VSWG
Posts: 3432
Joined: 5/31/2006
From: Germany
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I've tested the effect of Allied LB set to 100 % naval search (NS) on enemy shipping in a short scenario (CHS Guadalcanal - thanks, irrelevant!). Basically I wanted to test the feasibility of new house rule regarding 4Es on anti-shipping missions: 4Es may not be set to naval attack, only to naval search. As probably everyone has already experienced, planes set to naval search often hit enemy ships (as seen in the operations report: B-17 spots ship XY - Ship XY hit!). I wanted to test how often these hits occur.
I loaded the scenario (head to head), stood down all planes and disbanded all ships. Then I moved 250 LB to Port Moresby (a mix of (mostly) B-17Es, some Liberators, B-25s and B-26s), and moved three Japanese task forces into the Bismarck Sea, 4-5 hexes away from Port Moresby.
TF 1: 10 AKs, escorted
TF 2: 10 AKs/APs + a couple of PCs as escort
TF 3: 3 CAs, 3 CLs + 4 DDs.
Port Moresby had 50.000+ supplies, a level 6 air field, 300+ aviation support, but no air HQ.
Before I start posting the results, please keep in mind that this is a complete fantasy scenario: 250 level bomers (mostly 4Es) flying naval search from a base and attacking several TFs that are without air cover... How often does a scenario like this occur in a PBEM?
During the first month, nothing happened - not surprisingly, since all squadrons had experience levels around 50. All enemy TFs were spotted. I noticed that the operations report almost never changed: three reports about the spotted TFs, and 1-3 reports identified Japanese ships. Pretty weak for 250 planes flying naval search... BTW, the intel screen reported about 300 sorties per day, so in the AM and PM phase approx. 150 bombers took off.
I decided to monitor the experience levels until the LB started to hit something.
RESULT #1: 100 Naval Search is a very good way to increase the experience of your bomber pilots: not only do the squadrons gain 1 point of experience every couple of turns (on average every 3rd turn), but also fatigue went down (never more than 5, flying at max range and 6000 feet), morale climbed to 99, and lets not forget that they were all busy spotting Japanese TFs. Pretty good package, IMO... Oh, I almost forgot: operational losses during these weeks were: 0. 
RESULT #2: There's no penalty hit for LB flying naval search at 100 feet.
The first hit occurred at 64 experience (1 B-17E flying at 6000 feet), but the AK was only slightly damaged: 5 sys, 7 float, 3 fires. I scuttled this ship (and all damaged ships that followed) immediately, so that damaged ships wouldn't skew the results. During the next weeks, when experience was between 60 and 70, only one or two hits were scored every week. The average damage per single hit was 40/5/5. Once a DD was hit, otherwise only transports. So far, with experience below 70 and at 6000 feet, the results were negligible for 250 LB. I decided to skip bomb (altitude 100 feet) - with similar result (although flak losses didn't occur at this altitude either).
Out of a whim I decided to split the bomber groups (so far 5 bomber groups and 1 squadron were flying naval search). Suddenly the same amount of planes, now flying in 16 squadrons, scored 5-6 hits with skip bombing every turn!  That's an increase by approx. 1000 %... All these hits were scored on transports, the cruiser TF was never hit.
RESULT #3: The number of air units, not the number of planes, determine the amount of hits while flying naval search. I guess that each air unit has separate dice rolls for hitting ships, and that these dice rolls do not take the amount of planes into account.  Still, this would only explain a threefold increase in hits. I suppose that more, but smaller air units are also much more effective in spotting TFs/ships, and that this also increases the number of hits.
RESULT #4 (derived, not tested): A certain number of planes in small air units can spot ships/TFs more effectively than the same amount of planes in fewer air units.
By now most squadrons had experience between 65 and 75, so I decided to increase altitude to 6000 again. 1-2 hits were scored during the following days - much less than with skip bombing, but a lot more than with exp. around 60.
RESULT #5: Skip bombing (65-75 exp.) is approx. 3 times more effective than bombing at 6000 feet.
RESULT #6: 100 % Naval Search produces almost no hits below 65 exp unless you use hundreds of bombers. Even with 70+ exp., it is still far less effective than naval attack. Not really surprising, since the primary mission is to spot, not to attack.
Finally, I wanted to know if I could get my LB to attack the cruiser TF. I retreated all transports, and set the bombers (still in squadrons) to skip bomb. Not more than 1 hit per turn occured during the next days.
RESULT #7: Bombers on 100 % NS almost never attack war ships. Reasons could be: higher AA, higher cruise/max speed, higher crew experience, higher maneuver rating,...
Then I split the cruiser TF into smaller TFs, with 1-2 ships each. Number of hits per turn increased significantly.
RESULT #8: More TFs -> more hits.
So far I haven't answered the original question: can 100 % NS replace naval attack missions for Allied LBs? I became distracted when splitting my squadrons produced fundamentally different results. Furthermore, I want to test a second house rule before I suggest to replace NA with 100 % NS: do Nells/Bettys use torpedoes when attacking during the NS routine?
Anyway, I wanted to share my findings so far...
< Message edited by VSWG -- 10/6/2007 7:59:03 PM >
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Test: Level Bombers on 100 % Naval Search - 
) but still much less than Vals.
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