Feinder
Posts: 6589
Joined: 9/4/2002 From: Land o' Lakes, FL Status: offline
|
Allied 4e bombers teach you what you -should- be doing anyway. Don't mass your planes, or you're going to get killed. Spread out your AF. Same for Allies vs. IJN BB runs. Spread out your AF. (of course, Ollie just threw that in my face, by bombarding my AF Camrah Bay, but I claim "coffee deprived" for that error in judment). They -can- fly unescorted. But if you send -real- fighters vs. them, and in sufficient quantities, you can knock them down. Are you gonna lose planes and pilots? Yep. Lots even. But if he returns from a mission with 5 B-17s shot down, and 30 damaged, it's going to take about 10 days to repair those damaged aircraft, and "repair" the morale. If you can bomb the AF they're coming from, while all those damages are on the AF, so much the better. If you can't, you're going to have to LRCAP the AF that he's attacking, flying from other AFs. But that DOES work. 6 squadrons at four airfields is far better than 6 squadrons at one airfield. Six at one is just a begging target. "I'm more afraid of allied 4e bombers in May '42, than USN CVs". You should be. Despite what folks believe, it's very hard to get unescorted Allied 4e bombers to launch vs. KB. The -can- launch, but that doesn't guarentee that they will (in fact, they likely won't). I'm not talking about 2 CVs. I'm talking about "real" KB, all 6 CVs. It's nearly impossible to make that roll to go unescortd vs. 120 fighters (unless you've got a LOT of bombers). Not impossible, but -very- unlikely. Against 2 CVs, not so hard. But against all 6, it's -very- hard. Frankly, that's what you've got the "crappy" fighters like the P-39 and RDAF for. They suck on CAP, but they have the range to escort out to 5-8 hexes, all you're really looking for his head count (you need about 1 escort for every 3 on CAP to trigger a launch). Your escorts will get torn up, but at least the 4e bombers will launch (and they -will- get torn up vs. KB, but they'll do plenty in return). -F-
_____________________________
"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me
|