Night bombing

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Itdepends

Why is it necessary for the Allies to show time dependent use of historical tactics or equipment when the set up of the game (and players strategy) ensures that Japan never follows the historical time line or path in tactics, strategy or technology?

Hi Itdepends,

You obviously haven't been following the majority of the discussion. We're not (or at least I'm not) looking for a 'time dependent use of historical tactics' per se. We're trying to identify reasonable inherently non-historical time frames for using novel game tactics whilest balancing game reality.

Please don't let this thread descend into a 'historical versus non-historical definition', a 'gamey' vs. 'non-gamey' discussion or other distraction.

I'm learning something here about what could have been (even though 'twasn't) with the junction of ideas / strategy / equipment and need. It's influenced my thoughts on when the game should-with its vast array of modeling issues-look towards something as useful / helpful. Shouldn't that be enough?

ETA: For those that support this idea-that capability should follow philosophy more closely: OK. How about removing the Kamikaze availability date forward too? Why should that be so hard-coded to January 1, 1944 and the 20-hex distance rule? There's no special equipment / scientific breakthrough at play here-it's just a matter of organized will to ram your plane into the enemy ship.

I'm sure some Japanese guy somewhere thought about organized kamikaze tactics before January 1, 1944. Therefore, shouldn't we backdate all 'reasoned' availability to this time?

Grossly imbalance the game? I agree. Not all philosophical 'what ifs' would result in good gameplay.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

The "Eagle system" or APS-7 was developed early in the war and deployed in Europe in 1943 as a BTO system (bomb through overcast). The B-29's sent to the Pacific had APS-13. The B-29B was designed as a night bomber and brought back the APS-7. The big problem with the APS-7 was not it's accurracy (which was considered the champion even in the 1950s) was that the damned thing had a massive "flying wing" type antenna that was a pain in the neck to maintain and had a narrower field of vision. The APS-13 was a GP RADAR. The APS-7 was more for specialty , precision jobs. Like in a lead pathfinder bombing aircraft. (With an expert crew and RNB operator).

My point is , it wasn't that they didn't have the capability , it's that they chose NOT to use it. And that's the whole crux of our argument. [:)]

I agree with Castor Troy about the timing nature of the capability argument. The articles clearly stated that the Eagle system wasn't ready for prime time before the end of the war in Europe and that it only really came into its own as a capable system the last few months of the war in the Pacific. This jibes with the XX and XXI air corps abandoning their nighttime 'tactical' bombing efforts in November 1944-February 1945. They abandoned it because the capability wasn't really there yet. That changed thereafter (June 1945), but the USAAF had, in the meantime, found an effective means of strategic firebombing that worked very well. This was the mainstay application of the bomber force thereafter.

I agree that if there were to be an Operation Olympic and invasion of the home islands, that the USAAF would have 'potato patched' all of the Japanese airfields it could have. This would have been during daylight raids-there was a great deal of support for daylight 'precision' raids for much of the war. Perhaps the nighttime tactical bombing permitted by the late adoption of Eagle-equipped wings could have occurred as well.

This is all post June 1945. USAAF capabilities at the late war juncture were significantly better than 1942-1943 and 1944.

I agree that that is WHAT happened. You are absolutely right. BUT here's the question. This historic game is always about possibilities. The what if's in real life. And I feel that one of the greatest variants of "what if" is in personalities. What if the British desert army's chosen commander hadn't died enroute to assume command , and they had to shove Montgomery in instead? Whay if a local commader had not played with "skip bombing" and more importantly , his boss hadn't supported it? Had he held to the "not consistant with Mitchell's teaching" philosophy? Or had Kenney not supported "Pappy" Gunn in his "gunship" experiments? All of these possibilities were within the capabilities of the times. But what if someone in higher command had set them on the shelf and not brought them out in 1943? But waited till, oh say spring 1945?

Guy's , all I'm saying is for the of Thread keep an open mind! Imagine if Lemay had been sent to the Marianas earlier.....or better yet , George Kenny. Someone NOT wedded to the "Mitchell" philosphy (and later led to his being a less than successful founding father of Strategic Air Command......Lemay relieaved him and created the legend that became became SAC).


And how many months do you think it would take of INTENSIVE training and delopement to make this work? It only took about 2 years for the Manhatten project. You already have the APS-7. Do you honestly think it would take 2 years to tweak the system to do what you want? I feel it could be done in 2 months just using local resources (as was done with Pappy Gunn's gunships).

All you needed was a man in charge who wanted it.

As it is a what if question, I think it would belong into a mod then. If someone does a mod and thinks the Japanese should be equipped with Me-262 because she flew the first time in 42 and what if someone in Germany thought it would be great to hand over the technology to Japan? IMO the game should focus on what was the capability in real life in the given time frame. And again IMO the employed heavy bombers forces of the RAF/USAAF of 42 until mid 45 weren't able to take out pin point targets at night, they often weren't even able to do so during the day.

What you are talking about is a system that was available but not used, just like the Me-262 flew in 42 already but wasn't employed until late in the war. That's something for a mod I think. When you want to have it close to the conditions of 41-45 then you will have to live with the fact that heavy bombers took out vast areas of ground to take out their targets but weren't really great in hitting small targets with a small number of bombers the way they were employed.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I feel that an expedited bombing RADAR COULD have been modified in two months, and deployed after a month or so of training and experimentation. But they could also have just "held their nose and gone" with somewhat lesser results in a week.

If it was so damn easy and available and could have reduced the need of hundreds of heavy bombers to a handful, again, why the hell didn't they use it? Because someone thought he doesn't like it? [&:]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: JeffK

From Steve's link

The first attack, against Tokyo, burned out 15.8 square miles of the city, killed 83,793 people, and injured 40,918, being perhaps the most scathing air attack of the whole war. In rapid succession Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and again Nagoya were hit in a ten-day fire blitz that destroyed over thirty-one square miles while the command was perfecting its new tactics.The invasion of Okinawa on 1 April and the enemy's wholesale use thereafter of kamikaze attacks against the assaulting fleet interrupted the strategic bombardment campaign; for over a month the B-29's were sent against airfields in Kyushu, the source of most of the kamikaze attacks, in the only serious diversion to tactical operations suffered by XXI Bomber Command. That assignment completed, the Superforts returned to their primary task with a flexible program, the so-called "Empire Plan," in which the choice between daylight attacks on precision targets and radar or night bombing of urban areas was determined by the weather.

........


The B-29's participated in two types of operations that demanded specialized training and tactics. One was a campaign against oil refineries by the 315th Wing, equipped with an improved radar (AN/APQ-7) mounted in stripped-down B-29's. Bombing wholly at night, the wing achieved a remarkable degree of accuracy, destroying or heavily damaging Japan's ten largest petroleum or synthetic oil plants and much of the nation's storage capacity.

Jeff-interesting...the second part of your quote (included here) wasn't in your last post. But yes, looks like airfield bombing-at night, by radar-was done on Kyushu post April 1945. So we're moving the line further back based upon IRL. Fine with that. There's a difference between April (or March or February) 1945 and early 1942 in terms of implementation of night 'tactical' bombing. The former is within the bounds of reason. The latter will result in a flawed implementation based upon the game's limitations.

yes, that's great. Now we are in April 45 but the game goes from 12/41 to end 45 and you can do night bombing all the way through. All the way through you get the 100% exact same results. So if we are now debating one or two months plus or minus, what does that mean to night bombing in the game? What does it mean to night bombing through the whole war (except the last couple of months) of real life? Nothing IMO! Heavy bomber forces weren't able to hit pin point targets for four years and the fact that they may have been the last couple of months makes the first four years (if you include the fighting before Japan and the US entered the war) non existant?

[frank1970]

The Germans used the X-Verfahren and Knickebein in 1939 and achieved quite good (for nightbombing!) results over England.
It was possible to achieve hits in a circle of about 1500m around the target.
Of course this Verfahren were some kind of GPS and had only a little range of about 250km.
Now, if the Luftwaffe considered a hit in a circle with a diameter of 2 miles a success, I do not think, the Allies were much better in 1941.

Some interessting read, from the German perspective:
http://www.heinrich-schwenker.italodito ... f10065.pdf

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Frank
Some interessting read, from the German perspective:
http://www.heinrich-schwenker.italodito ... f10065.pdf

Hilfe! Ich kann kein Deutsch! [:D]

[frank1970]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Frank
Some interessting read, from the German perspective:
http://www.heinrich-schwenker.italodito ... f10065.pdf

Hilfe! Ich kann kein Deutsch! [:D]

Very sorry, but I didn´t find an english translation.
Additionally I have no time to translate those peksy 600pages for you.[;)]
The English titel is "the luftwaffe war diaries". You might get it here:
http://ebookee.org/The-Luftwaffe-War-Di ... 69009.html

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I feel that an expedited bombing RADAR COULD have been modified in two months, and deployed after a month or so of training and experimentation. But they could also have just "held their nose and gone" with somewhat lesser results in a week.

If it was so damn easy and available and could have reduced the need of hundreds of heavy bombers to a handful, again, why the hell didn't they use it? Because someone thought he doesn't like it? [&:]

I have explained at least six times within this thread the political and doctrinal reasons why they didn't use it. Go ahead and ignore what I posted , or say you don't belive or disagree. That's fine. But please do me a huge favor and phrase it as "I don't belive you , or I disagree with you". That I can accept. But please stop doing the "why,why, why?" (it brings to mind "are we there yet?" Much too Bart Simpson like [:D])

Or accept a simple yes. Someone thought he didn't like it. I'd done here. [:(]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I feel that an expedited bombing RADAR COULD have been modified in two months, and deployed after a month or so of training and experimentation. But they could also have just "held their nose and gone" with somewhat lesser results in a week.

If it was so damn easy and available and could have reduced the need of hundreds of heavy bombers to a handful, again, why the hell didn't they use it? Because someone thought he doesn't like it? [&:]

I have explained at least six times within this thread the political and doctrinal reasons why they didn't use it. Go ahead and ignore what I posted , or say you don't belive or disagree. That's fine. But please do me a huge favor and phrase it as "I don't belive you , or I disagree with you". That I can accept. But please stop doing the "why,why, why?" (it brings to mind "are we there yet?" Much too Bart Simpson like [:D])

Or accept a simple yes. Someone thought he didn't like it. I'd done here. [:(]

Sorry, but I really can't believe it wasn't used all the years because one just didn't like to use it, especially when I think of the thousands of lifes it could have safed, or for a government probably more interesting how much money, if you only would have to use a couple of bombers to hit a target with LGB accuracy instead of plastering whole areas. From everything I have read they were so desperate to increase accuracy of bomber formations it would be crazy if someone said that there is something to increase accuracy by 50 times (use whatever exxegaration you like) but I don't like it so we won't use it. I am not disputing your knowledge on the issue nor am I disputing that the system worked as soon as it was operationally used, but fact is that heavy bomber formations for years didn't have it and therefore weren't able to hit pin point targets in the described manner. This was normal for years, from outbreak of the war until very late and as long as I can't find evidence that the system wasn't used because of some General or whoever saying he didn't like to use it I very much doubt that this was the reason. Sorry if this isn't to your liking and I can assure you I'm not saying this to annoy you, I am only going with what I have read in the past and what I could find since the discussion in this thread started.

So to go back to start of this thread, yes, night bombing of tactical targets in the game with heavy bomber formations is giving you usually results not possible in real life, hence I am saying one should use it for strategic attacks on MANPOWER as this is what heavy bomber formations were able to do in real life for years and everything else is at best a what if scenario. Even if we go with the "I don't like it" theory, then fact is that bomber formations didn't have it until very late in the war (when it didn't matter anymore anyway) and if night bombing in the game (vanilla) gives you results as if the system would be available for all heavy bombers then it is time to say that this is not accurately modelling heavy bomber abilities of the given timeframe until April/May/June 45.

[Itdepends]

Chickenboy I'm not saying it is or isn't gamey- that's up to individual opponents to decide between themselves- all I was highlighting is the need for balance in discussions. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to it playing Allies and it's a mistaken perception- but I believe I see a lot more threads asking for changes to Allied OOB/Performance than Japanese.

Night bombing is too accurate?- fair enough. But the Japanese ability to over run China, the amphibious bonus given at the start of the war, the capability of Super E's, the inability of Allied production numbers or type to respond to Japanese performance, the fixed lines of death for reinforcements and the accuracy of twin engine torpedo bombers deserve their own rant- and a rant is what kicked off this thread. I'll grant you that it (the thread) has developed into a civilised discussion- and I wish the participants well in their continued exploration of the topic.

Regards,

Daniel

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Itdepends

Chickenboy I'm not saying it is or isn't gamey- that's up to individual opponents to decide between themselves- all I was highlighting is the need for balance in discussions. Perhaps I'm more sensitive to it playing Allies and it's a mistaken perception- but I believe I see a lot more threads asking for changes to Allied OOB/Performance than Japanese.

Night bombing is too accurate?- fair enough. But the Japanese ability to over run China, the amphibious bonus given at the start of the war, the capability of Super E's, the inability of Allied production numbers or type to respond to Japanese performance, the fixed lines of death for reinforcements and the accuracy of twin engine torpedo bombers deserve their own rant- and a rant is what kicked off this thread. I'll grant you that it (the thread) has developed into a civilised discussion- and I wish the participants well in their continued exploration of the topic.

Regards,

Daniel

it's not side dependent, it's the same for both sides