Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

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ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

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ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

Removing the smallish, insignificant bonus this poor, vulnerable, but historically important aircraft has, and that has been added for the sake of historical chrome, would simply be very very wrong decision. Discussing it on 18 pages I find nothing short of laughable.

O.

Well be that as it may, it seems to me this is not 18 pages of discussing the pros and cons of the ZB, it looks more like alot of laundry being aired.

You couldn't be more right Demos. 90% of threads on this forum are just that. The same actors playing out the same script on the same stage...like some bad 3rd rate thespian group doing a remake of Hair on a $100 budget and a can of Aquanet.

It usually starts with someone interested in real feedback or a noob who's missed the last 10 iterations of the particular matrix(flavor) of the day, and asks an "innocent" question. First someone replies with a quick yea/nea then sources are cited, and then you can practically here the collective "thud" of large reference books slamming down on 100 different computer desks, then the buzz of pages being hurriedly flipped to the correct page where the golden passage is highlighted & double underlined from previous iterations of the matrix.

And so...it goes on...and on...and....

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Agreed - however this presents a problem with the current game engine. There is pilot experience and aircraft characteristics, but there is no 'doctrine' or tactics model. I believe that the zero bonus is meant to reflect those elements plus perhaps some less tangibles. Given the fact that the situation (per the designers belief) changes after a few game months, an expiring and declining bonus is the best way to go.

Resorting to lowering the Allied pilots' experience (relative to Japan's pilots' experience) will have greater consequences. Just consider how much lower most Allied pilot experience is already (versus Japan pilot exp.).

In my games I also find that the relative experience of pilots is a much greater factor than the zero bonus.

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I still favor leaving the bonus as is for the Zero. If the Oscar enjoyed the same advantage for the first few months IRL, then go ahead and give it to the Oscar as well.

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Regarding the bloodiness of air combat - should be looked at as a separate issue.

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As always, I am in your debt for your work on CHS and will be grateful whatever you decide.

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ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

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ORIGINAL: witpqs
Agreed - however this presents a problem with the current game engine. There is pilot experience and aircraft characteristics, but there is no 'doctrine' or tactics model. I believe that the zero bonus is meant to reflect those elements plus perhaps some less tangibles. Given the fact that the situation (per the designers belief) changes after a few game months, an expiring and declining bonus is the best way to go.

Resorting to lowering the Allied pilots' experience (relative to Japan's pilots' experience) will have greater consequences. Just consider how much lower most Allied pilot experience is already (versus Japan pilot exp.).

In my games I also find that the relative experience of pilots is a much greater factor than the zero bonus.

I believe you when you say that the consquences of lowering Allied experience may be great. That is one reason I want to test it. Given that the zero bonus, according to some people, and to some who have done some testing, does not have a huge effect, the experience reduction would probably have to be quite small.

And you are right about doctrine not being modelled separately. Some have commented that it could be considered to be part of the "experience" number - supported by the increasing values of the Allied pilots, for example, as the game progresses their doctrine improves.

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I still favor leaving the bonus as is for the Zero. If the Oscar enjoyed the same advantage for the first few months IRL, then go ahead and give it to the Oscar as well.

The fact that the bonus singles out the Zero is one of the things I don't like about it. But I still believe that a combination of aircraft stats (such as manoverability for the Zero) and lower initial Allied experience (at least in CBI and DEI) should result in the same practical effect of a Zero bonus, but applied in a less specific way.

It may be that BOTH approaches result in a similar outcome, but even so my personal preference is not to rely on an artificial bonus, but to rely on the game mechanics themselves. After all, if the game mechanics alone cannot simulate this period of the conflict, then how well do they simulate other periods? It may be that the game mecahnics themselves need some tweaking.

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Regarding the bloodiness of air combat - should be looked at as a separate issue.

I agree.

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As always, I am in your debt for your work on CHS and will be grateful whatever you decide.

Thanks. Hopefully a new CHS update will be available in the next few weeks...

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ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

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ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

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ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

Removing the smallish, insignificant bonus this poor, vulnerable, but historically important aircraft has, and that has been added for the sake of historical chrome, would simply be very very wrong decision. Discussing it on 18 pages I find nothing short of laughable.

O.

Well be that as it may, it seems to me this is not 18 pages of discussing the pros and cons of the ZB, it looks more like alot of laundry being aired.

You couldn't be more right Demos. 90% of threads on this forum are just that. The same actors playing out the same script on the same stage...like some bad 3rd rate thespian group doing a remake of Hair on a $100 budget and a can of Aquanet.

It usually starts with someone interested in real feedback or a noob who's missed the last 10 iterations of the particular matrix(flavor) of the day, and asks an "innocent" question. First someone replies with a quick yea/nea then sources are cited, and then you can practically here the collective "thud" of large reference books slamming down on 100 different computer desks, then the buzz of pages being hurriedly flipped to the correct page where the golden passage is highlighted & double underlined from previous iterations of the matrix.

And so...it goes on...and on...and....

In its own way I find that to be hilarious. And well written, too.

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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Thank you, Steve. Merry Christmas to you and your family as well. How are you doing on those grueling courses?

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On and on and on they argue, without good sense or purpose...

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Agreed - however this presents a problem with the current game engine. There is pilot experience and aircraft characteristics, but there is no 'doctrine' or tactics model. I believe that the zero bonus is meant to reflect those elements plus perhaps some less tangibles. Given the fact that the situation (per the designers belief) changes after a few game months, an expiring and declining bonus is the best way to go.

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Wouldn't it make more sense to look at the performance of the A6M Zero against a variety of aircraft in the period of time specified

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ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

So you are saying that because USN pilots (in relatively few engagements) stood one to one with Japanese, it means that US Army, Dutch, British, Australian and NZ pilots would perform as well ?? All changes reflect to all nationalities, so USN records are just one part.

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ORIGINAL: Berkut

mdiehl, do you ahve any stats that reflect something OTHER THAN the F4F against the Zero in what, two or three encounters during the time frame in question?

I mean, the Zero fought a lot more aircraft than the F4F - in fact I would suspect that the F4F represents a small subset of the opponenets of the Zero during the time that the bonus would be in effect.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem t be jumping between two extremes. One the one hand, you insist we ONLY look at encounters between the Zero and USN F4Fs, and then you turn around and want to look at *overall* Allies vs. Japanese results for the entire war. Niether of those cases are a good judge of the A6M Zero and its historical record in the first few months of the war.

One the one hand, you want to look at a very specific and statistically trivial encounter where hte Zero was fought to a draw, and ask us to conclude things about the Zero *in general*, and then on the other hand you ask to use statistics about all Japanese aircraft aagain all Allied aircraft over th entire war, and draw that same conclusion.

Wouldn't it make more sense to look at the performance of the A6M Zero against a variety of aircraft in the period of time specified, see how it performs in WitP (and I ahve yet to see evidence that the overall kill rates are as out of whack in WitP as claimed - I certainly have not achieved anything like 4:1 overall kill ratios in my games as the Japanese player in the first two months), and figure out if there is an issue.

From where I sit, it looks to me like you are the one doing the cherry picking.

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However when 100 A6m2 fight 20 Allied fighters of any flavor the Allies are lucky to get 1 or 2 kills total while losing most if not all their fighters.

Also WITP checks the group leader. The group leader is very important. If you assign a leader with aircombat below 40 to a A6m2 Daitai and then engage 1 on 1 27 fighters versus 27 fighters (with a leader over 60) The A6m2 does very poorly even in Dec 41.

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ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Besides aircraft and pilots you also have to figure in the number of aircraft per side in a battle.
In WITP no matter what aircraft the Allies are flying if they have equal or greater numbers and the size of battle is not too large (say 20 Allied fighters versus 9 A6m2) The Allied player scores at least 1 to 1.
However when 100 A6m2 fight 20 Allied fighters of any flavor the Allies are lucky to get 1 or 2 kills total while losing most if not all their fighters.

Also WITP checks the group leader. The group leader is very important. If you assign a leader with aircombat below 40 to a A6m2 Daitai and then engage 1 on 1 27 fighters versus 27 fighters (with a leader over 60) The A6m2 does very poorly even in Dec 41.

As Japan I feel the only way to offset the better Allied aircraft is to use numbers, accept losses and transfer in new groups and out last the Allied fighters.

In the Dadman AAR you will notice the USN always does at least as well as IJN in aircombat during CV battles. It is only when they are faced by large numbers of landbased air that they suffer lower A2A ratios.

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ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

From:
www.chuckhawks.com

"The Type 00 did extremely well in China, downing 99 enemy planes with no losses of their own (although the aircraft they flew against were woefully obsolescent)."

"To reduce their losses the RAF decided to replace the outmatched Buffalo with the more formidable Hawker Hurricane, famed for its decisive role in the Battle of Britain. Unfortunately, its pilots also found that fighting a Zeke on its terms was practically hara-kiri. Finally, the British threw their best at the Japanese, the fabled Supermarine Spitfire. To the Allies dismay, this fighter also could not compare with the incredibly nimble Zero. In only two engagements, Zeros downed 17 of 27 while losing 2 of their own."

But then:

"The Australian pilots displayed an immense amount of courage against daunting odds. It was not uncommon for only one plane to challenge twenty or more Japanese. After 44 grueling days of combat the 75th destroyed 35 planes with another 15 probables and roughly 50 damaged. Their loss was 11 pilots and 16 P-40s lost to combat and 6 to accidents. Though theirs were not an outright victory, the brave souls of the 75th saved Port Moresby and held off the enemy until more squadrons could be formed."

So can we actually make any conclusions from combat records, since they seemed to wildly vary, depending on circumstances ?

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ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, In WITP A6M2 groups will have inexperianced pilots by early 1942 unless the Japanese player does not accept replacements.
Then rather then have inexperiance pilots flying in combat he uses other existing groups of trained pilots for replacements in combat groups.

The Allied player will not see this except for a decreasing number of Japanese groups over time.

If on the other hand the Japanese player accepts replacements into groups flying combat the Allied player will begin seeing A2A totals rise. (Every mission where Japanese encounter enemy fighters the inexperianced japanese pilots are shot down)

If the Allied player does not pressure a Japanese player using experianced groups then the Japanese will be able to train pilots up to at least 50 before commiting them to combat. If the Japanese player is forced to provide fighters for CAP and escort over a long period right from the start then Japanese pilot training breaksdown.

In order to really comment on WITP you need to track such matters as how the Japanese groups are being maintained.

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ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, These are results from PBEM game Sept 1943. Notice Allied fighters are not doing that bad.
1700 Allied fighters lost in A2A compared to 3200 Japanese fighters lost in A2A

These are not test results but actual WITP human versus human results.

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ORIGINAL: Big B

So I ran the same test as before - the same 6 Daitai vs the same 6 American Sqdns, this time starting on June 1st 1942 - No Zero Bonus.
The only thing else different in this test was that the Japanese default pilot quality dropped from an average of 81 or 82 previously to an average start of 75 (range was 70 to 80).

Results without the zero bonus in effect: 78 Zeros destroyed a2a vs 189 F4F4s and P40Es.

Looks like a slight drop in kill ratios from a solid 3 to 1 previously to about 2.5 to 1 favoring the Zero.

So that appears to be the Zero Bonus - they destroy about the same number of good allied fighters either way, but take about 16% to 17% more losses without the Bonus.

From the way I look at it, 16% losses more or less taken by the Zeros is almost inconsequential compared to the fact that the game engine (as of the last official patch - 1.62# ?) kills good allied fighters at 2.5 to 3:1 rate overall, even in June 1942.

I don't know the exact loss rate for P40s and F4Fs due to fighter combat in 1942, that will be the next step to investigate.

Regardless - that kind of kill rate seems awfully high to me.

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ORIGINAL: Big B

When i ran this test however, it was June 1942 - no ZB.
IJN units exp was 75
USN F4F units exp was 75

air battles were with equal numbers, and the F4Fs fared particularly poorly for equal exp with the Zeros (both at 75)

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ORIGINAL: Big B

So I ran the same test as before - the same 6 Daitai vs the same 6 American Sqdns, this time starting on June 1st 1942 - No Zero Bonus.
The only thing else different in this test was that the Japanese default pilot quality dropped from an average of 81 or 82 previously to an average start of 75 (range was 70 to 80).

Results without the zero bonus in effect: 78 Zeros destroyed a2a vs 189 F4F4s and P40Es.

Looks like a slight drop in kill ratios from a solid 3 to 1 previously to about 2.5 to 1 favoring the Zero.

So that appears to be the Zero Bonus - they destroy about the same number of good allied fighters either way, but take about 16% to 17% more losses without the Bonus.

From the way I look at it, 16% losses more or less taken by the Zeros is almost inconsequential compared to the fact that the game engine (as of the last official patch - 1.62# ?) kills good allied fighters at 2.5 to 3:1 rate overall, even in June 1942.

I don't know the exact loss rate for P40s and F4Fs due to fighter combat in 1942, that will be the next step to investigate.

Regardless - that kind of kill rate seems awfully high to me.

I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!

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What is the problem that needs fixing here?

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I believe that it hurts the IJ somewhat...I know, heresy