RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT!

RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (Full Version)

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bradfordkay -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 8:17:25 PM)
Tom, I'm wondering why you had most of your fighters set on sweep, and none on escort?

Sneer -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 8:40:41 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter Sneer I am not suprised that the Japanese won, but I don't think that 100 superior Japanese fighters could even find all 48 Mohawks, much less shoot them all down. Sorry Tom but I have not taken part in this discussion by now you must have missed this thread with another one or another person but when I was called to talk I think about september 39 in Poland where old fighters managed to score kills on few occasions in much better-equipped germen units and yes battles are too one sided if one side with older equipment managed to surprise enemy with alt advantage it certainly managed to take kills or even many kills in first round of battle - even nates vs spitfires should occasionally show heavy spitfire losses with similar exp in units On the other hand it is game and we do not play historically so we get strange results that's all. I used to it as well as get used to strange LCU combat ( especially out of base / out of retreat path combat / rail lines DS etc ) as well as totally wrong fire distribution in surface engagements and many others. let's close this thread and play one more turn

pauk -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 8:51:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner Remember that our game still has the old replacement rates for the 4Es...which means you get hundreds of them very early in the game. Now with 15 B-17Es/month it's more difficult to keep the pace you had with me. hm, i think it is 40 B-17 per month in the stock scenario. Are you referring to Nik mod perhaps?

castor troy -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 9:12:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner Anyway there's no way, imho, Japan can hold the air superiority against masses of 200/300 4Es striking at the same time 4 different theatres...even if they come unescorted. No way. hmm, in my ongoing game against Wolfpack he sent about 150 B24 and B17 unescorted at a base with about 100 Tonies on CAP. He hasn´t done it very often after he faced my Tony daitais. [;)] And that´s the experience I made in other games also. There are far too many 4E bombers but with Tonies or better Jacks facing them when unescorted I never really had a problem and my opponents did cancel their attacks.

ADavidB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 9:26:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: castor troy quote: ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner Anyway there's no way, imho, Japan can hold the air superiority against masses of 200/300 4Es striking at the same time 4 different theatres...even if they come unescorted. No way. hmm, in my ongoing game against Wolfpack he sent about 150 B24 and B17 unescorted at a base with about 100 Tonies on CAP. He hasn´t done it very often after he faced my Tony daitais. [;)] And that´s the experience I made in other games also. There are far too many 4E bombers but with Tonies or better Jacks facing them when unescorted I never really had a problem and my opponents did cancel their attacks. You are 100% correct! The changes to the fighter and bomber models in v1.50 changed the air game for good. Prior to v1.50 those 150 4Es would have ripped through your Tonys like they weren't there and then plastered the base. From v1.50 onwards the Tonys are "Gods of the Skies" against unescorted 4E bombers. And no Allied player can afford to waste 4Es if he wants to have a hope of winning this game. Tophat has repeated demonstrated in our v1.602 campaign that he can close a big airfield in two attacks by sending 50-60 crack Zeros/Tonys as Escorts and 70-100 Japanese twin-engine bombers. There is no fundamental difference between this result and an Allied player sending 60-70 crack P-40Bs (or better yet, crack P-38Gs) to escort 70-100 2E or 4E bombers. It's the same mechanism. Quantity wins. The key to success is to keep your objective secret until you hit it so that your opponent can't shove 100+ crack fighters into it on CAP. If you can surprise a base and start to put it out of commission then you can finish it. That's what Tophat did to Sian and Hengchow, and what I've done to Mandalay. The KB can do the same thing by sending out 300+ fighters and bombers, except most Japanese players don't like to chance their naval planes to land attacks. So remember all, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"...BOTH SIDES can attack with hundreds of planes at any one spot and overwhelm an unwary or unprepared opponent. Both sides have 1000s of planes that they can almost instantly mass at a given locations. That's just the way that the game is designed... Dave Baranyi

dtravel -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 10:01:46 PM)
Throwing another two pennies onto the growing mountain. There seems to be a consesus that very large A2A battles don't work the way we'd like. There also appears to be some agreement that there are too many very large A2A battles in most games. Why are there "too many" VL A2A combats? Because players concentrate their forces much more than happened historically. It has been suggested that reducing aircraft production/replacement rates will fix this. (Reducing supplies available to Japan falls under this.) Setting aside the fact that this would have a much greater effect on one side than the other, I do not agree. Reducing the replacement rates will make existing aircraft more valuable, therefore players will make additional efforts to "get the most" out of them. First step in doing that is to concentrate them so they can have a decisive effect. The next suggestion is "stacking limits", either via house rule or code changes. The problems with that are its not always historically accurate (someone has posted some numbers for B-29s in the Marianas several times IIRC showing that the already existing limit is too low). It also runs into problems with the fact that in a truely huge number of aircraft can be based within a single sixty mile diameter circle in much of the map. It also wouldn't really "fix" the perceived problem. Players would just spread the squadrons out a bit and still have them concentrate on a single target. What is needed is some operational reason for the player to spread his aircraft throughout the Pacific. I don't know what it would be but if we are going to find it, we need to stop repeating the same suggestions over and over. Think outside the box, as the saying goes. We concentrate aircraft because it is effective. There needs to be some countering, at least as important, reason NOT to if we really want it to stop.

Oleg Mastruko -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 10:10:33 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel Throwing another two pennies onto the growing mountain. There seems to be a consesus that very large A2A battles don't work the way we'd like. There also appears to be some agreement that there are too many very large A2A battles in most games. Why are there "too many" VL A2A combats? Because players concentrate their forces much more than happened historically. It has been suggested that reducing aircraft production/replacement rates will fix this. Making PP rules more strict would also help, perhaps more than anything else. But not all players would like to se that so it would have to be made optional, or regulated by house rules. Also, somewhat related to PP rules, airbase forces should be able to service only "their" aircraft. For Allies that means USN base forces should not be able to service B-25s or Australian aircraft, and for Japs Navy base units should not be able to service Army aircraft and vice versa. But, have on mind many players are quite happy with "candyland" rules, they obviously don't post in threads like this - just remember the outcry from players asking for PDU rule to be introduced at the first place... Now that developers gave us the wanted PDU (BTW personally I never cried for PDU to be introduced), and now that most players use it, some players are still not satisfied, when they lose, ie when the rule(s) work against them. [;)] O.

dtravel -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 10:27:34 PM)
Personally, the problem I have with tightening up deployment by HQ and Political Points is that the assignments and reinforcements (at least for the Allies) only make sense if the game proceeds nearly identical to real life. NorPac gets much of the forces it does because the Japanese captured some of the Aleutians. If they hadn't, many of those units would have been attached to other commands. SEAC/Indian forces don't change if the Japanese overrun half the sub-continent. Etc., etc., etc. It might be the answer or part of it. Has anyone done a PBEM game with very strict deployment limits based on HQ? I don't just mean house rules like China Command forces can't march out of China. I mean things like deploying the carriers to fight the Battle of the Coral Sea requires both sides to pay the PP to transfer them to SoPac and the IJN equivalent? All units in a base MUST belong to the base's command and the base's command is strictly geographic based? Is the cost of changing air units assignments high enough to deter players? (There is also the matter of how much do people spend replacing leaders lost to the digital ether. I suspect it could be enough in some cases to affect such a game.)

1275psi -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 11:02:31 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins I know the original poster and many of those who have replied have read our earlier comments on this. I don't want to appear unsympathetic to new posters, but I have say that we've commented on this pretty definitively and at length, multiple times. You may not like the answer, but we've certainly made the effort to reply and to see if this could be addressed. You need only look over the detailed patch notes since v1.00 to see how many changes other than bug fixes have been made, based on requests on this forum. In addition, many balance changes and tweaks to the combat systems based on player feedback have been made. We've said several times that the air model does give unrealistic results in very large battles. We spent several weeks looking through the code at various times to see if there was an "easy" change to this. Some changes were made. The upshot is that the designers and programmers feel that changing how the air model to "fix" this will effectively mean redoing the entire air model, which is likely a multi-month proposition given development and testing. The air model works well for historical battles and for battles of small to medium size. Very large battles get very bloody and differences in quality of aircraft and pilots (especially on the order of a 20-30 point difference in experience) tend to exacerbate that. While I may have a different answer for you in the future, right now the only answer I have is it's advised that experienced players take it into account when planning very large air battles. The focus of our future WitP efforts is on fixing bugs rather than addressing areas where there are flaws in the designed models. In a game this size, with the amount of freedom you have, you will eventually find a combination where the model(s) don't perform perfectly. In a game where these units were all represented by counters that were removed with a single good die roll, this wouldn't be a problem for most, but when you see each plane and pilot, results like these do stand out. Please take the increased lethality of very large scale air combat into account in your games. If you want a very bloody air war, large raids and large air combats are the way to go. Otherwise, keep it to more historical numbers and the results will come out better. Regards, - Erik This is why I am going to play with pretty tight stacking limits , and CAP limits from now on!!!

John 3rd -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/23/2006 11:34:16 PM)
I think we all understand the game and have a good grasp of the weaknesses. The key seems to be finding a good opponent who understands the good and the bad aspects of the game, creating a decent set of house rules, and HOPE for eventual changes!

invernomuto -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 12:45:13 AM)
Why Matrix does not produce a "WITP expansion pack" with tweaked land and air combat models and maybe some other improvements like a better interface and graphics? I think that the majority of us here on the forum would buy it.

Oleg Mastruko -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 1:12:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel Personally, the problem I have with tightening up deployment by HQ and Political Points is that the assignments and reinforcements (at least for the Allies) only make sense if the game proceeds nearly identical to real life. Both sides tend to have abundance of PPs by spring 42, at least I do in my games from both sides. Allied player usually mis-use this abundance to totally denude West Coast sending everything up front, while Japanese players usually do the same with 4 homeland divisions, or dream of doing the similar thing with Manchurian army divisions. Not to mention that most Allied players simply stop paying any attention to Brit withdrawal rule by April 42, since the abundance of PPs allows them to keep everything London wants back. All this is gamey and another example of "candyland" rules we all live by, and some of us love [;)] If one plays by candyland rules (PDU & co.), one should be aware that box with candies may be in opponents hands on any given day. O.

dtravel -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 3:05:13 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel Personally, the problem I have with tightening up deployment by HQ and Political Points is that the assignments and reinforcements (at least for the Allies) only make sense if the game proceeds nearly identical to real life. Both sides tend to have abundance of PPs by spring 42, at least I do in my games from both sides. Allied player usually mis-use this abundance to totally denude West Coast sending everything up front, while Japanese players usually do the same with 4 homeland divisions, or dream of doing the similar thing with Manchurian army divisions. Not to mention that most Allied players simply stop paying any attention to Brit withdrawal rule by April 42, since the abundance of PPs allows them to keep everything London wants back. All this is gamey and another example of "candyland" rules we all live by, and some of us love [;)] If one plays by candyland rules (PDU & co.), one should be aware that box with candies may be in opponents hands on any given day. O. I don't believe in playing "CandyWiTP" either. I withdraw RN ships even if I can afford to pay the PP penalty. I don't strip the west coast early in the game. And I think PDU was the worst feature addition the developers have done. (So far. I can't speak for the future yet. [;)] ) But to get vaguely back on subject, it sounds like you believe that without an overhaul of the PP system it is not a candidate for "fixing" air combat. Yes?

Oleg Mastruko -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 3:23:10 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel But to get vaguely back on subject, it sounds like you believe that without an overhaul of the PP system it is not a candidate for "fixing" air combat. Yes? I believe if you play with ahistorical stuff you get ahistoric results. Then again, it's thin ice - it has always been and always will be for as long as wargaming lives - because part of the fun, and why we all play this stuff is getting ahistoric results [;)] But yes, I believe those that obsesively wish to "fix" the game and make it more historical should start from PP system, and possibly production system (not only Japanese prod. system), before many other things (before A2A, before surface combat, and even before supply). O.

Jim D Burns -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 3:35:52 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter Jim you need to bring more planes to the party, you will never win with inferior equipment at 1 to 2 odds. You may not win with superior equipment but at least it will be closer. It sucks, but its the way the game is built. LOL after the loss of 250 other fighters, there were no other planes left to defend this rear area base. Imphal is the front line now and I couldn't afford more than 50 fighters for Dacca. Prior to this Dacca had another 50 hurricanes but they were needed at the front after massive losses decimated all my other fighters in theatre. Everyone keeps assuming I had a choice in the matter, this battle occurred at the end of a very bloody week of fighting, 300 of my fighters to 10 of his lost. Basically any base in range of his Tony groups (no matter how many planes I could base there) are untenable. The air model will decimate my groups inside of 1 or 2 days and low replacement rates take months to rebuild the groups. I've tried bombing him with my heavies, but without escorts, he shreds them. My last big bombing raid saw half the heavies shot down and the mission aborted, and my heavies have experiience in the high 70's low 80's. The closest battle we fought saw 125 of my best fighters (experience 70+ groups of Spit’s, Hurricanes and P-40E’s) against 140 of his Tony's. I lost about 80+ fighters and he lost about 5 planes. Jim

tsimmonds -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 3:47:17 AM)
quote: This is why I am going to play with pretty tight stacking limits , and CAP limits from now on!!! Have you decided on something specific? Please tell us about it....

ADavidB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 3:57:22 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns quote: ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter Jim you need to bring more planes to the party, you will never win with inferior equipment at 1 to 2 odds. You may not win with superior equipment but at least it will be closer. It sucks, but its the way the game is built. LOL after the loss of 250 other fighters, there were no other planes left to defend this rear area base. Imphal is the front line now and I couldn't afford more than 50 fighters for Dacca. Prior to this Dacca had another 50 hurricanes but they were needed at the front after massive losses decimated all my other fighters in theatre. Everyone keeps assuming I had a choice in the matter, this battle occurred at the end of a very bloody week of fighting, 300 of my fighters to 10 of his lost. Basically any base in range of his Tony groups (no matter how many planes I could base there) are untenable. The air model will decimate my groups inside of 1 or 2 days and low replacement rates take months to rebuild the groups. I've tried bombing him with my heavies, but without escorts, he shreds them. My last big bombing raid saw half the heavies shot down and the mission aborted, and my heavies have experiience in the high 70's low 80's. The closest battle we fought saw 125 of my best fighters (experience 70+ groups of Spit’s, Hurricanes and P-40E’s) against 140 of his Tony's. I lost about 80+ fighters and he lost about 5 planes. Jim Fundamentally, if you try to defend everywhere and make yourself weak everywhere, you will lose everywhere. Why are you sending inferior forces against 100's of toprate fighters? You are only giving them more practice and greater experience. Let them fly against empty targets - they'll lose planes to operations losses. Sit back, put up your feet, relax and let your opponent fly whereever he wants. You don't have to stop him everywhere. Ignore his planes and bomb his troops. *Just don't give him freebies!* Tonys are not invulnerable. If you get superior numbers you can wipe them from the sky too. I just surprised a squadron of Tonys with most of the 23rd FG flying P-40Bs. There were 7 Tonys on CAP and the 60 P-40Bs went through them like shi*t through a goose and shot them down one after another without a single P-40B getting a scratch. To add insult to injury, my bombers then destroyed another 9 Tonys on the ground and creamed the air field. So that entire squadron will now receive lousy pilot replacements. My opponent is flying hundreds of other fighters as escorts at two bases that he is attacking. Who cares. I am not going to waste my good air units in a potential slaughter house. Instead I will continue to hunt his weak spots. He will either have to spread out his planes to more managable size pieces that I can fight on terms where I'll win, or allow me to control the air in all the bases where he doesn't send his Super Daitais. Change your approach and you may well find that you can start to get things your way. Good luck - Dave Baranyi

Jim D Burns -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 4:50:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ADavidB Change your approach and you may well find that you can start to get things your way. Thanks ADavidB I'd already pretty much decided to do just that. It's just pathetic that in september of 1942 I have to surrender air superiority to Japan becasue the games air model won't allow me to be competative unless I fly against undefended bases. As I said before, there is no possibility of a Cactus Air Force scenario in WitP, you either control the air or you don't, period. Pretty lame. Jim

ADavidB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 5:20:24 AM)
quote: As I said before, there is no possibility of a Cactus Air Force scenario in WitP, you either control the air or you don't, period. The situation in the Solomons in the early Fall of 1942 was one of limited resources for both sides. Both sides were at the limits of their supply chains and neither side was committing serious amounts of forces. The Japanese fighters were at their very limit of action over Lunga and the major problem for the US Marine fighters was naval bombardments. It took the US months to gain air control as both sides committed more and more forces. What the US didn't do was to try to attack major Japanese air bases in 1942. When they started to in 1943 the results were close to a draw, but the US was able to slowly attrite the Japanese air power. But both sides were also nearly out of active carriers during the first half of 1943. The big difference in the Game is that there is almost no way other than total stupidity for a Japanese player to lose his 4 best carriers in May 1942 and then have the rest of his carrier air groups attrited away during the remainder of the year. The presence of the KB Death Star in the Game prevents the Allied player from raiding with his carriers and also always leaves the threat of the KB coming in to change the air balance over any base with 300+ planes. If you were to play the Fall 1942 scenario with limited carriers and historic aircraft numbers available (at least at the beginning) you would see a different situation that would be a lot more like what happened historically. (That would last until one side or the other made better use of supply, replacements and reinforcements and built a new Super Air Force.) So it is simply the nature of the 1941 Campaign Scenario, along with the ability of the Japanese player to use his forces more effectively than history in order to build up a more powerful strike force, that puts such contraints on the Allied player. As the Allies, you simply have to not only live within those contraints, but be very careful not to "feed" the growth of a Japanese Super Air Force while you carefully and deliberately feed the growth of you own future Super Air Force. Once again, good luck - Dave Baranyi

BLUESBOB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 6:11:29 AM)
Going back to the very first post. This goes back to my main argument about the game. Since all combat is predicated on experience, I'm sure experience was THE deciding factor in this battle. (Not to mention 2:1 odds) I have no idea how the scenario was set-up, but I'm sure the Japs had 20-30 more points of experience than the Mohawks. Which brings me back to my most vocal argument...where did every Jap ship, plane, and land unit GET all this experience. The majority of Jap forces at the beginning of the war were just as green as the forces they were fighting.

ADavidB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 6:26:04 AM)
quote: This goes back to my main argument about the game. Since all combat is predicated on experience, I'm sure experience was THE deciding factor in this battle. (Not to mention 2:1 odds) I have no idea how the scenario was set-up, but I'm sure the Japs had 20-30 more points of experience than the Mohawks. Which brings me back to my most vocal argument...where did every Jap ship, plane, and land unit GET all this experience. The majority of Jap forces at the beginning of the war were just as green as the forces they were fighting. It's the simplest of all things for the Japanese pilots to gain experience if the Allied player throws bad planes with bad pilots against him from Day 1. Everytime you see a one-sided air combat result you know that the winning side has just boosted its experience. Allowing one side to feast on your rookies only assures that the feast will be even better the next time. If you play the Japanese side at all, you will quickly see that they are not all "Gods", but that it also doesn't take a lot to get them to that stage if they get free reign to wipe out weak, poorly training, poorly lead opponents. And a lot of the Allied pilots start out at lower experience levels than the equivalent Japanese pilots. But that can also be fixed if the Allied player has patience. So what is the solution? Fight only when you are stronger and have an advantage of one sort or another. Never fight at a disadvantage - you only make your opponent stronger. Cheers - Dave Baranyi

Sardonic -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 7:15:02 AM)
I must chime in here and say this is not what I see in large air battles. Then again, I play the AI. Usually the AI will start attacking one point. It doesnt matter what the point is. If it is resisted, it sends more. Akyab is an excellent example. Defending Akyab is the AVG with say 5X16 plane Hurricane and at most (so far) 16 MoHawk. The AI will send whatever it has handy, often this is quite a bit. I tend to suffer 'less' losses than the AI. Less being operative. It seems that the Betty fall apart if intercepted. The Zero grind away in a kind of exchange. The Nates and Oscars get blown out if the sky. But the CW does take losses. A great many losses. Never enough to empty the RPool however.

Gen.Hoepner -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 8:45:44 AM)
Well, this for example, is the typical waves of bombers i have to face against MC in early 43. My fighters were on a level 6 AF, with 2 Air HQ, plenty of supplies ( 340 engeneers!)and experience between 78 and 85! Altitude was set between 12k and 23k ft. Results were terrible anyhow: Base closed, tons of planes destroyed on the ground and the skies of Indochina completely conquered by the allied 4Es. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Air attack on Hanoi , at 36,37 Japanese aircraft J2M Jack x 23 Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 35 Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 27 Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 128 Allied aircraft Catalina I x 6 Wellington III x 93 P-38G Lightning x 48 B-17E Fortress x 96 Japanese aircraft losses J2M Jack: 3 destroyed, 15 damaged Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 9 destroyed, 18 damaged Ki-45 KAIa Nick: 6 destroyed, 15 damaged Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 39 destroyed, 51 damaged Allied aircraft losses Catalina I: 2 destroyed Wellington III: 58 destroyed P-38G Lightning: 48 destroyed B-17E Fortress: 28 destroyed, 40 damaged Japanese ground losses: 137 casualties reported Guns lost 6 Airbase hits 13 Airbase supply hits 1 Runway hits 29 Second wave ( same day!) Day Air attack on Hanoi , at 36,37 Japanese aircraft J2M Jack x 10 Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 16 Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 11 Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 48 Allied aircraft Liberator VI x 81 P-38G Lightning x 72 LB-30 Liberator x 48 B-24D Liberator x 186 IL-4c x 15 Japanese aircraft losses J2M Jack: 9 destroyed Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 20 destroyed Ki-45 KAIa Nick: 9 destroyed Ki-61 KAIc Tony: 80 destroyed Allied aircraft losses Liberator VI: 6 destroyed, 17 damaged P-38G Lightning: 19 destroyed, 16 damaged LB-30 Liberator: 4 destroyed, 7 damaged B-24D Liberator: 9 destroyed, 30 damaged Japanese ground losses: 809 casualties reported Guns lost 11 Airbase hits 54 Airbase supply hits 17 Runway hits 345 After this bloody battle, MC was able to keep sending 100+ 4Es every day over Hanoi to finish destroying the wrecks of my planes left on th ground. Probably i'm not good enough, but i've suffered similar results since mid 1942 against the MC's hordes and i never was able to hold a base or an area when he decided to strike it.

dtravel -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 9:23:06 AM)
ADavidB, all your advice is fine but it is all based on one assumption. That the Allied player has any choice in the matter. As you concede, the Allies start out at lower experience levels than the Japanese so they have the advantage there. The Japanese aircraft have longer ranges, so if the Allies fall back far enough to avoid being wiped out then they abandon the battlefield to the Japanese. The Japanese can then bomb Allied land and naval forces without opposition and will gain even more experience, multiplying their advantage there. The Japanese start out with more aircraft, so they can outnumber the Allies on all fronts. Even if the Allies do manage a local numerical superiority somewhere, the interior lines of communication allow the Japanese to shift reinforcements in faster than the Allies and counter the numbers. (Assuming that they even need to since they are likely to be taking fewer casualties than the Allies because of their range and experience advantages.) Now, in normal play the answer is for the Allies to stand and fight, knowing they are going to lose in the short term, hoping to slowly attrition the Japanese air forces in the process. But that can't work if they can't shoot down any Japanese aircraft, which is exactly the situation the original poster is in. And quite frankly, he's in that situation solely because of the PDU.

Przemcio231 -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 11:48:10 AM)
quote: but when I was called to talk I think about september 39 in Poland where old fighters managed to score kills on few occasions in much better-equipped germen units Hmmmm as for Polish P.11 they were far more manuvrable then Me-109 and Polish pilot flying them were top class... As for WiTP A2A combat... in my two games with Hopelsternum and Adm. Spruance we agread on not making uber Raid's and limited 4E's numbers in Bases... and as for now it works well... i do not think that in both games any strike ( 1st KB attack dose not count ) exeded 100 attacking Aircraft same with CAP the averange raids are like 50 - 60 planes so the air battles are nice... Of course im playing as japan so my loses are lighter then the Allies but that happens early in the War[:)] i think when players are not using some gamey tactics like sending over a hundred planes on attack and the same number on defence the A2A system work well

Sneer -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 12:22:00 PM)
Polish P 11 pilots were trained good but I would not say top class - remember some german pilots were in Legion Condor and had real war experiance And yes I'm proud of our pilots too

ADavidB -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 1:12:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: dtravel ADavidB, all your advice is fine but it is all based on one assumption. That the Allied player has any choice in the matter. As you concede, the Allies start out at lower experience levels than the Japanese so they have the advantage there. The Japanese aircraft have longer ranges, so if the Allies fall back far enough to avoid being wiped out then they abandon the battlefield to the Japanese. The Japanese can then bomb Allied land and naval forces without opposition and will gain even more experience, multiplying their advantage there. The Japanese start out with more aircraft, so they can outnumber the Allies on all fronts. Even if the Allies do manage a local numerical superiority somewhere, the interior lines of communication allow the Japanese to shift reinforcements in faster than the Allies and counter the numbers. (Assuming that they even need to since they are likely to be taking fewer casualties than the Allies because of their range and experience advantages.) Now, in normal play the answer is for the Allies to stand and fight, knowing they are going to lose in the short term, hoping to slowly attrition the Japanese air forces in the process. But that can't work if they can't shoot down any Japanese aircraft, which is exactly the situation the original poster is in. And quite frankly, he's in that situation solely because of the PDU. I must be the only regular Allied player and occasional Japanese player who likes PDU. I use it happily to balance out my forces, give myself sufficient replacements, and move obsolete planes to backwater units. I'd like more flexibility with PDU. For example, those Dutch units that we all save from the DEI should be allowed to be given "excess" planes such as P-39s. That's the sort of thing that all "refugee" air units did during the War. As far as "choice" goes, the Allied player always has lots of choice. Let's face it, during the first few weeks of the Game the two players aren't that mismatched in forces because it takes some time for the Japanese player to bring the KB back from the HI, replenish it and move it to its next objective. Sure, eventually the Japanese start to get lots more Zeros and Naval bombers, but there is plenty of time for the Allies to move back, regroup and start to rebuild. Of course, that's assuming that this is a "Historical Beginning" game. I can never understand why any Allied player would agree to taking the absolutely *idiotic* limitations on non-historic start that so many Japanese players want. Some of the Japanese player requests are so extreme that they really ought to just play head-to-head and turn off all the Allied forces...[;)] Cheers - Dave Baranyi

el cid again -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 1:25:07 PM)
quote: So remember all, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander"...BOTH SIDES can attack with hundreds of planes at any one spot and overwhelm an unwary or unprepared opponent. Both sides have 1000s of planes that they can almost instantly mass at a given locations. That's just the way that the game is designed... This is a comment about the early war period. LATER in the war it is not the case. Players who have survived out of the early war period - and tests I have run in 1945 - indicate that Japanese air is not effective AT ALL. Regardless of numbers. I put US ships in Japanese hexes - to get some experimental planes to fly - but I didn't get rid of all the regular planes. The entire Japanese combined air forces can attack all day long - and get something like one bomb hit - when there are NO opposing planes at all!

el cid again -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 1:40:05 PM)
quote: Thanks ADavidB I'd already pretty much decided to do just that. It's just pathetic that in september of 1942 I have to surrender air superiority to Japan becasue the games air model won't allow me to be competative unless I fly against undefended bases. If you use a very good mechanical model (it takes many days work to calculate one day game time for the theater) you will find that skilled Japanese players will control the sky anywhere they want in 1942. It is not until 1943 that the Allies can compete enough to try to control the sky, and then only at selected points. I don't think the air model is broken if you have this problem - and I might think it was if you didn't have this problem - against a good player. Game Japanese will produce better and organize better than the real Japanese did - and you should suffer the consequences of that.

el cid again -> RE: PLEASE FIX AIR COMBAT! (1/24/2006 1:45:34 PM)
quote: As I said before, there is no possibility of a Cactus Air Force scenario in WitP, you either control the air or you don't, period. The situation in the Solomons in the early Fall of 1942 was one of limited resources for both sides. Both sides were at the limits of their supply chains and neither side was committing serious amounts of forces. The Japanese fighters were at their very limit of action over Lunga and the major problem for the US Marine fighters was naval bombardments. It took the US months to gain air control as both sides committed more and more forces. Guadalcanal was probably a mistake. AFTER it was over we adopted a doctrine NEVER to do that again - you could not invade a point not covered by land based air power. We are very lucky the Japanese didn't send in more faster, and have more there to begin with. Air power works best when it is a network of bases, not a single forward field unsupported by others. You try this sort of thing against skilled players you are likely to lose more than air power! A Cactus Air Force WILL work if the enemy is dumb enough to commit piecemeal, from the limit of his range. It is just stupid of him to do that.

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