B-29 Superfodder

[dpstafford]

Day Air attack on Hamamatsu , at 64,43

Japanese aircraft
N1K1-J George x 6
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 4
Ki-84-Ia Frank x 27

Allied aircraft
B-29 Superfortress x 162

Japanese aircraft losses
N1K1-J George: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged
Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 4 damaged
Ki-84-Ia Frank: 5 destroyed, 17 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
B-29 Superfortress: 117 destroyed, 48 damaged

Heavy Industry hits 5

Aircraft Attacking:
8 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
25 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
2 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
20 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
5 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
3 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet
5 x B-29 Superfortress bombing at 15000 feet

[rtrapasso]

What the hey? This has got to be a bug! 37 Fighters vs. 162 Su0erf0rtresses shouldn't be able to do anything like this!

[Tankerace]

First off, being unescorted 29s I wouldn't have them BELOW 20,000. That would probably reduce some casualties.

[freeboy]

fow? my bombers in a raid at palambangoroo took 250% casualties per the reports, in reality only 1 was shot down and about 30 % damaged

[dpstafford]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

fow? my bombers in a raid at palambangoroo took 250% casualties per the reports, in reality only 1 was shot down and about 30 % damaged

The actual number shot down was 61. By 37 third rate fighters.

[2ndACR]

Those third rate fighters, are the best the Japanese can build in any numbers.

[Warspite**]

He also only managed to shoot down 2 of my fighters in actuality. There is defintely something wrong with that picture. On top of that none of those fighters were stationed at the target, they were flying CAP 2 hexes away at Tokyo. I imagine that radar vectored them in. Still given the distance I should not have been so successful with the intercept. That and I should probably have run out of ammo before being able to shoot down 61 planes with only 37 poorly armed fighters.

[Oznoyng]

Those aren't bad fighters and they are not poorly armed. In the hands of good pilots, they are more than capable of shooting down some unescorted bombers flying at 15000 feet. You are looking at less than two planes per fighter shot down. 61/37 = 1.64 per fighter. It is certainly a great result for the Japanese player, but the Allied player handed it to him by flying at 15000 feet without an escort.

Armaments of fighters involved:
Ki-61Iac: 2 x 20 mm cannon, 4 x 12.7 mm MG http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... ki-61.html
Ki-84a Frank: 2 x 20 mm cannon, 2 x 12.7 mm MG http://www.angelfire.com/fm/compass/Hayate.htm
N1K1-J George: 4 x 20 mm cannon http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/n1k-j.htm

[paullus99]

This does seem to be a little unhistorical.....what about B29's flying at very low altitudes for the fire-bombing raids? Are you saying that they should suffered even more losses? Even though historically B29's had more to worry about from mechanical difficulties than Japanese fighters....

[timtom]

To my knowledge, the highest number of bombers lost by the USAAF in a single mission were in the Schweinfurt and Regensburg raids on August 17th 1943, and October 14th 1943. 60 B-17's & B-24's were lost in each raid, out of 376 & 291 flying, respectively. I don't know whether these figures include operational losses and write-offs, but they do include AAA losses.

How does altitude effect a fighter's ability to shot down a bomber, presuming that a succesful interception has been made?

[Oleg Mastruko]

This is not to say at least some of those B29s weren't actually killed by "mechanical difficulties". Most of US 4-engined bombers in UV and WITP (as in real life) actually crash when returning back home from missions (where they were "only" damaged). Also, this was a day mission. Low flying fire bombing raids would be done at night which is different picture altogether (Tonys and Franks would not be nearly as efficient then)

More data is needed. Was this PBEM game? If not what is the AI difficulty setting? Were B29s flying on extended range?

O.

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: paullus99

This does seem to be a little unhistorical.....what about B29's flying at very low altitudes for the fire-bombing raids? Are you saying that they should suffered even more losses? Even though historically B29's had more to worry about from mechanical difficulties than Japanese fighters....

B-29 low level raids were night time raids.

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: timtom

To my knowledge, the highest number of bombers lost by the USAAF in a single mission were in the Schweinfurt and Regensburg raids in 1943. 60 B-17's & B-24's were lost in each raid, out of 376 & 291 flying, respectively. I don't know whether these figures include operational losses and write-offs, but they do include AAA losses.

How does altitude effect a fighter's ability to shot down a bomber, presuming that a succesful interception has been made?

Lower altitude means that interceptors have to climb less to engage therefore having both more time to engage and more planes on station to engage. If I have to climb to 25000 feet to engage, that is another 3.25 minutes it takes fighters to altitude to engage the B-29's if I have a climb rate around 3000 feet per minute. A B-29 moves roughly 10 miles in that time period.

Assuming a raid warning at 60 miles, there will be approximately 12 minutes to get pilots into planes, climb to altitude and engage before the B-29's are over target. If the B-29's are at 15000 feet against fighters with a climb rate of 3000 feet per minute, then the scrambled fighters have 7 minutes to engage before bombs are dropped. If the B-29's are at 25000 feet against fighters with a climb rate of 3000 feet per minute, then the fighters have less than 4 minutes to engage before bombs are dropped. Note that this is assuming perfect interception angles, clear blue skies, etc.

[mogami]

Hi, Were the 61 all shot down in Air to Air or are some of these AA and Ops?

Remember by the time the USAAF began bombing Japan they pretty much had air superiority but still captured Iwo Jima for fighter escort.

[tsimmonds]

Remember by the time the USAAF began bombing Japan they pretty much had air superiority but still captured Iwo Jima for fighter escort.

As well as for emergency landings; Iwo had 2400 B29 landings. [X(] How many of those would have ended up in the drink?

[Warspite**]

ORIGINAL: Oznoyng

Those aren't bad fighters and they are not poorly armed. In the hands of good pilots, they are more than capable of shooting down some unescorted bombers flying at 15000 feet. You are looking at less than two planes per fighter shot down. 61/37 = 1.64 per fighter. It is certainly a great result for the Japanese player, but the Allied player handed it to him by flying at 15000 feet without an escort.

I meant relatively speaking when compared to Allied and German fighters. Despite this, you will still not see that kind of kill ratio even at 15,000 feet without an escort. The Regensburg-Schweinfurt raid was the worst case scenario for American bombers in WW2 and it did not achieve the same results... lets recap.

Hamamatsu raid = Daylight raid involving 162 B-29s and no escorts against 37 fighters of all types. Resulting losses to both sides 61 B-29s (note he also received operational losses to this formation, but I can't remember what it was) and 2 Ki-84s.

Regensburg = Daylight raid involving 146 B-17s and B-24s against unkown number fighters (I'm still looking I have it here somewhere), but a lot more than 37. Resulting losses to Americans were 24 bombers, would have been higher , but they confused German defences by flying to North Africa where an additional 20 B-17s were left behind due to combat damage though these may have been repaired later I do not know.

Schweinfurt = Daylight raid that was supposed to be simulataneous with Regensburg, but delayed by weather, consequently ran into organized defence with no benefit from earlier raid. Forces included 230 bombers and again unknown number of German fighters. Losses were 36 bombers downed either outward bound or on the way home.

German losses for both raids that day were 24 single engine fighters and 12 Bf-110s. Another 10 single engine and 2 Bf-110s were written off after landing due to combat damage. Thats a total of 48 planes lost compared to my two at Hamatatsu. They also shot down one less aircraft even though they lost more aircraft than I had in the air over the target.

This doesn't seem right to me.

[Philwd]

The Schweinfurt raid according to my sources cost the USAF 65 B-17s. 58 shot down, 2 to flak and the rest to ops. Another 12 were scrapped and a further 121 were damaged but landed safely. The mission had P-47 escort for the first half of the raid although it seems they had no escort while returning due to bad weather over the fields. I can't find the German air losses right now. They are spread out over a couple chapters.

Having said that the losses here do seem quite high for the number of fighters involved. The Germans threw the kitchen sink at Schweinfurt including 110's armed with rockets. The IJA doesn't have that kind of capability.

Quark

[mogami]

Hi, I don't wish to be dense but I never got an answer the first time I asked.
There were 61 B-29 shot down by 37 Japanese fighters. None of the 61 were AA or Ops.

[dpstafford]

ORIGINAL: Mogami
Hi, I don't wish to be dense but I never got an answer the first time I asked.
There were 61 B-29 shot down by 37 Japanese fighters. None of the 61 were AA or Ops.

61 was the air-to-air loss. There were a small number of additional flak and op losses.

On the altitude question. The database indicates that the B-29 tops out at max of around 33,000 feet. Most of the Japanese fighters can go that high as well.........

[Oznoyng]

ORIGINAL: dpstafford

ORIGINAL: Mogami
Hi, I don't wish to be dense but I never got an answer the first time I asked.
There were 61 B-29 shot down by 37 Japanese fighters. None of the 61 were AA or Ops.

61 was the air-to-air loss. There were a small number of additional flak and op losses.

On the altitude question. The database indicates that the B-29 tops out at max of around 33,000 feet. Most of the Japanese fighters can go that high as well.........

The fact that the fighters can go that high is not really relevant. The effect of the altitude diffference is. If the fighters have to climb to intercept, each fighter is less likely to be able to intercept. The difference between a fighter diving to intercept a B-29 and climbing to intercept is big. In a climb, you aren't going max level speed. In a dive, you aren't either...you are going faster. Also, remember that the number of planes that were able to intercept is a function of the altitude of the bombers. Not all of those interceptors were on CAP to start with. Some had to takeoff, climb and move to intercept. Had the bombers been higher, you might have had fewer fighters intercepting. If the CAP was lower than the bombers, they may have also been less successful in their attacks.