Question about 4E Bombing

[kfmiller41]

Am playing Japan in a PBEM and my opponent just bombed my base at truk using about 50 heavy bombers. Date was 29 Dec 42. 5 raids came in at between 14000 to 18000 feet and total planes for all raids were 89. He lost no planes to my 30 zeros. He scored 18 hits, put 8 carriers and 1 battleship out of commission for at least 3-6 months with major damage. While I congratulate him on doing that I also feel like this accuracy is so out of whack I can understand why so many Japanese players call it quits. I mean I want to be competitive but I have nothing to shoot down hordes of 4 engine bombers, even my 2 engine fighters cannot stop them.
Am I just a bad player or is this something that should be house ruled to limit the uncanny accuracy these things have? It is only December 42 and he is already clobbering my bases with these beasts.[X(][X(]

[spence]

Port bombing may be over the top a little (even the PH attack in game triples the number of ships hit and cuts the number of planes hit in half). Your ships weren't moving and that is a biggie. IRL high altitude precision bombing of ships underway was close to totally ineffective. Another biggie (IRL) is that your Zeros only carry 60 x 20mm per gun: IRL they found that their 7.7mm's were pretty ineffective against even the TBDs at Midway (that's why VT6 got off relatively lightly AND managed to press home their [ineffective] attack). Against B-17s the 7.7s might as well be spitballs.

But what are you doing with all those ships disbanded in a port reachable by 4E bombers. Time to retreat the fleet to a more secure base (presumably for repairs) out of range of the 4Es.

[crsutton]

Well, the fact of the matter in WWII is that the Japanese never based valuable surface assets within range of Allied heavy bombers. Now you know the reason why. As the Japanese player in the game you do have a lot more options and there are ways to protect key bases from the heavies. Obviously lots of flak, and later model fighters do better such at the Tojo and then Frank and George. But a good rule of thumb is that if you have carriers in a base and the Allies recon the base, then unless you got a powerful defensive force there, you had better move the carriers.

In the war, the zero was hopelessly ineffective vs heavy and to an extent medium bombers. One because of armaments and two because zero pilots were never trained in the group formation tactics that were needed to bring down big bombers. In reality the game mirrors this. Once your ships are at sea, the are very tough to hit. But in port...

[Yaab]

89 bombers x 4 bombs = 356 bombs
89 bombers x 8 bombs = 712 bombs

18 hits

Sounds about right.

[kfmiller41]

Good advice, but so you know I didn't know that base was within range of those bombers, this is the first game I have gotten this far.....

[Chris21wen]

Not just 4e, 2e can also cause considerable damage to any ship in a port. Learnt that long time ago when I had one CV badly damaged (later sunk by another attack) and one CVL sunk in Balikapapan sunk by few Hudsons. Only reason they were they in the first place was flooding damage fom CV combat and thought wrongly that it was out of range.

[RichardAckermann]

Woudn't the A6M2 be able to fire the cannons at long range, outside the bombers defensive gun range?
I am sure to remember the germans did so, and japan armed late fighters with cannons to try engage B-29s at long range.
Are there any historical combats between A6M2 and allied heavy bombers to be studies for this?

[LeeChard]

Early Zero models had cannons with a very low muzzle velocity. So it's range was short.
It also had a slow rate of fire. It took expert pilots to make good use of it but even an expert had to
get relatively close to make it effective. A dangerous thing to do with a B-17 or 24.

[RichardAckermann]

I didn't expect that. Zero cannons have a range of 5 in all my stock scenarios. Gotta be overpowered, then.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: kfmiller41

Good advice, but so you know I didn't know that base was within range of those bombers, this is the first game I have gotten this far.....

You will soon know this stuff by heart.[:)]

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: RichardAckermann

Woudn't the A6M2 be able to fire the cannons at long range, outside the bombers defensive gun range?
I am sure to remember the germans did so, and japan armed late fighters with cannons to try engage B-29s at long range.
Are there any historical combats between A6M2 and allied heavy bombers to be studies for this?

It was a very poor weapon combination for shooting down bombers. You had a high velocity MGs with very little killing power mated with very low velocity 20mm cannon with only 20 rounds per gun. This made any kind of deflection shot very tough to do. To have any chance of a hit the zero had to close well within 50 cal. range and this was a pretty deadly prospect for a light fighter. Vs early bombers the only safe and effective attack was head on, but this was very hard to do for any pilot and the Allies soon beefed up the frontal guns of their bombers as a counter.

As I mentioned before Japanese pilots were not trained in group formation attacks vs bombers. Even with well equipped modern fighters this was an absolute must for bringing down heavies. Solo attack vs a well armed defensive box were not effective and usually fatal. There were two reasons for this lack. Japanese pilots had previously only fought slow light bombers prior and based their doctrine on the concept of plane to plane dog fighting. Regardless, Japanese fighters for the most part did not have radios. You just can't have coordinated formation attacks without functioning radios. It was a severe handicap.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: kfmiller41

Am playing Japan in a PBEM and my opponent just bombed my base at truk using about 50 heavy bombers. Date was 29 Dec 42. 5 raids came in at between 14000 to 18000 feet and total planes for all raids were 89. He lost no planes to my 30 zeros. He scored 18 hits, put 8 carriers and 1 battleship out of commission for at least 3-6 months with major damage. While I congratulate him on doing that I also feel like this accuracy is so out of whack I can understand why so many Japanese players call it quits. I mean I want to be competitive but I have nothing to shoot down hordes of 4 engine bombers, even my 2 engine fighters cannot stop them.
Am I just a bad player or is this something that should be house ruled to limit the uncanny accuracy these things have? It is only December 42 and he is already clobbering my bases with these beasts.[X(][X(]

Strange. Truk is stuffed with heavy AA guns. Thirty Zeroes, flak from the disbanded ships in the port... The 4ES were lucky to hit anything. Did he recon heavily Truk prior to the air raid?

[Aurorus]

A6Ms can be effective against 4-Es under certain conditions. Pilots above 80 exp. have a chance to make "head-on" attacks against 4-Es, knocking them out of formation and making them very easy to destroy. In order to achieve "head-on attacks," the altitude of your A6s must be equal to that of the 4-Es. There are other advantages to being at an altitude equal to the 4-Es. If your A6Ms are climbing into or diving into the B-17s, they frequently come under heavier fire, from the ball gunner and turret gunner, than if they are attacking from a level vector. To give you an example, my A6M2s just did battle with 40 B-17s, and I lost only 4 A6M2s in the battle, though I did have many damaged. The replay showed that the lost A6M2s were those that were climbing into the B-17s. Detection time is crucial here, so that your A6Ms can respond to the correct altitude. You want to be sure that you have your best available radar at the base where you expect the attack: tai-chi 13, I believe, in late 42. The Tai-Chi 1 and Tai-Chi 2 are not much more effective than sound detectors.

The A6M series is not ideal for 4-E defense, however, because of its low durability, as others have observed. 4-Es require a "combined arms" approach of high-durability, cannon-armed fighters (such as the Nick), quality radar, and heavy concetrations of flak with large numbers of searchlights for night-time raids.

[Dili]

Op had too many ships in the base.
Also does not say anything about Zero interception except : 30 that is too little information.

Aurorus searclights do not matter, they are load cost sinks.

[Barb]

Rule No.1: Never have ships disbanded in harbour, or planes on Stand By in range of 4E (15 hex for B-17E, 13hex for B-17F, 17 hex for B-24D/D1, 16 hex for B-24J - normal range. Add PB4Y and extended range for safety measure) - that is about 18-22 hex range. Once B-29 is in picture, readjust accordingly.
Rule No.2: Keep them up (high) - heavy AA, Radar, cannon armed-armored fighters in big numbers, detection.
Rule No.3: Keep them down (grounded) - destroy/damage them on the ground by whatever means are available. Every damaged 4E can take a lot of time to get back to fighting trim.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I have had a single ship hiding disbanded in some atoll in the Gilberts. Up came three B-24s from Funafuti, found it and sank it. Happened several times.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: kfmiller41

Am playing Japan in a PBEM and my opponent just bombed my base at truk using about 50 heavy bombers. Date was 29 Dec 42. 5 raids came in at between 14000 to 18000 feet and total planes for all raids were 89. He lost no planes to my 30 zeros. He scored 18 hits, put 8 carriers and 1 battleship out of commission for at least 3-6 months with major damage. While I congratulate him on doing that I also feel like this accuracy is so out of whack I can understand why so many Japanese players call it quits. I mean I want to be competitive but I have nothing to shoot down hordes of 4 engine bombers, even my 2 engine fighters cannot stop them.
Am I just a bad player or is this something that should be house ruled to limit the uncanny accuracy these things have? It is only December 42 and he is already clobbering my bases with these beasts.[X(][X(]

If you're looking for some help on settings drop in some screen shots of your fighter CAP settings, the combat report of the strikes, and some info on your pilot experience and skills. Too little here to go on.

That said, it's not out of the ordinary for massed 4Es to do a lot of damage on port strikes, as everyone has basically confirmed.

[MakeeLearn]

Ships in port... like... fish in barrel.


Early war, the Nick is probably the best Japanese plane to combat Allied bombers.

[Panther Bait]

Making things worse for Zeros versus 4E bombers is that they are fairly slow relative to the bombers, particularly if climbing to intercept. That often puts them in a situation of making a slow (relative) approach from behind. As others have said, the early 20mm cannons were inaccurate until well into 50 cal range, and the 7.7's are fairly useless.

Mike

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Dili


Aurorus searclights do not matter, they are load cost sinks.

I respectfully disagree. They do add something, flak most times will not fire at night with no radar or searchlights. Add searchlights, and they will fire even without radar present.

They are also damage soaks.