Mike Wood -> Re: Devil's Advocate (12/8/2002 3:28:55 AM)
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Hello... The issue of Japanese fighter to Allied bomber kill ratios is one upon which we are currently working. I was told that fighters were not effective enough against bombers and to increase the number of bombers shot down. Within the limitations of making consistent changes to all aircraft, when changes were made, I increased the number of bombers being shot down by instructing the fighter pilots to make longer passes, make more passes, continue firing until the fighter was very close (causing them to fly through enemy formations) and to accept greater damage to the plane before breaking off. This worked and the number of bombers shot down increased. With aircraft such as the Nell, Betty, Kate and TDB, bomber losses due to air-to-air combat increased. In the case of the Japanese Zero versus Allied medium and heavy bombers, the Allied bomber losses increased, but due to the high durability of these bombers and the fragility of the Zero, in order to kill more bombers, the Zero pilots had to take more risks. Bad tactic. Although highly maneuverable, maneuverability is of limited use against bombers in formation. Durability and firepower become the most important factors. Planes such as the Nick do a better job of tackling Allied bombers, but these are in short supply. Later in the war, the Japanese do build limited numbers of planes better designed to combat well multi-engine, armored planes with strong airframes and lots of guns. But, that doesn't help us here. I am currently instructing the Zero pilots to try to shoot these tough planes down, but not to kill themselves, in the process. Make fewer passes, start firing earlier and veer off before the bomber guns can effectively engage and not to fly through the enemy formations. These instructions will apply when attacking big, tough, multi-engine planes with lots of guns, such as the B-25, B-26, B-17 and B-24. In combat against weaker aircraft, such as the Beaufort, they are to continue pressing the attack. I am also making bomber formations take morale checks more often, which if failed, may cause the flight to abort. This is because as the fighters have been pressing the attack more, since version 2.10, and getting more kills, there is no reason to sacrifice the entire bomber group, if heavy combat-air-patrol is encountered. Hope this helps... Michael Wood __________________________________________________ [QUOTE]Originally posted by DSandberg [B]Okay, even though I'm staunchly in favor of removing the "bomber sweeps" from the game via whatever method is necessary, for a moment I'm going to play devil's advocate ... One thing that concerns me about simply reducing the accuracy of the bomber's weapons is if this will allow fighters to get more shots at bombers and hence make the kill ratio of bombers go up. This could easily be a side effect of such a change, and I think an undesirable one. What I don't know is this: does UV's air combat resolution engine implement any sort of penalty to firing accuracy when a plane is also currently being fired at itself, either from the ground or from other aircraft? My point is this: even though the accuracy of the bomber's fire should be such that only small numbers of attacking aircraft are actually killed, nonetheless the simple volume of defensive fire coming from level bombers (especially en masse) should have effects on disturbing the accuracy of an attacking fighter. A similar effect ought to be present when aircraft (especially those flying at low levels) attack ground or naval targets that are defended by high levels of AAA. Such effects should be much less present when attacking smaller groups of ships or aircraft (or when the defenders have fewer anti-aircraft weapons). This type of penalty to the accuracy of an attacker's shots ought to be present as a significant part of the effects of defensive fire from bombers (or from a fleet, or the ground in general for that matter). If such effects are actually present in UV, this will hopefully allow defensive fire from bombers to continue to be of equal value in protecting the bombers even while killing a few less fighters outright, which would be a desirable outcome. But if they are not, then I'm concerned that the simple tweak of "lowering bomber fire accuracy" might result in an increase in the bombers that are shot down, to a point beyond realistic levels. To boil it down, the question is this: can the air combat be tweaked to have fewer attacking fighters shot down by bombers, without simultaneously increasing the number of bombers that are being damaged or destroyed by those fighters (due to them surviving to close in and take their shots)? I.e., can the [U]defensive[/U] value of bombers' guns be preserved at the current level, while lessening only the [U]offensive[/U] value of those same guns? - David [/B][/QUOTE]
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