Feinder
Posts: 6589
Joined: 9/4/2002 From: Land o' Lakes, FL Status: offline
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Correct, you can't "sweep" a CV TF in WitP. Yes, I'd try staggering the heights of your bombers. Going in at several altitudes will help to spread out the CAP (the strike where CAP is closes to altitude will suffer most, but the others alts will benefit). And dive and torpedo bombers don't suffer an accuracy penalty for altitude, since they alway attack at 2000' and 200' anyway. Also, putting stuff high, will also reduce your Flak losses (again, no decrease in accuracy). You can also create a lead strike and secondary strikes by a. Lead strike is set for NavAtk (no secondary mission). It will launch in the AM, and bear the brunt of the CAP (and stagger it's alts etc). b. Secondary strike is set for NavAtk-Port/AF Atk (with a target specified). Unless you've sunk everything, your naval target will still be there in the PM pulse (no movement occurs between AM and PM). This "encourages" you strikes launch in the PM pulse. The naval target is still there, so it attacks the naval target instead of it's specified Port/AF target. Hitting in the PM means that CAP has been reduced by the AM strikes, and you've got a better shot at getting thru. THIS IS NOT ROCK-SOLID. There are quite a few things that can go wrong, but it's about 60% effective once you get the feel for it. a. Weather is checked in AM and PM. So your airfield(s) and target might be socked in for one of the strikes, in which case you'll only strike in the AM or PM. b. It's actually advisable to only use the AM/PM strikes if you're using multiple AFs. Reason being, generaly in WitP airstrikes, you either want very large or very small strikes. The small strikes can creep the CAP anyway. And the very large strikes are better at getting thru. So if you're launching form the same base, more planes is generally better. But if you've got multiple AFs that your launching from, attempting to trigger AM/PM strikes to can help. c. You PM strike might just decide to bomb the Port/AF instead of the fleet, in which case you've bombed a bunch of dirt and not ships. d. You could make the argument that setting everything on NavAtk only will cause several strikes in the AM, that wears down CAP. So why use AM-PM strikes? You have no control over the strike order of everythign is AM. I haven't solved that yet, but I'm working on it (altho I think it's tied to range and the phsical ID # of the base). But anway. In the case where you have "good bombers" and "bad bombers". Say a collection of B-17s and some Hudsons (I know you're Japan, but this is just an example). You -want- the B-17s to go in first, becaus they're the most survivable and can help break up the CAP. But if the Hudsons go in first (no control over this if only NavAtk), they'll be slaughtered. So you deliberately set the B-17s to NavAtk only (go first), and then the Hudsons ast NavAtk-PortAtk, and they'll go in in the PM, after the B-17s have weakened the CAP a little. For that being said, I don't actually like the way srikes work in WitP. But the engine is what it is, and it helps considerably to actually understand what it's trying to do. -F-
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