Alfred
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Joined: 9/28/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
quote:
ORIGINAL: Alfred
quote:
ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
... Rest: I know it is hard when you are on the edge, BUT 25% of your A6M and +30% of your overall fighter losses are Ops losses. You should be able to get that down to 10-15%, that would be ~200 more fighters right now. Granted, I am being simplistic, other losses would happen. Still... increase your rest on all fighter units by 10%. Combat outcomes won't change much, but the ops losses will drop at bases where there is sufficient AV present to repair...
I've never subscribed to the common view that rest is essential to keeping a lid on operational losses. Of far greater impact is the distance flown. Constant shifting of air units from airfield to another, particularly when flying close to the aircraft's maximum range or to underdeveloped airfields, increases operational losses. As does flying operations beyond normal range. Flying back successfully a damaged aircraft is greatly impacted by both the distance and the pilot's experience level.
Lowpe is already limiting his fighter units to a 40% CAP level. Dropping that down to 30% will result in having insufficient fighters up and air-to-air losses will probably increase. In general terms if Lowpe has to drop CAP down to 30% then he can't afford to be fighting and should just stand down his air units.
I would increase the CAP level to a minimum of 50% with certain units capable of 60-70% for 2-3 days at a time. Definitely need to have 133% of pilot TOE assigned to the fighter units. If Lowpe can't overstack the pilot roster, then that again is a strong indication that he can't afford to conduct these air operations and the nits should be stood down. Plus absolutely no flying beyond normal range. If that means no sweeps then so be it. In fact if Lowpe is encountering the Migs only when sweeping and not when defending Japanese air space then that is a very good reason to just eliminate sweeps.
Alfred
Alfred, I agree with your points in terms of what causes both pilot and plane fatigue: distance, night ops, base moves/relocations, high % of max range ops ...
What recuperates that fatigue is rest. Either standing the unit down completely and activating a new unit or putting the unit on partial rest will lower the unit fatigue. At least that is what I see. For any given mission profile, I can set the % rest at a value where the unit fatigue will remain at a pre-determined value.
EX: I have a 12 plane group of Mavis flying at range 15 NavSearch. With not enemy CAP activity, and with full overstock of pilots and aircraft (16 each), 30% rest will keep the group operational with 1 or 2 op losses per month. nothing is perfect, and weather definitely will impact it. If I go to range 20, I have increase rest to 40% to accomplish the same thing. The impact of the move from 30 -> 40% is that the search arc necessarily needs to narrow.
The same thing for any other mission profile. When you throw in combat though, fatigue increases dramatically and you've got to increase rest somehow to mitigate that. Either the percentage in the unit OR be able to alternate groups. I, and I believe most players, prefer the latter. Switching groups on/off of CAP really improves performance, but Lowpe does not have that luxury (yet). He has to throw his groups into the fire, his back is against the wall. All I am suggesting is that increasing rest may not change the combat reports much, but he should see lower ops losses. Lower ops losses today => more fighters able to lift tomorrow and each of those airframes and pilots will start with lower fatigue so they will perform better in the battles that have to be fought.
It is a suggestion, nothing more, and I am offering an outside perspective that someone in the midst of the fray may overlook. nothing more.
There is no dispute that fatigue is reduced only by not flying although overstacking the pilot roster helps in as much the code automatically deactivates the most fatigued pilots and replaces them with previously deactivated pilots with lesser fatigue.
The basic point I make is that the pain threshold for players re pilot fatigue is generally too low. Regularly I read of players concerned when the pilot fatigue level trends to 20 and as a consequence they stand down the squadron or up the rest level. Other players, as a prophylactic measure against reaching a fatigue level of 20, clamp a rest level ab initio which to me is too high. Personally, provided I have an overstacked pilot roster together with a surplus of aviation support (and I meet those two conditions 99% of the time) I am generally not too concerned if my pilots reach the low 40s.
The other basic point I am making and it is one you yourself have made in the past is that air combat results ceteris paribus, the side with the greater numbers at the OK Corral ab initio, tend to favour the side with the greater number of combatants. Currently Lowpe is flying understrength fighter units against the Soviets. If he increases the rest level there will be even fewer Japanese aircraft to begin with and the late arrival of stragglers does not improve the Japanese situation. Therefore Lowpe is faced with the Hobden choice of reducing his operational losses at the likely cost of increasing his A2A losses. In that scenario tis better to endure operational losses as they do not improve the skills of the enemy pilots which planes shot down directly over the battlefield does. It is this Hobden choice why I raised the thought that considering to decline battle is an option.
Patrol squadrons, even when limited to distances well within their normal range, are generally assigned to fly much greater distances than fighter squadrons. For Japan this is accentuated by the huge normal range of it's flying boats. Even limiting myself to a 12 hex range for Catalinas (there are exceptions), my Catalina pilots are flying 2x - 4x the range of my fighter pilots. Therefore I generally place a 20% rest level on my patrol squadrons. OTOH my Seagull and Kingfisher with a normal range of only 4-5 I have no hesitation in placing them on 100% search. Their operational losses are more in the range of 1-2 yearly.
Lowpe is smart enough to mine our two different approaches to find the nuggets of gold which interest him and more importantly can be successfully applied to his current situation. I strongly suspect he adheres to your school of thought much more than mine.
Alfred
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RE: Soviets Activated.... - 
You're the one that didn't want to undo the Soviet activation! 
Brilliant so far
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