Hordes of Tonys

[elxaime]

Just curious what people's experience is with this. In my PBEM as Allied, by mid-1942 my esteemed opponent seemed to begin mass producing hundreds of Tonys. Haven't seen an Oscar since, and by now (late January 1943) not only do the Japanese squadrons have almost all Tonys, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of them.

Meanwhile, the Allies are stuck with historical upgrades and replacements. Since the Tony completely outclasses all of the first generation Allied fighters (e.g. all non-Lightnings) and can shoot down Allied bombers much better than the Zero, this means basically that Japanese air advantage is destined to last until late 1943. Refresh my memory, but it seemed historically the Allies began to get the upper hand by the end of 1942?

I am wondering, does it seem right that only one side is allowed to manipulate production this way? The Allies have to endure a lot to get through the first year of the war. It is demoralizing to reach the end of 1942, see the hordes of Tonys, and realize you are still 6-8 months away from air parity, much less superiority.

[WiTP_Dude]

The only thing you can do is agree to not play with user defined upgrades. In normal games there is only a half dozen or so Tony groups until 1944. In normal games the Japanese player has piles of useless Nates and Oscars to make use of.

[Gen.Hoepner]

Under the same point of view in early 42 the allies were unable to mass 200/250 4engines bombers in places like Bangladesh or Darwin. If you want to play historical you need to house-rule everything and not only on the jap side.
Consider that with the player upgrade ON the allies have the same advantages that the japs have. All those useless Oz Wirraways can become hurricanes since Jan 42....which chances a lot in the balance of the New Guinea Area.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner
Consider that with the player upgrade ON the allies have the same advantages that the japs have.

This is not strictly true, as the Allies cannot change their aircraft production.

[Gen.Hoepner]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner
Consider that with the player upgrade ON the allies have the same advantages that the japs have.

This is not strictly true, as the Allies cannot change their aircraft production.

Yes, you're right, but the replacement rate of their B-17s,B-24 and B-25 let them sustain far more losses without bothering much than what would have been in RL.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner
Yes, you're right, but the replacement rate of their B-17s,B-24 and B-25 let them sustain far more losses without bothering much than what would have been in RL.

True, although that depends on what scenario you are playing. It is becoming a trend to reduce the replacement rates of some Allied aircraft to more realistic levels.

[elxaime]

The problem here is that Tonys basically negate the Allied heavy bombers. The Lightnings are the only ones that can take them on with some success, and you are getting a replacement rate much less than the Tonys. So in a fight you have 50-75 Lightnings trying to take on 150-200 Tonys, and you take horrendous losses. Right now I have counted about 800-1000 Tonys in front line airfields, not to mention how many likely a-training in the rear. My opponent left an unoccupied DEI base untaken, and is using that to speed train his fighter pilots through low-level strafing milk runs.

I agree you can upgrade as well with the Allies. But in the key area of fighters, the way things stand the Japanese can front-load Tony production to extend their air superiority to late 1943. I dont care how many Hurricanes and Spitfires you can upgrade to, they are outmatched. And without air superiority, its very dicey trying to attack anything.

Oh well, guess I have to gut it out for another 8-9 months. I just hope there isn't some experimental Jap super fighter being built as we speak!

[Honda]

There is[:D]

[String]

hmmmmm.. this doesn't look good, doesn't look good at all. Well, the allies still have corsairs I guess

[doktorblood]

Look at the bright side. You get about triple the number of P-38G that the Allies should get.

[mc3744]

If this is what is going to happen, I'd better give up now.
The only Allied advantage are the heavies, if the Japs can negate that as well ... it's game over.
There's no way the P-38 replacement rate can be compared with the custom one made by the Japs.

[paladin333]

Hmmm...
If Japanese have uber Tonies, uber replacement rates and Allies can not relay on heavies
why everyone play as Allies. Just look at PBEM opponents forum flooded with post "Looking for Jap player". [:D]

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: gunner333

Hmmm...
If Japanese have uber Tonies, uber replacement rates and Allies can not relay on heavies
why everyone play as Allies. Just look at PBEM opponents forum flooded with post "Looking for Jap player". [:D]

Exactly [&o]

I can't believe how a single thread (no a single post) cam quickly snowball to cataclismic proportions. "It's game over".... because of uber-Tonys?!? Well you gotta be kidding...

Tony is solid fighter nothing more nothing less. Considering Oscars are modelled as garbage flying coffins made of paper I can understand players anger at having to think about some *real* air strategy not just relying on Oscars falling down from the sky by themselves.

If you play with free upgrades that's what you get. Obviously this option is slightly (but only just slightly) pro-Japanese as it allows them to leverage their offensive capability early on and keep the air parity a bit longer.

But don't tell me Allies can't retaliate! Ability to "Hurricanize" Australian airforce is a killer. Ability to change Hudsons to torpedo carrying Beaufort V-IX is a killer as well (V-IX has very high replacement rate). Not to mention that every Allied bomber can become 4E monster. So quit your whining and bomb his Tony airfields with unhistorical swarms of B17s (when, after all, you're playing the unhistorical free upgrade game)...

O.

[Tom Hunter]

"I am wondering, does it seem right that only one side is allowed to manipulate production this way? " - elxaime

No offense intendend but you did agree to play a game with Japanese player defined upgrades. So you said it was ok at the start.

Air superiority depends much more on how you play the game than it does on what planes you have to work with. Even Buffalos can hurt the enemy if you play them right.

This game has a huge number of strategy options available, you seem to have chosen a strategy that allows your opponent to build up large numbers of Tonys. Without understanding the circumstances that brought you to this situation it is impossible to tell if the game design itself is broken, or if your opponent is simply beating you.

I'll tell you how I feel about Tonies once I get a game past May 1942.

[Gen.Hoepner]

Uber Tonies? No, it's not like that. The Tonies are inferior to many allied fighters present in the game. 10 corsair, as they are modelled in witp, can win a match with 50 tonies even if the latters have decent crews( 75 exp >).
The Tony is a decent fighter, slightly better than the A6M2 if you consider the max speed and the armour, nothing much.
Plus...for the jap player it's a pain to produce large amount of Tonies, due to the fact that this model uses the Kawasaki engine and you need to expand a lot the starting production and then convert it back when the KI-61 goes out of production...so to say thousands of Supplies wasted!

The real fact is that allies players tend to use their 4E bombers like a nuke bomb since early 42, without bothering much about enemy CAP or escort. That's completely unhistorical and unreal, cause even 100 fortresses, against something more than 25 decent enemy fighters, without any escort, would have been slaughtered. Try to immagine 100 B-17 or B-24s in mid 42, over Berlin, during daylight, against 25 experienced Me-109 and some flak.....

[esteban]

I agree that the Japanese get a reasonable boost by using player-defined upgrades, but considering all the items in the game that favor the Allies, its not that big a deal.

Also, you can get a decent amount of benefits as the Allies with player-defined upgrades:

-you can convert lots more of your American fighter squadrons to P-38s.

-you can convert the otherwise useless Wirraways to Hurricanes

-you can convert you Hudsons to Beauforts early

-If you are not playing with any house rules affecting upgrades, you can upgrade your American 2-engine bombers to any 4-engine bomber (In my current PBEM, basically we do not allow this, in return the Japanese cannot upgrade their "light" sentais from Lilys and dive bombers to Sallys/Helens.)

As far as the Tony being uber, its a good 1942 fighter, and certainly far better than either the Nate or either Oscar, but it is not going to save you against Corsairs or Hellcats in 1943.

[WiTP_Dude]

ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner

Under the same point of view in early 42 the allies were unable to mass 200/250 4engines bombers in places like Bangladesh or Darwin. If you want to play historical you need to house-rule everything and not only on the jap side.

I have the same problems. The Allied bombers don't seem to suffer fatigue or morale losses either. Every day they are sent and even if a lot are shot down they will come back the next day for another attack. I destroyed over 500 B-17Es in the first year of the war and there are still large groups of these monsters flying!

[Brady]

A few of my own observations on this topic are:

1) In my games Even well crewed P-40B's can acheave parity and typicaly get far better K/D ratios aganst Tonys than they do aganst P-40B's.

2) P-38's are available to the Allies at about a 600% increase over those numbers historicaly available to the Allies in the Pacific.

3) As noted above the Allied Heavevys are so over modeled in Game in so many ways it is redicilious.

4) The Way the Tony's guns (and all cannon armed planes) are modled in WiTP gives the Allies destinct advantages, in short the Tony should be more leathal than it is presently.

5) The Tony they modeled in WiTP is one of the worst preforming of the lot, CHS modeled two Tony's for the life of me I cant figure out why they did not for the Vanilia game.

[Yamato hugger]

Good grief.

"Game over"? Because the Jap have 1 airplane?

When are you people going to learn that the Jap weakness isnt the number of planes, but the number of PILOTS!!.

Yes, it will take you probably 2 extra months to wittle away the same number of pilots because of the added armor and beter quality of the plane, oh boo hoo. Allies have a ton of aircraft and even more pilots than planes. Jap navy replacement rate is 10 pilots a month. Jap army is 20. If you cant kill more than 30 pilots a month, even driving Tonys, then yes indeed, you should quit your game now.

I will take over any allied game that someone quits because of massed Tonys (personally I build Togos rather than Tonys so I dont have to build a stockpile of Kawasaki engines).

[rtrapasso]

These points have been argued over before, but i see you have stuck to your guns with your original propositions:

2) P-38's are available to the Allies at about a 600% increase over those numbers historicaly available to the Allies in the Pacific.


4) The Way the Tony's guns (and all cannon armed planes) are modled in WiTP gives the Allies destinct advantages, in short the Tony should be more leathal than it is presently.

The P-38s are NOT at 600% increase in the game. Looking at the figures in the previous long thread about this, you only included certain portions going to certain areas of the Pacific. As i remember, you looked at units sent to the South Pacific, and some in SWPAC. I don't recall you mentioning any CenPac P-38s. Large numbers of P-38s were also sent to the west coast that were not included in your calculations. For better or worse, these fighters are generally available to an Allied player. They WERE in the PTO/WITP scope - the US just elected to keep them on the West Coast (for political reasons, i assume).

As for the cannon armed aircraft, this thread was mulled over for quite some time, and the conclusions reached were not the same as you present. If they were (in real life) the Hurricane would have been preferred to the Spitfire (at least early models) as the early Spits had "only" machine guns, while the Hurri had cannons. But the Brits used the Hurris against the bombers, and used the Spits against the fighters.

The game really doesn't model the differential effects of cannon vs. mgs against fighters/bombers - i.e. - in real life, the MG seemed to be highly effective against fighters, not so great against bombers.