Feinder
Posts: 6589
Joined: 9/4/2002
From: Land o' Lakes, FL
Status: offline
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Be careful of trying to fix one thing and breaking another. True enough, it was -very- difficult for Japanese planes to shoot down Allied heavies. They had fewer 20mm cannons. The 20s they did have, were far inferior to German ones. But even then, their planes often didn't have sufficient ammo to even bring them down anyways (Germans had a tough enough time with this also).
I do think the ammo loadouts on the aircraft (for all scenarios, fighter vs. fighter, fighter vs. bomber), is too liberal. Seeing single pilots racking up 7 kills in single mission (in the frequency that we see), is a bit over the top. Doesn't matter if it's Allied or Japan, a pilot with high exp can, and will, know down scads of planes in a single sortie; far more frequently that was historical.
However, that being said, the air-to-air model is one of the most highly tuned aspects of WitP. Air-to-air and air-to-naval are THE best routines in WitP. Are they perfect? Nope. But over-all, most of us will agree that, Matrix has it "almost right".
Consider if you -do- lower the loss rate of heavies. Japanese players already groan at the replacement rates of Allied heavies (rightfully so). If you make them that much harder to kill, you're going to see that many more heavies in theater.
Or if you tweak the routine to make bombers harder to kill. You're then up against screwing up the kill ratios of Betty/Nells/B-25s. Or if you made a DB change (modders, have fun), to increase the durabilty of heavies (which would only affect the loss rate of the heavies), a little bit can go a long way. It would take a LOT of very methodical testing, to find the "correct" durability of a heavy considering all the variables of the air-to-air routine (I think the current durability is based on the unloaded weight of the aircraft). Good luck with that by the way.
And while I understand the argument that exp can make a major difference in fighter vs. fighter, a vast differential in exp in a fighter vs. heavy is lessened somewhat, simply because the heavy is (historically) so difficult to bring down anyways. But if you lessen the effect of exp in fighter vs. bomber, it's going to bork the fairly correct representation in fighter vs. fighter (or what if it's fighter vs. bombing fighter?).
My point is, there are so many things that can be affected here. True the model is not exact. I wish it could be better. But overall, the model works. If you start screwing with the routines to fix the heavies, you stand a real chance of breaking something else. And even if you -did- fix the heavies, without breaking anything, you then bury the Japanese under even more heavies than before, because they're much more survivable now. Don't send bombers unescorted if you think there will be enemy fighters there. Send escorts, or sweep to break them up before you get there. If you want your bomber crews to be heros and bomb alone, you certainly can. But just know that if you do, you have to pay the price.
But adjusting the routines in favor of the heavies, may end up being "cutting off your nose to spite your face". In this case, I think well-enough should be left alone. As there are other things that far more in need of "adjusting".
-F-
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RE: Heavy Bomber Losses - 
). We'll see what happens. 
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