RE: Flying Boats (Full Version)

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LargeSlowTarget -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 9:53:32 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Dili

I mean the crews were not trained in torpedoing and even if they did in real life the planes couldn't have the outstanding success levels we see in game.

For a successful torpedoing aircraft it implies that a plane must be maneuverable at low level to make corrections at last minute. Mavis, PBY's, Emilies had nothing for it. The Italians hated the S.84 that was supposed to replace the S.79 because of that and it was certainly still a better plane for torpedoing than a PBY. Even the Albacore was considered not a good improvement over Swordfish. Also the crews should be trained exclusively in torpedoing and units should be exclusive for that propose to have consistent results.

It was an error in WITP AE to have the bombers with same maneuverability in all altitude bands.



At Midway, a PBY torpedoed the tanker Akebono Maru.

At Guadalcanal, Major 'Mad Jack' Cram - pilot of General Geigers's 'personal' PBY - made a daylight torpedo attack against Japanese transports covered by Zeroes after having received 5 minutes of instructions in torpedo bombing by a fighter pilot who's brother was a torpedo bomber pilot. He scored at hit (and brought his Cat back with 175 bullet holes).

Later, "Black Cats" made many successful attacks.

Granted, without proper training, doctrine and equipment hits like at Midway and Gudalcanal should be rather isolated events and not the rule.

Furthermore, I doubt that in the opening days of the war, the PI forces had any aerial torpedoes available.

So, the PI Cats should have the ability for naval torpedo attack, but no torps available.

Unfortunately, I don't see how the torpedo availability of the Far East Army Air Force HQ can be nerfed in the editor. So this would require a house rule - no torp supply for Army Air HQs allowed.

edit for spelling...




Dili -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 12:28:29 PM)

quote:

At Midway, a PBY torpedoed the tanker Akebono Maru.

At Guadalcanal, Major 'Mad Jack' Cram - pilot of General Geigers's 'personal' PBY - made a daylight torpedo attack against Japanese transports covered by Zeroes after having received 5 minutes of instructions in torpedo bombing by a fighter pilot who's brother was a torpedo bomber pilot. He scored at hit (and brought his Cat back with 175 bullet holes).

Later, "Black Cats" made many successful attacks.


Some hits don't make a successful torpedo bomber. An S.84 in trained squadrons also put a torpedo in British battleship HMS Nelson and if the battleship torpedoes exploded it could have sunk it http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTBR_PreWWII.htm (bottom last photo) and also got some others hits, but in 1943 the only torpedo bomber around was still S.79, S.84 were all diverted to conventional bombing and transport. Same can be said for Albacore that also had some hits. It didn't make it a successful torpedo bomber.
There are several tricks to a torpedo bomber in attack , changing altitude slighty, changing aspect - going straight to the target but appearing slight off, going in one direction and changing at last minute all with propose to deny AAA a stable predictable path.

In game floatplanes/patrol are benefited by the game engine as the problems shown by the OP to hit an anchorage prove.





Nikademus -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 5:16:32 PM)

Personally, i think allowing FP's to do naval attacks using torpedoes as a regular mission was a mistake. Was it done in RL? yes. Problem with these kinds of 'scenerios' is that many of the early war examples were unique and/or done under extraordinary circumstances. In a wargame however with the level of control that WitP gives, what often happens is you take something that was unusual/extraordinary and you make it standard. Suddenly all FB's all over the map can conduct day/night torp attacks. Good players can exploit this to the hilt. Arguments over "historicalness" cloud over this basic truth. A tactic becomes easy when it becomes a simple mouse click. Another example was allowing FB's to do supply transport. Again...yes it was done in some circumstances. However in the game i've seen it employed as a regular tactic and exploited to the extreme. Two old PBEM opponents i had were so good at it they made the PBY the ultimate airborne amphibious platform, shuttling in and out troops as well as supplies. It created some very odd situations.

Moral of the story. The more options you give players, the greater the chances for exploitation within the rules.




witpqs -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 5:28:59 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

quote:

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

would say low speed and unreliable torpedoes are what made the PBY a bad torpedo plane
good turn rate doesn't help when zeroes and AA are taking you apart at 100 feet, at 100 mph


What "unreliable torpedoes"? Those were the Mk Xiv Submarine torpedoes that had all the problems. And the discussion was about PBY's operating at night, so WHAT "zeroes" do you refer too?

USN aerial torpedoes were bad early on. You can see that reflected in the device database in the scenario editor.




Commander Stormwolf -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 5:43:23 PM)



Flying Boats have worse performance than an equivalent land based counterpart, typically 20%, the price of convenience

Flying Boats historically were used mainly for naval search, but there is no reason to limit them to that

Flying Boats could have been used for torpedo / transport / any other role that LBA was



*also for emily as transport

yes they used emily to haul supplies to isolated garrisons, what's gamey about that?




Dili -> RE: Flying Boats (9/24/2012 8:47:57 PM)

I think the main issue is the too high torpedoing ability of the common pilot. They should have all less than 10 capability if they aren't trained on it. The Germans set up a torpedoing school in Italy just for propose of converting bombing crews, the Italians had 3 schools/units. If the PBY crew have 10 or less ability i think they wouldn't hit much.




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