Ground attack with P-39, P-38 etc..

[Odin]

Which altitude is the best for using aircraft like this in ground attack role?

1000 feet or perhaps 100?

[Drex]

I believe if you set them to "sweep", they will automatically attack at the optimum height for strafing, 100'. So set it and forget it. for bombing, I'm not sure what the correct height should be but at 100' the bomb blast would get them. I would use 1000' for bomb runs.

[mogami]

Hi, If you want a ground attack sweep select 100'
(You can sweep at higher altitude but they will not make ground attack. ) (A sweep is basicly telling fighter to fly to base and back. Setting to 100' is "also strafe while there"

A good idea is to have 1 or more groups strafe while one or more groups fly 'high" to engage enemy fighters.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, If you want a ground attack sweep select 100'
(You can sweep at higher altitude but they will not make ground attack. ) (A sweep is basicly telling fighter to fly to base and back. Setting to 100' is "also strafe while there"

A good idea is to have 1 or more groups strafe while one or more groups fly 'high" to engage enemy fighters.

Yesterday i did exactly that:D

I had some 50 Corsairs, 60 Dauntless and 50 Avenger in Port Moresby, the fighters strafing at 100 feet, Dauntless from 16.000 feet and Avengers at 1000 feet..target was Lae.

I ´ve never seen an attack like that - one attack killed nearly 1000 men...this base was a slaughterhouse.

After 5 Days of attacks without losing a single aircraft, it seems that all troops at Lae are dead:eek:

After scenario the base looks like this: Infantry (72) x 0, Support (90) x 0 and so on:D

[Mike_B20]

Seems to me the only good attack height for P39's is 100 feet, whether attacking ground or naval targets.
In a pinch, I have used them as CAP at 6000 to protect transports but they are slaughterd by zeros.

No real idea of the best height for P38s. They seem to be best used as CAP, escorts or in sweep missions in my experience. They are comfortable at 15,000 feet it seems.

[Odin]

I mostly use the P-38 to escort my B17 to Rabaul.

[HannoMeier]

The fighter sweep attack seems broken, it incurs too many casualties. We implemented a houserule not to use it at the moment.

Hanno

[Drex]

Originally posted by Hanno Meier
The fighter sweep attack seems broken, it incurs too many casualties. We implemented a houserule not to use it at the moment.

Hanno

I agree completely that these kinds of casualties are outrageous and it would be impossible to kill everyone at a base. You might destroy all facilities, but not kill all the troops.

[Odin]

The fighters doesnt perform that great, they killed in one strafing run up to 100 troops, not more...the most casualties were inflicted by the bombers i think.

Exactly 992 dead, despite the fact that there weren´t many hits at the base (7 port hits, 3 supply hits, something like that).

I created now a second Port Moresby Scenario, and placed a much stronger land force (jap. 222th RGT) in Lae, i will now replay and see what happens to this force.

[crsutton]

Originally posted by Odin
The fighters doesnt perform that great, they killed in one strafing run up to 100 troops, not more...the most casualties were inflicted by the bombers i think.

Exactly 992 dead, despite the fact that there weren´t many hits at the base (7 port hits, 3 supply hits, something like that).

I created now a second Port Moresby Scenario, and placed a much stronger land force (jap. 222th RGT) in Lae, i will now replay and see what happens to this force.

I am pretty sure that this is a bug that was not fully corrected from previous versions. (related to fighter ground attacks) You might want to refrain from these tactics out of fair play to your opponent. Ask him to do the same.

Bombers alone will not kill many men.

[Odin]

Ok, i played it again, with 222th RGT in Lae...again a slaughter, but this time i wanted to do my Stukas and Avengers directly attacks against ground forces there after air defence was out and the port nearly gone.

For some reason they never fly this missions..seems to be this navy stuff wont do such job

Maybe i missed somewhat during the updates..

But now i agree this fighter sweeps are too effective.

But: a hundred Dauntlesses and 50 Avengers cannot score more hits as 8 port hits, 4 port fuel hits?

Thats to bad i think!

[Lrfss]

"Ok, i played it again, with 222th RGT in Lae...again a slaughter, but this time i wanted to do my Stukas and Avengers directly attacks against ground forces there after air defence was out and the port nearly gone."

Heheheh, LOL!!

Stuka's? I wish I had about 100 of the tank buster and about 100 of the regular variety:eek:

And while were talking Reich A/C, how about some Fw190D's to escort those beasts

Hmmm...Food for thought?

Later,

Lrfss

[Odin]

Sorry...with Stuka i mean the dauntlesses...it is the short form for our word for dive bomber..nothing more:D

[Lrfss]

That's ok Odin, I still think it would be an interesting addition to the PTO, ROTFLMAO!!

Besides I'll take that 190D over all of the fighters in this time period. Now as for the Stuka, I still think that at least the twin 37mm Cannon job would do a better then the DDB has been doing for me;) Course I would suppose these A/C would have to go on the Jap side

Later,

Lrfss

[Odin]

Well, i´d like to have B-29 Bombers, i love this beatifull birds..too bad they were not availabe in UV timetable:)