Patrol A/C Air Combat Losses

[BullHalsey]

Does patrol A/C get involved in air-to-air combat? It appears the only these aircraft are destroyed is on the ground by air or naval bombardment or if their base is captured.

It would be interesting if CAPs shoot down a patrol plane now and then to keep the enemy from spotting your TF.

[Ranger-75]

It doesn't happen in Pac War.

[Denniss]

But it should happen .
Seems not easy to implement so we have to live with it .

[Lokioftheaesir]

Originally posted by Denniss
But it should happen .
Seems not easy to implement so we have to live with it .

Dennis

Yes it should. I think PW has a aircombat system
that centers on hexes(bases) with the air zones
only related to detecting enemyTF's/subs and dispatching air units to a specific hex with a detected target. AirCraft actually producing the airzone are not attackable as they are not a point target(or should i say the AirZone is not a point target, they are a bunch of hexes delineated by those Airzone circles).
With some small experience in designing an aircombat system for a game project i can sympathise with Grisby on using a point/Hex system as it is easier to implement.'Zones' are far more difficult to manipulate within a Intercept/Combat system than point/hex targets.

Loki

[Ranger-75]

In real life, the patrol planes were very good at spotting enemy air groups (and fleets) if they were on station, and they were almost always able to get off a contact report before being spotted and attacked by the enemy. They were not even shot down a lot of the time - the crews were good at finding a cloud bank and hiding in it.

[Jeremy Pritchard]

We looked into patrol aircraft, and it is basically impossible to have them intercepted by CAP. Something that WitP has to cover.

[Denniss]

Is it possible to let patrol units loose planes - maybe one or two per month to simulate losses ?

[Mika Väliviita]

I'd say no. One way is to simulate it by reducing production and pretending they automatically replace lost planes.

[Ranger-75]

The patrol squadrons had the most experienced pilots on either side, they were out nearly every day and their peacetime mission was the same as their wartime mission. Theny tended to have the fewest losses - beacuse of the aforementioned inability to hit them in large groups. The only times patrol planes took large losses was when their fields were suprised - which happenned extremely rarely after 8 Dec 41.

Patrol plane groups seem to have a max of 20 so there will never be a large number of them in a group.