Kamis in AE

[Q-Ball]

Has the treatment of Kamis been tweaked or changed in AE?

Others please chime in, but it seems to me in WITP that there are several problems with Kamis vs. Real Life, namely:

1. Almost impossible to get through CAP (unless you fly at high altitudes, sort of a gamey fix)
2. Kamis go for capital ships only; rarely go for escorts, IRL DDs suffered heavily as you know
3. Hit rate is WAY too low

The USN estimates that approx. 13% of Kami pilots that took off, hit a target. It was probably lower with some Ops losses. Nevertheless, you can't reproduce that hit rate in WITP with rookies, and not even with good pilots.

In WITP alot of this is balanced by the fact that the Japanese can attain completely unrealistic levels of aircraft production, but this I understand is fixed in AE.

Just wondering if Kamis are changed, and if it's tested that far to see if it works.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

The USN estimates that approx. 13% of Kami pilots that took off, hit a target. It was probably lower with some Ops losses.

I thought it was much lower. As you gave a really specific number, can you say what's your source for that one?

[Yamato hugger]

No, thats probably accurate. I know it was over 10% hits. And no, sorry I cant answer the question. I have never used kamakazies in AE or in WitP.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Has the treatment of Kamis been tweaked or changed in AE?

Others please chime in, but it seems to me in WITP that there are several problems with Kamis vs. Real Life, namely:

1. Almost impossible to get through CAP (unless you fly at high altitudes, sort of a gamey fix)
2. Kamis go for capital ships only; rarely go for escorts, IRL DDs suffered heavily as you know
3. Hit rate is WAY too low

The USN estimates that approx. 13% of Kami pilots that took off, hit a target. It was probably lower with some Ops losses. Nevertheless, you can't reproduce that hit rate in WITP with rookies, and not even with good pilots.

In WITP alot of this is balanced by the fact that the Japanese can attain completely unrealistic levels of aircraft production, but this I understand is fixed in AE.

Just wondering if Kamis are changed, and if it's tested that far to see if it works.

Gee whiz, Q ball....You went from a question, to a treatise on kamikaze effectiveness..What if the original question were answered with a simple "No"..?

The team might look like a bunch of ignoramus's, or, should they stop everything and rework the entire project for the sake of the kamikazes?

With all the other details which have been seen to, I believe I will be happy with how it turns out, initially, and then wait for future patches, (which have already been suggested.)

Please, questions which might not be so much a challenge, veiled or otherwise, at this very late stage in the project.

(Sgt at Arms, SEMI-OFFICIAL AE "NO MORE DELAYS" COMMITTEE).[8D]

[Barb]

I am not an AE guy, so I am just guessing:
1. there is no more UBER-CAP in AE (or it was tweaked down, so you can smuggle things in easily)
2. Have you used your picket DDs in 1DD per TF in hexes surrounding your main fleet (they tend to operate 50-60 miles out so 1 hex)? They could be targeted easier as there is no CAP - but CAP could be drawn there. If they were in CVTF in the same hex, capital ships got the priority. Anyhow, do you want to target 20 flight decks or 100s radar pickets? 10 pickets couldnt make a difference ...
3. Dont have a clue what hit rates there were in WITP nor AR

[:)]

[Andy Mac]

The issue is a chicken and egg one were Kamis broken in stock - No - but Ubercap stopped them getting through.
 
We solved the ubercap issue so Kamis should work - I certainly see enough of them getting through in the AI v AI games I run

[byron13]

Gee whiz, m10bob, why are you jumping into Q-Ball's stuff? He asked a simple question and, possibly to forestall some response that kamikazes don't need to be tweaked, he provided 3 short examples of how he believes the problem manifests itself in WitP plus provides (unsubstantiated) statistics to back his point. I'd hardly call that a treatise. The post didn't attack anyone and provided enough information to permit someone to fully understand the thrust of his question and respond appropriately. And there was nothing to indicate that, if the answer is "no", Q-Ball is going to go off on a whinge. Your response seems a little sharp to me.

I would have expected the rate to be lower, too, but then the only film I see is of attacks on well-defended carrier groups laying up a wall of flak. As Barb alludes to, I'm guessing the figure increases when you consider all of the missions run against the radar pickets that were largely helpless and hit percentages would have been fairly high. Not saying that 13% is accurate, just that I can see how the figure might be higher than I might have believed.

I would hope to see a citation to a source for verification.

[Q-Ball]

I don't want to delay AE release, this is for a Mod, please. I just think I'm pretty correct in that Kami hit rates are too low on this engine.

As far as the 13% hit rate give or take, I have read the 368 damaged ships number on many sites, and the Navy Historical page counts 49 ships sunk by Kamis. The Japanese expended approx. 4,000 Kami pilots, according to a citation on Wikipedia exactly 3,912. I realize Wiki isn't a great source, but other sources back that hit rate, including that WWII site m10bob introduced us to on the forum (which is a good one):

25Mar45-21Jun45. Off Okinawa -- Ten "Kikusui", swarms of Kamikaze, up to 350 attackers at a time, 1,900 in total, damaged 250 ships with 34 destroyers and smaller ships sunk. Several ships were damaged so badly they were not repaired. One in seven of all naval causalities occurred off Okinawa.

So, 10% or 13%, I think those numbers are about right. I would LOVE to see a citation though that says that number is completely wrong or off.

So, if the hit rate is 10%, can this be replicated in WITP?

I don't pretend to be the authority here either. But I did do some testing on the Stock '44 scenario, and even if I stood down all Allied aircraft, parked Allied TF's off Saipan, and attacked, I couldn't get 10%. It was closer to 3-5% against undefended targets. I got closer to 10% by using experienced pilots against undefended targets, but a true test would be using poor pilots against defended targets. Maybe I should run them again. In my current game, I typically see 3%-5% hit rates, and I only have used 70+ exp pilots on Kami (again, completely unrealistic levels of experience).

So that's why I asked, I'm not engaging in JFB-ism I don't think, as I acknowledged that Japanese aircraft production was way unrealistic in WITP.

[Yamato hugger]

Wonder where they got that 1900 figure. Ive always heard 1100 as the actual number of prepared kamakazies at Okinawa. Think someone is counting some "regular" sorties that maybe no one returned from as divine wind missions.

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Wonder where they got that 1900 figure. Ive always heard 1100 as the actual number of prepared kamakazies at Okinawa. Think someone is counting some "regular" sorties that maybe no one returned from as divine wind missions.

Could be, Kami numbers are always fuzzy. If true, that would magnify the hit rate; that would mean over 25% of those planes found targets. Japanese record keeping understandibly fell apart in the late war.

Either way, Japan got way more than 3-5% over Okinawa, and the pilot quality wasn't good as everyone knows.

I trust USN hit figures though, I think they are accurate.

[Panther Bait]

What was the composition of your TF's in your tests? Many of the Kamikaze hits were on small pickets groups (1-3 DDs, DEs, LCIs, etc.) without significant CAP in many cases.  AAA for a small 1-3 ship escort TF would be a lot less than a full CV task force.
 
I can't remember exact numbers from Morrison, but I suspect the 13% average rate would represent a pretty high success rate against pickets (sometimes almost 100% for small attacks against single DDs) and a pretty low one against large, well-protected CV TFs. 

[Q-Ball]

I was testing against transports, in order to limit the flak. I really just wanted to see what the "hit" rate was with as many defenses turned off as possible, as a control. Maybe I should run the test again, or maybe someone else could. It would have to run in STOCK, but to my knowledge that shouldn't impact the result. (In fact, later mods increase the level of flak effectiveness, so stock should produce Kami carnage if there is no CAP).

[Panther Bait]

Yes, I would expect some good hits from Kamikaze's on unprotected transports.

[Dili]

Well the hit rate should change accordingly with your behavior and of your adversaire, it isn't a value in stone. Is your behavior similar to USN in Pacific, same CAP levels? The circunstances are similar? Does your Japanese opponent uses Kamis like it was employed historical? You can't just ask 13% hit rate in every cirunstance.

[Panther Bait]

I think what Q-ball is saying is that he set up what should be the most kamikaze friendly situation (big, heavy unmanueverable transports with no CAP and no AAA escorts), subjected them to kamikaze attacks, and still didn't see 13% hit rates, or even 10%.

[Feinder]

Just consider that, presuming that 13% hit rate is accurate, that it includes many hits do lightly defended targets.
 
So for example:
 
If the historical number was 2000 kamis.
60% of them (1200) went for capital ships (persumably heavily defended)
40% of them (800) went after pickets and other lightly defended targets
It produced a combined 13% hit rate at 260 / 2000 hits.
But say for example (and I just throwing around "supose" numbers to make a point), of those 260 hits, the majority of them were vs. the lightly defended targets (say, 200 of 260) litteraly because they were lightly defended.
 
That number is not comperable to
 
If in WitP you send 2000 kamis, and ball-parking the targeting routines:
90% of them (1800) went for capital ships (persumably heavily defended)
10% of them (100) went after pickets and other lightly defended targets
You now have 234 hits vs capital ships, almost 3x the historical amount.
 
Your "total of 13%" accuracy is maintained.  But you've really buggered the end result.
 
You'd need to improve the "formula" to represent which Kamis went for easy hits, and which went for Capitals.  Going back to the "historical 13%", you have to tweak your formula to:
 
If the historical number was 2000 kamis.
60% of them (1200) went for capital ships (persumably heavily defended)
40% of them (800) went after pickets and other lightly defended targets
It produced a combined 13% hit rate at 260 / 2000 hits.
 
Historical hit rate vs. lightly defended = 200 / 800 = 25%
Historical hit rate vs. capitals = 60 / 1200 = 5%
 
The total percentage is still 13%.
 
We now apply the lightly defended vs. capital ratios to our WitP model, and we get
 
If in WitP you send 2000 kamis, and ball-parking the targeting routines:
90% of them (1800) went for capital ships (persumably heavily defended)
10% of them (100) went after pickets and other lightly defended targets
1800 x .05 = 90 hits
100 x .25 =  25 hits
 
Altho the "13% total" accuracy is NOT maintained.  A more accurate ratio of how difficult it was to break thru to hit the capitals is much more correctly represented.
 
Again, the numbers I threw out are purely hypothetical.  I just used them to illustrate the point.
 
-F-
 

[Yamato hugger]

Some of those pickets took 5 and 6 hits. My father said a kamikaze crashed a landing craft near them as they were headed in to the beaches in the first wave. The source seems reliable enough to me since he was there (96th div). As for 25% hits at Okinawa I doubt that. Note I said I had read (in several different places) that 1100 prepared kamakaies were used. That wouldnt count the numbers of Jap pilots that took it upon themselves to dive into a ship or at least try to. 1900 could very well be the number of attempted crashes, I cant say.

[GaryChildress]

I thought Kamikazes were effective but that relatively few squadrons were actually Kamikaze. Weren't the kamikaze squadrons strictly volunteer, meaning that WITP sort of overstates the ability for the Japanese player to create kamikazes? I mean if I can turn all my squadrons into kamikazes and the hit percentage is 13% or so that would be more devastating than IRL wouldn't it? [&:]

[Feinder]

It's not actually just kamis.  The real issue is that squadons were bled and then perma-disbanded.  In game, squadrons are not perma disbanded (unless the player is either inexperienced or has a bout of insanity).  And they certainly aren't auto-disbanded to create a reinforcment squadron (as often happened IRL).
 
I haven't read much of the AE air threads.  This might be something that has been accounted for in AE.  But in WitP, one of the fundamental issues in WitP is that there are far more squadrons on map at one time, than there were in real life.  Of course, combat in WitP is much bloodier than RL also, so you sorta need more AC anyway.
 
Whatever.
-F-

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

It's not actually just kamis.  The real issue is that squadons were bled and then perma-disbanded.  In game, squadrons are not perma disbanded (unless the player is either inexperienced or has a bout of insanity).  And they certainly aren't auto-disbanded to create a reinforcment squadron (as often happened IRL).

I haven't read much of the AE air threads.  This might be something that has been accounted for in AE.  But in WitP, one of the fundamental issues in WitP is that there are far more squadrons on map at one time, than there were in real life.  Of course, combat in WitP is much bloodier than RL also, so you sorta need more AC anyway.

Whatever.
-F-

If I'm not mistaken AE has withdrawal dates for air groups as well as ships. If so then AE might remedy the problem a bit. Still IRL weren't the kamikazes all volunteer groups? In WITP you can convert a squadron a day and within a few hundred days you have a few hundred kamikaze squadrons. That's more than in the real war wasn't it?