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So its a BAD reason to not classify something as something it really wasn't?

Francillon makes no mention of the KI-51 being utilized as a dive-bomber, but does provide the description:

"Single-engined ground attack and tactical reconnaisance aircraft. All metal construction with fabric controlled surfaces."

whereas Francillon specifically describes the D3A Val as:

"Single engine carrier borne and land based dive bomber or bomber trainer."

The book Dive Bomber in the Stackpole Military History Series says this about the Ki-51-

"...in its primary role as a scout the bombs were light."

"Code named 'Sonia' by the Allies, the Ki-51 was a very successful type in its limited dive bombing role,..."



So taking those descriptions into consideration, IN ADDITION, to the fact it had no dive brakes the designer probably decided the Sonia should be classified as a Light Bomber instead of a Dive Bomber.

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ORIGINAL: bklooste

Is that 4 30kg bombs hit or 21 * 4 = 84 * 30 kg bombs dropped ?

6 casualties for 84 30kg bombs is pretty abysmal even by WWI standards.

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ORIGINAL: rattovolante

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Well, keep in mind we're talking about 21 planes bombing a 40 nautical miles hex, how many square miles/kilometers is that? (too lazy to do the math)

Ur saying my pilots are so dumb that they drop bombs all over 40 mile hex instead of bombing the actual enemy? [:-]

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2 x DB-3M bombing from 11000 feet *
Ground Attack: 5 x 100 kg GP Bomb

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Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Calayan at 82,69

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 43 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 13 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-21-IIa Sally x 5
Ki-27b Nate x 31
Ki-30 Ann x 11
Ki-48-Ib Lily x 9

No Japanese losses

Aircraft Attacking:
9 x Ki-48-Ib Lily bombing from 10000 feet
Naval Attack: 4 x 100 kg SAP Bomb
5 x Ki-21-IIa Sally bombing from 10000 feet
Naval Attack: 4 x 250 kg SAP Bomb
11 x Ki-30 Ann bombing from 10000 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 250 kg GP Bomb

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Morning Air attack on 3rd New Chinese Corps, at 84,55

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 23 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-36 Ida x 25

No Japanese losses

Allied ground losses:
37 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 2 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Aircraft Attacking:
25 x Ki-36 Ida bombing from 10000 feet
Ground Attack: 4 x 30 kg GP Bomb

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: bklooste

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Because it wasn't a "Dive"Bomber...IIRC it had no dive brakes.

Thats a BAD reason , dive breaks are needed when the stresses exceeded the structure for stronger non aerodynamic frame they didn't need dive breaks because they wouldn't go fast enough even in vertical dive. I would prefer some Research which said dive angle was less than 30 degrees from vertical makes a dive bomber. If a plane used a shallow dive like a Ju-88 its not but if it did than its a dive bomber.

Sonias may have just gone it at 6000' and dived till 2000' at a similar angle to a Ju 87 and hence gain the accuracy of a dive bomber ( though not the avoidance of AA at 20K' ) . I don't know i just think dive breaks is a terrible way to judge it they determine the length of dive ( in relation to the aerodynamics of the frame) . Note the Ju-88 has dive breaks till 43 but IMHO its not a dive bomber ( though it could) .

I would want to see a Sonia diving the way a Stuka dived. Guess it would come down in several pieces...

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ORIGINAL: Streptokok

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ORIGINAL: rattovolante

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Well, keep in mind we're talking about 21 planes bombing a 40 nautical miles hex, how many square miles/kilometers is that? (too lazy to do the math)

Ur saying my pilots are so dumb that they drop bombs all over 40 mile hex instead of bombing the actual enemy? [:-]

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ORIGINAL: Dr. Duh

Is the altitude setting factored into the accuracy/effectiveness of attack missions by level bombers? If so I'm guessing that the way to represent "better accuracy through shallow dives" is simply to set the altitude somewhere in the 100'-5000' range.

I think there is a bit of a problem in the way altitude for Air missions is defined. On p.154 it says this about the altitude setting: "The Current Altitude displays the altitude that the aircraft will fly at when flying to and from the target hex". On first glance this would seem reasonable since most missions are assumed to fit a fixed attack profile:

1. Level bombers are assumed to attack at the same level they fly in at.
2. The profile for a Dive bomber attack is simplified to always assume it starts from 2000'.
3. A torpedo attack always assumes a drop to low level (100'?) to perform the attack run.

Squadrons designated "dive bombers" are always assumed to perform dive attacks. Squadrons designated torpedo bombers are always assumed to perform torpedo attacks on ships if they have torpedoes. If they are carrying bombs they are treated as level bombers (correct?)

I guess the only reason you'd need to know an altitude defined by the player is to model CAP and AA interaction. For this I suppose the design decision was to model it as two interactions - one that occurs at the designated altitude that the mission flys in at for CAP and an initial AA shot, and then an additional interaction at the beginning of the fixed profiles for dive and torpedo attacks.

However, in the section about (fighter) sweeps (p. 150), it mentions that "If the group attacks at 100’, the planes will also attempt to strafe the target...". OK, so to set fighters to do a strafing attack, pick "sweep" as the mission and set the altitude to 100'? But wait - what happened to the altitude setting being the altitude it flies to/from the target at? Well I guess for fighters if you set altitude to 100' then it doesn't mean they actually flew all the way to the target nap-of-the-earth, but rather than add another control to the air mission UI, it's OK to conflate the meaning of the altitude setting in this case because... (well, I'm guessing here) because if you're putting fighters on a strafing mission then we can assume they have nothing interesting happen to them where we'd need to know what altitude they flew in at - always assume that any CAP/AA only interacts with them after they've started their strafing run and are at 100'?

Oh, something else I can't remember where I saw it (on the forum) - if the altitude setting is below 6000' on a naval attack it uses the low-level naval attack skill rather than the naval bombing skill? I vaguely recall from years ago when I first played witp that there were various discussions on the forum about how this setting would be what you use to designate skip-bombing.

So anyway, I guess my questions would be:

1. if you set a sweep-capable aircraft to sweep at 100' (strafe), what does it attack? an airfield? does this attack assume only cannons/guns are used or if bombs are carried is their effect also included?
2. if you set fighters/fighter-bombers on airfield,port,naval, or ground attack...
a) do you set their altitude to 10K' or whatever you want to designate them to fly in at (and be intercepted by CAP) and then it's implicit that to actually attack they drop to low level and perform a strafing attack?
b) or does it make the assumption of an implicit strafing attack for fighters-only and for fighter-bombers if the altitude is set high it assumes the FB makes a level-bombing attack instead?
c) or if the altitude is set too high is it just assumed that cannons etc aren't used and it is always/only a level-bombing run, and that the only way to get F/FB to use their cannons is to set the altitude to 100'?
d) or do F/FB do nothing at all on these attack missions unless they have some bombs because the only way to get them to use their cannons air-to-ground is to assign them to a sweep mission?

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ORIGINAL: Streptokok

Why were Sonias, Marys and Anns changed to LevelBomber role in AE?
Stripped me off LBA dive bombers and some things just make no sense.
Sonia wich looks almost like Stuka, and we all know that Stuka was natural-born diver, is some crappy ligh level bomber in AE, why change it from DB?
As a DB they had some use, light bombers in AE are just plain crap. Sonia had short leg in stock too, but you could still capture places like Jolo and put Sonias on it, they would cover route to Manila/Bataan just fine (sometimes really sloughtering merchant ships TFs).

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ORIGINAL: FatR

This game just doesn't model the advantages of Ki-51 and Ki-36: cheapness, ability to fly from small improvised airfields, easy maintenance, high maneurability at low speed/altitude, and their role as tactical recon and, IIRC, artillery observers. Ki-48 was a flawed plane and the game actually makes it look better than it was, as it is the most common alternative to Ki-51/36.

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ORIGINAL: timtom
Having just one engine they are cheaper to build, being light bomber they operate at full capacity from L2 AF's...