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treespider -> RE: Coastal Defense Guns (2/16/2006 6:02:51 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: dereck
quote:
ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
Well, the CA that got shot to pieces was Canberra which only has a belt armor of 25 in Nik's mod.......not sure what the armor is in the stock version.
Well, there are lots of quirks in this game. I try to learn them and figure out work arounds and such. I try and use only BB's where I might encounter CD guns. I will use CA's and smaller when I know there is no real threat to me.
Same goes for the AA gap (yes, there is one)..........people learn the gap and exploit it. How many fly all their strike missions with LBA at 6,000 feet or lower? Alot, I have seen the AAR's. That is using the stock version. Nik has basically killed this in his mod. You will get shot to pieces at 6,000 feet. I am talking about city, ground, airfield strike missions here.
But yes, even the allies can pound me to pieces with CD guns if I use the wrong ships. My main purpose for this ambush was to try and strip his escorts and slow him down with system damage so my CV's could catch and kill the cripples at leisure.
Everyone here knows I play Japan exclusively. So call me a fan boy. Does not bother me, I play games all the way. I am looking forward to the day when the Allied player can go on the offensive and I can see if my defense plans work. Then it will be his turn to have the "uber CAP" over his CV's, unstoppable LBA using Corsairs which decimate even high experience pilots in the best planes Japan can field.
At the possibility of ruffling more feathers (as if I care at this point really), last night on the Military Channel was a feature about the B-29 bombers and one person interviewed was a B-29 bomber pilot who specifically stated that LeMay had them fly a mission (no idea if this was standard practice or not so I'm not stating one way or the other) at such an altitude that it was 1) too high for machine gun fire and 2) too low for AA fuses to set. So the AA gap DID exist and as combatants do during war it WAS exploited to the benefit of the bomber crews. So in effect, Nik's mod is NOT historical but since closing an historical AA gap benefits the receivers of the bombing ... (won't comment further)
From : http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/b029-10.html
Concerned about the relative failure of the B-29 offensive to deal any crippling blows to Japan, General LeMay issued a new directive on February 19. General LeMay had analyzed the structure of the Japanese economy, which depended heavily on cottage industries housed in cities close to major industrial areas. By destroying these feeder industries, the flow of vital components to the central plants could be slowed, disorganizing production of weapons vital to Japan. He decided to do this by using incendiary bombs rather than purely high-explosive bombs, which would, it was hoped, cause general conflagrations in large cities like Tokyo or Nagoya, spreading to some of the priority targets.
In addition, LeMay had concluded that the effects of the jet stream, cloud cover, and high operating altitudes were to blame for the failure of the B-29 raids to do any significant damage to the Japanese war industry. The initial raids against Japan had taken place at high-altitudes in order to stay above anti-aircraft fire and the effective altitude of defending fighters. LeMay suggested that high-altitude, daylight attacks be phased out and replaced by low-altitude, high-intensity incendiary raids at nighttime. The aircraft would attack individually, which meant that no assembly over the base at the start of the mission or along the way would be needed. Consequently, aircraft could go directly from the base to the target and return, maximizing the bomb load and saving substantially on fuel. He ordered that all the B-29s be stripped of their General Electric defensive gun systems, leaving only the tail gun. The weight of extra crew members, armament, and ammunition would go into bombs, each B-29 being loaded down with six to eight tons of M69 incendiary bombs. These bombs would be dropped from altitudes of only 5 to 6 thousand feet. This strategy would enable the B-29s to escape the effects of the jet stream and would get the bombers below most of the cloud cover. In addition, the B-29s would no longer have to struggle up to 30,000 feet and this would save on fuel and on wear and tear to the engines. It was believed that Japanese night fighter forces were relatively weak, but flak losses were expected to be substantial.
The first raid to use these new techniques was on the night of March 9/10 against Tokyo. Another wing -- the 314th Bombardment Wing (19th, 29th, 39th, and 330th BG) commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas S. Power -- had arrived in the Marianas and was stationed at North Field on Guam. A total of 302 B-29s participated in the raid, with 279 arriving over the target. The raid was led by special pathfinder crews who marked central aiming points. It lasted for two hours. The raid was a success beyond General LeMay's wildest expectations. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration known as a firestorm. When it was over, sixteen square miles of the center of Tokyo had gone up in flames and nearly 84,000 people had been killed. Fourteen B-29s were lost. The B-29 was finally beginning to have an effect.
On the night of March 11/12, the B-29s were in action again, this time against the city of Nagoya. This time, the scattered fires did not join to create a general firestorm, and only two square miles of the city were destroyed. On the night of March 13/14, eight square miles of Osaka went up in flames. On March 16/17, three square miles of Kobe were destroyed, and on March 19/20 in a return visit to Nagoya, three more square miles were destroyed. This destructive week had killed over 120,000 Japanese civilians at the cost of only 20 B-29s lost. The strategic bombing campaign had at last been justified.
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