How do you stop nightime bombing attacks

How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (Full Version)

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niceguy2005 -> How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/11/2006 10:36:27 PM)
Playing allies in June 42. The Japanese player is using nighttime bombing attacks to hit manpower and runways in China. Beyond the obvious of using Blen IFs to fly night patrol, what else can the allied player do to stop this?

Feinder -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/11/2006 10:46:56 PM)
Night-bomb him back? Sorry. Seriously, I don't really know. I thought they had toned this down considerably. Neither me or my opponents really use it (just old school when it was -very- effective). It's still a problem? What sort of results are you seeing? -F-

niceguy2005 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/11/2006 11:17:25 PM)
I consider the attacks fairly succesfull. We are playing under the latest major version...can't recall the number. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Night Air attack on Wuchow , at 42,39 Japanese aircraft Ki-30 Ann x 89 Ki-21 Sally x 80 No Japanese losses Manpower hits 31 Aircraft Attacking: 22 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 9 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 17 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 15 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet ---------------------------------- Night Air attack on Wuchow , at 42,39 Japanese aircraft Ki-21 Sally x 43 No Japanese losses Manpower hits 13 Aircraft Attacking: 16 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 13 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 8 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 6 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet ----------------------------------- Night Air attack on Wuchow , at 42,39 Japanese aircraft Ki-30 Ann x 85 Ki-21 Sally x 62 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21 Sally: 1 damaged Manpower hits 13 Aircraft Attacking: 18 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 13 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 6 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet 13 x Ki-21 Sally bombing at 6000 feet

RUPD3658 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/11/2006 11:21:22 PM)
Must be high skill levels. My opponant has tried using Blenheims for night attacks and has yet to score even a runway hit. I guess you could set any fighter group with 70+ exp to night CAP.

Feinder -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/11/2006 11:26:45 PM)
Ouch. Yeah, that would qualify. First I'd "attept to open a dialog". It's the polite thing to do after all. Next a warning shot. Maybe some of your own 2e bombers over his base at night, just for good measure. If you voice still isn't heard, it's time to touch off every cannon on the gun-deck. That being China, I'd turn off all replacements and stop all building projects in China. Move about 250 B-17s in Chungking (if you've got them), and blow the sh_t out of whatever airbase their coming from. If they're set to night attack, you -know- they'll be on the ground during the day. If you don't have B-17s, cramp every 2e bomber (Hudson, BlenIV, anything with range) you can scrounge. If he's flying Annes, he can't be coming from far away. 250 of your own 2e bomber clobbering him during the day will certainly "wake him up" (and 2e can't be considered gamey anyway). Gamey begets gamey. -F-

alfrake -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 6:00:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Feinder Sorry. Seriously, I don't really know. I thought they had toned this down considerably. Gods, if its toned down now I'm glad I never saw it before. Last turn I lost 46 Zeroes to about 90 4Es night bombing Rangoon. No, it wasn't remotely overstacked - its a size 8 and I had maybe 150 planes total. It was a really bad turn, but I'm used to losing 15-20 planes a night when he gets that many to fly. As far as I know, you don't stop night attacks. You counter bomb the airbases or sit and take it. As the Allies though, you should be crushing him with night attacks, not the other way around. I'm pretty sure China has literally no use for Manpower anyway, at least not in stock 15. You don't have the supplies.

dtravel -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 7:33:48 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RUPD3658 Must be high skill levels. My opponant has tried using Blenheims for night attacks and has yet to score even a runway hit. It ain't experience. I had Blenheims set to bomb the same airfield in Burma for a game year. Their experience reached the high eighties about half-way thru and they literally never scored even a single hit. It has to be the fact that the target is Manpower or that it is a City Attack.

Gen.Hoepner -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 8:17:35 AM)
As i see the old damn problem hasn't been solved yet. I hoped in these last 4 months where i've been away, with these new patches coming out, this great game-flaw was solved. It's clear it was not. The only way to get out of it is to decide with your opponents a fair limitation: no night bombings allowed directed to AFs and possibly not more than 1 4Es group or 2 2Es groups each time.... This can ruin a game if used quite often....so better to takl to your opponent

AmiralLaurent -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 3:13:48 PM)
Hi Gen, glad to see you back on this forum. Well, my impression was that the programers never reall ysaw a problem with airfield night bombings. After all, the fact that B-17 weren't used at nbight doesn't mean they can't be. And as we have no historical result, WITP results may be good... Of course, what is wrong is the whole ability to have 100 B-17E bombing a Burmese airfield at night... In RL only some tens of Allied heavy bombers were able to fly each night over Burma, even in 1944. Night bombing is not in formation but a lonesome business and so few AC will attack to avoid collision and so on. Especially for attacking an airfield. In fact, most aircraft not flying should be on satellite airfields or on dispersals and airfield bombing should be far less dangerous, at day or at night... Game will be far more realistic if all aircraft of stand down units, or flying in another phase than the current phase, will suffer far less losses than now... Some units get decimated on the ground, yes, but it was because they were ready to fly, or because they were in overcrowded airfields. WITP doesn't care... As for the game is now, only home rule can limit night bombing. My own rule is that night bombing of everything except manpower is limited to a squadron (or a third of a group) from each starting base, and it keeps the result very historical. Manpower attacks (area bombings) are unlimited, so the example given above are OK according to this rule. On the other hand, I have never dealt damage to Allied industry or resource/oil centers with manpower attack, Japanese bombers had just not enough bombs to do enough damage. But with 31 manpower hits it is possible there is some real damage, but certainly far less than with a day bombing raid.

ctangus -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 3:18:07 PM)
I'm not seeing massive results at all. I've been doing small night bombing attacks against Mandalay for several weeks. Recon's reporting about 650-700 aircraft at a level 6 field, and I'm maybe averaging only 2 or 3 enemy planes destroyed per attack. From my last turn - this was by far my most successful attack: Night Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,29 Japanese aircraft Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 11 Allied aircraft Blenheim IV x 8 Wellington III x 23 Beaufort V-IX x 10 B-25C Mitchell x 16 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 2 destroyed A6M3 Zero: 1 destroyed A6M3a Zero: 1 destroyed Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed Allied aircraft losses Blenheim IV: 1 damaged B-25C Mitchell: 1 damaged Japanese ground losses: 26 casualties reported Guns lost 1 Airbase hits 4 Runway hits 2

Gen.Hoepner -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 3:54:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent Hi Gen, glad to see you back on this forum. Well, my impression was that the programers never reall ysaw a problem with airfield night bombings. After all, the fact that B-17 weren't used at nbight doesn't mean they can't be. And as we have no historical result, WITP results may be good... Of course, what is wrong is the whole ability to have 100 B-17E bombing a Burmese airfield at night... In RL only some tens of Allied heavy bombers were able to fly each night over Burma, even in 1944. Night bombing is not in formation but a lonesome business and so few AC will attack to avoid collision and so on. Especially for attacking an airfield. In fact, most aircraft not flying should be on satellite airfields or on dispersals and airfield bombing should be far less dangerous, at day or at night... Game will be far more realistic if all aircraft of stand down units, or flying in another phase than the current phase, will suffer far less losses than now... Some units get decimated on the ground, yes, but it was because they were ready to fly, or because they were in overcrowded airfields. WITP doesn't care... As for the game is now, only home rule can limit night bombing. My own rule is that night bombing of everything except manpower is limited to a squadron (or a third of a group) from each starting base, and it keeps the result very historical. Manpower attacks (area bombings) are unlimited, so the example given above are OK according to this rule. On the other hand, I have never dealt damage to Allied industry or resource/oil centers with manpower attack, Japanese bombers had just not enough bombs to do enough damage. But with 31 manpower hits it is possible there is some real damage, but certainly far less than with a day bombing raid. Thanks Laurent. Really happy to be back[:)] However,night bombing remains a thing that needs, really bad, to be house-ruled

Nikademus -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 4:12:38 PM)
Its the dive bombers.

niceguy2005 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 6:50:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Nikademus Its the dive bombers. I bet this does have something to do with it. Thanks everyone who has responded. I'm slow to call my opponents tactics gamey as we didn't talk about any rules or restrictions around this area, therefore, its fair game in my mind. I was surprised as most night time attacks I have seen have not yielded good results. It must be a combination of dive bombers, well trained pilots and good die rolls. My main question was do I use fighters set to night operation, which i figured would not get good results, or do I go on the offensive. It looks like the the consensus is attack his airfields. In reality, his attacks aren't really causing me any problems right now. Since 1/3 of the chinese army surrendered at Sian I am overflowing with supplies. He could bomb day and night right now and barely put a dent in the supply levels. When I get all those new chinese units respawning it will be a different matter.

Dino -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 7:02:46 PM)
Detection level could be playing a roll, too. Japan has a lot of recons. My experience with fighters on night CAP is that they may not hit anything, but they distract enemy bombers enough to make them less effective. I found Aircobras usefull for this mission since there are no escorts to deal with.

niceguy2005 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 7:58:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Dino Detection level could be playing a roll, too. Japan has a lot of recons. My experience with fighters on night CAP is that they may not hit anything, but they distract enemy bombers enough to make them less effective. I found Aircobras usefull for this mission since there are no escorts to deal with. Maybe even a use for the chinese fighters

Gen.Hoepner -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/12/2006 8:22:17 PM)
If you are the allies this won't really be a problem. Try to walk in japanese shoes for a moment. You sweat like a pig to keep your crack zero groups at best shape. You have 27 higly trained pilots in your best daitai. You defend a place like Rangoon. Early 42. No way the allies can face you during daylight. Suddenly, from a pair of bases in India, during nightime, 80 4Es comes. You do not have any nightfighter at your disposal. Even if you did, they are pretty useless. Believe me. You have something like 150 planes at Rangoon. 10-15 of them get destroyed. 30 more damaged. 1 or 2 of your crack pilots are gone... The following night the same disaster comes from India.... The night after....again and again and again In a pair of weeks your daitais are half of strenght. Many pilots dead in their barracks. Many points given to the allies, but above all nothing you can to to stop your enemy ( his AFs are too far away for your sallies). You have just one way to go: abbandon Rangoon AF and give in allies' hands the sky superiority. This is a bad game-flaw. Needs house rules to keep the gameplay fair and sound.

ctangus -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/13/2006 12:19:39 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gen.Hoepner If you are the allies this won't really be a problem. Try to walk in japanese shoes for a moment. You sweat like a pig to keep your crack zero groups at best shape. You have 27 higly trained pilots in your best daitai. You defend a place like Rangoon. Early 42. No way the allies can face you during daylight. Suddenly, from a pair of bases in India, during nightime, 80 4Es comes. You do not have any nightfighter at your disposal. Even if you did, they are pretty useless. Believe me. You have something like 150 planes at Rangoon. 10-15 of them get destroyed. 30 more damaged. 1 or 2 of your crack pilots are gone... The following night the same disaster comes from India.... The night after....again and again and again In a pair of weeks your daitais are half of strenght. Many pilots dead in their barracks. Many points given to the allies, but above all nothing you can to to stop your enemy ( his AFs are too far away for your sallies). You have just one way to go: abbandon Rangoon AF and give in allies' hands the sky superiority. This is a bad game-flaw. Needs house rules to keep the gameplay fair and sound. Hi General, I agree that results like you mention are way too high. That's up to 10% of the planes at the base in one raid. However, I really think this is fixed with one of the recent patches. I posted an example earlier - I just got the next turn in. Over 600 planes at the base. Size 6, so it's way overstacked (BTW I'm not complaining about my opponent's overstacking - I'd probably do the same in his shoes right now - I mention that for data, only.) Night Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,29 Japanese aircraft Ki-44-IIb Tojo x 19 Allied aircraft Blenheim IV x 4 Wellington III x 20 B-25C Mitchell x 9 B-17E Fortress x 9 B-24D Liberator x 19 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 2 destroyed, 4 damaged Ki-49 Helen: 1 destroyed Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed A6M3 Zero: 1 destroyed Ki-61-Ib Tony: 1 destroyed Allied aircraft losses B-17E Fortress: 1 damaged Runway hits 7 A total of 6 planes destroyed - less than 1% of what's there. It seems like a reasonable result to me. I can't say I've tested it, however. I'd happily to agree to a house rule if an opponent wanted it (generally I don't do a lot of night bombing) but I frankly don't think a house rule is needed anymore.

alfrake -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/13/2006 5:02:02 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ctangus I posted an example earlier - I just got the next turn in. Over 600 planes at the base. Size 6, so it's way overstacked Night Air attack on Mandalay , at 33,29 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-44-IIb Tojo: 2 destroyed, 4 damaged Ki-49 Helen: 1 destroyed Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 1 destroyed A6M3 Zero: 1 destroyed Ki-61-Ib Tony: 1 destroyed In my experience, the combat report of night bombing damage is seriously understated. I expect double the report (or more) destroyed plus some extra damaged.

jolly_pillager -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/13/2006 6:28:05 AM)
From the Allied PoV there is little alternative to night bombing Rangoon (at least in my game v Alfrake. The Zeros are consistantly getting 4-1 against my best fighters and much much more against my second rate ones. I cannot maintain enough momentum against these losses to conduct normal attritional warfare, and therefore his air units are at a high strength level with expert pilots. The result of this is that bombers alone CANNOT make a dent with daylight raids, and any planes with the legs to escort (P-40B's and E's) get flayed alive by the CAP (when they fly which is rarely to never) or get trashed on the ground at Mandalay / Akyab when the horde of Helens and Sallys come in under the cover of unkillable Zero squadrons. So, to paraphrase someone's sig line, if you want historical play, make the units have historical capabilities. Zero's were not death machines that slaughtered everything that flew until the Corsair arrived. Night bombing raids often missed their targets...but occasionally hit with the same force as daylight raids. Airfields not on islands were difficult to knock completely out in a few days worth of bombing. The Akagi carried 36 torpedos for it's Kates and Betties / Nells certainly didn't obliterate every ship within 600 miles of their bases with massed torpedo attacks scoring hit rates in excess of 15%. Everybody here knows what the flaws are...but "fixing" only one of them without addressing the rest will only make things MORE unbalanced. Either fix them all or fix none of them[:@]

viberpol -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/13/2006 11:09:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ctangus I'm not seeing massive results at all. I've been doing small night bombing attacks against Mandalay for several weeks. Recon's reporting about 650-700 aircraft at a level 6 field, and I'm maybe averaging only 2 or 3 enemy planes destroyed per attack. From my last turn - this was by far my most successful attack: BTW: Chuck, Your reckon is wrong ;) I do not have over 600 planes in Mandalay like you suggested. It's slightly over the normal rule of 50xAF size -- because of reckons and mobile bunch of level bombers I have nothing to do with.... really :)

ctangus -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/13/2006 11:44:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: viberpol quote: ORIGINAL: ctangus I'm not seeing massive results at all. I've been doing small night bombing attacks against Mandalay for several weeks. Recon's reporting about 650-700 aircraft at a level 6 field, and I'm maybe averaging only 2 or 3 enemy planes destroyed per attack. From my last turn - this was by far my most successful attack: BTW: Chuck, Your reckon is wrong ;) I do not have over 600 planes in Mandalay like you suggested. It's slightly over the normal rule of 50xAF size -- because of reckons and mobile bunch of level bombers I have nothing to do with.... really :) You mean the damned Brits are lying to me? If I had any political points I'd replace them all! [;)] Thanks for the intelligence. Do you think the results are excessive? I don't want to take advantage of an exploit, but they honestly seem reasonable to me. Don't worry, I'll be back during the day soon so you can slaughter another 50 P-38s. [:)] EDIT: That does change my math. Roughly 2% losses on my most successful attack. And if it's not overstacked, or only barely, the losses on the ground should be lower. quote: ORIGINAL: alfrake In my experience, the combat report of night bombing damage is seriously understated. I expect double the report (or more) destroyed plus some extra damaged. I didn't think of that. I'm curious now - I've got saves of the last few turns & will check the intel reports. Of course that won't show damaged planes.

niceguy2005 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 12:50:02 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: niceguy2005 Playing allies in June 42. The Japanese player is using nighttime bombing attacks to hit manpower and runways in China. Beyond the obvious of using Blen IFs to fly night patrol, what else can the allied player do to stop this? Problem solved. I'm hiring one of Fabertong's agents to buy saki for all the pilots before their nightly mission. [:D]

BrucePowers -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 1:21:32 AM)
Yeah, but if it's one of Faber's agents it's probably fish flavored saki. Who's going to drink it?[:D][:'(]

dtravel -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 2:19:15 AM)
The Japanese like fish. (Just another example of their national insanity. [:'(])

benway9 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 3:50:45 AM)
my opponent in PBEM is plastering all my jap units in Burma with massive heavy bomber raids from India. starting in early '42 until present (8/42), he is using continuous heavy bombers including USAAF every day. i have since abandoned burma for the time being. which probably means its a dead theatre for me.

EUBanana -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 3:59:42 AM)
I never really used night bombing much myself, especially with Allied 4-E bombers. The Jap has no effective counter to daylight raids with massed 4E bombers let alone night raids. And 100 B-17s at 6000' during the day will just annihilate a base. The bombers will take more casualties sure, but within a week it'll be obliterated and the VPs very much in the Allied favour. I used night bombing only when I had a fairly puny force which wasn't up to the job of surviving daylight raids. Consider those Jap divebombers, seems to me you should be almost happy he's going for you at night, if he went for you during the day he'd do quadruple the damage and, it being China, you wouldnt be able to really do much about it anyway I suspect.

alfrake -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 6:58:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: EUBanana The Jap has no effective counter to daylight raids with massed 4E bombers let alone night raids. And 100 B-17s at 6000' during the day will just annihilate a base. Not in the game I was playing (July 42). 50+ Zeroes, 75+ Nates and Oscars over Rangoon chew that up pretty good. Not too many kills, but the majority of those 4Es go home damaged without leveling the airbase. Most importantly, they cannot fly every day. Don't underestimate the Nates and Oscars, they may suck, but Zeroes don't get a lot of 4E kills either. If you have a whole lot of significant targets for those 4Es, they can selectively bomb each target and do noticable damage. (My various oil centers near Kendari are gone). But if there is only one target of significance (like Rangoon), Japan can put sufficient CAP over it in 1942. Even more so, when we gave up, my CAP was about to get a lot better as the first Tojo squadron was about to finish repairing and deploy (avg skill 82, the 3rd best fighter squadron in the Empire). It is only the night bombing destroying huge numbers without noticable loss that made Rangoon untenable.

EUBanana -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 4:26:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: alfrake quote: ORIGINAL: EUBanana The Jap has no effective counter to daylight raids with massed 4E bombers let alone night raids. And 100 B-17s at 6000' during the day will just annihilate a base. Not in the game I was playing (July 42). 50+ Zeroes, 75+ Nates and Oscars over Rangoon chew that up pretty good. Not too many kills, but the majority of those 4Es go home damaged without leveling the airbase. Most importantly, they cannot fly every day. Don't underestimate the Nates and Oscars, they may suck, but Zeroes don't get a lot of 4E kills either. If you have a whole lot of significant targets for those 4Es, they can selectively bomb each target and do noticable damage. (My various oil centers near Kendari are gone). But if there is only one target of significance (like Rangoon), Japan can put sufficient CAP over it in 1942. Even more so, when we gave up, my CAP was about to get a lot better as the first Tojo squadron was about to finish repairing and deploy (avg skill 82, the 3rd best fighter squadron in the Empire). It is only the night bombing destroying huge numbers without noticable loss that made Rangoon untenable. Well, thats a hell of a lot of fighters at one base. If you night bomb and even 1% casualties are scored then it would be a reasonable amount of attrition. Personally, even then, I would prefer daylight raids and limit it to one raid a week for morale/fixing purposes. I suspect it would do greater damage, and B-17s can and do shoot down Jap fighters, so if anything the pilot attrition would be greater still. In the beginning of the war they are better at it than most of the Allied fighters it seems to me!

niceguy2005 -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 7:08:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: EUBanana Consider those Jap divebombers, seems to me you should be almost happy he's going for you at night, if he went for you during the day he'd do quadruple the damage and, it being China, you wouldnt be able to really do much about it anyway I suspect. Not necessarily so. If he would make daytime attacks, I would make sure the AVG was there to greet him. [:D] Really, sending in that many bombers largely unescorted is asking for a massacre. Even the Chinese fighters could take them on. I have a couple of units already well trained.

viberpol -> RE: How do you stop nightime bombing attacks (7/14/2006 9:00:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ctangus I'm not seeing massive results at all. I've been doing small night bombing attacks against Mandalay for several weeks. Recon's reporting about 650-700 aircraft at a level 6 field, and I'm maybe averaging only 2 or 3 enemy planes destroyed per attack. From my last turn - this was by far my most successful attack: quote: ORIGINAL: viberpol BTW: Chuck, Your reckon is wrong ;) I do not have over 600 planes in Mandalay like you suggested. It's slightly over the normal rule of 50xAF size -- because of reckons and mobile bunch of level bombers I have nothing to do with.... quote: ORIGINAL: ctangus You mean the damned Brits are lying to me? If I had any political points I'd replace them all! [;)] Thanks for the intelligence.I'm curious now - I've got saves of the last few turns & will check the intel reports. Of course that won't show damaged planes. Night bombing is more like a nuisance now, 'cos I have no way of shooting these bombers today (tonight). Today you destroyed 4 planes (even if only two reported). This impossibility of hitting more bombers bothers me more than the outcome of your bombing... I have no night fighters till may '43 or so.. My reckon says you have now 680 planes in Dacca -- and this seems more correct, but still an exaggeration :)

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