Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,

Have you guys known that the CAP percentage you select to defend your base is
all you will see in air in case of enemy air attack on that base (plus/minus
few aircraft)?

In other words, even if other fighter aircraft doesn't do anything (i.e. escort)
they will not be involved in air combat over own base - they will just
sit on ground.

You can have, for example, 10% CAP and no escort duty for other 90% of
fighters and still only those 10% would defend your base.


Arghhhh... ((


I always thought that radar in allied base (i.e. radar unit in airbase support
ground unit) would make proper alarm in advance and that _ALL_ available
fighters would scramble into the air regardless of CAP percentage.

Also even without radar the same should sometimes apply to both Japanese and
Allies because CAP can sight enemy in advance and give alarm (especially on
clear day).

This is why there were "Ready 5" aircraft parked on runway to be used in
shortest possible time (Saburo Sakai often mentions this in his book and how
effective they were used).


Any yet we don't have anything of this in UV...


Leo "Apollo11"

Radar can and does allow a boosted CAP beyond the % settings you list. I've had carriers and bases scramble many fighters even when i've had their CAP set to low %.

However it's not a constant though.......there are most likely other variables at work that effect the total # of ready aircraft in the air ready to do battle.

So some resource management is still required even for radar equipped bases

Yes, coastwatchers were a 2nd key component in allowing US Fighters at Guadalcanal to utilize the "scramble" method of CAP vs inefficient and fatigue inducing standing patrols, but building that network into the game would be a challenge as it is case sensitive. GIven the overabundance of CW sightings in UV, even on the most isolated and tiny islet.....i'd shudder to think of how it would work in the game. (shades of the IJN ASW issue)

Even radar was case sensitive technically as well if one wants to get anal. PM was hard to defend even with radar due to the interference imposed by the Owen Stanley mountains. A raid often wasn't detected until nearly on top of the base which did not bode well for the heavy Allied aircraft and their modest climb rates.

I agree that this is a bit unrealistic, but on the other hand, if you set up 10% CAP you do not expect guests, don’t you? Percentage of CAP indicates not only how many aircraft should participate in intercept, but readiness level of a base also.

You do not expect any serious air attacks – set up low CAP, base is under constant enemy pressure – set up high CAP. If you have on your radar equipped base, let say, 100 ready fighters, with CAP % of 30, there only 5 fighters are in the air constantly, when radar detects incoming enemy all other CAP assigned fighters should scramble (radar helps to save fatigue and increase efficiency of assigned fighters that way). Rest of the available fighters are just parked, not fueled, improperly armed, under maintenance, unassigned pilots cannot be near their aircraft all the time etc., so if it is a rear base (enemy attacks are not often) it cannot meet unexpected raid with all available might, one hour alert is not enough.

It’s you who decide how high probability of enemy attack and what should your guys do. If all available fighters would scramble to intercept all enemy attacks and would have to escort bombers same day, their fatigue would be so high that they would not be able to do any of the tasks successfully. btw enemy also can visit your base when those 90% are flying escort mission far away.

Sorry for my English, hope I was clear

One thing that I have seen discussed is that in WitP that fatigue for CAP will be reduced, to represent these kind of situations.

I hope they retrofit that back into UV.

Hi all,

All what you guys wrote is what I strongly believed until yesterday...

After one PBEM turn (and bad surprise for me) I tried to test it in H2H UV
scenarios...


In all my tests the CAP was exactly (plus/minus few aircraft) of what was set
in CAP percentage.

Radar didn't help at all.


Can you simulate what you claim in any H2H UV scenario?


Leo "Apollo11"

I've definitely noticed a difference in the past between % CAP set and the number of aircraft scrambling to meet an attack.

If enemy flew a recon mission I noticed the number of aircaft meeting it would equal the % CAP set.
If the enenmy flew another raid over the hex more aircraft would usually scramble to meet them unless otherwise engaged.
I've often only got 10-20% CAP at a base and have never been very dissapointed in the number of aircraft scrambling.

Not sure about the difference radar makes though.

My understanding of CAP percentage is that (for example) 60% of the fighters are reserved for defense duties, while the other are doing another thing.

That don't mean that 60% of the planes are flying CAP at any moment.
They should be some patrols in the air at any time and the rest of the CAP planes ready to take off, will be launched if a raid is coming close by.
The planes not reserved for CAP could be flying elsewhere, escorting a strike that will not find anything and so not be reported, or be under revision or any good reason.

But I don't know if UV works like that.

Maybe there should be 2 percentage given for CAP : % in the air at any time, % ready on the ground in case of attack.
So for example, you can put your CV fighters on 10 % CAP, 70% at readiness CAP and so have few fatigue and be able to defend against a surprise strike...with less chance to see it coming than if you had a higher real CAP.

I think you are wrong about that AmiralLaurent.

My understanding is that the % CAP you set is definitely up at any time.
ie if you set 50% CAP, at least 50% of the aircraft will be in the air all day....and crews will get VERY tired.

Posted by Apollo11

In all my tests the CAP was exactly (plus/minus few aircraft) of what was set
in CAP percentage.

Radar didn't help at all.

Can you simulate what you claim in any H2H UV scenario?

Leo,

I carried out some H2H testing of UV about a month back to see how well (defence wise) you could go with a low CAP % (to minimise fatigue) and radar.

I was using 4 squadrons of F4U-1 Corsairs at Shortland on 10% (which should have given about 10 fighters in the air). The results I got varied between 10 and 40 F4U-1s on CAP, normally in the 20-30 range. No allied offensive missions were being flown.

I played around with various combinations and found the following -
1) The a/c with good climb rates would put more in the air.
2) The more fighters on CAP, the worse the % that flew (ie 1 squadron of F4Us could put 20 fighters, 2 could put 30, etc).
3) Having only one a/c type on CAP was more effective for numbers than the same number of 2 or more different types.

The testing was not conclusive to confirm the above 3 points.

All up, what I did find was a lot of variation in what happened. I did see enough to say that the set CAP % is not a upper limit on the number of aircraft that will fly (certainly not in the low ranges like 30%. It might be if you set it above something like 50%).

Hi all,

Originally posted by Drongo
Posted by Apollo11


Leo,

I carried out some H2H testing of UV about a month back to see how well (defence wise) you could go with a low CAP % (to minimise fatigue) and radar.

I was using 4 squadrons of F4U-1 Corsairs at Shortland on 10% (which should have given about 10 fighters in the air). The results I got varied between 10 and 40 F4U-1s on CAP, normally in the 20-30 range. No allied offensive missions were being flown.

I played around with various combinations and found the following -
1) The a/c with good climb rates would put more in the air.
2) The more fighters on CAP, the worse the % that flew (ie 1 squadron of F4Us could put 20 fighters, 2 could put 30, etc).
3) Having only one a/c type on CAP was more effective for numbers than the same number of 2 or more different types.

The testing was not conclusive to confirm the above 3 points.

All up, what I did find was a lot of variation in what happened. I did see enough to say that the set CAP % is not a upper limit on the number of aircraft that will fly (certainly not in the low ranges like 30%. It might be if you set it above something like 50%).

IMHO we should test this some more and in various UV times (with F4U-1
"Corsairs" I saw that you tested in 1943 while I tested in 1942).

Also, type of base to conduct tests can also play some role.

This is important thing to know for sure...


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
"Drong" did you ever saw that close to 89-90% of fighters managed to scramble when CAP
was set to values lower than that?

IMHO we should test this some more and in various UV times (with F4U-1
"Corsairs" I saw that you tested in 1943 while I tested in 1942).

Also, type of base to conduct tests can also play some role.

This is important thing to know for sure...


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
"Drong" did you ever saw that close to 89-90% of fighters managed to scramble when CAP
was set to values lower than that?

Leo,

Absolutely it needs more testing. I've always been fascinated by the way the UV manual almost deliberately leaves you guessing as to cause and effect. The things you can suddenly uncover are amazing (and often leave you with more questions).

Unfortunately, I haven't the time to do the UV testing that I used to. I've pretty much had to drop my UV play to concentrate on WitP and avoid getting confused (the other testers don't seem to have a problem ).

Everything you mentioned could be relevant (great help, aren't I).
I hadn't got to the point of consistent results and identified variables when I had to drop the testing.

Yes, the results were for '43 (however, radar effects shouldn't vary as its the same type of base radar through out '42 and '43). Some other things I was going to look at were -
1) Base commander's influence
2) Squadron stats
3) Squadron leader stats
4) Radar equipped ships in harbour (long shot but if it turned out to work, the Japanese player would be rapt).
5) And some other things now forgotten.

Good Luck and God speed, mate!

P.S. I'm almost positive that I got close to a full squadron response (20+) despite a 10% CAP level at least once when using a single squadron of F4U's at Shortland with radar. Might be an idea to recreate the F4Us at Shortlands in '43 and work your way along from there.

Cheers

Originally posted by Mike_B20
I think you are wrong about that AmiralLaurent.

My understanding is that the % CAP you set is definitely up at any time.
ie if you set 50% CAP, at least 50% of the aircraft will be in the air all day....and crews will get VERY tired.

Not necessarily. If your base does not have radar, you will not get the full %50 percent. There might be other factors as well but I am not sure.

To have 50% planes on CAP at every moment of the day, that would imply that each pilot flies more than 6 hours a day. Of course they are tired at the end of the day...
Not speaking of people using 90% CAP over CV fleets.

Originally posted by AmiralLaurent
My understanding of CAP percentage is that (for example) 60% of the fighters are reserved for defense duties, while the other are doing another thing.

That don't mean that 60% of the planes are flying CAP at any moment.
They should be some patrols in the air at any time and the rest of the CAP planes ready to take off, will be launched if a raid is coming close by.
The planes not reserved for CAP could be flying elsewhere, escorting a strike that will not find anything and so not be reported, or be under revision or any good reason.

But I don't know if UV works like that.

Maybe there should be 2 percentage given for CAP : % in the air at any time, % ready on the ground in case of attack.
So for example, you can put your CV fighters on 10 % CAP, 70% at readiness CAP and so have few fatigue and be able to defend against a surprise strike...with less chance to see it coming than if you had a higher real CAP.

This is how it should be.

The % CAP should designate what % to hold back for TF defense, not a dictate for actual flight operations (that would be the CAG's call)

Like I mentioned before, I do believe they are reducing fatigue effects for CAP in WitP to represent just that.

I would like to see if this works at bases and CVs that don’t have radar. If it doesn’t then that puts the Japanese at a SERIOUS disadvantage once people learn to take advantage of this. We already know that fatigue plays a HUGE role in air-to-air combat results. The developers of WitP are reducing fatigue from CAP in that game. Until that change makes it into UV it will be very unfair if one side can set 10% cap and the other side has to exhaust their pilots with 60% CAP just to get the same effect.

Yamamoto

I doubt it will ever be as cut and dried as that due to other affecting variables. Radar can and 'should' give a flexibility bonus to the side that has it in terms of scrambling fighters, however other factors such as readiness of aircraft, leadership skills etc etc can and probably will still create situations where low CAP% settings will bring up fewer aircraft to meet an attack and/or higher CAP settings might not bring as many aircraft as expected. Radar on occasion could even fail to detect a raid in time (Santa Cruz)

Originally posted by crsutton
Not necessarily. If your base does not have radar, you will not get the full %50 percent. There might be other factors as well but I am not sure.

That doesn't make a lot of sense.

Say for example I've got 18 fighters on a base without radar and I set 50% CAP.
So, when sending the 9 fighters up for the 6-12 morning shift the squadron leader slaps his forehead (remembering the base has no radar) and only sends up 8 fighters.

I may have seen a reduction to bonus fighters scrambled but I can't remember being penalized ny an actual reduction to the %CAP I've set.

My thoughts and interpretations:

The penalty is with the number of planes that actually show up to fight, not the number that fly from the base.

Radar assists in making sure that the planes flying actually intercept the inbound raid as I understand it.

The hex is 30 miles across, thats a lot of airspace to patrol. To be in the right place at the right time is what radar provides you.

The planes you assign to CAP are flying in small groups over that whole area. Radar kicks in at making sure all the planes show up in the right area to intercept the raid.

No radar means that some of your guys are still flying at the other edge of the hex when the attack rolls in.

I do not believe UV reports a difference in the actual numbers displayed during the combat phase with the pictures, but you can certainly see the effectiveness difference represented by the end result. This is why sometimes you see a situation where planes show up and the air to air display shows the fight yet nothing actually happens. The CAP was there, but failed to intercept. The number show is the amount of CAP flying in the hex, not the amount of CAP that successfully intercepts the raid. That is show as individual aircraft shooting at each other.

Pretty tough to be sure, but thats what I feel we are seeing. Watching the actual combat plane by plane gives you far more information as to what actually occured. This information is not available in the rounded out AAR when it simply tells you that the 50 fighters where in the hex when the 50 bombers showed up.

There may be an additional benefit where high performace aircraft scramble to intercept the raid on top of the percentage you set. This may in turn be a function of whether or not these additional planes with tasked with other duties or not. In other words, if you set 20% cap, 80% escort, but no raids fly needing escort, it is possible that behind the scenes those 80% are shifted over to CAP that scramble IF a raid is spotted inbound. This effect may or may not be in play.

One of the confusing things that still leaves one guessing: Does altitude actually matter for CAP or does the altitude setting actually apply to the other portion of the aircraft (escort or sweep)? Always wondered myself...

So much gueswork with the manual vs the game, this is probably the very first wargame that ACTUALLY managed to hide you enough to force you to play at the theater level and really not be able to micromanage simply due to the lack of information available

Us wargamers are all the same, we want to get down to a level where we know the most trivial detail. I think if we actually had the access down to that level, UV would have been a total flop instead of a great game.

Originally posted by Nikademus
Radar can and does allow a boosted CAP beyond the % settings you list. I've had carriers and bases scramble many fighters even when i've had their CAP set to low %.

However it's not a constant though.......there are most likely other variables at work that effect the total # of ready aircraft in the air ready to do battle.

So some resource management is still required even for radar equipped bases

Yes, coastwatchers were a 2nd key component in allowing US Fighters at Guadalcanal to utilize the "scramble" method of CAP vs inefficient and fatigue inducing standing patrols, but building that network into the game would be a challenge as it is case sensitive. GIven the overabundance of CW sightings in UV, even on the most isolated and tiny islet.....i'd shudder to think of how it would work in the game. (shades of the IJN ASW issue)

Even radar was case sensitive technically as well if one wants to get anal. PM was hard to defend even with radar due to the interference imposed by the Owen Stanley mountains. A raid often wasn't detected until nearly on top of the base which did not bode well for the heavy Allied aircraft and their modest climb rates.

Haven't seen any of these things occuring since 2.3. Only the cap percentage flys. This isn't only PM Gili and Gc have the same issue.