Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Here I seem to be getting two different messages: (1) forget it - the Japanese economy has had far too much time and freedom to bring in resources/fuel; you'll never be able to really hamper fighter production at this late date; and (2) the draw on supply is so great for Japan that Erik doesn't have unlimited fighter production and might be on the verge of collapse even as we speak.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Based upon what I do know, I think the truth probably lies closer to (1), in part because Erik is such a gifted player. He knows how to maximize things and will have taken full advantage of everything he can. I doubt he's anywhere close to exhausting good fighter frames and pilots. I think the Allies would run out of fighters and bombers long before Erik would. I think I can fatally cripple the Allies by pursuing any kind of sustained air campaign that yields less than 2:1 or 3:1 return on the investment.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

But the clock and Victory Points begin to favor Japan if the snowball doesn't begin rolling downhill fairly soon.

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ORIGINAL: aleajactaest10044

A Question for you...

1. Would you consider playing Big B's mod in the future which has the goal of making China a more historical conflict?

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

My mistook, not ops losses per se but rather the write offs:

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7.2.1.14 OPERATIONAL LOSSES TO AIRCRAFT

Operational Losses (or Op Losses) occur due to accidents or other untoward events that are not a direct result of being shot at by the enemy. These losses occur to squadrons based on several factors, including the range of the Mission, the experience of the pilot, and if the aircraft is flying from a carrier. Any long-range Carrier-based aircraft strikes (of two or more hexes in distance) will cause an extra chance of operational losses to be incurred. However, if a player’s base has sufficient supplies they may note that any damaged aircraft will likely be repaired before the next Orders Phase.

Op losses include planes lost returning to base and planes crashing, planes destroyed or damaged on take-off and landing, and pilots as a result getting killed, wounded, or captured.

Write offs are a new type of Ops loss for A/C. A write off may occur when a machine returns with too much damage to repair. Pilot survival rates are higher for write offs than Ops losses. It is assumed that the plane is cannibalized for parts, and thus after 5 write offs an extra plane is considered repaired and becomes available.

So while a "Write Off" is an Ops loss, an Ops loss is not necessarily a "Write Off" but some of them end up being available. I might look into this further. I think that historically, crashed planes were cannibalized for usable parts but I don't know how this is modeled in the game. I do know that an AVG P-40B did land in a rice paddy, was repaired, and then flown out days later.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Hitching on Loka's post, but to CR.

He knows both sides; I don't. But, in our game, when I left in December 1944 he sent he his save to look at. It's been months, but I recall him having about 1500 Frank -r in the pools. That was on the high side of models, but he had a LOT of fighters. (obvert took over the game, so there's no OPSEC here.) They're SR3, but I was never going to shoot them down. My pools were worse than yours are.

I think you can strat bomb his aircraft industry. You persist, however, in trying daylight pinpoint raids, often without escort. He has massed fighters. The historical Japan did not. You can't do that in the game.

If you Manpower bomb, at night, and with altitudes that remove AA from the equation, I think you CAN hurt his air effort quite a bit. Fire destroys factories. It isn't choosy, so you can't be as precise as in daylight pinpoint, but you don't need to have great pilots to drop incendiaries either. He will have some night fighters, but he can't always guess right, or guess your altitudes. You will lose more B-29s than historical, but it doesn't have to be 40-50 per raid. And even if you burn up something else it's VPs.

You need fires. I'm not talking 20,000. I mean six figures. It can be done.

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However, it is not possible to produce a healthy stock of later war airframes because Japan just doesn't have enough time between the moment research ends and the heat starts. And it is those planes (Sam/Frank-r/Ki-83/Shinden) that are the most competitive in the air. Bombing those factories is essential for reducing Japan's CAP strength.
If Japan had unlimited supply for repairs, bombing out a 30-size factory would prevent the production of ~15 airframes cumulatively and the factory would've been back online in a month. But Japan does not have that supply in 45

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Hitching on Loka's post, but to CR.

He knows both sides; I don't. But, in our game, when I left in December 1944 he sent he his save to look at. It's been months, but I recall him having about 1500 Frank -r in the pools. That was on the high side of models, but he had a LOT of fighters. (obvert took over the game, so there's no OPSEC here.) They're SR3, but I was never going to shoot them down. My pools were worse than yours are.

I think you can strat bomb his aircraft industry. You persist, however, in trying daylight pinpoint raids, often without escort. He has massed fighters. The historical Japan did not. You can't do that in the game.

If you Manpower bomb, at night, and with altitudes that remove AA from the equation, I think you CAN hurt his air effort quite a bit. Fire destroys factories. It isn't choosy, so you can't be as precise as in daylight pinpoint, but you don't need to have great pilots to drop incendiaries either. He will have some night fighters, but he can't always guess right, or guess your altitudes. You will lose more B-29s than historical, but it doesn't have to be 40-50 per raid. And even if you burn up something else it's VPs.

You need fires. I'm not talking 20,000. I mean six figures. It can be done.

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Hitching on Loka's post, but to CR.

He knows both sides; I don't. But, in our game, when I left in December 1944 he sent he his save to look at. It's been months, but I recall him having about 1500 Frank -r in the pools. That was on the high side of models, but he had a LOT of fighters. (obvert took over the game, so there's no OPSEC here.) They're SR3, but I was never going to shoot them down. My pools were worse than yours are.

I think you can strat bomb his aircraft industry. You persist, however, in trying daylight pinpoint raids, often without escort. He has massed fighters. The historical Japan did not. You can't do that in the game.

If you Manpower bomb, at night, and with altitudes that remove AA from the equation, I think you CAN hurt his air effort quite a bit. Fire destroys factories. It isn't choosy, so you can't be as precise as in daylight pinpoint, but you don't need to have great pilots to drop incendiaries either. He will have some night fighters, but he can't always guess right, or guess your altitudes. You will lose more B-29s than historical, but it doesn't have to be 40-50 per raid. And even if you burn up something else it's VPs.

You need fires. I'm not talking 20,000. I mean six figures. It can be done.

Follow on to the follow on:

This also had the additional benefit of drawing off fighters from the frontline, as round the clock CAP over industry needs to be maintained.

Then you can mix it up with night-time low level raids on industry or airbases as you see fit. You're in range to hit everything in the Home Islands and beyond so you can really throw the IJ air force off balance.

Given that you've a good position in the North Pacific, you can even bring in your own dedicated night fighter squadrons and use them for sweeping. The Hellcat NF model outclasses just about every IJ NF airframe.

For example, hit Ominato's airbase at night at 7000ft with your B-29s. The next day, send the B-29's after the manpower at Kobe, and let your NF's sweep Ominato. Day three, go out for somewhere remote from the frontlines such as Nagasaki/Sasebo. Then rest for a couple of days and pick a different selection of targets at more or less random but with the same mix of airbase and industry targets. The bombing here is with the tandem goals of wrecking the morale of fighter squadrons and damaging industry.

At this point the IJ air force needs to bleed fighter planes to bases all over Japan for night CAP to bolster the few regular NF squadrons and then rotate squadrons in and out of night CAP as their morale gets wrecked. It bleeds is air force in a qualatitive way (even squadrons with Shindens are pretty useless with low morale), adds to the turn fatigue on his end, cuts his effective frontline fighter strength and gives you a tangible strategic beneift in terms of VP's and reduced Japanese production.

Plus, night bombing is fun.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Hitching on Loka's post, but to CR.

He knows both sides; I don't. But, in our game, when I left in December 1944 he sent he his save to look at. It's been months, but I recall him having about 1500 Frank -r in the pools. That was on the high side of models, but he had a LOT of fighters. (obvert took over the game, so there's no OPSEC here.) They're SR3, but I was never going to shoot them down. My pools were worse than yours are.

I think you can strat bomb his aircraft industry. You persist, however, in trying daylight pinpoint raids, often without escort. He has massed fighters. The historical Japan did not. You can't do that in the game.

If you Manpower bomb, at night, and with altitudes that remove AA from the equation, I think you CAN hurt his air effort quite a bit. Fire destroys factories. It isn't choosy, so you can't be as precise as in daylight pinpoint, but you don't need to have great pilots to drop incendiaries either. He will have some night fighters, but he can't always guess right, or guess your altitudes. You will lose more B-29s than historical, but it doesn't have to be 40-50 per raid. And even if you burn up something else it's VPs.

You need fires. I'm not talking 20,000. I mean six figures. It can be done.

Follow on to the follow on:

This also had the additional benefit of drawing off fighters from the frontline, as round the clock CAP over industry needs to be maintained.

Then you can mix it up with night-time low level raids on industry or airbases as you see fit. You're in range to hit everything in the Home Islands and beyond so you can really throw the IJ air force off balance.

Given that you've a good position in the North Pacific, you can even bring in your own dedicated night fighter squadrons and use them for sweeping. The Hellcat NF model outclasses just about every IJ NF airframe.

For example, hit Ominato's airbase at night at 7000ft with your B-29s. The next day, send the B-29's after the manpower at Kobe, and let your NF's sweep Ominato. Day three, go out for somewhere remote from the frontlines such as Nagasaki/Sasebo. Then rest for a couple of days and pick a different selection of targets at more or less random but with the same mix of airbase and industry targets. The bombing here is with the tandem goals of wrecking the morale of fighter squadrons and damaging industry.

At this point the IJ air force needs to bleed fighter planes to bases all over Japan for night CAP to bolster the few regular NF squadrons and then rotate squadrons in and out of night CAP as their morale gets wrecked. It bleeds is air force in a qualatitive way (even squadrons with Shindens are pretty useless with low morale), adds to the turn fatigue on his end, cuts his effective frontline fighter strength and gives you a tangible strategic beneift in terms of VP's and reduced Japanese production.

Plus, night bombing is fun.

Can you set a sweep mission at night over an enemy base? NFs needed to be vectored to the area of enemy aircraft and use on-board radar to get close enough to see exhaust or a silhouette against the stars/moon. That was difficult enough against slow moving bombers maintaining their altitude/formation, but to try and spot much smaller and more agile aircraft and engage in a dogfight at night would be nigh-on impossible.
I haven't tried it but I think someone said it wasn't in the game code.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

When Hokkaido settles down, releasing my B-29s for other duties, I'm going to try some new strategic bombing ideas. I'll give yours a try too, especially when the B-29Bs come online in a few weeks. I'm not optimistic though. I've tried manpower bombing at night in this game with little to no success. But I promise to give it a try.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred


Only the big VP sources can lead to a Decisive Allied victory. Those sources are Strategic VPs and acquisition of prime Japanese real estate on Honshu. At this stage consistently achieving 2:1 in air kill VPs (due to 4E providing 2 VPs each a better ratio in down airframes is needed in order to get that VP air ratio) will not suffice to bridge the VP gap. Nor will naval battles achieve such a surplus sufficient to bridge the gap. Land victories even at a 4:1 destroyed device ratio are too small to bridge the VP gap.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Night fighters can allegedly sweep, but I'm not sure I ever got any of them to ever fly. Likewise for nighttime LRCAP, at least in terms of effectiveness.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I've never had a Night Fighter squadron fly a sweep or strafe mission. Not one.

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ORIGINAL: MBF

Curious you don't have any luck with it ... hmmm

From my most recent turn vs AI (26March1945):


Night Air attack on Hiroshima/Kure , at 106,58

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid detected at 34 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 11 minutes

Japanese aircraft
J1N1-Sa Irving x 7

Allied aircraft
F6F-5N Hellcat x 6

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
F6F-5N Hellcat: 2 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x F6F-5N Hellcat bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 2 x 1000 lb GP Bomb

CAP engaged:
210 Ku S-3 with J1N1-Sa Irving (1 airborne, 2 on standby, 1 scrambling)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 10000 and 30610.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 21 minutes
S-851 Hikotai with J1N1-Sa Irving (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 3 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 6000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 6000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 3 minutes

Some CAP have air radar

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ORIGINAL: MBF

Ahhh - that may be what I am seeing - those night fighters with bombs will sometimes engage and/or attack the airfields - I'll keep an eye out to see if I ever get any sweeps to work but as pointed out I was doing an airfield attack

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Ahhh - that may be what I am seeing - those night fighters with bombs will sometimes engage and/or attack the airfields - I'll keep an eye out to see if I ever get any sweeps to work but as pointed out I was doing an airfield attack

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ORIGINAL: Bearcat2
Dropped in to say Thanks for the AAR!

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ORIGINAL: tarkalak

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ORIGINAL: MBF

Curious you don't have any luck with it ... hmmm

From my most recent turn vs AI (26March1945):


Night Air attack on Hiroshima/Kure , at 106,58

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Raid detected at 34 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 11 minutes

Japanese aircraft
J1N1-Sa Irving x 7

Allied aircraft
F6F-5N Hellcat x 6

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
F6F-5N Hellcat: 2 damaged

Aircraft Attacking:
6 x F6F-5N Hellcat bombing from 6000 feet
Airfield Attack: 2 x 1000 lb GP Bomb

CAP engaged:
210 Ku S-3 with J1N1-Sa Irving (1 airborne, 2 on standby, 1 scrambling)
2 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 10000 , scrambling fighters between 10000 and 30610.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 21 minutes
S-851 Hikotai with J1N1-Sa Irving (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 3 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 6000 , scrambling fighters between 0 and 6000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 3 minutes

Some CAP have air radar

Those are bombing not sweeping.

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

We have a house rule that limits the number of night bombers to 50 per airfield (I don't know whether that means 50 coming from any particular friendly airfield or 50 targeting any particular enemy airfield).

I've tried a variety of night bombing missions against ports and airfields, basically with no success at all. I especially like using the British 4EB, of which I have 4 or 5 squadrons at Shikuka. They never do anything, so I only try it rarely.

Damaging enemy aircraft doesn't accomplish much either. Erik simply rail transports them to another base, and they're back online in a couple of days, even with high service ratings.

When the Bihoro campaign is completed, I'll have a good rail network that will allow me to use aircraft forward and rail the damaged ones to more remote fields. I'll also have proximity to his big bases from Tokyo north, allowing Allied fighters to sweep or escort. So I'll be trying a variety of strategies, hoping to find something that works and hoping to learn that Erik is suddenly (and unexpectedly, from my perspective) having some trouble maintaining good CAP over all the potential targets. Night bombing will be employed too.

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The trick to good night bombing raids is mass.