Jap pilots are surperhuman!

[ruffels]

Hi Guys
This is my first post to the forum. I've been following discussion about the possiblity that the game is a little one sided toward the japanese.

For my2cents I think it may be (at least in the beginning).
I'm playing scenario 17 as the Allies. I managed to get through the first turns without losing the Lex or the Yorktown and have husbanded my carriers carefully (only brining them out when absolutely necessary and training the pilots). As part of a large scale resupply and troop transport to Lunga I had to bring them up to cover the transports. I had 6 carriers divided into two fleets with lots of flak capable ships along. I parked them south of Gaudalcanal while the transports went in.

Low and behold the Japs came down from Truk with 9 carriers in four fleets! I thought I would tough it out reasoning I could stand to lose a few flattops if I could take out a few of theirs. I had land based marine fighters flying CAP over my Air Combat fleets and I spaced my fighter and bombers out in altitude as someone suggested in this forum. We spotted them first and my planes went in. In small groups from each carrier (which I think is historical). We got wiped! I'm not just saying wiped...killed! Obliterated! I lost almost every plane! Out of an average say 26 Dauntless's and 12 or whatever Avengers maybe 6 to 8 planes would get through. All the Wildcats were shot down! Those planes that did survive the flak were terrible at bombing. I think I got one bomb hit and one torpedo hit during the whole set of attacks.

Then they came after me. The Marine aircraft did a little better at Cap but not much and just about every Jap bomber that got through got a hit! I lost three carriers and sundry other ships and barely dinted them!

I would have to say that the Jap kill ratio was easily 50 to 1. Is this right? I mean I'm willing to take losses but that seems awfully one sided. These Jap pilots are going to survive right through the war if I don't shoot some of them down and even improved planes may not help if these guys are that good.

Is there light at the end ofthe tunnel or my carriers just going to be fodder for those superhuman Japs?

Another question. What do you guys set your cap levels at on your Wildcats? I can't see anything about that in the manual. What is that exactly (I know what CAP is but what's the difference between setting that and doing an actual CAP mission)?

By the way I'm playing on the historical level with all Fog of war etc. on.
It's the middle of August 42 and I've taken Lae and have them running on Gaudalcanal.

See yah

[Peter Weir]

Hi Guys
This is my first post to the forum. I've been following discussion about the possiblity that the game is a little one sided toward the japanese.

For my2cents I think it may be (at least in the beginning).
I'm playing scenario 17 as the Allies. I managed to get through the first turns without losing the Lex or the Yorktown and have husbanded my carriers carefully (only brining them out when absolutely necessary and training the pilots). As part of a large scale resupply and troop transport to Lunga I had to bring them up to cover the transports. I had 6 carriers divided into two fleets with lots of flak capable ships along. I parked them south of Gaudalcanal while the transports went in.

Low and behold the Japs came down from Truk with 9 carriers in four fleets! I thought I would tough it out reasoning I could stand to lose a few flattops if I could take out a few of theirs. I had land based marine fighters flying CAP over my Air Combat fleets and I spaced my fighter and bombers out in altitude as someone suggested in this forum. We spotted them first and my planes went in. In small groups from each carrier (which I think is historical). We got wiped! I'm not just saying wiped...killed! Obliterated! I lost almost every plane! Out of an average say 26 Dauntless's and 12 or whatever Avengers maybe 6 to 8 planes would get through. All the Wildcats were shot down! Those planes that did survive the flak were terrible at bombing. I think I got one bomb hit and one torpedo hit during the whole set of attacks.

Then they came after me. The Marine aircraft did a little better at Cap but not much and just about every Jap bomber that got through got a hit! I lost three carriers and sundry other ships and barely dinted them!

I would have to say that the Jap kill ratio was easily 50 to 1. Is this right? I mean I'm willing to take losses but that seems awfully one sided. These Jap pilots are going to survive right through the war if I don't shoot some of them down and even improved planes may not help if these guys are that good.

Is there light at the end ofthe tunnel or my carriers just going to be fodder for those superhuman Japs?

Another question. What do you guys set your cap levels at on your Wildcats? I can't see anything about that in the manual. What is that exactly (I know what CAP is but what's the difference between setting that and doing an actual CAP mission)?

By the way I'm playing on the historical level with all Fog of war etc. on.
It's the middle of August 42 and I've taken Lae and have them running on Gaudalcanal.

See yah

Boy I just got through writing an private letter to someone about this and now your post shows up! Join the fun! Theres a raging debate about pro-Jap bias over in the witp forum on numeros threads with no let up ever and asll the name calling you could ever want. (I do NOT encourage that.) From what I can tell some players lik eit htis way, as the Allied play in PBEM I do not and cant see the logic at all.

[ruffels]

Well, I should add I'm not complaining too bitterly because I really love the game and enjoy the challenge. It's better than having the Jap AI just lie down and take it. I am looking forward to WitP!!!

Bye

[Mr.Frag]

A couple of things to note:

The AI vs Human will wipe your butt generally at CV wars because it cheats a bit (depending on skill level played). Check what level you are running at.

Splitting up your CV's actually causes you a penalty in effectiveness. You would have fared better with all 6 of your CV's in a single task force as it would have concentrated your attacks better instead of spreading them out against 4 separate task forces.

This does not happen in a Human vs Human situation.

When dealing with the mass CV war that tends to happen in Player vs AI, you need to fight on your own turf, within range of your own bases and supporting aircraft to tip the odds in your favour.

You also need fresh troops. Make sure your aircraft are napping on the deck with extremely low Fatigue before entering into the brawl. If your fighters are tired, run away as fast as you can when you spot the CV's coming out.

WitP and the retrofit back into UV will correct these issues.

This is not to say that you are going to walk away from the fight a winner. Both sides will loose massive numbers of planes and ships in the process.

[mogami]

Hi, In Scenario 17 PBEM game the Japanese player would really be tickled to see you moving to Lunga in Aug 42. Remember in Scenario 17 there has been no Midway. One of the reasons the Allies launched Operation Watchtower (The capture of Tulagi and Lunga) was to exploit their victory at Midway. Be happy the IJN did not meet your transports with heavy surface units and kill your landing troops and then advance on Luganville or Noumea. Scenario 17 is not as bad as scenario 19 (where the allies have to almost crawl into a hole and hide for 6 months)
Scenario 17 is a Japanese advantage scenario. For a more realistic and historic game try scenario 14. Your right on in your strategy for that scenario.
The CV lost at Midway are absent and the Coral Sea CV have less effective airgroups (they are new) Also there are no IJN CV for the first 10 days. This allows you to take Tulagi and Lunga and only have to face 1 A6M2 Daitai and prehaps 60 landbased bombers in 4 understrength bomber groups. (Your CV CAP can defeat this with ease. Expect perhaps 2-4 hits on 2-3 of your ships.

In scenario's 17 and 19 the USN should transfer the CV airwings to Noumea and send the CV back to PH. They will return in Approx 38 days with a vastly improved AA array. All ships with 1.1inch or .50cal guns should also be sent back to PH. 1.1inch upgrade to 40mm and .50 cal upgrade to 20mm. The USN AA is of major impact on the course of events and so should always be upgraded. You don't have much demand for surface ships in the early going. (I use them to conduct evac operations in Scenario 19 and then send them back to PH) By mid July you should be getting heavy USN reinforcment composed of ships with AA upgrades.

Make sure you set the game to historical or the AI will eat you alive in aircombat.

[ruffels]

Wow! Thanks for the great advice Mogami. You've obviously delved into this a great deal. What you said about AA on ships is interesting and something that would never have occurred to me. How do you figure this stuff out?

I thought I would take Lunga early in an attempt to thwart a Japanese build up there. Maybe I'm in too much of a hurry but thus far, outside of this carrier debacle things have been going okay. I can see how a savy human player would eat me alive.

I'll take this to the finish line and see how I do.

By the way regarding playing human partners is there a way to play this game on a network? I have two computers joined by a router here in my office and I was thinking buying another copy, having a buddy over and run the games simultaneously. Is tghere a way to do this? I havn't looked in the manual, I just thought I'd ask while I'm typing this.

Thanks again all...

[mogami]

Hi, Sorry you can't link 2 machines. But you can just play on one in a hot seat game. When it is your turn your buddy watches TV and drinks beer. After you finish orders you end turn and trade places. You both watch the turn resolve.
(You get a little bit too much intell be what the heck it's a game. Let him drink tequila and you drink beer.)

[mdiehl]

Nevertheless the general observation that the Japanese should not inflict such lopsided kill ratios on the USN (whose historical ratio was about 1.5:1 in favor of the US) is correct. If the model is allowing the Japanese to effectively coordinate 6 CVs worth of CAP it's broken.

I can buy the argument that in a human vs AI game it is because the AI cheats. It was always the case in GGPW. Do human vs human encounters routinely come out this way?

[CapAndGown]

ASplitting up your CV's actually causes you a penalty in effectiveness. You would have fared better with all 6 of your CV's in a single task force as it would have concentrated your attacks better instead of spreading them out against 4 separate task forces.

This does not happen in a Human vs Human situation.

I disagree with this. I have found splitting up the carriers to be very effective and have used it in PBEM games on a regular basis. I would generally recommend two CV TFs of 3 ships each over 1 TF with all 6 carriers.

Even with the mega-CV TFs raids can still be broken up. An even when split, as just described, the raids can come into together. Coordination is determined by a number of factors, some of which I know, such as distance, and spotting level, and other I don't, perhaps TF commander skill and others.

[ruffels]

I would have thought this to be true too. Mainly because as the enemy is hitting one of my task forces the other could be hitting them, but I don't think it works that way and it certainly did not this time.

At one point the 4 Jap Taskforces had CAP of some 140 zeros! When you go in, in groups that have 36 Wildcats as an escort it doesn't count for much. And when the Japs had finished with my attack force I didn't have any CAP at all (except for some Marine planes at Lunga). Zippo. They had a field day. It was the Marianna Turkey Shoot in reverse. And I should add, there was one co-ordinated attack between my two task forces but it didn't matter, I still got creamed.

I now think, even though it's historically wrong, that it would be better to go in with huge CV task forces. I'm not even going to commit my carriers until I have overwhelming numbers which will be about 300 turns from now.

See yah

[CapAndGown]

Clarification to my last post:

When I say split up the carriers, I don't mean put them in seperate hexes. I mean have two TF's in the same hex. That way their CAP will be combined.

To keep the CV TF's together, you will need to have each of them following a surface combat TF. This way they won't split up during the reaction phase.

[pasternakski]

Clarification to my last post:

When I say split up the carriers, I don't mean put them in seperate hexes. I mean have two TF's in the same hex. That way their CAP will be combined.

To keep the CV TF's together, you will need to have each of them following a surface combat TF. This way they won't split up during the reaction phase.

Yes, sir, this man is absolutely correct. The best Allied strategy after you have the "big six" carriers is to form them into two TFs that are something like "CV CV CV CA CL CL CLAA CLAA DD DD DD DD DD DD DD," where the carriers have had their first AA upgrade, the CA has been back to Pearl and upgraded to a 1432 AA rating, the CLs are American, not Commonwealth (and, again, the ones you have been able to return for AA upgrade or showed up with their first upgrade already done), and DDs with either the "560" or "500" AA rating. Put them under command of Mitscher and Spruance, and send them out following a surface combat TF under Admiral Lee with a couple of the treaty BBs, six or eight CAs, and a bunch of the nifty Fletcher destroyers as escorts.

When push comes to shove, Lee and company can be detached and make mincemeat out of just about anything the IJN can throw at them, led by Tanaka or not.

This makes for a tough bunch, but you've got to be skillful in using them if you have not yet gotten rid of several of the Japanese "Pearl Harbor" CVs. They can still kick your @$$ if you're not careful.

[mdiehl]

At one point the 4 Jap Taskforces had CAP of some 140 zeros! When you go in, in groups that have 36 Wildcats as an escort it doesn't count for much. And when the Japs had finished with my attack force I didn't have any CAP at all (except for some Marine planes at Lunga).

It's this sort of claim that concerns me. No one could manage a 140 a/c "CAP" in 1942. It took the US some very intensive post-October 1942 theory and staff work, IFF, improvements in radar, comminications, command and control, and physical rearrangements of the CCC to refine the art of managing large numbers of carrier-based airplames, both with respect to strikes and with respect to CAP. The Japanese NEVER managed to figure out how to do this well; the only situations in which they bundled 6 CVs of aircraft into an attack was in set-piece battles against land installations.

If the model is letting more than 30 or so of those 140 Zekes make contact against a single incoming strike wave, the model is broken.

[Mr.Frag]

Ok Cap, as long as you are in the same hex, thats fine ... the key point is early on, your CV's are actually your BEST AA ships around, keeping them together for self protection is a good idea.

Later when you get your AA upgrades and the CLAA's are around, splitting them up and tasking them to follow a slower ship to keep the fleets in the same hex is perfectly viable, but the starter AA values on ships makes leaving your CV's to be guarded by anything less then a CV is scary.

Just remember, primary targets are CV's, the more CV's around, the more you will spread out the damage that eventually comes in. One of the reasons to toss the LI in is simply to have it take some hits that may have finished off one of your other fleet CV's.

Mdiehl, there is a scaling problem that nothing really seems to fix, once you get into massive brawl situations, things tend to go a little haywire. Things get a little crazy when you get 600+ aircraft milling around in 1 hex. If you have two players both playing safe and hording their CV's, eventually, you will run into some strangeness as this never happened historically so it is completely unknown to the model. Even the massive CV battle at PI was not like this as smaller flights of 100 odd aircraft came in at a time to be slaughtered.

[Tristanjohn]

It's this sort of claim that concerns me. No one could manage a 140 a/c "CAP" in 1942. It took the US some very intensive post-October 1942 theory and staff work, IFF, improvements in radar, comminications, command and control, and physical rearrangements of the CCC to refine the art of managing large numbers of carrier-based airplames, both with respect to strikes and with respect to CAP. The Japanese NEVER managed to figure out how to do this well; the only situations in which they bundled 6 CVs of aircraft into an attack was in set-piece battles against land installations.

If the model is letting more than 30 or so of those 140 Zekes make contact against a single incoming strike wave, the model is broken.

That's but one side of this broken-model coin. The obverse has the attacker swarming all over the defense (as a rule, not always) with packages of torpedo- and dive-bombers reaching up into the hundreds, with escorting fighter aircraft also normally doing their work in one large package, and so in these cases whatever CAP exist (especially for the USN) proves to be ineffective, with disasterous result.

Finally, never forget the AA factor, where it seems to me as if Japanese planes which face greater USN flak take fewer losses in flimsyer planes yet then go on to wreck untold damage, meanwhile USN strikes composed of more sturdy aircraft flying into lighter flak take more damage still while these aviators go on to do entirely less damage, and sometimes the USN does no damage to speak of at all.

At end of day the IJN are victorious to a ridiculous degree, which is the primary reason Allied players in Scenarios #17 and #19 at least tend to "hide out" for the first few months of the war, at least until they might amass six carriers of their own into a "decently-sized" CV strike force and have had a chance to "whittle down" those superior IJN pilots and leaders and so on.

[Damien Thorn]

Finally, never forget the AA factor, where it seems to me as if Japanese planes which face greater USN flak take fewer losses in flimsyer planes yet then go on to wreck untold damage, meanwhile USN strikes composed of more sturdy aircraft flying into lighter flak take more damage still while these aviators go on to do entirely less damage, and sometimes the USN does no damage to speak of at all.

I don't know what version of the game you are playing but what you describe is something I've never seen. The Japanese always take MUCH, MUCH more losses to AA than the allies do. Besides, it doesn't matter how many allied pilots are killed because the replacements are just as good. Each Japanese pilot that is lost has a high skill that you will be lucky to see in any replacement.

The allies don't even need their CVs at all. Loose all of them and you can still win with the overwhelming land-based planes you get in '43.

All the people who complain about the allies are always talking about events in 1942. Try playing from teh Japanese side in a scenario starting in 1943 if you really want to see a hopeless situation. You won't even be able to mount a single offensive no matter how well you play.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about so called "Japanese Bias" from players who don't have the patience to build up thier forces (and whittle the Japanese forces down through attrition) before starting their offensive push.

[herbieh]

I too agree with damien, so many posters on these threads never seem to have played mid 43 as the japanese. try it, the lessons handed out speak far more eloquantly than any posting ever could

[CynicAl]

Here's an interesting article - an interview with a Japanese WW2 veteran. His remarks about 1/4 down the page (on flying CAP in an A6M) seem particularly relevant to this discussion.

[mogami]

Hi, For those used to feet instead of meters he says the normal altitude for first effects on Zero performance was 5000m (16,404feet) and the altitude where the Zero was a total slug 8000m (26,246feet)

[von Murrin]

@ ruffels

Just to throw my poo in the pile (:D), an interesting high risk tactic to use as the Allied player in #17 or #19 once you have all six CV's is to put them in 4 TF's: 2CV, 2CV, 1CV, and 1CV + appropriate escorts. Put a mixed bag of cautious and aggressive ADM's in charge as well. They will give you a good sample of well and completely uncoordinated strikes, wearing down the IJN CAP to complete ineffectiveness.

When it fails, it fails miserably, but more often than not the IJN strikes come in piecemeal and only hit a few of your TF's, allowing them to be destroyed in detail with little damage done to your CV's in return. One sunk and one damaged is about par for the course in a 3:2 unfavorable CV ratio situation. The next turn is huntin' time!

Other things to get guaranteed (almost) wins:

1) Bait and retreat. Send your CV's out and do some damage to IJN shipping, the retreat behind your nearest base. Let them pound on it for a few turns while you rest, and then go hit them. Tired and depleted IJN pilots + rested and filled out USN squadrons = slaughter.

2) Popcorn. Engage at max range (set your torp and dive squadrons to rest, Fighters to 90% CAP the turn you do it). This can be extremely risky, but if you pull it off you'll mow down the Kates and Vals. As they'll all be dropping bombs, the Kates are simply fodder, and the Vals will be scoring hits with 60kg bombs; IOW, popcorn. The next day reset your squadrons to attack, close range, and maul them.

Combining all the above can be absolutely spectacular. I've seen 350+ aircraft and 7CV/CVL destroyed in return for 60+ and 1 CV damaged. None of this is guaranteed in MP, of course. Humans are devious.

In general, you'll just need to play and develop experience. I got clobbered in the beginning, too. CV engagements are consequential in UV: the results mirror the conditions and choices you make to bring them into being. Never engage unless you can give yourself maximum advantage. In time, you'll develop a literal feel for how and when to give battle.