so it feels like the new model has some "strength" to it. Time will tell.

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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by Gem35 »

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

For those so inclined here - from the deep dark past - is a thread about this same topic - as many of these do - this one went on far too long - and got locked - not my me - I was fortunate in those days not to have to wear my "badge" - but it shows where we were as a group on this topic way back way - so is interesting to me as a "history" lesson on this issue.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=871580
Thanks alot!
I almost forgot how ugly it was to come here back then.[;)]
It doesn't make any sense, Admiral. Were we better than the Japanese or just luckier?

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RE: Is 4e night bombing gamey?

Post by castor troy »

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Ah, you're playing CHS - well - another option to consider is NikMod - bombers rule in NM!!!

BTW I don't recall any fix to this in a patch (and I've been directly involved in all the patches - so I ought to know) but one of our highest priorities for AE was to address the general problem of "Uber Air Battles" ... and I will say ... so far ... I see improvement ... does this mean that all the "loop holes" are closed ... not sure yet ... but we have found some problems and been able to fix them fairly easily, so it feels like the new model has some "strength" to it. Time will tell.



yup, in Nikmod I guess there would have been some 5-10 bombers being shot down over the base with another 2-5 being lost to ops. Means some 15 bombers lost, perhaps 20 when you have a very bad day, but all of them aren´t combat ready for the next 14 days anymore.
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