4EB and Naval Search in late-1944

[John 3rd]

In my Forlorn Hopes AAR I just wrote an entry talking about the use of 4EB on Naval Search scoring DOZENS of bomb hits on targets that have CAP flying over them. This is what I wrote:

The thing that is BEYOND irritating is his use of B-24 on Naval Search mode. These are the two day results:

1. On the 6th his B-24 scored 26 hits against AK-AP-Escort ships as well as CV Akagi, CVE Shimane Maru, and BB Hyuga. Not a single naval attack raid occurred against ANY shipping at Trivandrum yet I had 18 ships hit by bombs there while I had a LR CAP of 40 Zero and 20 Rufes flying over the shipping. Let us not even talk about the hit on Akagi! Do you think there was ANY CAP flying over the CVs? Yaaa...

2. The 7th saw this insanity increase with a total of 33 hits against similar targets. Once again there was no strike at Trivandrum but I had another 14 ships damaged costing me troops and supply.

If I saw B-24 lost while flying these missions then I might feel somewhat better but it isn't happening. I have no major issue of bombers hitting AK-AP when there are no planes flying CAP but this is NUTS! Add to this the hits are being scored by 4EB and...ooohhhh...does open a can of Forum worms??? IF this happened with B-25/B-26/or any OTHER plane that could actually hit manuevering ships I would happily accept the damage!

While I know that this subject pretty much splits down the AFB and JFB allegiance, I wondered if there would be any substantive discussion we could have?

Does AE tackle this sort of issue?

[bradfordkay]

Interesting... in my PBEM with Chez we instituted an HR that requires any 4E bomber squadrons on Naval Attack to be set to 50% naval search - at his (IJN) insistence. We are in early '44, and I haven't seen too many bomb hits by my 4E bombers on search. I do recall the USAFFE B-17s getting a couple of lucky hits in the early going, but not much since then.

My PB4Ys just put a couple of 2000lbers into the Haguro a couple of turns ago, but she wasn't even listed as having heavy damage in the combat report (and that was a regular Naval Attack mission with the other 50% of the squadron).


BTW; we are in February of 1944.

[John 3rd]

Those 2,000lb bombs SUCK!  I just had a few planted on a CA, BC, and BB!  Theys NASSSTY LITTLE THINGS....(Gollum voice)

[bradfordkay]

I believe that his comment was "What's with the 2000lb bombs? Holy Crap! Ouch!"

But - again - I have to point out that the Haguro was only listed as "on fire" without the "heavy damage" I was hoping to see... [:(]

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

I believe that his comment was "What's with the 2000lb bombs? Holy Crap! Ouch!"

But - again - I have to point out that the Haguro was only listed as "on fire" without the "heavy damage" I was hoping to see... [:(]

Mine were 'on Fire' as well but my initial reaction was the same as his except 'crap' wasn't the word uttered!

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

In my Forlorn Hopes AAR I just wrote an entry talking about the use of 4EB on Naval Search scoring DOZENS of bomb hits on targets that have CAP flying over them. This is what I wrote:

The thing that is BEYOND irritating is his use of B-24 on Naval Search mode. These are the two day results:

1. On the 6th his B-24 scored 26 hits against AK-AP-Escort ships as well as CV Akagi, CVE Shimane Maru, and BB Hyuga. Not a single naval attack raid occurred against ANY shipping at Trivandrum yet I had 18 ships hit by bombs there while I had a LR CAP of 40 Zero and 20 Rufes flying over the shipping. Let us not even talk about the hit on Akagi! Do you think there was ANY CAP flying over the CVs? Yaaa...

2. The 7th saw this insanity increase with a total of 33 hits against similar targets. Once again there was no strike at Trivandrum but I had another 14 ships damaged costing me troops and supply.

If I saw B-24 lost while flying these missions then I might feel somewhat better but it isn't happening. I have no major issue of bombers hitting AK-AP when there are no planes flying CAP but this is NUTS! Add to this the hits are being scored by 4EB and...ooohhhh...does open a can of Forum worms??? IF this happened with B-25/B-26/or any OTHER plane that could actually hit manuevering ships I would happily accept the damage!

While I know that this subject pretty much splits down the AFB and JFB allegiance, I wondered if there would be any substantive discussion we could have?

Does AE tackle this sort of issue?

The game massively inflates the pHit of 4EB against ship targets. For experienced aircrew, it should be less than 1% per bomb dropped. The effect of level bombing was to disrupt operations, particularly in port, not to hit ships.

[Misconduct]

Problem with 4E's in game is they are over modeled. Its possible using norton bomb sight to hit a carrier and salvo 6 on it, problem is at 15k you can't tell what kind of ship it is, and how fast it is going. Problem aircrews had were identifying the target, if you guess a carrier and figure its doing 20knots you can sucessfully hit the carrier bombing at 10k with I would say 2% of bombs. thats 2 out of a 100 not what in game we have over 20 or 30 hits per 100 bombers.

Another problem I noticed not factored in is simply if you can't identify the ship or speed, you can't really accurately bomb it from any alt with 4E's. For example the Airforce did a battery of test and concluded with the right identification of a ship, its top speed, 4E's are able to attack the ship and drop a bombload from 10k while the ships turning and score hits. Yes it can be done but the AF forgot one small detail - not every pilot/co-pilot knows every ship in the japanese navy, Secondly the test was ran in lets just say "stress free enviroment" compared to actual war where you get shot at. Its kind of hard being accurate when under attack by dozen Zeros.


I honestly say below 5k the hit percentage should stay where it is now, but any higher altitude the hit percentage drops heavily.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Misconduct

Problem with 4E's in game is they are over modeled. Its possible using norton bomb sight to hit a carrier and salvo 6 on it, problem is at 15k you can't tell what kind of ship it is, and how fast it is going. Problem aircrews had were identifying the target, if you guess a carrier and figure its doing 20knots you can sucessfully hit the carrier bombing at 10k with I would say 2% of bombs. thats 2 out of a 100 not what in game we have over 20 or 30 hits per 100 bombers.

Another problem I noticed not factored in is simply if you can't identify the ship or speed, you can't really accurately bomb it from any alt with 4E's. For example the Airforce did a battery of test and concluded with the right identification of a ship, its top speed, 4E's are able to attack the ship and drop a bombload from 10k while the ships turning and score hits. Yes it can be done but the AF forgot one small detail - not every pilot/co-pilot knows every ship in the japanese navy, Secondly the test was ran in lets just say "stress free enviroment" compared to actual war where you get shot at. Its kind of hard being accurate when under attack by dozen Zeros.


I honestly say below 5k the hit percentage should stay where it is now, but any higher altitude the hit percentage drops heavily.

Problem with the game is they are COMPLETELY undermodeled for night attacks with radar - you can't do it for any practical purposes in the game... this is where the 4EB shone in actual events as they attacked at 1000 ft. ... so perhaps it averages out to some extent.

[ny59giants]

John,

A counter argument could be made by Dan about the number of LBA you have ASW patrol and the high percentage of hits you are getting each day.

I do hope that EA does address the fact that planes on Naval Search can drop bombs on ships that are CAP, but not get attacked. The questions are about what the game does allows vs. what happened IRL. WITP is a simulation of a war, so results will vary. [;)]

[Historiker]

In my PBEM against bigbaba, we have agreed not to use 4e bombers on Naval search missions to attack shipping. He may do it to hunt subs and he may let some 4es fly from islands to actually do naval SEARCH - but he mustn't abuse it as uninterceptable anti-ship bombing.

[bradfordkay]

Historiker... how do you limit aircraft that are performing Naval Search from attacking ships? If they are on Naval Search, there is a chance that they might attack any enemy vessel they find. 

[Historiker]

The question is where does he do this missions? When he orders 10 units to airfields near an amphibious operation I do its something different than e.g. having 12 B-24 flying naval search from Pago Pago.
Moreover, you can increase the altitude which should also reduce the number of hits.

[bradfordkay]

Yeah... in my AI game I generally have the 4E bombers flying 20-30% Naval Search with the rest on Naval Attack - and never under 10,000' (usually around 15,000'). Since our HRs demand the 50% Naval Search, I will only use the PB4Ys at anything close to 10,000' and the B24s at least several thousand feet higher. However, if there is no viable land based target nearby, and/or they are the only aircraft capable of covering an area, they will get used in an anti-shipping role.

That being said, I am becoming a big fan of the Lockheed Ventura bomber. It carries a decent palyload, has decent range, and can operate form a slightly smaller airfield.

[John 3rd]

These planes are flying from Ceylon for the most part.
 
For the November 8th turn the hits continued UP (if one can believe that) to a total of FIFTY--THREE!  Why obther to fly strikes when you can do this with impunity?  I have 15-20 AK-AP that are near sinking due to these attacks that aren't attacks that cannot be defended against...
 
FUTURE HOUSE RULE
 

[vettim89]

John I feel your pain. I have had Helens hit TF in port with 300 fighters overhead while on NavSearch MULTIPLE times. So the Allies are not the only ones that can benefit from this flaw in the system. Nature of the beast.

The game has mechanics that we just have to accept. I 100% agree that the 4E's are overrated on Nav Attack even above 15000 ft. That said, so is the G4M Betty. Ae is going to fix some of this but I bet no where near as much as we hope for. Time will tell.

Whether this is exploitive or not, I can't say. The game allows the players to take advantage of some loopholes. For example:

* You can put 100's of Army bombers on ASW/NavSearch and sink enemy submarines at will.

* You can strip all the attack aircraft off your CV's and turn them into giant CAP monsters

* You can pull all your DB off your CV's and replace them with overrated TB

* You can send air units to backwater areas where the is a small unit fragment or ill-equipped units, put them on ground attack, and POOF they have high EXP in ATA and NavAttack (thank you AE for fixing this)

Do you get my drift here? Any of this sound familiar?

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Historiker... how do you limit aircraft that are performing Naval Search from attacking ships? If they are on Naval Search, there is a chance that they might attack any enemy vessel they find. 

Naval search aircraft actually were at fairly low altitude, and usually spotted their targets off to the side. If they shadowed the targets, it was from a distance and with cloud to hide in. They rarely flew overhead. Yes, search aircraft sometimes got a hit, but it was unusual and required a lot of cloud cover. If there was CAP, it was vectored to chase them off.

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Historiker... how do you limit aircraft that are performing Naval Search from attacking ships? If they are on Naval Search, there is a chance that they might attack any enemy vessel they find. 

Naval search aircraft actually were at fairly low altitude, and usually spotted their targets off to the side. If they shadowed the targets, it was from a distance and with cloud to hide in. They rarely flew overhead. Yes, search aircraft sometimes got a hit, but it was unusual and required a lot of cloud cover. If there was CAP, it was vectored to chase them off.

Harry, yes, I understand that is how it was IRL. My question to Historiker was how does he propose to do what he says in the game. He answered that by limiting the number of squadrons on naval search.

[Historiker]

Its less a rule, more a gentlemen agreement. When both sides know and accept that using naval search as an uninterceptable shipstriking mission is unfair, you don't need a rule for that.
Hunting subs with that on the other hand is allowed.

[anarchyintheuk]

Nav search is also a substriking mission. I don't see the difference between the two.

[Q-Ball]

I think we have all learned there is a very large list of things in WITP that don't model history accurately. Pretty much everything in WITP is either too effective, or not effective enough, vs. RL. In the end it's a game.

AE promises to fix alot of it.