Is 4e night bombing gamey?

[TommyG]

In my PBEM game with Jeff (CHS) it is Oct 42 and, as the allied player, I have marshalled every 4e I can get at Cooktown for night bombing raids on PM. Cooktown is level six, well supplied, and my air commander is excellent. I am getting about 50% participation on the raids, so maybe 100 planes a night. My erstwhile opponent is objecting, arguing that the AA and night fighter capabilities of the IJA are broken, so it is an unfair advantage for me. Flying at angels 7000, I am knocking out a half dozen or more ac on the ground each night with only minor damage to my planes. He wants to limit night bombing to one squadron only per mission. I think this is too limiting, but would agree to some restriction. My bombers are only in the 50s experience wise and I have no long range escort yet, so I get slaughtered anywhere and everywhere in daylight.
Since the IJ have no defense, are large scale night bombing raids gamey? If so, what are reasonable HRs?

[Przemcio231]

Well ask him about Night Bombing of Japan with B-29's...

[Nikademus]

a distant patch did attempt to tone down night bomber effectiveness in general but players can still overcome the tweak to a signifigant degree via large numbers and low altitude settings. A typical HR used or suggested by a number of PBEM'ers is to limit the max # of BS's and/or 4E BS's that can be set to attack a particular base at night. IIRC in the the last PBEM i did the HR was no more than 2 x BS of 4E max.

[jwxspoon]

Przemcio - fire bombing of an area target at night from 30,000+ feet (a la B29's over Japan) versus 100 B24's hitting a pinpoint airbase at 7K feet are two differnt animals, in my opinion.

jw

[tocaff]

The B-29s went in low and without defensive armaments (removed for speed) and to the airmen's relief they were in & out before the Japanese even kew what had hit the.  Of course this was a new tactic for them as the plane was designed for high altitude (1st pressurized cabin & discovery of the jet stream) bombing.

[Mike Scholl]

"My erstwhile opponent is objecting, arguing that the AA and night fighter capabilities of the IJA are broken, so it is an unfair advantage for me."
 
Ask your opponant to back up his claims with some historical fact.  Japanese Night Fighters and Flak weren't very effective at all during the war..., so if he's not accomplishing anything he's getting accurate results.

[mdiehl]

It is not gamey because the USAAF did use low-altitude 4eBs in the SoPac theater. What you are doing is historically reasonable both by virtue of historical precedent and because it was one of several operational tools in the USAAF's kit. USAAF pilots trained at it well enough that all 4EB crews could conduct a night raid as a matter of course. It was, however, as others have noted already, not (one might say "not hardly") as accurate as daylight bombing. 

[hawker]

Yes,few hundred 4E bombers above Japan base in 1942 at night is historically accurate and not gamey[8|]

If not patch,HR must deal with that.[;)]

[mdiehl]

Ask your opponant to back up his claims with some historical fact. Japanese Night Fighters and Flak weren't very effective at all during the war..., so if he's not accomplishing anything he's getting accurate results.

Basically I agree. A bomber here and there but no significant strategic effect from Japanese flak at targets flying medium to high altitude and no significant strategic or operational effect from night fighters. That is why most of the deeaaaadly J1N1-S ended their careers as kamikazes; they weren't useful in their "intentions as built" role.

[mdiehl]

Yes,few hundred 4E bombers above Japan base in 1942 at night is historically accurate and not gamey

I don't understand. You're one of the guys who constantly argues that one should not be wedded to replicating history. At the operational level, I and Mike Scholl agree with you. That is why nobody objects in principal to the Japanese invading places that they never invaded (like Port Moresby) or cruising around for three years with the Kido Butai death star, or massing hundreds of aircraft at Rabaul and other bases that rarely housed more than a hundred planes of all types.

(Although, I would add, if the game did a reasonable job simulating how difficult it was for Japan to establish a good logistical position in a hurry, it would be a rare thing to see hundreds of Japanese LBA operating from any base or base complex in the SoPac).

If consolidation of his bomber fleet is "gamey" then so is consolidation of Japanese LBA and Japanese carrier aviation.

[hawker]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Yes,few hundred 4E bombers above Japan base in 1942 at night is historically accurate and not gamey

I don't understand. You're one of the guys who constantly argues that one should not be wedded to replicating history. At the operational level, I and Mike Scholl agree with you. That is why nobody objects in principal to the Japanese invading places that they never invaded (like Port Moresby) or cruising around for three years with the Kido Butai death star, or massing hundreds of aircraft at Rabaul and other bases that rarely housed more than a hundred planes of all types.

(Although, I would add, if the game did a reasonable job simulating how difficult it was for Japan to establish a good logistical position in a hurry, it would be a rare thing to see hundreds of Japanese LBA operating from any base or base complex in the SoPac).

If consolidation of his bomber fleet is "gamey" then so is consolidation of Japanese LBA and Japanese carrier aviation.

Yes,you can do wonders with KB in 1944,just like with 4E bombers[8|]

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: TommyG

In my PBEM game with Jeff (CHS) it is Oct 42 and, as the allied player, I have marshalled every 4e I can get at Cooktown for night bombing raids on PM. Cooktown is level six, well supplied, and my air commander is excellent. I am getting about 50% participation on the raids, so maybe 100 planes a night. My erstwhile opponent is objecting, arguing that the AA and night fighter capabilities of the IJA are broken, so it is an unfair advantage for me. Flying at angels 7000, I am knocking out a half dozen or more ac on the ground each night with only minor damage to my planes. He wants to limit night bombing to one squadron only per mission. I think this is too limiting, but would agree to some restriction. My bombers are only in the 50s experience wise and I have no long range escort yet, so I get slaughtered anywhere and everywhere in daylight.
Since the IJ have no defense, are large scale night bombing raids gamey? If so, what are reasonable HRs?

In Europe by mid-43, a trained night-bombing force with highly sophisticated electronic aids could usually find the aiming point in the correct city within three miles on most nights as long as the weather was good. Expecting crews trained for daylight precision bombing to find and hit within a half-mile of a jungle airbase at night without electronic aids would be highly optimistic.

I consider night bombing of point targets on land to be gamey. Firebombing cities (manpower target) is historical and gives reasonable results (i.e. generally poor with 100 exp 55 B-29s and devestating with 500 exp 75 B-29s in my experience).

[mdiehl]

Yes,you can do wonders with KB in 1944,just like with 4E bombers

We're talking about 1942-1943 are we not?

The real Japanese immediately divided up KB into its component carrier divisions after Pearl Harbor and they operated extensively in pairs, only combining to four fleet class CVs for the Indian Ocean and Midway ops.

In the end the point of a consim is to allow players to make different (ahistorical) operational choices using the same forcesthat were historically used (both with respect to numbers and to accurate modeling of capability with these assets).

Massing 4EBs for night raids in 1942 is not gamey because.
1. In 1939 the USAAF was training bombing crews for that sort of thing.
2. In 1942 night bombing missions were flown in the SoPac by the USAAF and using 4EBs.

The only "open question" here seems to be whether or not their effectiveness in the subject of this thread is accurately modeled.

[mdiehl]

Expecting crews trained for daylight precision bombing to find and hit within a half-mile of a jungle airbase at night without electronic aids would be highly optimistic.

Agreed. I think the results would vary greatly based on visibility. The problem isn't that a B-17 or 24 was less accurate at night but rather that a bombsight is only as good as it's ability to see the target. We may presume that the Japanese did not leave navigation lights on for B-17s to use, just as we may presumed that American airbases did not regularly broadcast American bandstand at 100kW to aid the navigation of mythical Japanese carrier-based night strikers.

[hawker]

Night bombing with few hundred 4E bombers in 1942 is gamey and far from be historically accurate.
4E is real death star not KB.

[Nemo121]

Hawker, why is it gamey?
 
I don't see it as being something the Americans didn't do on a smaller scale ( small-scale night bomber raids certainly did happen ) and it CERTAINLY isn't something they couldn't have done ( the Americans could easily have used the B-17s and B-24s as night-bombers with the appropriate support and a doctrinal switch ).
 
If the Japanese can keep KB together in a manner that the real-war Japanese didn't and can mass their fighters and bombers in a manner the real-life Japanese didn't then I don't see any problem at all when the Allies do the same to them ( using weapons in a manner which was possible but non-doctrinal during the war ).
 
Sorry but I just don't get the "it's gamey" argument. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.( but then again I don't really restrict PTs or four-engined bomber attacks on naval targets either ).

[Przemcio231]

Well Japan Outproducing Allies is not to historically accurate either...

[JeffroK]

Complaining about approx 100 Bombers, boy have you got some shocks coming.
 
I have tweaked the accuracy & effect values for all bombs. They dont seem to be causing quite as much damage, but its only late 42 and the large numbers aren't hitting yet.
 
I also halved the accuracy of all torpedos, still saw 2 BB's sunk at Pearl, plus Houston, Boise, tromp & 4 DD's smashed near Balikpapan by KB's bombers.
 
Possibly the counter to your concentration would be for japan to mass similar numbers of Betty/Nell at Rabaul and counterattack your bomber base.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Massing 4EBs for night raids in 1942 is not gamey because.
1. In 1939 the USAAF was training bombing crews for that sort of thing.
2. In 1942 night bombing missions were flown in the SoPac by the USAAF and using 4EBs.

The only "open question" here seems to be whether or not their effectiveness in the subject of this thread is accurately modeled.

AFAIK those night-bombing missions were mostly single-plane missions or a squadron at most. Unless someone can provide an example of massed 4EB night raids in 1942 in the Pacific, I consider them gamey in WITP, since apparently some factor is missing in WitP which in the real war did prevent the Allies to fly those massed raids at this time.

[pasternakski]

You know, these discussions frequently get far too emotional. I think it may be because various posters have an attachment to one side or the other, and lose sight of objectivity in their chauvinistic rush to triumph.

With that in mind, and figuring that this would also be in keeping with how accurately this game depicts the historical situation in the Pacific theater anyway, I suggest that the names of the countries involved be changed. That way, there's less danger of people becoming too "patriotic" (in the same sense that lab scientists are now using lawyers instead of rats in their experiments, because there is far less danger of lab personnel becoming emotionally attached to a lawyer).

Let's see. We could have Fredonia and Grand Fenwick as the primary agonists, with such minor contributors as Erewhon, Brobdingnag, and Lilliput.

4E bombing, day or night, has always been weird in WitP. It ain't gonna change, so there's no use talking about it. If it's possible to do something in a game, you gotta let your opponent do it, unless you have established house rules up front.

Otherwise, fageddaboudit.