They are in the 60s. But morale is low now because they´ve been slaughtered for a while now. They´re attacking between 6.000 and 19.000 feet and my CAP is always on 15.000 feet. My daitais are high experienced but I think not only the experience should count here when attacking these monsters with FLOAT PLANES, repeat FLOAT PLANES. Why are we talking about leaders, experience or moral? Look at the results folks!! If float planes were so effective against B17, hey, why didn´t the German put their 500 best pilots of the Luftwaffe into some float planes and took down 200 of a 500 B17 raid over Germany! [:-][:-] We´re talking about Rufes and the German had enough problems with Fw190 and Me109 to kill the bombers off.
CASTOR. You are absolutely right, the results ARE rediculous. The B-17's are fully trained and have some experiance if they are in the 60's, and it's not like these pilots need to refine their air-to-air tactics and skills. 60's should be ample for holding pretty tight formations, which exposes any aircraft attacking to massed defensive fire. More than enough to deal with most Japanese fighters with their light armament and construction no matter how "experianced" they are. This is NOT a dogfight! It's a flying porcupine, with the Japanese trying to get close enough to bite without getting a facefull of quils.
The system wasn't that good to start with, and with the additional hamstringing of Allied capabilities that the Japanese Fanboys have lobbied into the game, it's gotten worse.
The "kill ratio" you are reporting is way beyond ahistorical. It's idiotic.
I think about 30 - 40 attacks now. No matter how much I kill off, every turn there are coming more. Always about 25 -30. My fighters are high experienced with about 75-80 average exeperience each daitai. B17 with about 60 exp. Moral of my daitais is high, not so with the B17. I can´t really see great differences no matter at what altitude they come in (6000-19000), so my fighters stay at 15000. AF is size 5, 2 sound detectors. About 25-30 B17 each attack and 20-25 Tonies and 10-12 Rufes now.
These attacks running non-stop? Morale is probably in the toilet which is going to affect results.
Nearly non-stop. I think 6 or 7 attacks in 10 days. But the low morale is the big advantage of the B17 because that´s why only 8 or 9 are killed and than the rest is heading home. At the beginning of the attacks even more were killed because they didn´t break off the attack. So it´s just good for them that their morale is low. I couldn´t see a difference in their performance. They didn´t shoot more RUFES down but more of the "mighty" B17 were shot down.
So it´s just good for them that their morale is low.
Actually not, if it was high, you'd have a reverse situation ... more fighters would be shot down and *they* would be the ones breaking off. Morale is a critical part of air combat.
They are in the 60s. But morale is low now because they´ve been slaughtered for a while now. They´re attacking between 6.000 and 19.000 feet and my CAP is always on 15.000 feet. My daitais are high experienced but I think not only the experience should count here when attacking these monsters with FLOAT PLANES, repeat FLOAT PLANES. Why are we talking about leaders, experience or moral? Look at the results folks!! If float planes were so effective against B17, hey, why didn´t the German put their 500 best pilots of the Luftwaffe into some float planes and took down 200 of a 500 B17 raid over Germany! [:-][:-] We´re talking about Rufes and the German had enough problems with Fw190 and Me109 to kill the bombers off.
CASTOR. You are absolutely right, the results ARE rediculous. The B-17's are fully trained and have some experiance if they are in the 60's, and it's not like these pilots need to refine their air-to-air tactics and skills. 60's should be ample for holding pretty tight formations, which exposes any aircraft attacking to massed defensive fire. More than enough to deal with most Japanese fighters with their light armament and construction no matter how "experianced" they are. This is NOT a dogfight! It's a flying porcupine, with the Japanese trying to get close enough to bite without getting a facefull of quils.
The system wasn't that good to start with, and with the additional hamstringing of Allied capabilities that the Japanese Fanboys have lobbied into the game, it's gotten worse.
The "kill ratio" you are reporting is way beyond ahistorical. It's idiotic.
Yeah that´s correct. I think it´s not that problem in PBEM because every player will avoid such attacks or will get slaughtered like AI in my game. But it´s a killer for AI because Gili Gili is the graveyard of the heavy bombers. I don´t fear about later because if it´s going on like this there won´t be enough bombers to fill out the squadron. But what should I do? Should I abandon every AF that is attacked with B17? Not because my airforce gets clobbered, no, just not to kill to many heavy bombers. I don´t need flak I´ve got my RUFES!
So it´s just good for them that their morale is low.
Actually not, if it was high, you'd have a reverse situation ... more fighters would be shot down and *they* would be the ones breaking off. Morale is a critical part of air combat.
No Mr. Frag. I don´t know if I do have an other version of WITP but with MY version that´s just not correct. As I said, at the beginning I shot even more B17 down and of course I lost more fighters but in the same ratio as it is now. I´m killing them in a 1 to 10 or better ratio. From the beginning. The difference was that 5 - 10 bombers were able to drop bombs, ok, but the took even heavier losses each attack. Now, if they are lucky, they break off their attack after 2 are shot down. But what´s the discussion here? As I already said, no matter what morale or leader - HOW CAN RUFE KILL B17 WITH THAT KILL RATIO?? And of course my Tonies are even better.
Maybe you guys should employ the that famous hindsight and reach the same conclusion that air commanders took years to reach, in every theater ... unescorted daylight raids over fighter defended targets are a bad idea. Especially at the low altitudes these raids are being assigned.
Castor, b-17's flying at low altitude take a morale hit which seriously affects their performance ... run your tests at 15,000 feet and see the difference (before you have cratered the morale to 20, sending them out like that is death). I just ran the entire Coral Sea scenario with 17's from PM smacking Rabaul non-stop against 2 groups of Rufes ... 3 17's lost to ops and none shot down over the course of 30 attacks. You go in low, you pay the price tag.
I look at the losses as total losses during the raid. Planes that may have not been shot down but that on return from the raid were write-offs and were canabilized for parts, Planes that ditched because they ran out of fuel. Ect. ect. Ect. I view the Ops loss line as planes lost during " regular missions" Search, Cap, trainning, transport.
Castor, b-17's flying at low altitude take a morale hit which seriously affects their performance ... run your tests at 15,000 feet and see the difference (before you have cratered the morale to 20, sending them out like that is death). I just ran the entire Coral Sea scenario with 17's from PM smacking Rabaul non-stop against 2 groups of Rufes ... 3 17's lost to ops and none shot down over the course of 30 attacks. You go in low, you pay the price tag.
Now what´s low? Usually they come in between 12 and 17000 feet. And as you can see in my top pilot list MY Rufes are shooting AIs B17 down like they would have 30 mm cannons. You just have to believe me that they only have engaged these B17. And Rufe pilots with 10 kills of B17? Now what?
Be careful of trying to fix one thing and breaking another. True enough, it was -very- difficult for Japanese planes to shoot down Allied heavies. They had fewer 20mm cannons. The 20s they did have, were far inferior to German ones. But even then, their planes often didn't have sufficient ammo to even bring them down anyways (Germans had a tough enough time with this also).
I do think the ammo loadouts on the aircraft (for all scenarios, fighter vs. fighter, fighter vs. bomber), is too liberal. Seeing single pilots racking up 7 kills in single mission (in the frequency that we see), is a bit over the top. Doesn't matter if it's Allied or Japan, a pilot with high exp can, and will, know down scads of planes in a single sortie; far more frequently that was historical.
However, that being said, the air-to-air model is one of the most highly tuned aspects of WitP. Air-to-air and air-to-naval are THE best routines in WitP. Are they perfect? Nope. But over-all, most of us will agree that, Matrix has it "almost right".
Consider if you -do- lower the loss rate of heavies. Japanese players already groan at the replacement rates of Allied heavies (rightfully so). If you make them that much harder to kill, you're going to see that many more heavies in theater.
Or if you tweak the routine to make bombers harder to kill. You're then up against screwing up the kill ratios of Betty/Nells/B-25s. Or if you made a DB change (modders, have fun), to increase the durabilty of heavies (which would only affect the loss rate of the heavies), a little bit can go a long way. It would take a LOT of very methodical testing, to find the "correct" durability of a heavy considering all the variables of the air-to-air routine (I think the current durability is based on the unloaded weight of the aircraft). Good luck with that by the way.
And while I understand the argument that exp can make a major difference in fighter vs. fighter, a vast differential in exp in a fighter vs. heavy is lessened somewhat, simply because the heavy is (historically) so difficult to bring down anyways. But if you lessen the effect of exp in fighter vs. bomber, it's going to bork the fairly correct representation in fighter vs. fighter (or what if it's fighter vs. bombing fighter?).
My point is, there are so many things that can be affected here. True the model is not exact. I wish it could be better. But overall, the model works. If you start screwing with the routines to fix the heavies, you stand a real chance of breaking something else. And even if you -did- fix the heavies, without breaking anything, you then bury the Japanese under even more heavies than before, because they're much more survivable now. Don't send bombers unescorted if you think there will be enemy fighters there. Send escorts, or sweep to break them up before you get there. If you want your bomber crews to be heros and bomb alone, you certainly can. But just know that if you do, you have to pay the price.
But adjusting the routines in favor of the heavies, may end up being "cutting off your nose to spite your face". In this case, I think well-enough should be left alone. As there are other things that far more in need of "adjusting".
-F-
"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me
I don't see anything wrong with Rufe shooting down B-17. Rufe has 2 20MM cannon. Want to lose less bombers? Fly them at 25K like they're supposed to. There'll be a lot less fighters up there.
For what its worth. when the b-17 or 24's pay a visit to some nice japanese held location i start them at 20K, and only rarely do i send them to 5k. B-25's 26's and A-20's i'll do 5k if they aren't down skip bombing.
I don't see anything wrong with Rufe shooting down B-17. Rufe has 2 20MM cannon. Want to lose less bombers? Fly them at 25K like they're supposed to. There'll be a lot less fighters up there.
Speed matters.
Rufe
Performance:
Maximum speed 235 kt at 5,000 m
Cruising speed 160 kt
1 knots = 1.15077945 mph
So 160*1.15077945 = 184 Rufe cruising speed in mph
And 235*1.15077945 = 270 Rufe max speed in mph
B17
Maximum speed 263 mph at 25,000 feet, 300 mph at 30,000 feet (war emergency).
Cruising speed 150 mph at 25,000 feet.
And for comparison
FW190 ( which DID shoot down some B17s )
PERFORMANCE
Maximum speed: 426 mph.
Cruising speed: 280 mph.
Also note that in the game most Japanese fighters Nates, Oscar, Zeros .. can fly at or above 30k.
WITP Admiral's Edition - Project Lead
War In Spain - Project Lead
Quite putting down float planes. What sank John Waynes PT in "They Were Expendable" it was a float plane, not a cruiser,destroyer or a betty bomber, but a float plane. If it is good enough to stop John Wayneo(1941) its good enough to shoot down a B-17.[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Sadja
Quite putting down float planes. What sank John Waynes PT in "They Were Expendable" it was a float plane, not a cruiser,destroyer or a betty bomber, but a float plane. If it is good enough to stop John Wayneo(1941) its good enough to shoot down a B-17.[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Sadja
Oh I love Rufe's ... and I use 'em in the game ... usually in the Solomons/Papua area to cover bases before the airfields get built.
But I wouldn't wanna be in one IRL if I was ordered to go up against a 100+ strong B17 strike !
WITP Admiral's Edition - Project Lead
War In Spain - Project Lead
Maybe you guys should employ the that famous hindsight and reach the same conclusion that air commanders took years to reach, in every theater ... unescorted daylight raids over fighter defended targets are a bad idea. Especially at the low altitudes these raids are being assigned.
And maybe you should check it out yourself...., and you would find out that in the Pacific War unescorted bomber raids were the rule rather than the exception. Japanese air defense measures never came close to the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe (Fighter or Flak).
They are in the 60s. But morale is low now because they´ve been slaughtered for a while now. They´re attacking between 6.000 and 19.000 feet and my CAP is always on 15.000 feet. My daitais are high experienced but I think not only the experience should count here when attacking these monsters with FLOAT PLANES, repeat FLOAT PLANES. Why are we talking about leaders, experience or moral? Look at the results folks!! If float planes were so effective against B17, hey, why didn´t the German put their 500 best pilots of the Luftwaffe into some float planes and took down 200 of a 500 B17 raid over Germany! [:-][:-] We´re talking about Rufes and the German had enough problems with Fw190 and Me109 to kill the bombers off.
CASTOR. You are absolutely right, the results ARE rediculous. The B-17's are fully trained and have some experiance if they are in the 60's, and it's not like these pilots need to refine their air-to-air tactics and skills. 60's should be ample for holding pretty tight formations, which exposes any aircraft attacking to massed defensive fire. More than enough to deal with most Japanese fighters with their light armament and construction no matter how "experianced" they are. This is NOT a dogfight! It's a flying porcupine, with the Japanese trying to get close enough to bite without getting a facefull of quils.
The system wasn't that good to start with, and with the additional hamstringing of Allied capabilities that the Japanese Fanboys have lobbied into the game, it's gotten worse.
The "kill ratio" you are reporting is way beyond ahistorical. It's idiotic.
Well the IJ planes are around 50% better in experience and their morale is probably 100% better. Hold formation or not, but if gunner Joe is wiping his nose half the time due to low morale the porcupine just isn't going to be performing to standards.
The fault seems to be in both experience and altitude... I wonder if range to target also plays a factor.. If my plane is hit and takes a feathered engine at max range getting home would be harder in the real world.. I wonder again about Frags statement about altitude and moral... makes me want to see the cambat calculations
