Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Rainer79

My personal view is that much of the silliness could be removed by deleting the ground attack option of B-29s. I think that should be doable without messing too much with the code otherwise (hopefully).

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: Rainer79

My personal view is that much of the silliness could be removed by deleting the ground attack option of B-29s. I think that should be doable without messing too much with the code otherwise (hopefully).

this should be done for all aircraft types, give them only the missions they really flew and make the aircraft as effective in those missions they flew. Means making fighter bombers really fighter bombers, medium bombers for tactical missions, etc. This would of course also mean robbing the Japanese most of their torpedo bombers, all of their Army bombers on ASW or long range mass night attacks and so on. But as long as we go with the "the aircraft could do that" argument, I think a B-29 could drop bombs from 1000ft at any target. Just as a Betty could drop a torp. Now I wonder why we have never come over the thinking that it is normal to drop more torps in the first couple of months than Japan produced during the whole war but say a heavy bomber couldn´t drop bombs.

Especially when I think about having only 500lb bombs for the US bombers because no squadron will ever reach the needed (WITP) experience in AE to be able to drop bigger bombs. Means ships in port are bombed by the Japanese either with 800kg bombs (that kill everything) or even better, they use torps but only by Allied 500lb bombs on the other hand.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: PzB

This is from Jap point of view and there are of course balancing issues to consider as well, but anyway, my advice would be to:
Re-examine sea bombardments and consider un-nerfing
Nerf air bombardments both against base targets and troops (the latter were troops are in a non clear hex with forts / terrain cover and not moving)

You faced over 400 shooters and had 2 squads KIA? I don't see the beef. The hardware isn't mobile, and these were late-war DBs. Consider yourself lucky.

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

. . . The game is NOT a simulation and the model doesn't work by modeling every aspect of combat perfectly to get the desired outcome. The goal is arrive at a similar overall result: with the full hammer of the USN hitting Christmas Island (lvl 6 forts and well supplied), it should take at least 30 days (and since this atoll is a lot larger than Iwo, you could easily argue that it should take more like 60 days) and require followon forces to take.

That the allies should prevail in this instance should not be seriously in doubt (assuming they do the job right, and Andy is doing it right I am sure). It's that even effectively bringing their big hammer to the party, it should take them TIME to secure their objective. Right now, it looks like the roadblock is going too easy with both players doing everything right. And the item that stands out in this are the high numbers of disabled troops.

If I was going to tune this, I would take the fortification factor in the bombing effectiveness and tweak it ~25%. Then run Andy/PzB's turns a couple of times. Hopefully, we'll see those disabled drop enough to where the island will hold out for 30 - 60 days.

Just my thoughts....

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
As PzB pointed out, it isn't the casualties, its the high numbers of the troops that are apparently being disabled subsequent to the air attacks. The result looks to be that the atoll will fall in a rather short period of time.

Iwo should be the example. What were the IJ troop strengths Iwo? ~20,000, right? US troop strength? V Amphib Corp with follow on troops ... what about ~100,000 or more. ~25000 US casualties ... +30 days to secure. The fundamental item being the bombardments had little effect. The landing faced well entrenched and supplied troops. A very tough struggle.

To avoid confusion, let me state the goal here isn't to replicate the Iwo damage assesments. The game is NOT a simulation and the model doesn't work by modeling every aspect of combat perfectly to get the desired outcome. The goal is arrive at a similar overall result: with the full hammer of the USN hitting Christmas Island (lvl 6 forts and well supplied), it should take at least 30 days (and since this atoll is a lot larger than Iwo, you could easily argue that it should take more like 60 days) and require followon forces to take.

That the allies should prevail in this instance should not be seriously in doubt (assuming they do the job right, and Andy is doing it right I am sure). It's that even effectively bringing their big hammer to the party, it should take them TIME to secure their objective. Right now, it looks like the roadblock is going too easy with both players doing everything right. And the item that stands out in this are the high numbers of disabled troops.

If I was going to tune this, I would take the fortification factor in the bombing effectiveness and tweak it ~25%. Then run Andy/PzB's turns a couple of times. Hopefully, we'll see those disabled drop enough to where the island will hold out for 30 - 60 days.

Just my thoughts....

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ORIGINAL: obvert


Strength of bombing against ground units - units and bases can be destroyed by linear calibration of bombing effects, especially in clear hexes

- possible tweak - add +1 fort for bombardment by air for any unit not in move mode in a clear hex. Or, if it's possible, add +2 (or more) forts for anything (unit or AF or port) with over 50% damage. Or both.

Not sure if any of this is possible, but there is a problem, and since there are still changes being made, why not try to work through what might actually be possible.

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ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

I dont believe bombing against ground targets is out of kilter now v bases maybe I would agree but if anything CAS is nerfed as FB's die in droves if they try it.

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ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Just remember after 7 or 8 Days I have not secured Christmas Island with total air and naval superity and 6 Divs atackign basically 2.

Folks need to remember that all I have done is secure a badly damaged Air Field and Port the game is slightly all or nothing on combat as its a base based system but all I have done so far is secure the easiest part of the island (the flat bit witt the Air field

How long did it take the allies to secure the AF on Iwo is a better comparison what 10 - 12 days max ?? less....certainly the AF was repaired and in opweration in under 20 days

in my view 400 casualties is light with only 2 squads destroyed for what I brought

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ORIGINAL: Erkki

Rader, can you put them in relation to sortie numbers, both 4E and 2E? It may be that there are just as many or nearly as many 4Es as 2E sorties which of course effects the results.

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ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

How much AA was present, what mode were they in, what height were the bombers, what level of forts did the defenders have ?

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ORIGINAL: rader

Ok, here's some numbers from the past 3 turns (June 7-12, 1945).

This table shows the number of squads, support units (+ engineers), and guns/vehicles disabled or destroyed by allied aircraft. Note that once devices are disabled, they are subsequently destroyed on the next hit, so we can combine these together provided we double the number of devices for the "div equivalent" row (assumed at 1500 squads per division).

The first three columns show the number of devices disabled/destroyed by 4E bombers. The next 3 colums show the number of devices disabled/destroyed by all other a/c (including 2E bombers and light attack aircraft). The last colum "div equivalents" shows how many division equivalents this relates to being completely destroyed exlcusively from the air.

Some observations:

1. Even though probably 3x or 4x the number of 2E and light bombers are involved here, they are doing less than half the combined damage of the 4E bombers. I.e., per plane, 4E bombers are at least 6 times (and more like 10 times) as effective as ground attack aircraft at killing ground units from the air.

2. The main 4E bomber attack (~200 B-29s in Manchuria) flew 5 out of the 6 turns represented here. This is a very high tempo of operations, and this strike alone was responsible for entirely eliminating over 2 entire full strngth divisions in 5 days.

3. The average rate of loss for these 3 turns is higher than 1 division equivalent eliminated entirely from the air (starting at full strength). Given the size of the Japanese army, if this rate of loss were to continue, Japan's entire army would be eliminated in around 100 days, without any ground combat. If this was possible, why did the allies bother with land units?

4. Damage was significantly modified by terrain, but even in clear terrain, the damage inflicted by real ground attack aircraft (like the IL-2) was moderate to small (~10 squads max per bombing run). By contrast, attacks of 3-6 B-29s (the stragglers), typically did at least double the damage that would be inflicted by 50+ IL-2s. In fact, in this ground bombing model, I suspect that B-29s inflict around 10 times the damage per plane, simply because they carry 10 times the bombload.






Does anyone here actually think a loss rate of over half a division of troops a day due to air attack alone is reasonable (especially in the Pacific theater)?

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ORIGINAL: herwin

The game engine produces about ten times that number.

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ORIGINAL: Jzanes
I am Rader's oppoent in this match and I have a few points to add.

I agree ground bombing vs. units in clear terrain is about 2x too deadly and bombing vs. units in cover is about ½ as effective as it should be. However, I think the situation in Russia reflects a near optimal situation for ground bombing;

1. There has been absolutely 0 Japanese fighter opposition.
2. Japanese AAA is either non-existent or ineffective. Bombers are flying at 6000 feet.
3. Allied bombers are flying out of large (level 8 or 9) airbases with excellent supply, plentiful aviation support, and air HQs are present.
4. Japanese forces are moving and are either in MOVE mode or COMBAT mode with 0 forts when bombed. Having some forts dramatically reduces the effectiveness of ground bombing even vs. units in clear terrain.
5. Generally the weather in Russia has been “good” for the last few weeks. Good weather means anything but thunderstorms basically.
6. Even with optimal supply and support, all heavy bombers are not flying every turn. Most turns, 150-250 B29s fly sorties while another 100-200 bombers stay home for various reasons.
7. Some of the ground units being bombed have already been routed in previous land battles and have lots of disrupted components ripe for being destroyed.

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ORIGINAL: Jzanes
6. Even with optimal supply and support, all heavy bombers are not flying every turn. Most turns, 150-250 B29s fly sorties while another 100-200 bombers stay home for various reasons.

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ORIGINAL: rader

Forts help, but don't allow you to hold clear terrain without a LOT of AA. I had level 6 forts in Hailar, and 3-4 units including a big fortress were trashed in a matter of days by B-29s. You could have destroyed all the units in Hailar (about a division equivalent) in about a week. It's really clear terrain that's borked (and the fact that 4E bombers are so much better at bombing ground units than ground attack planes are).