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EUBanana -> RE: Good to know UBER Cap is gone (1/15/2010 7:26:37 PM)
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ORIGINAL: oldman45
I have to disagree EUBanana, looking through the Army Airforce of WWII volume I and volume IV you see some trends which so far I have also seen in the game.
1) Vol I deals with the early war and tells of the struggles the Allies had fighting the Japanese AF. While I didn't see any single action where 75% of the attacking aircraft were shot down, it does show how the squadrons suffered extreme material and pilot shortages. In the DEI squadrons where wiped out (A/C not pilots) It also showed in 41/42 that while the Navy pilots could hold their own, the army struggled, they really didn't have the skills the Japanese pilots had.
I actually agree with this [:'(]. The question is - the degree of this issues.
The Dutch airforce always gets wiped out - they have no real replacements so about 50-75 losses basically removes them from the game. That always happens, for minimal Japanese loss. And should happen, really. Sometimes I see the Dutch actually do alright with their bombers, if they are lucky, but not often.
But the sort of casualties I'm taking would eradicate the Dutch within days, so what the KNIL did or didn't do is pretty much a different ballgame. Every a/c pool bar a couple is bouncing along on 0, and the only reason the Airacobra pool stands higher than that is because I dont bother sending them in because I know what'll happen. I use those as trainers. And we're not talking about Buffaloes anymore. The P40 was simply not that bad. It wasn't even that bad in AE until a multitude of threads of people complaining about Zeroes actually being shot down by them (oh my god, we can't allow that!). Hence why I feel I'm entitled to some board space saying the opposite view, the JFBs certainly weren't shy in the past.
Now, I'd be happy with this, to be honest, if the Japanese were actually taking some losses, even if they were not proportional with those of the Allies. But the fact is they aren't taking any losses far as I can tell to their front line fighter units (they've lost plenty from second line units and bomber squadrons). Certainly not losses sufficient to degrade their competence in the long term. In fact because of the mass production of Japanese aces without loss as a result of this lop sided slaughter the Japanese are getting even better.
And as for this canard, 'oh your fighter squadrons are crap, what do you expect?'. Who is going to attritt them if not the P40 and Hurricane squadrons? There is nobody else to do it, as I said. They are the cream of the Allied air force. If the P40s and Hurricanes can't shoot them down when competent, then no one will be able to. If the AVG gets butchered for no gain then thats it, really, finito. I speak from experience that in AE the P38 is almost useless in air to air combat, it will not be the Allied saviour in late 42. It'll just be another production jump, another 30 fighters a month you can feed into the grinder for the odd kill.
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2) Vol IV covers mid 42 and into 43. You see the changes, slow as they are, that the army gets better. A conclusion can be drawn that this is due to the slow erosion of IJN/IJA force quality, or the US Army was getting better pilots and equipment. I believe its a little of both.
Well. Lets look at this in game.
As far as the US getting better is concerned, if we're talking materiel by late 42/early 43, we're talking about the P38. It's pretty poor in game, because I believe using energy tactics requires a (fairly difficult) skill test. Unless you have good, battlehardened pilots - and where are they going to come from in the face of such slaughter, they'll all be dead in a month - the P38 is actually inferior to the P40.
And as far as pilot quality, well. Training gets you up to about 65 now it seems. I have several squadrons at 65. I try not to commit squadrons at all until they reach about 60 odd. To go much higher than that though seems to require battle experience, which essentially means, in the face of slaughters like this, 65 is pretty much a hard cap. You train them to 65, you send them in, and they are all killed. You dont get any Allied aces when the kill ratios are 30 to 1. After a week they're all dead.
As for the Japanese getting worse - in material they do not until the late war. The P38 I have discussed, the Japanese end up with Tojos and Tonies, which will more than be able to handle P38s and P40Ks which can't even handle Oscars. I will grant you that Corsairs and P47s probably will outclass the Japanese, but the Corsair has a very short range which limits how much contact time it'll have with the enemy when you're on the offensive, and the P47 arrives very late.
And in terms of pilots, they will only get worse if some of them are killed. If almost none are killed this will never happen, and the lopsided slaughters will actually improve Japanese fighter quality as suddenly you have multi-ace squadrons with experience jammed at max thanks to all this live fire easy practice.
Even the very best units should suffer losses otherwise they cannot be attritted. Thats my root issue, really. If you avoid them, hit somewhere else, they will still be there. Thats not attrition. IMHO you should attempt to arrange battles as favourable as possible and then fight, and then over time, the IJ pilots should slowly start dying off despite your own higher losses until the sides are more equal. The IJ meanwhile should not be playing ball and use fabian tactics to preserve their squadrons, but really as it stands, why would they bother? Send em in. They can't die.
This is why Japan always does better than historically IMHO. I've not seen many (any?) games where they do worse. Their air capabilities are hugely overstated and long into the game, too. The P38 historically was a terror to the Japanese. In game it's almost completely useless in air combat. It's like a Beaufighter except at least Beau's have bombs. What's going on there? [&:]
Historically the Japanese air arm seems to have been getting noticeably less invincible by mid 42. I wish! The Allies can force their way through with massed heavy bomber squadrons, so I play the game anyway, there's always an out, not like the Allies have no cards at all, indeed in the long run they hold almost all of the cards. I don't think thats all that enjoyable for either player, though. This is what used to happen in WITP. JFBs hated massed heavy bombers, in fact much of AE has been about making it difficult to mass heavy bombers - stacking limits on airfields, harsher logistics, maintenance times, all aimed primarily at the 4E bomber. But the Allies only did that because they had to.
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When you have two human players everything goes out the window.
I think this is an overstated issue. What tactical options are actually open to you? as the IJ I'd have some very rules.
1) Do not use top quality pilots as escorts unless there is no alternative. Top quality pilots should be used on sweep or CAP duty only. Escort missions make fighters sitting ducks.
2) Decline to fight against overwhelming odds but seek no worse than 2 to 1 in the air. When fighting over your own bases this is somewhat relaxed as your pilots will mostly survive being shot down.
What's so politically infeasible or off the wall about that?
I do much prefer the Allies because the planning of Day 1 is totally beyond me, let alone the industry, but I do play the Japs in other scenarios, and while they certainly have serious defects in their military capability their fighter arm is literally head and shoulders above the Allies even into the mid war.
Rufes trashing everything the Allies throw at them sets off my bullshit alarm, as does the dismal performance of the P38.
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