Matrix Games Forums

I know this has been brought up before, but I have some different factors I would like some input on.

Situation Facts:

1) It is Mid August during scen 17.
2) PM is a level 9 AF, 8 Port.
3) 72k Supplies/10k Req.
4) 481 Av Support/250 Req.
5) 430 Support/403 Req.
6) 4 AA units, 3 units with Radar
7) I have 303 AC currently stationed here.
a) Of those 95 are Fighters, and 48 are FB.
b) 2 FS of Kittyhawks (Avg XP/Mor: 62/88, 67/91) and 2 FS of F4F-4's (64/95, 62/82)
c) Only 1 FS of P-39D's (70/88), the rest of the FB are crap set to Night CAP.
d) 2 F4F-4 FS are in Aus. which are intended to replace the P-39D's I had in NG. 2 are being transfered to Iru right now, and the 3rd in PM will be following them once the F4F-4's are ready.
8) 99.9% of the AC attacks on PM are coming from Rabul.


I knew I couldn't do a thing to stop the zero's coming from Rabul in the opening months, my best LBA being the Kittyhawks. But to my surprise, my p39's and the 36th gave as good as they got. Enough to drop the Japanese Morale down so most of the time, if they could get a few of them, the rest would turn tail and run....especially the bombers.

But the new Japanese squadrens have suffered no such defeats, so they are unafraid of my sub-par aircraft.

I wasn't too worried, because I knew I would be getting better Aircraft soon. Now I have enough fighters to completly replace the outmatched aircraft, but I am getting killed now more then ever.

Here is the weird thing that I am having trouble with. They started coming really high a few raids ago. My cap was set at low teens, and they flew right over me...I think one of my planes shot a zero, but the rest couldn't climb high enough. So I set my CAP at the highest it could go. This time they could engage, but they got slaugtered. That was about two weeks ago.

Their first raid just flew in, since I moved my F4F-4's in, and they got decimated at the maximum altitude. I shot down a total of 5 Zero's and lost 36 planes. I noticed that my AC were diving to the bombers, so I reloaded and set the altitude to 12,000...and they still got creamed.

1) Shouldn't the F4F-4's put up a better fight?
2) My first Air HQ is coming in soon, should I just ground my fighters until then?
3) What are typical Kill/Loss ratio I should expect from Allied LBA vs IJ LBA?
4) What Kill Loss Ratio should I expect from Marine F4F-4's vs Rabul A6M2 and A6M3?
5) I haven't paid much attention to ground units, but when I looked at the ENG to find the units with radar, I noticed that there was a 0 next to it. It looked like this:

Aviation Support (2) x 148
Engineers (1) x 29
Support (1) x 59
SCR-270 Radar (0) x 1

Did this unit lose its radar?
6) Is there any further adjustments that would help? Any tactics that you have found that worked?

The raids are coming in with over 100 Zero's, so if there is anything that will help in the near future, I don't want to waste my best pilots now, I want to give them the best chance that I can.

Couple notes:

1) Fatigue is low. I never operate above 20.

2) Since writing this post, I have been trying different altitudes, using just my Fighter wings. I have been splitting the CAP up, KH flying low, and F4F's Flying High...about 10k apart. The Zeros manage to shoot down 15+ of each no matter what the altitude is, losing only a few in return.

The last test run I did, I wanted to see what would happen if I really split them up. All fighters Set to LRCAP.

38 KH - 10k
35 F4F - 34.9k

vs

52 A6M2 Zero
38 A6M3 Zero
7 Betty


Japanese

Destroyed
3 A6M2
2 A6M3
2 Betty

Damaged
1 Betty

Allied

Destroyed
19 F4F-4
14 KH

Damaged
3 F4F-4
3 KH

PS Typing this on my 2nd computer while I play, otherwise I would have CnP the Combat Report.

You're playing the AI - right? If so, what you are seeing is what you can expect until you get P-38s.

The only thing you can do is start regular bombing of Raboul with all the B-17's/B-24s you can muster.

BTW - what is the morale of your fighter groups? If it is below 50, send them down south to some non-malarial bases and let them get back up to 90% plus.

The way the game is set up against the AI ( yeah, yeah, I know - the nice folks at Matrix have told me in the past that the AI doesn't cheat at "normal" settings, only at "hard" ... ) it's almost pointless to challenge Zeros prior to the end of 1942, and if you try the 1943 scenarios, you will be unhappy even with the performance of your P-47s.

So, essentially, instead of wasting FBs and fighters against the Zeros, you should shove in as much AA as possible, as many engineers as possible, as many tractors as possible ( to repair damage ), have as much supply as possible and have as few fighters as possible while you try to bomb Raboul into some level of incapacity.

Another way to help is to start to build other air bases that are within the range of Raboul - the AI will then waste attacks on these other bases - just don't send engineers in via transports, use FTs instead.

Good luck -

Dave Baranyi

In my humble opinion, you have to rotate your squdrons in and out. Keep your men happy. At the same time, inflict as much damage as you can on the enemy in order to wear on his units moral. Eventually, less and less of his units will appear.

This is only advice as far as CPU AI goes. Not human.

If human than in some cases you might wan't to leave PM temporarily.

Don't forget that 100+ Japanese fighters is formidable to any allied group size early on, but as you knock down more and more Japs, his average exp. drops over time.

the wee little problem of the morale/fatigue factors being really goofed up - and the only thing preventing me from using another naval term for that is my profession - but....any time you have fatigue factors climb into the 30-40 range from simply flying a 30% CAP over your own base without any escort missions, and anytime morale drops into the tank because the poor darlings have to fly more than three missions a week - there is some abhorent equine scatology afoot. I've got squadrons that fly two missions in three days and I have to bring them back to Australia to soak up some brew and chase the, well, never mind, or they don't "feel" like flying again.

I still say that whoever cobbled up this last round of morale/fatigue formulae needs to go back to shoes.

the (0) 1 on the radar means that you have 1 operating radar in that unit

If it was (1) 0 it would mean that the radar was disabled.

Originally posted by RevRick
the wee little problem of the morale/fatigue factors being really goofed up - and the only thing preventing me from using another naval term for that is my profession - but....any time you have fatigue factors climb into the 30-40 range from simply flying a 30% CAP over your own base without any escort missions, and anytime morale drops into the tank because the poor darlings have to fly more than three missions a week - there is some abhorent equine scatology afoot. I've got squadrons that fly two missions in three days and I have to bring them back to Australia to soak up some brew and chase the, well, never mind, or they don't "feel" like flying again.

I still say that whoever cobbled up this last round of morale/fatigue formulae needs to go back to shoes.

Yeah, they can go from fearless heroes, able to face 20 to 1 odds and face certain death in maelstroms of flak when morale is in the 90's to wishing they were home, putting on makeup and checking their stockings for ladders while waiting for their carrot cakes to bake when morale falls below 50.

I agree, that the moral hits are insane, especially because it doesn't make sense...atleast to me.

I did a turn as the Japanese, just to see what I was up against.

They had a little over 100 fighters, so that means they were sending 100% of their fighters. They only have 1 fresh FS, they must have just been transfered in. Two of the flight groups have really low morale, compared to me (in the 50's) and fatigue is high, again compared to me, on all but the new FS.

On paper the F4F-4 and the Zero's aren't that different, at least the info which they provided. They F4F has an advantage in Durability and Firepower, while the Zero has better Manuverability (not by much) and a pretty big lead in climb rate.

So....if its not the planes, its not morale or fatigue....then it must be pilot experience.

And this Japan does have a HUGE advantage in. But, I don't see my Experienced pilots doing that much better. They don't survive any longer, or garner any more kills across the board. My kill leaders are a mix of Exp, from 67 to 94. Again this is from an Allied perspective. We don't have that many 90+ pilots, atleast up until Aug. (I don't know what kind of Exp future pilots will have).

Don't get me wrong.....I am sure that morale and fatigue have a HUGE impact on Allied Pilot performance, but it will only make them worse. A 99 Morale and 0 Fatigue Wildcat FS will only perform at their best, which isn't enough. I was only trying to point out that Allied Exp is the reason they are getting killed.

Since getting pilots experience up is so hard, which is why I probably get so attatched to them, I hate seeing them chewed with nothing to do about it. I can't even mob them, even outnumbered 5 to 1, they still manage to inflict their fare share of casualties, and then break off and survive to fight another day.

So the solution, if all the above statements are true, would be to raise the expirence of the Allied fly boys. This is the difficult part for fighters. As far as I can tell, the only way to raise them up, would be to have them in more dogfights. And there is a good chance that they wouldn't make it out of one if they went up against the boys from Rabul.

Aside from this, is there any edge that you can give your pilots? I don't know if this is modled, but different aircraft performed better or worse depending on the situation they were in...such as altitude. This might be a question for the Devs, but is there anything that we can do to give the advantage to our pilots based on the plane they are flying?

In the example you give, you have less fighters than IJN. If you want to fight, you should have at least twice more fighters and then you will score some victories. Still losing more than you give but killing enough Zeroes to make them stop raiding.

But on the whole, putting CAP over PM in summer 1942 is pointless. Better to let the AI send 100 Zeroes and 10 bombers at high alt, bombs did almost nothing and some planes will fall to AA and operationnal losses.

Keep you P-39 on naval attack to hunt Japanese ships and barges. And let your better fighters train in Australia.