Oznoyng
Posts: 818
Joined: 4/16/2004
From: Mars
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
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No it had not "switched". It was switching.
What are we talking about here? You seemed to assert that the 4 plane section did not develop until after USN pilots encountered the Zeke. If that's what you mean then you're wrong. Doctrine was a 4-plane section prior to 7 Dec 1941. Thach and Flatley's use of a six plane section was an experiment to see whether or not "more makes better" in re the beam defense.
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The assertion I keep seeing is, "the Allied airforces knew how to fight the zero, so the zero bonus is bogus".
Fine but that is not the assertion that is being made. The assertion made is that whatever you think vis aircraft, pilots, training, and doctrine, the fact remains that historically AT NO POINT IN THE WAR did the A6M achieve kill ratios against the F4F that you see in WitP. One factor that contributes to this antihistorical outcome is the "Zero bonus."
The fact remains that in other respects USN pilots knew about mutual support and all were practicing it by the time that the IJN got at any of them. They were not all using the beam defense but the beam defense isn't the only support tactic. It never was. Heck it was only specifically designed as a countermove to be used by F4Fs who found themselves at a positional disadvantage.
I never claimed it was the only support tactic. I also supplied (in my original post) that two plane sections were accepted as doctrine on a command level in July of 41. I was only making the point that a tactic develops somewhere (typically in a single unit) is validated and then propogated to other units. It takes time. You do not go from "Gee, how about if we did this?" to everyone using the tactic in a day. Another quote from Thach in reference to a pilot "Macomber","Of course! He had never practiced the weave. He was one of the VF-42 pilots based aboard Yorktown during the Coral Sea battle, and he had tangled with some Zeros then." As late as June of 42, a basic manuever that is part of the arsenal of doctrine that allowed Wildcats to achieve good results against Zeros was not yet in place in some carrier groups. The Zero bonus in my mind simulates the pace at which doctrines where formulated and propogated to Allied units.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Name one battle in WW2 in which the USN did not use it. Just because Thach did not mention it specifically does not give you license to assume it was not used. The USN revised its formation in late 1941 primarily in response to more than a year of studies of UK pilots in the Battle of Britain. The USN was responding to new doctrinal information long before the USN was officially "at war."
The problem is, before Coral Sea there isn't much historically to analyze (as you note later). We can extrapolate that the USN will perform identically on 12/7/41 as it does months later, but I don't think that is fair, both because I do not believe the doctrinal changes were entrenched by 12/7/41 and because refinements were still being made on the doctrine. Our problem is that we are trying to figure out what would happen if the two forces had met in combat earlier. The fact that they didn't gives us no basis for comparison. I think a middle ground is already established, in that USN carrier groups are very experienced.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
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The four plane section advantage you claim was not enjoyed in late 41 and early 42.
That is not correct.
A point we will just have to disagree with, I guess.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
And yet units not trained in the Thach Weave (which was a specific maneuver for a specific circumstance) flew mutual support. That is the point here. In a more general sense if you wanted to model how information about combatting ZEROS specifically got around you might look to a virus transmission model. Probably by August 1942 every Allied pilot had a general idea of "no no's" when faced with a zero.
Yet you are trying to argue that pilots engaging Zeros in January 42 would perform identally to pilots in August 42. I simply do not follow your logic. On one hand you admit that pilots have a general idea of no-no's by August 42, yet you complain about a bonus meant to simulate the fact that the "no-no's" are not known. A bonus that moreover ends three months prior to the date you specify...
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
These guys did not just wake up on Guadalcanal and say "Jeez I think I'll rewrite doctrine t'day. Anyone want to join me? Sure Joe..." They had been substantially trained in mutual support all along.
I can't envision that happening, but I can definately envision pilots sitting around in a ready room trying to talk out how to defeat an opposing aircraft with superior capabilites. Aside from that, I already agreed that some portions of a mutual defense doctrine were in place, just not all of them and not in every squadron in the Navy or Marine Corps.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Again, you seem to think the "Thach Weave" was the only tool in the box for fighting the Zero, and that the "Thach Weave" was the only form of mutual support. You keep saying things that suggest that you believe that if a unit had not been trained in the execution of the Thach Weave then it had no knowledge of how to fight Zeroes. If you mean anything remotely like that, then you are wholly, completely, and manifestly misinformed.
I already noted that Thach weave and mutual defense were not synonymous. I don't know what more I can say here. The Thach weave was an important tactic in mutual defense doctrine. It was not the only one, but it was an important one. Suggesting that Mutual Defense with the Thach weave achieves the same result as Mutual defense without it is wholly, completely, and manifestly misinformed. The Zero bonus as is starts at +5 in December and declines one per month until it goes away in May. This represents the gradual accumulation of the "no-no's" previously mentioned.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Its a good movement. The problem is that things attributed to the abstract "Zero bonus" may well be simply the consequence of lots of preparation and good logistics on Japan's part vs. shoestring logistics and inadequate preparation (lousy airfields, no reserves of spare parts, suddenness of Japanese attack) on the Allies' part. And against the USN Japan never achieved remotely the results routinely turned in by Zeroes in WitP.
WHOA, a point of potential agreement for us! The Zero may indeed overperform. I already noted that. My concern is that the basis for the "overperformance" argument by F4F proponents is that the doctrine was in place to shore up the F4F's shortcomings. I believe that is questionable in the period from December to May, and possibly later, though your kill ratio information from Guadalcanal tends to make me think May is probably a good time for it to disappear. On the other hand, if historical situations are gamed out in WitP and the Zero is found to consistently and significantly overperform, something is wrong with the model or the data on the plane. We have nothing to go on until Coral Sea, so we are left guessing.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
I advocate eliminating the Zero bonus in general because no one can make a substantive historical case that it should exist. The Zero trounced the F2A3 in Burma -- a match up that pits a plane that was superior in EVERY way (the A6M) against an inferior one --- and that relationship is correctly modeled in the planes' respective maneuverability and airspeed ratings.
There were few categories in which the F4F outperformed the Zero. Thach and others describe it as superior and that was the state of mind they entered into combat with. Not until the Aleutians Zero was tested were the performance characteristics of the plane known and it's weaknesses (do not go below 300, negative-G manuevers causing engine stalls, etc.) known.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Despite that, people like you seem to think that this mismatch has something to do with something intangible generally involving "fear of the zero" or "arrogance and lack of intel briefs" or some other unsupported, wierd claim.
Find *once* in any of my statements were I make any claim about "fear of the zero" or "arrogance and lack of intel briefs". The basis of my analysis is the statements of aviators that encountered the Zero before Guadalcanal and the flight test document from the Aleutians Zero. In my view, the Zero appeared to be superior and that it took time to identify tactics that would allow Allied pilots to defeat them on a regular basis. The discovery of the Aleutians Zero and the refinement of mutual support tactics like the Thach weave were instrumental in eliminating the advantage the Zero enjoyed early war. I also tend to believe that Japanese pilots were more experienced than US pilots - not perhaps in hours, but in combat experience. Combined with early Allied logistical disadvantages, the situation led to the early successes for the Japanese. I think there *is* an element of underestimation of their opponent in very early battles, but I think that is entirely handled by the 1st turn suprise rules. I doubt very many Allied pilots underestimated the Japanese after PH and the inital days of the war and would not use it as a justification for a five month bonus to the Zero.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Likewise when you look to Indonesia and northern Australia you find lots of P-40s shot down in landing formations or when taking off. Again, that has nothing to do with something abstract and godly about Japanese pilots or their planes. It is completely a consequence of immediate tactical positional advantage -- a characteristic t hat is alread modeled in the game.
I never said they were godly, but the Zero was superior to the F4F, and not just in my mind. It took some time before the faults of the plane were known and customarily exploited. Until then, it was a powerful foe and won it's more than it's fair share of engagements.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Even at Midway, the VMF pilots who had never been in combat, never seen a Zero, and never been trained in the beam defense shot down more A6Ms than they lost. That observation, along with an unfavorable kill ratio for the A6M facing F4F VF pilots, and a slightly favorable ratio at Guadalcanal (with an overall ratio of about 1.2:1 favoring the US) undermines any claim that the "Zero bonus" has any historical merit.
I think your position goes too far, because I have serious doubts that we can postulate performances at Guadalcanal in August 42 would be identical to performances in December of 41. I think to a large degree that USN capabilities are already modeled in the form of the average 85 experience ratings of VF-2, VF-3, and VF-6 on 12/7/41.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
You continue to fail to understand the difference between doctrine and the Thach Weave. Until you understand what these two concepts mean and how they differ, you will continue to (a) be incorrect, and (b) misunderstand my arguments here as well as the others.
No, actually, I don't. I understand that the Thach weave is part of a group of tactics we can call mutual support tactics. I do however believe that results achieved in August of 1942 should not be used to extrapolate performance 8 months prior. Doctrine was evolving, training levels were lower, and the capabilites of the Zero were far less known. As late as Coral Sea, the after action report by the CAG indicated a need for USN pilots to maintain closer formations (and also indicated an IJN tendency to stick together better).
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
So were one to abstract that as a "rule" for a game and ignore context (logistics, supply, combat fatigue on Guadalcanal from shore bombardments, and other factors) then a "simple model to express the relationship between an A6M + pilot vs an F4F + pilot" would be "treat them as identical in all respects." That model would give you approximately historical results, all other things being equal.
Only if you agree that the doctrine levels were as advanced 8 months prior, which I simply do not agree with.
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ORIGINAL: mdiehl
While we're about it, if it is invalid to include data from November 1942 onward then there should be no Zero bonus. Since no A6M ever fought an F4F prior to the Coral Sea engagement (where the Zekes lost that confrontation plane-wise) then it is no more appropriate to claim that the Zero bonus is justified in the absence of data any more than it is appropriate to use data from a point "after which teh Zero bonus expires" to argue against the Zero bonus.
I would agree that by August of 42, losses of F4F's in a straight up fight should approximate 1 to 1, assuming degradation of IJN pilot quality. My opinion is that the ratio would not be that good in the first few months of the war. Since as you say there is no historical basis for drawing a conclusion, we have to guess. If you land in the category of Allied doctrine was fully matured and entrenched, with an excellent understanding of the limitations of the A6M2 on 12/7/41, then by all means take the result achieved 9 months later and remove the Zero bonus.
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RE: Proposal for CHS - Remove the Zero bonus. Any opini... - 
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