Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: wild_Willie2

The "good" thing about Kami's is the fact that your untrained late war 30-40EXP crews get a "small" chance of actually hitting something (although they will only get ONE chance ).

Best plane's for the job are Torp carriers (they are big planes with a BIG torpedo warhead= BIGGER boom) 

Usual tactic to beat late war allied UBER CAP is to attack with kami groups set to extremely high and extremely low altitudes, doing so "might" give a chance of scoring a hit...  

If you can use kami's, you can ALSO use ohka's, which in fact are REALLY big boom kami's. (although they have an even smaller chance of hitting a target than kami's have)

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A TB Kami attack is resolved with a torpedo.

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ORIGINAL: ecwgcx

In the AE threads it was said that Kami's work... it's just the all powerful UberCap that makes them useless.  One of the big issues (for me anyway) is that the AI turns EVERY plane into a kami.  It leaves nothing for CAP, ASW, recon etc. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

The most basic way to think of a Kami is that the plane acts just as normal, except you get a small accuracy bonus, and it's a one-way trip.  A DB/FB Kami attack is resolved with a 250kg AP bomb vs. deck armor.  A TB Kami attack is resolved with a torpedo.  I don't know if it resloves vs. deck or belt, but a torp obvioulsy penetrates both so it's moot.

But be advised that your 250kg AP Kami will be just as effective against RN CVs and BBs as they were previously - not very.

Also, it doesn't do you any good to convert Transports to Kamis, because they don't carry bombs (I can't remember if Recons carry bombs, if not, there's not point in converting them either).

Kami's are not nearly as effective in WitP as they were historically (largely due to "uber CAP").  I'd have to actually crunch the numbers, but at least for the RN (who suffered propotionatly more Kami hits than the USN for a variety of reasons), but it "feels" like the Kamis had about a 10% hit ratio (vs. about 2% or less in WitP).  Forgotten Fleet does actually give a good account of "this many planes came in, this many were killed by CAP, this many killed by flak, this many missed, this many hit), but not in any sort of table form (in in reports).

However, I'll also throw in the point that there are far more Kamis -available- in WiTP than there wer in real life as well.  Historically, there were maybe 7 - 8 times in 6 months that they threw 150+ Kamis at the fleet.  Most of the time, they were in nickle-packets of 4 - 5, rarely more than 10.  But in WitP (even in the 45 scen without optimized production), you can throw out 300+ plane strikes just about every week, far more than were actualy conducted historically, simply because of number of available squadrons and air-frames.

So just make sure both sides of the equation get "fixed".  "Uber CAP" does NEED to eb fixed.  But I'd suggest if you convert a squadron to Kami, after it's used the squadron should not return for 90 days or more.

-F-

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There's a flaw in your historic account.

"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me

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It´s correct that the planes can be replaced but with pilots average experienced 35 only one out of 400 will break through CAP and flak fire to hit a ship.

"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

It´s correct that the planes can be replaced but with pilots average experienced 35 only one out of 400 will break through CAP and flak fire to hit a ship. Then it´s perhaps only a barge, an AK or perhaps a DD. If you´re unlucky then the kamikaze bounces off a BB´s armor. For me it just doesn´t matter if my Japanese opponent replaces those 5000 planes that he lost in May sometime in November to send them out again as they don´t do him any good. They only increase my score and drain his HI pool.

People already mentioned that often enough, number of planes doesn´t matter that much, if you use them with pilots in the mid 30s. And you can´t train kamikaze daitais with ground attacks, so aircraft numbers in kamikaze daitais matter even less than aircraft numbers in normal daitais (which CAN be trained with ground attacks).

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

The plain fact is that most kamikazes got nowhere near an allied ship and most that hit ships did not sink the ships they hit. Something like 35-50 vessels in total were sunk by kamikazes, and most of these were lost as a consequence of fire damage that occurred after multiple kamikaze hits. For many ships, especially the heavily armored ones, a kamikaze hit be it by a kate, val, or anything else, was mostly a threat to personnel.

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The Kamikaze's were much more dangerous to crews, particularly exposed crews like lookouts and AAA personnel or crews on unarmored ships like DDs/DEs than the ships, but the Kamikaze's did eat into the available escort vessels off Okinawa. DD/DE losses, not just sunk but ships damaged to the extent that they could not stay on station, were getting severe enough to cause a lot of concern.

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27 sunk.

Class Attacks Hits
CL/CA/BB 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD 241 36%
AP/APA/AK/AKA 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small Craft 37 22%

Morse and Kimball, 1951

"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

quote:

27 sunk.

Class Attacks Hits
CL/CA/BB 48 44%
CV 44 41%
CVE/CVL 37 48%
DD 241 36%
AP/APA/AK/AKA 21 43%
LSM/LST/LSV 49 22%
Small Craft 37 22%

Morse and Kimball, 1951

Harry, can you give a little more info on that table?

What is considered an "attack"? An attack episode (multiple per day)? A days worth of attacks by Kamis? The ship as the object of the attack?

How many planes involved in the attack?

How many planes hit of total? (reflection of accuracy).

Example, against flight-decks, does that 41% mean that 44 flight decks were attakced, and 18 were damaged? Or there were 44 attacks against CVs (so you might have 5 attacks against the same CV (such as Formidable).

You usually produce good documentation, but please to expound a little more on what you've got in that table.

Thanks,
-F-

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

quote:

There's a flaw in your historic account.

There's no flaw in my historical account. 

Most of  us (myself included) are all very well aware of the fact that that Japan had roughly 7000 planes they were "saving" for Operation Olympic.  I was simply stating that during the course of 1945, there were only 7 - 8 days that Japan launched an "all out" Kamikaze attacks on the US/UK fleets.  There is nothing incorrect or misrepresentative about that statement.

The Historical Picture - Japan chose to save those 7000 planes for Operation Olympic, both sides knew they were looking at November-ish for the assault (the summer/fall being hte typhoon season).  They saved those planes because had they used them in June/July/August, they would NOT have been available in November.  And FYI, despite popular perception, Japanese aviators were generlly -NOT- rushing to bang down the doors of the Kamikaze recruiting office.

The WitP picture - Let's say it's July 1945 in-game, and you have that 7000 plane reserve available to you to sling at the Allied fleets.  You mirror the historical situation.  If you want to sling those 7000 planes at the Allied fleets, go ahead - that's 1500/planes a month = 5 or 6 250+ plane strikes per month.  Difference being, in WitP you can replace many of those planes by November (altho 7000 planes in 4 months is a bit ambitious, I'd say you could replace 5000).

-F-

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The most successful Kamikaze attacks were the ones that snuck in undetected until the last minute, since it was very difficult to overwhelm the US/RN CAP and AAA with one big raid by this time.