mdiehl
Posts: 5998
Joined: 10/21/2000 Status: offline
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quote:
in the context of this game just because the japanese{or american's}did'nt fly night missions does'nt mean they COULD'NT;if you were to play any historical wargame completly historically why play?you know that the japanese lose in the solomons and that the north won the acw.but i agree that the penalties for attempting a night mission at that time should be fairly severe say on the order of 20-30% mostly because of accidents.as an aside even the rikko attack bombers attacked at dawn or dusk and flew at wave-top level with the enemy ships siloueted by the rising or setting sun. Q: "Why play a historical wargame if that historical wargame doesn't give the Japanese a chance of inventing a Romulan Bird of Prey and dominating the world by 1943?" A: Because allowing such capabilities obviates any claim that the game is a historical consim. For the same reason, neither the US nor the Japanese should be allowed significant night ops capability prior to 1944 (with a few land based USN patrol types such as PB4Y, PBY, and certain obsolescent bomber types backfit with radar for night asw duty) when the US got really serious about it. The reason why neither of them tried significant night ops before that was because absent really good airborne radar, night interception (all forms of night time fighter combat) and night time torpedo and bombing attack had NO chance of success. One supposes the game *could* allow the Japanese or US player to "attempt" to conduct a night attack with non-radar-equipped aircraft, and if the game were a proper consim operational losses would be on the order of 10% per mission, and no hits would ever occur, presuming that one wanted a HISTORICAL consim (one without Romulan Birds of Prey, capable night attack missions with radarless aircraft, and other equally improbable anti-historical capabilities). It'd beg the question why anyone would write a set of rules for something that no one would ever use, but that of course would be the game designer's choice. The only nations with anything like 1942 night attack capability were the Royal Navy and the USN. As I recall, the RN had radar sets on Fairey Swordfish, Sunderlands, and (possibly) Bostons in 1940. The USN acquired the tech from the UK, and by mid-1942 had started to allocate the limited number of US sets to PBYs. The Japanese never had anything comparable, and at night could not have hit a bull in the hindquarters with a bass fiddle; not even backlit by early dawn or dusk. That's no knock against the Japanese by the way. If you don't have radar EVERYTHING about flying an a.c. becomes fantastically more difficult in poor visibility or low light.
< Message edited by mdiehl -- 6/10/2008 7:25:05 PM >
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Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics. Didn't we have this conversation already?
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