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RE: State of the Air War in AE

 
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RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:04:52 PM   
denisonh


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One thing that I think is understated is historically the Admirals operating CV TFs on both sides had a tremendous respect for land based air, to such an extent that they would not hang around unless it was adequatley neutralized. Reading about the Marianias and Phillipines invasions and the amount of focus on finding and neutralizing enemy air assets was the number one priority. If there was more than they could deal with adequately, they would have delayed or tried a different tact.

So much of the War in the Pacific was about getting bases for LBA. The risk to CVs is huge and they are vulnerable.

If your strategy does not revolve around the supremacy of LBA and the vulnerability of CV based air, you are a taking more risk than historical and could very well suffer the ahistrical consequences.



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Post #: 31
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:06:47 PM   
TheElf


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From: Pax River, MD
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quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
As I just stated in Grey Joy's AAR how much of this sort of thing should the Game be capable of supporting in order to satisfy the community? 1,000,000 plane combats? Where can I safely draw the line?


Well, it should be able to handle the full Allied CV strength at a minimum I would say. If you assume that no Allied CVs are lost up until March 44, that probably is something of a maximum CV force that the game will have to handle. It's probably headed towards 2500 aircraft if you include all the Brits, of which roughly half will be fighters, and half again most likely escorts. This is plenty sufficient to break the existing setup based on Greyjoys tests, and could in theory happen in the most conservative of games.

I guess in '45, even more likely to happen.

And borked results regarding CVs will provoke a hell of a lot more wailing and gnashing of teeth then ones involving an unsinkable airfield.

I agree. Unfortunately the basic premise of combat in WitP is a two phase approach. Whereas in RL combats in the "AM" is you will could take place across several hours and be widely seperated by lulls and such, in WitP the whole 6 hours of the combat phase happens all at once. Normally this isn't an issue, but when we get into the realm of ludicrous speed, and all the little checks and balances we installed to break Uber combat down are somehow overcome, we get radical, unpredictable results.

Additionally I can't control with code a couple of players who avoid CV combat or A2A combat at all until 1945 and have put all their time and energy into Aircraft production and have their "midway" in 1945 with the full strengh of the Combined fleet and the US Fleet. And that isn't likely to happen in EVERY game. But when it does, should we change the gut s of the game to accommodate the players who feel their game was borked?

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Post #: 32
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:07:19 PM   
AcePylut


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3018547

Walked right up to 1 hex from Kyushu with all my carriers - Japan attacked - all my carriers walked back to Okinawa with a cve or two taking a bomb hit.

Dispersal is the key to survival. Agree with ELF.... if you approach the homelands, better have your CV's spread over multiple hexes and better have plenty of pickets out in front of the CV's.

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Post #: 33
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:09:14 PM   
TheElf


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


I find this statement funny, because historically this community as a collective understands that as Japan you can't win. Now apparently that rational has gone the way of the Dodo and it's the Allies who can't win.

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Post #: 34
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:09:40 PM   
Jzanes

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I think what is being lost here is that, while they have successfully explored the frontier of lunacy in terms of over stacking and uncovered the limits of computer processing power vis a vis AE, GJ and Rader did so by cramming an unrealistic number of aircraft into a relatively small space. In all likelihood, and I am guessing it sounds like they overcame all the little controls we put in place to break up Uber Air Battles in a unique set of circumstances that existed in their game.

What you are all advocating is hard coding essentially. We are talking about rewriting code for the game to accommodate gameplay that is aberrant. I admit that there are situations where large numbers of A/C come together regardless of how you play, and that others have begun to experience the same effects, but should we as developers risk making a change that could have 2nd and 3rd order effects on the rest of those that haven't seen this sort of thing in their game?

Development/support of this product is essentially over save for Michaelm's gracious charity. I can't just go in with a scalpel and start monkeying around with the code. Do I have ideas? yes. But it isn't my call.

Until something changes you all as players have to understand the limitations and try to live within them. That is the only way.


I don't think the GJ/Rader result is all that aberrant. I think everyone reaches a point where the forces on both sides are massive and the battlefield becomes very very congested as the allies vector in on the home islands. You don't have to "cram" planes into a single base to run into this problem. Dispersing your aircraft over a large # of airfields will lead to the same end result. It's just too easy to get the "golden" # of escorts you need to overcome any CAP. Changing service ratings, coordination penalties, overstacking penalties, etc. isn't gonna fix this issue. IMHO the coding for combat itself needs to be reviewed.

Anyways, add my game as a datapoint in support of reviewing the current "firing passes" coding. Could someone at least go into the code and see what kind of results you get when you fiddle with the numbers? IMHO without some change, late war games are going to be getting abandoned on a regular basis.

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Post #: 35
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:14:16 PM   
Jzanes

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


I find this statement funny, because historically this community as a collective understands that as Japan you can't win. Now apparently that rational has gone the way of the Dodo and it's the Allies who can't win.


No, the allies can win for sure. They just can't expect to use their carriers w/o having them slaughtered. The same applies to the KB. It's just that in late war games, the allied carriers will usually be the ones to enter "exposed" waters.

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Post #: 36
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:15:05 PM   
LoBaron


Posts: 4776
Joined: 1/26/2003
From: Vienna, Austria
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quote:

ORIGINAL: AcePylut


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3018547

Walked right up to 1 hex from Kyushu with all my carriers - Japan attacked - all my carriers walked back to Okinawa with a cve or two taking a bomb hit.

Dispersal is the key to survival. Agree with ELF.... if you approach the homelands, better have your CV's spread over multiple hexes and better have plenty of pickets out in front of the CV's.



Yes, this is what I am preaching for ages now.

The key trigger here is that as soon as you disperse, the attacker disperses as well. As long as the number of planes involved does not completely hit the roof
you will get plausible results this way.

It does not apply to base attacks as well because there you are able to select a specific target. But here dispersal has the effect of minimizing losses.

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RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:15:36 PM   
TheElf


Posts: 3870
Joined: 5/14/2003
From: Pax River, MD
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I think what is being lost here is that, while they have successfully explored the frontier of lunacy in terms of over stacking and uncovered the limits of computer processing power vis a vis AE, GJ and Rader did so by cramming an unrealistic number of aircraft into a relatively small space. In all likelihood, and I am guessing it sounds like they overcame all the little controls we put in place to break up Uber Air Battles in a unique set of circumstances that existed in their game.

What you are all advocating is hard coding essentially. We are talking about rewriting code for the game to accommodate gameplay that is aberrant. I admit that there are situations where large numbers of A/C come together regardless of how you play, and that others have begun to experience the same effects, but should we as developers risk making a change that could have 2nd and 3rd order effects on the rest of those that haven't seen this sort of thing in their game?

Development/support of this product is essentially over save for Michaelm's gracious charity. I can't just go in with a scalpel and start monkeying around with the code. Do I have ideas? yes. But it isn't my call.

Until something changes you all as players have to understand the limitations and try to live within them. That is the only way.


I don't think the GJ/Rader result is all that aberrant. I think everyone reaches a point where the forces on both sides are massive and the battlefield becomes very very congested as the allies vector in on the home islands. You don't have to "cram" planes into a single base to run into this problem. Dispersing your aircraft over a large # of airfields will lead to the same end result. It's just too easy to get the "golden" # of escorts you need to overcome any CAP. Changing service ratings, coordination penalties, overstacking penalties, etc. isn't gonna fix this issue. IMHO the coding for combat itself needs to be reviewed.

Anyways, add my game as a datapoint in support of reviewing the current "firing passes" coding. Could someone at least go into the code and see what kind of results you get when you fiddle with the numbers? IMHO without some change, late war games are going to be getting abandoned on a regular basis.


two part test...

1. you are absolutely right. It is too easy to get the golden number of escorts. What is wrong with that?

2. The 8th Air Force found the same equation. Riddle me this: how many 8th Air Force Raids were turned back. How many times did they not hit their target (where weather didn't prevent it)?

So answer # 2 and then Answer #1

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RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:15:42 PM   
EUBanana


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
Additionally I can't control with code a couple of players who avoid CV combat or A2A combat at all until 1945 and have put all their time and energy into Aircraft production and have their "midway" in 1945 with the full strengh of the Combined fleet and the US Fleet. And that isn't likely to happen in EVERY game. But when it does, should we change the gut s of the game to accommodate the players who feel their game was borked?


Well maybe "borked" is a strong word as people seem to be homing in on it, but... you asked for a maximum size which needs handling. I agree you can't necessarily code for air combat of arbitrary size. But a maximum size would presumably be the above scenario. It's a little contrived, but not very contrived, and seems like a reasonable max to shoot for to me.


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Post #: 39
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:18:15 PM   
EUBanana


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
1. you are absolutely right. It is too easy to get the golden number of escorts. What is wrong with that?


I don't think magical cut off points have much place in reality. It's a very "hard" limit too, very noticeable when you have hit it, as Greyjoy discovered in his tests. I dont' really see why CAP should be mystically limited to 300 passes - especially given the aforementioned note that it might possibly represent six hours of air combat.

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RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:18:42 PM   
TheElf


Posts: 3870
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quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
Additionally I can't control with code a couple of players who avoid CV combat or A2A combat at all until 1945 and have put all their time and energy into Aircraft production and have their "midway" in 1945 with the full strengh of the Combined fleet and the US Fleet. And that isn't likely to happen in EVERY game. But when it does, should we change the gut s of the game to accommodate the players who feel their game was borked?


Well maybe "borked" is a strong word as people seem to be homing in on it, but... you asked for a maximum size which needs handling. I agree you can't necessarily code for air combat of arbitrary size. But a maximum size would presumably be the above scenario. It's a little contrived, but not very contrived, and seems like a reasonable max to shoot for to me.


ok EU, you are now my advisor. Give me a number. Give me the total number of A/c that should be reasonably assumed to participate in a single combat without breaking the game. There has to be a hard number, that is the way code works. There is only so much room in the game for 1s an 0s. What is your number?

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Post #: 41
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:19:36 PM   
Jzanes

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AcePylut


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3018547

Walked right up to 1 hex from Kyushu with all my carriers - Japan attacked - all my carriers walked back to Okinawa with a cve or two taking a bomb hit.

Dispersal is the key to survival. Agree with ELF.... if you approach the homelands, better have your CV's spread over multiple hexes and better have plenty of pickets out in front of the CV's.


Took a quick look but didn't see an applicable CR. On what dates did your carrier CAP face a raid with 100 or more escorts? I would be curious to see how your CAP performed in this instance.

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Post #: 42
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:21:36 PM   
TheElf


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quote:

ORIGINAL: EUBanana


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
1. you are absolutely right. It is too easy to get the golden number of escorts. What is wrong with that?


I don't think magical cut off points have much place in reality. It's a very "hard" limit too, very noticeable when you have hit it, as Greyjoy discovered in his tests. I dont' really see why CAP should be mystically limited to 300 passes - especially given the aforementioned note that it might possibly represent six hours of air combat.

yet that is how this game was originally designed. There has to be a limit on combat or else Rader and GJ might still be watching the turn in question. don't you see, there ARE limits to what is reasonable. They are inherent in the code. There is no way around it unless you throw playability right out the window.

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Post #: 43
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:22:54 PM   
CT Grognard

 

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KA-CHING!

Hopefully now the penny drops.

Let's say in theory a Japanese player has a massive Level 10 airbase that has 1,200 aircraft there. I, as Allied player, want to attack this base with my CVs. But how?

Do I group all 20x my CVs into a single TF and hope that my massed CAP will protect me from his strike and then hope that my massed strike will suppress her airbase?

OR WAIT!

Do I rather disperse into five different TFs in different hexes all within strike range of this UBER-base, and set all five my TFs to attack the base in question?

Hmmmmmmm...

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Post #: 44
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:24:07 PM   
LoBaron


Posts: 4776
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From: Vienna, Austria
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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
two part test...

1. you are absolutely right. It is too easy to get the golden number of escorts. What is wrong with that?

2. The 8th Air Force found the same equation. Riddle me this: how many 8th Air Force Raids were turned back. How many times did they not hit their target (where weather didn't prevent it)?

So answer # 2 and then Answer #1


Too many player think that it should be possible to stop a well coordinated raid, at least to an extent where the raid is unable to deal a notable ammount of damage.
I brought a similar argument, which was dismissed as not comparable. Personally I think it compares quite well.

The problem with large scale raids is that they are a lot more difficult to intercept. For CAP to engage sufficiently there is so much time required to scramble,
get into proper formation, align with the (assumed heavily escorted) bomber stream, avoid and/or deal with escort fighters vectored to engage the threat,
get into proper position to mount an attack run of a scale it overwhelms defensive fire, pass through the bomber formation, and then regain tactical position
again to repeat that stunt.

With several hundreds of planes involved on both sides, for this style of attacks that often means only a very low number of attack runs until the raid reaches
target. WitP AE displays this issue quite nicely I think.

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RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:26:50 PM   
TheElf


Posts: 3870
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


I find this statement funny, because historically this community as a collective understands that as Japan you can't win. Now apparently that rational has gone the way of the Dodo and it's the Allies who can't win.


No, the allies can win for sure. They just can't expect to use their carriers w/o having them slaughtered. The same applies to the KB. It's just that in late war games, the allied carriers will usually be the ones to enter "exposed" waters.



How do you know that in Rader's and GJ's game conditions didn't exist that meant GJ's carriers SHOULDN'T get slaughtered?

Whose to say that there are no conditions that could have existed in RL that wouldn't have meant the US got their CVs slaughtered? Is NEVER slaughtering Carriers approaching the home islands a foregone conclusion regardless of the circumstances?

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Post #: 46
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:28:47 PM   
CT Grognard

 

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I believe at the time I used the example of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.

Even green Japanese pilots in raids around 100-200 planes facing MASSIVE US CAP that was staggered in concentric rings and properly directed managed to get some of the planes through for an attack run (albeit relatively unsuccessful).

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Post #: 47
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:32:38 PM   
TheElf


Posts: 3870
Joined: 5/14/2003
From: Pax River, MD
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

I think what is being lost here is that, while they have successfully explored the frontier of lunacy in terms of over stacking and uncovered the limits of computer processing power vis a vis AE, GJ and Rader did so by cramming an unrealistic number of aircraft into a relatively small space. In all likelihood, and I am guessing it sounds like they overcame all the little controls we put in place to break up Uber Air Battles in a unique set of circumstances that existed in their game.

What you are all advocating is hard coding essentially. We are talking about rewriting code for the game to accommodate gameplay that is aberrant. I admit that there are situations where large numbers of A/C come together regardless of how you play, and that others have begun to experience the same effects, but should we as developers risk making a change that could have 2nd and 3rd order effects on the rest of those that haven't seen this sort of thing in their game?

Development/support of this product is essentially over save for Michaelm's gracious charity. I can't just go in with a scalpel and start monkeying around with the code. Do I have ideas? yes. But it isn't my call.

Until something changes you all as players have to understand the limitations and try to live within them. That is the only way.


I don't think the GJ/Rader result is all that aberrant. I think everyone reaches a point where the forces on both sides are massive and the battlefield becomes very very congested as the allies vector in on the home islands. You don't have to "cram" planes into a single base to run into this problem. Dispersing your aircraft over a large # of airfields will lead to the same end result. It's just too easy to get the "golden" # of escorts you need to overcome any CAP. Changing service ratings, coordination penalties, overstacking penalties, etc. isn't gonna fix this issue. IMHO the coding for combat itself needs to be reviewed.

Anyways, add my game as a datapoint in support of reviewing the current "firing passes" coding. Could someone at least go into the code and see what kind of results you get when you fiddle with the numbers? IMHO without some change, late war games are going to be getting abandoned on a regular basis.


I am not saying their result is aberrant I am saying the circumstances of the combat is aberrant. In terms of how they massed EVERYTHING into one small space.

I also noted that Rader seemed to have the technological upperhand in many cases having fielded several new types of IJ planes. There was NOTHING historical about the battle. It was completely in fantasy land. No precedent for it. and I can't even see behind the curtain. What were the pilots like? how healthy was Rader's pilot corps? What was his supply situation?

Maybe he had ALL the odds stacked in his favor because he played an excellent game, and GJ didn't? I don't know.


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Post #: 48
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:33:52 PM   
denisonh


Posts: 2194
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As an Operations Research Analyst who has data modeling to support decisions, to include wargaming to determine force requirements in Afghanistan, the maxim we always remember is that "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

Any combat model has a baseline of facts and assumptions that once invalidated provide "unuseful" output.

The point here is that the farther you go away from the available data and the conditions it was collected under make for some real issues into the consistency and quality of the output. What you have to do is start making more assumptions and attaching quantative values to the assumptions. It then gets hard to evaluate the outcomes because of the "dogpiling" of assumptions and thier quantative impacts on the outcomes.

A real modeling mess that may not may not return viable outputs, take alot of effort, and then in turn get skewed when the the assumptions are changed/invalidated based on radical changes to inputs.

There is no "right" answer, but a good answer given a set of assumptions.

Like Elf said, if you want to break it, you can find the inputs that skew the outcomes of the model to your favor if you break the undelying assumptions that are the basis for the model.

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Post #: 49
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:38:06 PM   
EUBanana


Posts: 4552
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From: Little England
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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
ok EU, you are now my advisor. Give me a number. Give me the total number of A/c that should be reasonably assumed to participate in a single combat without breaking the game. There has to be a hard number, that is the way code works. There is only so much room in the game for 1s an 0s. What is your number?




I'm sure it's not going to be so simple as tweaking a constant somewhere. Knock on effects and all. However... I think as an upper ceiling you probably it able to handle something like a 1000 fighter CAP. This is what the most death starry 1945 CV forces will be packing, so is surely the very highest number a high value CV force will be rolling with. This is a scenario which players will often get into. And as CV battles are high impact, thats the priority for getting things working.

But. I imagine in the existing setup if you just increased that constant to 1000 things would get very bloody, so that is not an answer, it brings in other problems.

So, I think it would be best if, rather than scaling everything up to three times what it is atm, things are broken up somehow, as CT says. So incoming raid size is capped (), and the CAP is also capped, thus enforcing a series of smaller combats rather than one ginormous one.

Alas, I dont think thats how it works as CAP seems to be a fixed number for the whole hex, so I guess that is not possible. But we definitely know that smaller air combats work fine so trying to engineer things to make sure thats all you see seems sensible and the least impact approach. It would be historic, too.

Failing that, maybe if the CAP maximum response was scaled to the number of incoming aircraft that might work (possibly not scaled in a linear manner either). That way megacaps might not work so well against smaller number of bombers. Also if the ablative escort thing was fixed, then that could surely help, as the root issue in huge battles seems to me to be the foolproof escorting, and all else flows from that.

_____________________________


(in reply to TheElf)
Post #: 50
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:38:26 PM   
denisonh


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/21/2001
From: Upstate SC
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Take a base within B-29 range, build it up, run B-29 raids until it is shut down, then use your CVs.....

quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

KA-CHING!

Hopefully now the penny drops.

Let's say in theory a Japanese player has a massive Level 10 airbase that has 1,200 aircraft there. I, as Allied player, want to attack this base with my CVs. But how?

Do I group all 20x my CVs into a single TF and hope that my massed CAP will protect me from his strike and then hope that my massed strike will suppress her airbase?

OR WAIT!

Do I rather disperse into five different TFs in different hexes all within strike range of this UBER-base, and set all five my TFs to attack the base in question?

Hmmmmmmm...



_____________________________


"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

(in reply to CT Grognard)
Post #: 51
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:40:11 PM   
CT Grognard

 

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And hope your Japanese opponent is unable to send a heavy bombardment force to "spread the love" all over that B-29 base.

(in reply to denisonh)
Post #: 52
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:41:03 PM   
Jzanes

 

Posts: 471
Joined: 11/18/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf


quote:

ORIGINAL: Jzanes

I don't think the carrier dispersal strategy is the issue. The problem is that you can't defend your carriers no matter how you deploy them. At some point you are going to have to approach a hostile shore and I don't see how you can effectively suppress the entire japanese airforce when they have lots and lots of large airbases in escort fighter range of your landing zone. I understand that some of the bombers should get thru and sink some carriers but the way it is now, ALL the bombers will get thru and sink most or all of your carriers whether you have 4 in the hex or 20+. Maybe you can survive having one major carrier catastrophe during the war but the japanese player will do this to you time after time as you approach the home islands.


I find this statement funny, because historically this community as a collective understands that as Japan you can't win. Now apparently that rational has gone the way of the Dodo and it's the Allies who can't win.


No, the allies can win for sure. They just can't expect to use their carriers w/o having them slaughtered. The same applies to the KB. It's just that in late war games, the allied carriers will usually be the ones to enter "exposed" waters.



How do you know that in Rader's and GJ's game conditions didn't exist that meant GJ's carriers SHOULDN'T get slaughtered?

Whose to say that there are no conditions that could have existed in RL that wouldn't have meant the US got their CVs slaughtered? Is NEVER slaughtering Carriers approaching the home islands a foregone conclusion regardless of the circumstances?


I never said anything about precluding carriers from being slaughtered. I'm just saying that right now there doesn't seem to be anyway to avoid having your ships/bases/strategic targets from being slaughtered (and doing no damage to the attacking strike aircraft).

Could someone test results at various "firing passes" levels. Maybe start at the 2,500 mark and if that looks wonky, work on down to something north of the current 300 mark? If all results look wonky or mess up other stuff then I guess we're stuck but I think a lotta people are going to get frustrated when they reach the late war and find it near impossible to defend their assets vs. air attack.

(in reply to TheElf)
Post #: 53
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:42:04 PM   
TheElf


Posts: 3870
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From: Pax River, MD
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: denisonh

As an Operations Research Analyst who has data modeling to support decisions, to include wargaming to determine force requirements in Afghanistan, the maxim we always remember is that "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

Any combat model has a baseline of facts and assumptions that once invalidated provide "unuseful" output.

The point here is that the farther you go away from the available data and the conditions it was collected under make for some real issues into the consistency and quality of the output. What you have to do is start making more assumptions and attaching quantative values to the assumptions. It then gets hard to evaluate the outcomes because of the "dogpiling" of assumptions and thier quantative impacts on the outcomes.

A real modeling mess that may not may not return viable outputs, take alot of effort, and then in turn get skewed when the the assumptions are changed/invalidated based on radical changes to inputs.

There is no "right" answer, but a good answer given a set of assumptions.

Like Elf said, if you want to break it, you can find the inputs that skew the outcomes of the model to your favor if you break the undelying assumptions that are the basis for the model.

Thank you Harvey. Always good to have the perspective of someone who does this sort of thing professionally.

One of the things that amazes me is the level of coordination that occurred. I can't tell you how many times I have been blasted in threads because "such and such raid didn't coordinate"... "Escorts won't escort!"... "my raids get slaughtered because they won't go in together!" etc. In this case they did, presumably because the player put his units in places where the conditions existed to gain maximum coordination bonuses. But it really is night and day from those other people...

_____________________________

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(in reply to denisonh)
Post #: 54
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:42:37 PM   
denisonh


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/21/2001
From: Upstate SC
Status: offline
The US Navy should have the assets to make that a difficult proposition late game......
quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

And hope your Japanese opponent is unable to send a heavy bombardment force to "spread the love" all over that B-29 base.



_____________________________


"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

(in reply to CT Grognard)
Post #: 55
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 3:50:05 PM   
denisonh


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/21/2001
From: Upstate SC
Status: offline
The other point that is any good probablistic combat model has a wide range of outcomes, so when analysing the model, you look at numerous runs as there should outcomes that get pretty far away from the mean.

The "one in a thousand" outcomes or "One in twenty" outcomes should be possible. Even in today's modern battelfield, stuff does not always happen as planned. It was even more so the case in WWII, particurly early war. Good comnbat models have that probability of things not happening exactly as planned.

If you want certainty, play chess.


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf


quote:

ORIGINAL: denisonh

As an Operations Research Analyst who has data modeling to support decisions, to include wargaming to determine force requirements in Afghanistan, the maxim we always remember is that "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

Any combat model has a baseline of facts and assumptions that once invalidated provide "unuseful" output.

The point here is that the farther you go away from the available data and the conditions it was collected under make for some real issues into the consistency and quality of the output. What you have to do is start making more assumptions and attaching quantative values to the assumptions. It then gets hard to evaluate the outcomes because of the "dogpiling" of assumptions and thier quantative impacts on the outcomes.

A real modeling mess that may not may not return viable outputs, take alot of effort, and then in turn get skewed when the the assumptions are changed/invalidated based on radical changes to inputs.

There is no "right" answer, but a good answer given a set of assumptions.

Like Elf said, if you want to break it, you can find the inputs that skew the outcomes of the model to your favor if you break the undelying assumptions that are the basis for the model.

Thank you Harvey. Always good to have the perspective of someone who does this sort of thing professionally.

One of the things that amazes me is the level of coordination that occurred. I can't tell you how many times I have been blasted in threads because "such and such raid didn't coordinate"... "Escorts won't escort!"... "my raids get slaughtered because they won't go in together!" etc. In this case they did, presumably because the player put his units in places where the conditions existed to gain maximum coordination bonuses. But it really is night and day from those other people...



_____________________________


"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

(in reply to TheElf)
Post #: 56
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 4:00:16 PM   
gradenko2k

 

Posts: 935
Joined: 12/27/2010
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I think that a contributor to the problem is the expectation that Japan should always be something that you can approach / bomb / invade by 1945, even if the war hasn't progressed anywhere near historical lines. By the time the Allies were planning Downfall, Japan had practically zero skilled pilots and were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of air-frames, and yet the Allies STILL expected a million or so losses and STILL came up with the Big Blue Blanket CAP strategy.

Now, if we grant that the Japanese player still has a sizable air-force and moderately skilled pilots, because WITP is not on historical rails, then shouldn't we also grant that maybe Japan can be fortified to a point where it *is* untouchable? Or at least, untouchable in 1945, when there's still more than enough supplies to fly thousands of sorties.

As TheElf said, part of it is setting your expectations accordingly. If the KB is still alive, and the IJ LBA hasn't been pissed away in the Marianas and the Air Battle Over Formosa, then maybe we have to expect that pulling off a Downfall isn't simply a matter of time and fate.

(in reply to TheElf)
Post #: 57
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 4:24:43 PM   
jeffk3510


Posts: 4132
Joined: 12/3/2007
From: Kansas
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

KA-CHING!

Hopefully now the penny drops.

Let's say in theory a Japanese player has a massive Level 10 airbase that has 1,200 aircraft there. I, as Allied player, want to attack this base with my CVs. But how?

Do I group all 20x my CVs into a single TF and hope that my massed CAP will protect me from his strike and then hope that my massed strike will suppress her airbase?

OR WAIT!

Do I rather disperse into five different TFs in different hexes all within strike range of this UBER-base, and set all five my TFs to attack the base in question?

Hmmmmmmm...


No sir.. night run with a bombardment taskforce.. you will obliterate it with it being overstacked..

_____________________________

Life is tough. The sooner you realize that, the easier it will be.

Currently chasing three kids around the Midwest.

(in reply to CT Grognard)
Post #: 58
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 4:25:36 PM   
witpqs


Posts: 26087
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
Status: offline
The cases in the game that I am aware of where Allied carriers get stomped is when the IJ player has done well in terms of husbanding/farming his forces of highly skilled aircrew and high numbers of same with good planes.

I am supportive of inquiries into the late-war/large-combat performance of the air model as it is scantly charted territory, but I see too many people jumping to conclusions about how a certain combat "should" have progressed without taking into account all of the factors involved. I am glad to see that several people here are making the very same point.

(in reply to gradenko2k)
Post #: 59
RE: State of the Air War in AE - 3/8/2012 4:28:44 PM   
Jzanes

 

Posts: 471
Joined: 11/18/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: gradenko_2000

I think that a contributor to the problem is the expectation that Japan should always be something that you can approach / bomb / invade by 1945, even if the war hasn't progressed anywhere near historical lines. By the time the Allies were planning Downfall, Japan had practically zero skilled pilots and were just about scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of air-frames, and yet the Allies STILL expected a million or so losses and STILL came up with the Big Blue Blanket CAP strategy.

Now, if we grant that the Japanese player still has a sizable air-force and moderately skilled pilots, because WITP is not on historical rails, then shouldn't we also grant that maybe Japan can be fortified to a point where it *is* untouchable? Or at least, untouchable in 1945, when there's still more than enough supplies to fly thousands of sorties.

As TheElf said, part of it is setting your expectations accordingly. If the KB is still alive, and the IJ LBA hasn't been pissed away in the Marianas and the Air Battle Over Formosa, then maybe we have to expect that pulling off a Downfall isn't simply a matter of time and fate.


In regards to the firing passes issue, quality of pilots or airframes is irrelevant. All you need is a couple hundred newbs in an obsolescent escort fighter and the bombers will always get thru. I'm not sure, but I believe Rader or Greyjoy actually tested this. They loaded up some squadrons with completely unskilled pilots and sent them out to escort some bombers. The escorts were slaughtered (as always) but the bombers got thru w/o a scratch.

(in reply to gradenko2k)
Post #: 60
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