Tristanjohn
Posts: 3027
Joined: 5/1/2002
From: Daly City CA USA
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[QUOTE=LTCMTS]Hi, Mogami.
Am I the only one on this forum that's read both of Lundstrom's works on the USN and fighter combat from 8 Dec 41 to 30 Nov 42? Or Frank's Guadalcanal or Willmott's two books on the plans and outcomes of US/Allied and Japanese strategies from Dec 41 to Jul 42?
These authors go to extreme lengths to review the primary sources on orders of battles, particpating forces and losses. Lundstrom compares the claimed victories from both sides and the claimed losses and follows the action based on both sides AARs to try and determine the actual losses. His analysis shows an exchange rate in fighter vs fighter combat between Feb and Jun 42 of 3 A5M4 and 14 A6M2 for 10 F4F3/4 and from 7 Aug to 15 Nov 42, 25 A6M2/3 for 31 F4F-4 or 39 Zeros for 41 Wildcats. There is no doubt that the A6M2 had superior performance to the F4F-3. It is repeatedly remarked upon in AARs by Thach, Flatley and other USN and USMC fighter pilots and squadron leaders. They also provide the answer why the losses were so balanced. Deflection shooting and better offensive/defensive tactics that maximized the Wildcat's abilities and minimized that of the Zero's.
Just reading Willmott's analysis of the battle of Midway should convince anyone that with sufficient study, a reasonably accurate and coherent description of a battle is possible, one that becomes totally different in some cases from the official line. It was believed at the time, that the Nautilus had torpedoed and finished off the Soryu, and this version of events was actually repeated in several histories of the battle, despite the USN having come to the conclusion postwar that she actually attacked the Kaga, unsuccessfully as it turned out.
Mdiehl has a good point. If you read the battle reports produced by the South in the ACW and the "lost and glorious cause under the stainless banner" fiction produced by Southern revisionists after the War, you have to wonder how the hell the Union won, or as it was once commented, reading Southern historians, Lee, assisted by a one armed supernumary and an old man with a shotgun killed all the Yankees that didn't run away.
Again, this is an operational-strategic simulation, not a tactical level flight sim. The point is: does a campaign consisting of a series of battles or a war consisting of a series of campaigns, given the correlation of forces and the impact of terrain and weather applied,provide a viable result within a range of possibilities given the impact of chance on war, not does the game engine/system produce absolutely accurate results for each days combat.[/QUOTE]Interesting questions and a fairly balanced post throughout.
Regarding how an "operational" simulation should handle results: this particular operational model works day to day, each turn divided into day and night modules, so yes, casualties day to day (i.e., per individual combat event) need to be convincing or the model fails within its own defined design parameter.
You come to the conclusion (somehow) that the "Zero" handled better (in exactly which respects? there are many factors to be considered before one could say this plane or that "handled" better) than the Wildcat, yet then go on to observe (correctly) that this very same Wildcat was driven by pilots with a good notion of how to get the most out of their airplanes, an important item of detail which the UV model dares not to explore.
In point of fact the UV model ignores some positive flying characteristics of the Wildcat by the simple (and erred) expedient of only modeling certain handling characteristics which happen to be favorable to the "Zero," thus ending up at the curious (and flawed) conclusion the "Zero" was on balance (for the purpose of the model) better handling and so superior in FvF engagements.
To put it another way, nowhere can I see superior (make that remarkably superior) delflection shooting modeled in UV in order to favor USN and Marine pilots (this might in fact be in there afterall, I just can't point to it) and thus balance the scales; or for that matter the Wildcat's utter superiority in a dive versus the "Zero's" compromised flying characteristic in this regard. I can't even see how the relative durability ratings for these respective planes make sense, at least not on the face of it (Gary's formulas may or may not have that right--it would depend on how they're plugged in).
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