Matrix Games Forums

hi all,

i would like to know your opinion about specific altitute for specific fighters to get the best preformance in the CAP role.i usualy mix the hight of my fighters (hurricanes, mohawks, P-39, P-40, wildcat) between 16.000 and 19.000. i would like to know from some veterans the best altitute for this fighter/fighter bombers. which settings for which fighter to get the best preformance against sweeping japs fighters?

i know that the mustang, thunderbolt, corsairs...had high preformance in high altitute air combat but whatabout the earlier allied fighters?

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

hi all,

i would like to know your opinion about specific altitute for specific fighters to get the best preformance in the CAP role.i usualy mix the hight of my fighters (hurricanes, mohawks, P-39, P-40, wildcat) between 16.000 and 19.000. i would like to know from some veterans the best altitute for this fighter/fighter bombers. which settings for which fighter to get the best preformance against sweeping japs fighters?

i know that the mustang, thunderbolt, corsairs...had high preformance in high altitute air combat but whatabout the earlier allied fighters?

Are you talking about in game?

The thing you want is to have your fighters about 3000' over the incoming fighters... this is about optimal altitude for "bouncing" the enemy... otherwise, aside from P-39/P-400, there are not any modifiers for combat based on altitude in WITP (this will change in AE from what i understand.)

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

hi all,

i would like to know your opinion about specific altitute for specific fighters to get the best preformance in the CAP role.i usualy mix the hight of my fighters (hurricanes, mohawks, P-39, P-40, wildcat) between 16.000 and 19.000. i would like to know from some veterans the best altitute for this fighter/fighter bombers. which settings for which fighter to get the best preformance against sweeping japs fighters?

i know that the mustang, thunderbolt, corsairs...had high preformance in high altitute air combat but whatabout the earlier allied fighters?

Hmm let me think..that means I need to fly mine at around 22000 feet

I am under the impression that altitude is for missions, not CAP. I believe unless you fly long range CAP altitude doesn't come into play on interception.

ORIGINAL: pmath

I am under the impression that altitude is for missions, not CAP. I believe unless you fly long range CAP altitude doesn't come into play on interception.

You may be thinking of escorts instead of CAP. Escorts automatically reset their altitude based on the altitude of the strike they are escorting.

Best Alt depends on what your facing, for example around Lunga I keep most F4F's around 18000 however I leave one squadron around 5,000 for Torp bombers, or Betties coming in low, twice I ditched terrible loses to betties attempting to torp attack my ships.

ORIGINAL: Misconduct

Best Alt depends on what your facing, for example around Lunga I keep most F4F's around 18000 however I leave one squadron around 5,000 for Torp bombers, or Betties coming in low, twice I ditched terrible loses to betties attempting to torp attack my ships.

Yep - if you are flying high, you will miss the low attackers, and vice versa...

If your opponent consistently comes in at around 20000 feet, his fighters escorting will be about 2000 feet above, and so you want your fighters around 25K... if there are no fighters, 23K would be better. Of course, if they decide to drop down to 1000 feet in the next attack, you probably won't intercept if you are cruising around at 23-25K feet... thus you might want to fly in a couple of different CAP ranges... of course, this splits the effectiveness of CAP.

If you have radar, this can be offset - stuff will scramble (even from the airfield) to offset altitude advantages.

if he attacks at 1000-2000 ft, he will be toasted by the light flak.[;)] so i do a mix between 15.000 and 22.000. thanks guys. 

I think for P-40s flying cap a high altitude setting is best.  For P-39s I like to set their altitude at about 7000ft.  At high altitude they get clobbered by escorts.

If I have a lot of CAP I will also split them up, set some on high cover (25,000 ft) most at about 15,000ft and a few at low altitude, about 7000ft.  This seems to optimize the chances of intercepting bombers.

I have found that altitude makes a difference in intercepting bombers.  You want a setting near what the bombers are actually flying, not too high, certainly not too low.

Since we are obviously talking about WitP (as opposed to reality, or even AE) - the only aircraft that suffers any penalty in high altitude air combat will be the P-39/P-400 series. Those two aircraft are hard-coded to loose performance (maneuver) at incremental steps between 11,000 to 21,000 feet. (if I remember the manual, they loose 1 point of maneuverability for every 1000 feet above 10,000 - to a maximum penalty of 10 points).

No other aircraft in WitP suffers performance by altitude. However, there is one last consideration to high-altitude CAP, and that would be Rate of Climb. Depending on the altitude that the interception takes place there is a rate of climb modified die roll to determine how many CAP planes make contact. The altitude of combat will be determined by the altitude of the raiding aircraft. So lower rate of climb fighters like the P-40 and F4F (for example) may not engage with as many aircraft it is determined (by die roll) that X amount of CAP cannot climb to intercept in time....and that die roll is modified by whether or not the base being attacked has RADAR for Early Warning (RADAR helps tremendously for advanced warning - allowing more aircraft time to climb to altitude).

But in question of pure performance at high altitude - ONLY the P-39/P-400 suffer any reduction in air combat capability based on altitude.

B

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

hi all,

i would like to know your opinion about specific altitute for specific fighters to get the best preformance in the CAP role.i usualy mix the hight of my fighters (hurricanes, mohawks, P-39, P-40, wildcat) between 16.000 and 19.000. i would like to know from some veterans the best altitute for this fighter/fighter bombers. which settings for which fighter to get the best preformance against sweeping japs fighters?

i know that the mustang, thunderbolt, corsairs...had high preformance in high altitute air combat but whatabout the earlier allied fighters?