Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: oldman45

There are a couple of things in this thread that cause me pause;

1) Why are these twin engine bombers surviving the flak to get into range to drop their torps, carrier TF's can put up a wall of fire that these planes would have to fly through?


2) Why aren't the enemy AF's pounded into the dirt before the invasions are showing up?

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
AA was apparently very heavily nerfed. That is also apparently why the DaBabes mod focused on bring it back to a semblence of realism. I don't have any experience with DaBabes, but others here can surely fill in the blanks.

ORIGINAL: Dobey

ORIGINAL: hkbhsi

The strange thing about your test is that you achieved the best result with less fighters. In the first test with 200 planes you destroyed a bunch of attackers, the more you added the less you killed.

To be honest I really DO hope that's the case. I would like to see the RL "law of diminishing returns" reflected in game results and hopefully somewhat discouraging the ever popular "Death Star" tactics where players strive to concerntrate their entrie force into a single hex \ base.

ORIGINAL: ADB123

However, that being said, i think the HR proposed doesn't solve anything.
50x every AF level means that Tokyo can have 500 planes, and 450 more can be based in every hex sorrounding Tokyo...which mean that strikes of 450 bombers escorted by 400+ fighters can be easily launched even maintaining a strong CAP over japanese cities...and this means, as we know, that the allies can't have a fleet (and, so to say, an operative port) anywhere in range of japanese escort fighters...
Every single BB TF, every single CVTF, every single amphib TF will get mauled and destroy for the loss of......300 escort fighters piloted by rookies...a trade i'll made every day.
The suggested HR applies to the 4Es problem...which, in out particular game, has never been a real problem imho.
Rader has always managed to bleed every to death every strategic offensive of mine launched with the 4Es...
I started my strat bombing campaign with nearly 750 4Es...after two months i had destroyed 600 japanese a/c factories and my 4E numbers were down to 170...i had to stop...lost so many crack bomber pilots and so many a/c that i could not replace the losses...most of my B29 groups were with only 1 a/c.... by the time i reached back the critical number of 500 4Es in my pools most of those destroyed a/c industries were already repaired and were producing every day 4E killers (Ki.83, Shindens etc...).

The morale of this brief story is that The allies (at least untill the war in europe is over) cannot really use the "overwhelm the CAP" strategy, simply because they cannot sustain the losses that this strategy brings with it...while Japan in late war scenarios can easily replace a couple of those massive strike every week without suffering...and, as we know, a single one of those raid can bring the allied fleet back to PH days...

GJ - You are calling it right. No amount of HRs will solve the fundamental problem with Air Combat. The "some bombers will get through no matter what" design change for AE was a bad decision from the beginning and no HR is going to fix it.

All this baloney about 4Es is just ignoring the real problem.

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Dobey

ORIGINAL: hkbhsi

The strange thing about your test is that you achieved the best result with less fighters. In the first test with 200 planes you destroyed a bunch of attackers, the more you added the less you killed.

To be honest I really DO hope that's the case. I would like to see the RL "law of diminishing returns" reflected in game results and hopefully somewhat discouraging the ever popular "Death Star" tactics where players strive to concerntrate their entrie force into a single hex \ base.

funny you should say that as it is in the game. I had Michael code that in as part of AE version 1.0. When given a target bomber group and escorts amounting to, in this case 250 A/c, attacked by a ludicrously large CAP with only 37 minutes in which to degrade them before they get to the target, there IS a physical limit to the number of attacks that can occur.

The rational is physics, time, and a consideration that it doesn't require 800 Fighters on CAP to sufficiently degrade a Raid.

The crux of this is, if you are an operational commander with 800 Fighters to protect your entire AOR you aren't going to put them all in a single piece of sky to attack one raid.

It isn't sane. It isn't reasonable. It isn't historical. It is a poor allocation of forces.

Therefore, this test, in my opinion has little value.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: Dobey




To be honest I really DO hope that's the case. I would like to see the RL "law of diminishing returns" reflected in game results and hopefully somewhat discouraging the ever popular "Death Star" tactics where players strive to concerntrate their entrie force into a single hex \ base.

funny you should say that as it is in the game. I had Michael code that in as part of AE version 1.0. When given a target bomber group and escorts amounting to, in this case 250 A/c, attacked by a ludicrously large CAP with only 37 minutes in which to degrade them before they get to the target, there IS a physical limit to the number of attacks that can occur.

The rational is physics, time, and a consideration that it doesn't require 800 Fighters on CAP to sufficiently degrade a Raid.

The crux of this is, if you are an operational commander with 800 Fighters to protect your entire AOR you aren't going to put them all in a single piece of sky to attack one raid.

It isn't sane. It isn't reasonable. It isn't historical. It is a poor allocation of forces.

Therefore, this test, in my opinion has little value.

where do you see the limit of aircraft (fighters for the defender, fighters and bombers for the attacker) to stay in the range of being sane and reasonable FOR THE GAME. The historical numbers are known anyway. I think this would be the first step to look for a house rule as it is obvious that no PBEM reaching 44, let alone 45 will ever be in the sane or reasonable range when it comes down to numbers of aircraft involved the game needs to create the sane and reasonable results ppl are looking for. Fights in 42 work well anyway, but there you usually don't exceed 100 aircraft.

200-300 max? More?

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

Glad to see you're back safe from deployment, TheElf.

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

Glad to see you're back safe from deployment, TheElf.

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

Glad to see you're back safe from deployment, TheElf.

lol, notback per se, I am still in Bahrain but set up in my villa and with my computer and internet etc. I've been around, just very limited.

The point is to wear him down with force of attrition and by spreading your forces around so that you can hit him where he isn't (Sun Tzu). I would suggest to all that feel the Air system is broken, that they do some research on these forums, and in books and try to employ their Air Forces in such a way that these sorts of "all in" egagements are less the focus and acheiving Air superiority occurs across the entire map and not in one hex.

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

All the same.

Bahrain? Thank the Lord for air con, eh?

ORIGINAL: TheElf
You need to manage your OWN expectations. You can do this by learning how to fight a war and not expecting to in this case to break the back of your opponent in one raid. That isn't the point. The point is to wear him down with force of attrition and by spreading your forces around so that you can hit him where he isn't (Sun Tzu). I would suggest to all that feel the Air system is broken, that they do some research on these forums, and in books and try to employ their Air Forces in such a way that these sorts of "all in" egagements are less the focus and acheiving Air superiority occurs across the entire map and not in one hex.

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: TheElf



funny you should say that as it is in the game. I had Michael code that in as part of AE version 1.0. When given a target bomber group and escorts amounting to, in this case 250 A/c, attacked by a ludicrously large CAP with only 37 minutes in which to degrade them before they get to the target, there IS a physical limit to the number of attacks that can occur.

The rational is physics, time, and a consideration that it doesn't require 800 Fighters on CAP to sufficiently degrade a Raid.

The crux of this is, if you are an operational commander with 800 Fighters to protect your entire AOR you aren't going to put them all in a single piece of sky to attack one raid.

It isn't sane. It isn't reasonable. It isn't historical. It is a poor allocation of forces.

Therefore, this test, in my opinion has little value.

where do you see the limit of aircraft (fighters for the defender, fighters and bombers for the attacker) to stay in the range of being sane and reasonable FOR THE GAME. The historical numbers are known anyway. I think this would be the first step to look for a house rule as it is obvious that no PBEM reaching 44, let alone 45 will ever be in the sane or reasonable range when it comes down to numbers of aircraft involved the game needs to create the sane and reasonable results ppl are looking for. Fights in 42 work well anyway, but there you usually don't exceed 100 aircraft.

200-300 max? More?

Hi Castor,
What I mean by sane, is that the First series of tests had a CAP of anywhere from 200 to 800 Fighters. And the OP was apparently lamenting the ability of the raid to get through. It seemed to me the objective was to find a CAP size that determined how many Fighters it would take to completely defeat the raid. This idea is a bit silly in the first place, as reality rarely worked that way. I don't ascribe an upper limit to these numbers, I just know silly when I see it. First of all expecting all 200 fighters to fly is not realistic to begin with. This speaks to something I mention below about the myriad of factors affecting a given combat engagement.

This is fine except that as everyone knows the ability of the original engine to deal with large numbers of aircraft in a rational way has ALWAYS been limited.

What was lost on me was the point of the experiment in the first place as it seemed to be focused on why the balance of the CAP did not launch into the fight, but them morphed several times into several other issues that weren't part of the OPs point in the first place.

MY point is that if you start with garbage in, you get garbage out. When will the community learn that if you TRY to break the system...you WILL break the system.

You need to manage your OWN expectations. You can do this by learning how to fight a war and not expecting to in this case to break the back of your opponent in one raid. That isn't the point. The point is to wear him down with force of attrition and by spreading your forces around so that you can hit him where he isn't (Sun Tzu). I would suggest to all that feel the Air system is broken, that they do some research on these forums, and in books and try to employ their Air Forces in such a way that these sorts of "all in" egagements are less the focus and acheiving Air superiority occurs across the entire map and not in one hex.

Now I am not saying there aren't issues, and there have been developers discussions on this issue, but this game has morphed. It is no longer the original AE. We have mods, and mulptiple Exe.s that people are running so it is VERY difficult to know where an issue stems.

Additionally tests like these purport to have answers to questions, but these answers are at the behest of results gained using factors that aren't even discussed. In this case the OP never mentions:

1. the Skill of any of the pilots or leaders.
2. Doesn't acknowledge that the original CR took place in thunderstorms.
3. Doesn't mention the Size of the AFs
4. Doesn't discuss the Morale of the IJ units vs. what would be historical
5. Doens't state whether he watched the replay
6. Doesn't state whether subsequent tests are following day results or a reset of the first day.

Tests in a sterile vacuum are very suspicious. There are a myriad of factors that would normally be in play that can be left out and can taint results. You have to be careful. Additionally it is very difficult to conclude anything from the way the OP presents his "data" as it is extremely unscientific as I read it. Therefore it means little to me.

ORIGINAL: denisonh

+1

Good to have you back up on the net Ian.

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: castor troy






where do you see the limit of aircraft (fighters for the defender, fighters and bombers for the attacker) to stay in the range of being sane and reasonable FOR THE GAME. The historical numbers are known anyway. I think this would be the first step to look for a house rule as it is obvious that no PBEM reaching 44, let alone 45 will ever be in the sane or reasonable range when it comes down to numbers of aircraft involved the game needs to create the sane and reasonable results ppl are looking for. Fights in 42 work well anyway, but there you usually don't exceed 100 aircraft.

200-300 max? More?

Hi Castor,
What I mean by sane, is that the First series of tests had a CAP of anywhere from 200 to 800 Fighters. And the OP was apparently lamenting the ability of the raid to get through. It seemed to me the objective was to find a CAP size that determined how many Fighters it would take to completely defeat the raid. This idea is a bit silly in the first place, as reality rarely worked that way. I don't ascribe an upper limit to these numbers, I just know silly when I see it. First of all expecting all 200 fighters to fly is not realistic to begin with. This speaks to something I mention below about the myriad of factors affecting a given combat engagement.

This is fine except that as everyone knows the ability of the original engine to deal with large numbers of aircraft in a rational way has ALWAYS been limited.

What was lost on me was the point of the experiment in the first place as it seemed to be focused on why the balance of the CAP did not launch into the fight, but them morphed several times into several other issues that weren't part of the OPs point in the first place.

MY point is that if you start with garbage in, you get garbage out. When will the community learn that if you TRY to break the system...you WILL break the system.

You need to manage your OWN expectations. You can do this by learning how to fight a war and not expecting to in this case to break the back of your opponent in one raid. That isn't the point. The point is to wear him down with force of attrition and by spreading your forces around so that you can hit him where he isn't (Sun Tzu). I would suggest to all that feel the Air system is broken, that they do some research on these forums, and in books and try to employ their Air Forces in such a way that these sorts of "all in" egagements are less the focus and acheiving Air superiority occurs across the entire map and not in one hex.

Now I am not saying there aren't issues, and there have been developers discussions on this issue, but this game has morphed. It is no longer the original AE. We have mods, and mulptiple Exe.s that people are running so it is VERY difficult to know where an issue stems.

Additionally tests like these purport to have answers to questions, but these answers are at the behest of results gained using factors that aren't even discussed. In this case the OP never mentions:

1. the Skill of any of the pilots or leaders.
2. Doesn't acknowledge that the original CR took place in thunderstorms.
3. Doesn't mention the Size of the AFs
4. Doesn't discuss the Morale of the IJ units vs. what would be historical
5. Doens't state whether he watched the replay
6. Doesn't state whether subsequent tests are following day results or a reset of the first day.

Tests in a sterile vacuum are very suspicious. There are a myriad of factors that would normally be in play that can be left out and can taint results. You have to be careful. Additionally it is very difficult to conclude anything from the way the OP presents his "data" as it is extremely unscientific as I read it. Therefore it means little to me.