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so, I am in PI, have over run burma and Java, most of Borneo... Sunk numerous Jap fleets although playing scen 2 ..
I group two stcks of cvs and go raiding.. then the unthinkable happens... my fighters fail to knock out the enemy in mass, and he hits every one of my cvs.. what happened to the 44 aa advantage.. did the game change in the last year to reduce allied supperiority?
last engagments he has been pounded lossing multiple carriers, now, this is my biggest complaint, he flys into a swarm of carrier fighters and gets through? at a 4-1 dissadvantage? what is this shit?
serious ?[:@]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

so, I am in PI, have over run burma and Java, most of Borneo... Sunk numerous Jap fleets although playing scen 2 ..
I group two stcks of cvs and go raiding.. then the unthinkable happens... my fighters fail to knock out the enemy in mass, and he hits every one of my cvs.. what happened to the 44 aa advantage.. did the game change in the last year to reduce allied supperiority?
last engagments he has been pounded lossing multiple carriers, now, this is my biggest complaint, he flys into a swarm of carrier fighters and gets through? at a 4-1 dissadvantage? what is this shit?
serious ?[:@]

Wah.[:)]

That was my experience in Scenario Two against Miller.  He was able to put up a very effective defense.  It had to do with IJ pilot quality, aircraft quality, porous CAP, poor Allied flak, and Miller's ability as a very tenacious defender. At the time, there were many players voicing concerns about flak and CAP.  Those problems may have been addressed by now, but I haven't been paying attention since I'm in 1942 in my current game vs. Chez and the stalled game vs. Q-Ball.  (I know I've got lots of problems and limitations in '42, but I sure hope they're resolved by '44.)

I think Cap works very well and was a huge step forward from WITP, unfortunately you will never get real life flak results in a vanilla game. Closing in on 45 in my PBEM, the Allied have lost something like 300 aircraft to flak and the Japanese 6-700 in the whole war. Losses to flak in my game are something like 5% for the Japanese and 2% for the Allied. Real life? Flak caused more losses than fighters in total but flak isn´t sexy and the carrier groups I´ve got moving around on the map are not comparable to real life as real life never seen such a concentration of major warships like I´ve got in the game, yet flak is nothing but a nuissance for the enemy.

Losses to flak sure aren´t realistic (knowing there will be people jumping up and down claiming how perfect it is - when they then stack 12.000 flak guns in one hex, which is just as unrealistic). One big improvement in AE over WITP though is the fact that flak now affects ACCURACY of the bombers (at least I was told so), while I don´t know how much or if there´s any affect. I usually hope for severe storms or thunderstorms when enemy bombers attack my carriers as this seems to help the most.

I have a strong feeling that size of the airstrike greatly reduce flak effectiveness. Naval flak is working (IMO) ok when airstrikes are small, but when there's hundreds of planes, flak kill % is very low. About 6-12 months ago I run 1944 flak test using Marianas scenario, and I got strong indications that huge airstrikes reduce flak effectiveness. Results did vary, but the trend was visible.

So if I'm right, part of the problem is that players are using ahistorically huge plane concentrations. Historically there was not many 300 plane strikes, they were more like 3 x 100 planes or 6 x 50 planes...

If you think that's bad, just wait until the kamikazes start showing up. I had 8 Jakes (the little floatplanes) get 8 hits on a TF steaming past Truk, which I'd bypassed long ago way back in early '43. Sank three AO's and three escorting DE's. Later, I had a group of 12 Peggys sneak through a 5 CVE TF CAP and put two of them underwater. Once a kamikaze gets past the CAP, expect to lose ships because the AA doesn't stop them at all.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

I think Cap works very well and was a huge step forward from WITP, unfortunately you will never get real life flak results in a vanilla game.

If only because flak is overpowered. Standard resuls in 1945 seem to be Japanese losing 20-35% of the attacking aircraft to flak alone. As far as I can tell with DaBabes flak upgrade this figure goes to around 50%, but even without it the flak is extremely powerful.

Now very huge strikes seem to indeed reduce flak effectiveness, but these very rarely happen outside of carrier battles.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Real life? Flak caused more losses than fighters in total

Wrong.

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: castor troy

I think Cap works very well and was a huge step forward from WITP, unfortunately you will never get real life flak results in a vanilla game.

If only because flak is overpowered. Standard resuls in 1945 seem to be Japanese losing 20-35% of the attacking aircraft to flak alone. As far as I can tell with DaBabes flak upgrade this figure goes to around 50%, but even without it the flak is extremely powerful.

Now very huge strikes seem to indeed reduce flak effectiveness, but these very rarely happen outside of carrier battles.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Real life? Flak caused more losses than fighters in total

Wrong.

don´t know what game you are playing, definately not the same as my PBEM is and that PBEM is in November 44 and flak is a joke and it won´t get any better as the upgrades are done already. Of course both my opponent and me could have manipulated the game or I could have made up my screenshots with air losses each and every time.


About your "wrong" argument, being at work so just a quick one for you below. If you read up on the matter you could bring up more than a "wrong" when wrong is what you are. If you wish to, I can post a couple of more screens for you when I find a couple of minutes to do so. But then all you get to hear is "wrong" again, ignorance or being told to make up the screens.

For USN and USMC carrier based aircraft, for the whole war we see 1428 lost to AA and 452 lost to AC. 1428 sounds more to me than 452. Also for the land based ac (even though in not as great ratio but still MORE to flak). You may think different about it. There are several more of these statistics and if you would spend some time on it, you will also be able to dig them up. Unfortunately I miss one for all services summed up but USMC and USN vs. the Japanese forces probably is a good example. I should take the time and sum up all statistics I find and perhaps I may well stand corrected then but so far I haven´t seen one that showed ten times more losses to fighters than flak.

Go ahead and tell us flak is overpowered when a PBEM closing in on 45 got 2% for the Allied and 5% flak losses for the Japanese and the two players have been playing UV, WITP and AE for nearly 10 years. But neither do they know anything about real life, nor the game. "wrong"...

just to point out, none of us has been going the way to create the well know super doper flak stacks of three billion flak guns in a jungle nest but neither did real life commanders. We both tried to keep it halve way sane while surely still having more flak units at a base than what was done in real life. Berlin had 400 heavy flak barrells at it´s peak, something an average AE player easily tops in any common jungle nest if he wishes to.

if you want to debate, you perhaps can discuss if there are still too few leakers getting through Cap and therfore too few ac shot down by flak but when you then search for the flak tests when the tester got no Cap at all then that will get obsolete in a minute. And no, I didn´t take the time to do these test and if I would, you would either ignore them or call them "wrong". I´m the bada$$ afterall and I´m glad to be it.

Even if I´m wrong and the total losses for ALL services and aircraft show more ac lost to fighters than lost to flak, the ratio of 10:1 like it is in the game sure wasn´t what happened in real life. In the game the average long term (NON modded) PBEM seems to come up with 50% lost to fighters, 5-10% at best lost to flak and the rest to ops. Also here, I have not done a statistical analysis everytime someone posted a total loss list of his late war PBEM but whenever I actually took out the calculator it showed what I´ve written above. And a long term PBEM still is the best "test" as it includes all instances over a hell a long time.

Don´t know what a huge strike is for you but my carrier groups where attacked by several hundreds of aircraft in one strike coming from land bases so perhaps what is huge for me isn´t huge for you.

Most realistic flak so far for me in WITP was Nikmod flak, haven´t tried anything else than vanilla in AE yet.

.

.

and all this against Japanese flak I have yet to hear a single player complain about how "effective" it is in the game. Those that complain, complain about ALLIED flak being a fart while every one on the board seems to think Japanese flak wasn´t an issue at all for Allied flyboys (why I don´t know, all you get to hear usually is this Japanese x sucked and that Japanese x sucked). Then you read up all those books most of the people here have read and then you read comments of Allied pilots talking about "armed merchants" that put up murderous flak fire? Lol, "armed merchants", "murderous flak fire"?

I´m not arguing about making this a flak game but most of the common knowledge on the board seems to accept fighters usually achieving 10 times more kills than flak when that wasn´t the case in real life. Now what´s the reason for it? That´s something to be discussed IMO. Arguing in another way, Nik must be a blind eyed fantast without any knowledge of real life happenings when he came up with his mod. Or I´ve missed something and it was a complete fantasy mod.

Then you read up all those books most of the people here have read and then you read comments of Allied pilots talking about "armed merchants" that put up murderous flak fire? Lol, "armed merchants", "murderous flak fire"?

Well, if you have pilots TALKING about murderous flak fire then it certainly wasn't murderous, or they wouldn't be here talking to us about it, now would they?

First person memories are always a bit iffy when it comes to estimating the enemy fire.

well two issues
one, all war I been at least able to deflect attacks with fighters, this one he get through and I have huge disparity in fighters! and then my cap falls to poop.. I am concerned for how we have to bend the historical envelope, on his side he gets this reduced cap, and also the ability to crush my troops in china..
the locust effect.. the non historical ability to mass huge armies quickly and effectively attack, which GREATLY helps the allies is in my favor as are a number of minor features, non damage to rail etc...
so I am pushing hard to inter south east asia in spring of 44.. he now can make me extend dair cover from land.. but as I hold Batavia... and soon Daveo and all the bases save five in Borneo the land air use again raises in significance... one thing I am finding is how awesome fast moving ca groups are in bombarding the enemy bases... so its an odd duck now... still favoring heavily the allies, as is historical with the huge supperiority in ships and planes, but odd.. in my humble opinion..
 
 
and "wah" ? really ok, I just had 5 fleet carriers damaged and put out of action for between one and ten weeks after beginning my punish the enemy phase... yep I own that one after 700 one day per turn turns... pass me a towel to cry on.. at least he only sank one cvl and a few cve...

ORIGINAL: String

Then you read up all those books most of the people here have read and then you read comments of Allied pilots talking about "armed merchants" that put up murderous flak fire? Lol, "armed merchants", "murderous flak fire"?

Well, if you have pilots TALKING about murderous flak fire then it certainly wasn't murderous, or they wouldn't be here talking to us about it, now would they?

First person memories are always a bit iffy when it comes to estimating the enemy fire.

and the statistics? So what was more of a problem for the, in this case, Allied pilots? Flak or fighters? Even in Europe, where we always talk about the oh so great Luftwaffe, more aircraft were lost to flak than to fighters.

I was surprised by what you dug up Castor, I didn't think flak was that bad in the PTO for the US aircraft. I know when the US hit airfields in New Guinea in 43 they would use
B-24s to surpress the flak then the mediums or lights would come in a low altitude. Thanks for the info. I do like what dababes mod did for flak, it feels better when I see enemy raids getting stopped or minimized by escorts.

ORIGINAL: freeboy

and "wah" ? really ok, I just had 5 fleet carriers damaged and put out of action for between one and ten weeks after beginning my punish the enemy phase... yep I own that one after 700 one day per turn turns... pass me a towel to cry on.. at least he only sank one cvl and a few cve...

Yeah, wah.[:)]

I just lost a new Essex, a CVL, and have Enterprise limping for Hollandia with 56 float damge because I went two hexes too far up the PI east coast in May 1944. I've destroyed over 25,000 Japanese planes, have everything upgraded, and there's no IJN carriers about. But get into an LBA box where they can overwhelm the CAP and you're going to lose ships. (The TF with the CVL had three others which took damage.)

I did a test in my last game, which is in the deep archives, where I sent my carriers close to the southern HI. A 1000-plane attack in 1945 and I lost many, many CVs. Even against the AI you can never rest and never get sloppy. There is no date where you can sail around with your pants down, except the day after the war ends.

So, take your lumps, take your "wah", make a new plan, and go forth to win. [8D]

well, I am serously punishin gmy oponenet, the only reason I was there is to speed up the timeline... as it is I have 10k assault points headed into malaysia.. but it sure does make things easier without enemy carriers and I was trying to get them .. oopsi! wah wah wah..
again I just put 4 cv back into service, so not a huge dissaster, BUT I need to be, as you suggest, carefull in my willfill disregard for my planes and ships safety...
 

ORIGINAL: freeboy

well, I am serously punishin gmy oponenet, the only reason I was there is to speed up the timeline... as it is I have 10k assault points headed into malaysia.. but it sure does make things easier without enemy carriers and I was trying to get them .. oopsi! wah wah wah..
again I just put 4 cv back into service, so not a huge dissaster, BUT I need to be, as you suggest, carefull in my willfill disregard for my planes and ships safety...

Yeah, otherwise your opponent might e-mail you with the comment I once got from a date: "Do I really need to be here for this?" [:)]

I hear you