Is night air combat broken? (Full Version)

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Squamry -> Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 9:45:44 AM)

In both my games as Japan I'm using non-night fighter squadrons against incoming heavy bomber raids to disrupt them. Ok I'm not expecting great results and the disruption to them is more important than the casualties. However I have noticed that fighter losses tend to be at least as high as in the day time and bomber losses almost non existant. Below is an extreme example from a recent turn:

Night Air attack on Hong Kong , at 77,61

Weather in hex: Light cloud

Raid spotted at 38 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 17


Allied aircraft
B-24D Liberator x 6


Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-44-IIa Tojo: 5 destroyed

No Allied losses



Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-24D Liberator bombing from 10000 feet
City Attack: 10 x 500 lb GP Bomb

CAP engaged:
248th Sentai with Ki-44-IIa Tojo (14 airborne, 0 on standby, 3 scrambling)
14 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 15000 , scrambling fighters to 15000.
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 35 minutes

The unit in question is not that exerienced (av 50) but has high air and defn stats. My gut feel that having any one of these stats less than 60 increases the losses. I'm losing fighters each night and doing no damage.

So is the interaction broken or is there a way for Japanese squadrons to be more effective? Typically I'm putting units on 10k or 15k feets

TIA



dr.hal -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 12:07:44 PM)

Experience can certainly have an impact. Especially late in the war where bombers can have lots of experience. What date are you in for this game?



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 12:16:46 PM)

Also, did those losses happen due to defensive fire?



dr.hal -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 12:20:29 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Also, did those losses happen due to defensive fire?

Good point! As inexperience pilots at night would certainly have high operational losses.



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 12:30:08 PM)

It's about 30% losses. Pilots with relatively low Exp can do poorly and rack up loss rates like this without even reaching their targets. Getting lost at night and running out of fuel, flying into the side of a mountain, and so on and so forth.



JocMeister -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 2:07:42 PM)

I thought it was pretty much established that defensive fire from bombers does not take into account that its night? So they fire with the same accuracy as they do in daylight? Might have gotten it wrong though?



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 2:10:01 PM)

That wasn't my point. They can't be fired on if they miss their intercept rolls.



Squamry -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 2:20:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: dr.hal

Experience can certainly have an impact. Especially late in the war where bombers can have lots of experience. What date are you in for this game?

One in Feb/Mar 43 and another in May 43



dr.hal -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 2:52:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I thought it was pretty much established that defensive fire from bombers does not take into account that its night?

How was this "established" JocMeister? I've never heard of that possibility. Hal



obvert -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 2:53:10 PM)

I would never use my high experience pilots against bombers at night in regular day fighters. It'll be just losses. Intercept or no intercept, if I send up 40 non-NF fighters against even 50-60 4E I will lose roughly 30-40% of the fighters for virtually no losses to the bombers.

Night fighters perform slightly better, but are still lost in high number due to what Jocke mentioned above, that the defensive fire is seemingly the same as during the day.



MrBlizzard -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 3:33:12 PM)

I'm experiencing that fighter losses in the night are much heavier than during daylight, even with good pilots and fighters.
In RL I read some american reports that showed how difficult was to even have a conctat at night , also with night fighters at the beginning.
A real fight would end without any losses for both parts.
So I believe it's better not putting in air fighters at night, at least you save thier pilots.



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 4:38:45 PM)

Night intercepts were difficult enough with an established GCI network (in Europe). Now imagine doing it without one. Using day fighters for night fighter work is a waste of resources.



seille -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 6:11:58 PM)

Gunner accuracy same during night and day sounds not right to me. This is really true and is this wanted this way ?

forgot:
@Squamry
Is this last official patch or beta ?



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 6:47:06 PM)

Think about what you're saying. Light levels don't affect Gunnery Accuracy, because shooting doesn't happen until there's something to shoot AT. Finding something to shoot at is an entirely different matter.



Dixie -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 7:14:00 PM)

You could make the argument that shooting from aircraft at night is easier as engagement ranges would typically be far less than daytime. Of course, finding something to shoot at is another matter.



seille -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 7:51:37 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Think about what you're saying. Light levels don't affect Gunnery Accuracy, because shooting doesn't happen until there's something to shoot AT. Finding something to shoot at is an entirely different matter.


Ok next try. Deadliness of the gunner should not be the same as in daylight.
And if a gunner can see and fire at his target donīt you think the fighter pilot can see the bomber too and fire at ?



Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 7:53:04 PM)

Not necessarily, no.



JocMeister -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 7:53:37 PM)

Well, let me rephrase myself then.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
I thought it was pretty much established that defensive fire from bombers does not take into account that its night? So the gunners see just as well at night as they do in daylight? Might have gotten it wrong though?


Everyone happy now? [:D]



Commander Stormwolf -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 8:05:22 PM)


night air raid is the best type of fighter sweep.

normally have house rules to limit / not allow night raids altogether.

completely broken. night rear gunner accuracy is the problem.



obvert -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 8:51:34 PM)

Yeah, if anyone doubts that night air interception is screwed just test it quickly. Any 50 4Es against about 50 of your choice of Japanese plane in a 50% moonlight night airfield attack. You'll have double digit fighters lost for maybe 1-2 ops losses for the bombers.



Commander Stormwolf -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 9:01:26 PM)


roger that.

AE is incredible as far as research and detail is concerned.
Naval and Ground mechanics are a big step up from WITP vanilla.

Air mechanics still need to be tweaked.



Commander Stormwolf -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 9:08:58 PM)


edit:

air mechanics are better than Witp Vanilla (UBER CAP anyone?)
but still seriously flawed in terms of the tactical results,

MVR penalties,armament accuracy and effect formulas, max. altitude exploits
are to blame

another gripe is that morale has an effect on whether a unit flies or not
in reality that was never the case - unless the squadron mutinies and then gets court martialled,
that was never the case. crews were always sent up.

low morale meant that there would be more cases of "engine trouble",
"unescorted G4M turning back", and normally dropping ordnance well in advance of that wall of flak




Terminus -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 9:10:27 PM)

It never ceases to amaze how people think they can test once, or five or ten times and draw a statistical conclusion from it...[8|]



obvert -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/19/2013 10:26:00 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

It never ceases to amaze how people think they can test once, or five or ten times and draw a statistical conclusion from it...[8|]


Well, my ideas on this are actually based on many encounters from several games played with various versions of the game and all have roughly the same results; many fighters destroyed at night for very few bombers lost.

You're right, though. To prove a statistical conclusion I would need a solid set of tests. I should have clarified that this is simply my impression based on experiences in game, but I do think it wouldn't take long for anyone to come to similar conclusions with these situations based on what I've read from other posts here and elsewhere.

If anyone has evidence to the contrary of my thoughts on this I would love to hear it or see the results of game play or tests. Just want to learn here, not battle about testing strategies.



crsutton -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 4:39:32 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

Yeah, if anyone doubts that night air interception is screwed just test it quickly. Any 50 4Es against about 50 of your choice of Japanese plane in a 50% moonlight night airfield attack. You'll have double digit fighters lost for maybe 1-2 ops losses for the bombers.


You have to think about what you would be testing, single engine planes without radar (and probably no radio) going up at night and trying to shoot down bombers. I would have to expect serious losses in this respect.
For most of my four year campaign vs Viberpol, I spent most to the time thinking and complaining that night fighters were useless and broken. Well it turns out I was wrong. Come late 1944 with purpose designed night fighters with excellent crew experience and radar the situation has changed. My Allied night fighters are shooting down some bombers and damaging a whole lot more. And, Ark's 1945 Japanese night fighters are starting to get some kills as well. The problem was that I was expecting too much from night fighters in 1942 and 43 at a time when they were not really too effective anyways. Putting up day fighters as night fighters is at best stop gap (but better than not putting up anything).

You do have a point in that massed bombers do seem to kill too many Japanese planes but we do not allow mass night bombing in our campaign. The biggest problem that I see is not with the night fighters but that night bombing itself is too easy and too accurate. There should be lots more op losses and lots more bombers not finding the target and sometimes when they do they don't hit anything. This will make doing it less attractive and negate the need to worry too much about night fighters.



Numdydar -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 6:50:54 AM)

I agree with the above [:)]

In our game we found night bombing accuracy was much higher than we thought it should be. Matter of fact we could not tell there was any difference between the effect of raiding at night versus daytime. So we just decided to not do it at all. We did that in late '42. Since them we have seen any major impact on the game without having night bombing and it is now Dec '44. So rather than use some of the HRs like only so many raids/plane, % moonlight bs, we just stopped using it altogeather. It just seemed at lot simpler [:)]

But as far as we are concerned night flying is messed up but there will be no effort to try and fix it in the game. So using whatever HRs you think are needed to make it work for you are good. [:)]



obvert -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 7:45:14 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: crsutton


quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

Yeah, if anyone doubts that night air interception is screwed just test it quickly. Any 50 4Es against about 50 of your choice of Japanese plane in a 50% moonlight night airfield attack. You'll have double digit fighters lost for maybe 1-2 ops losses for the bombers.


You have to think about what you would be testing, single engine planes without radar (and probably no radio) going up at night and trying to shoot down bombers. I would have to expect serious losses in this respect.
For most of my four year campaign vs Viberpol, I spent most to the time thinking and complaining that night fighters were useless and broken. Well it turns out I was wrong. Come late 1944 with purpose designed night fighters with excellent crew experience and radar the situation has changed. My Allied night fighters are shooting down some bombers and damaging a whole lot more. And, Ark's 1945 Japanese night fighters are starting to get some kills as well. The problem was that I was expecting too much from night fighters in 1942 and 43 at a time when they were not really too effective anyways. Putting up day fighters as night fighters is at best stop gap (but better than not putting up anything).

You do have a point in that massed bombers do seem to kill too many Japanese planes but we do not allow mass night bombing in our campaign. The biggest problem that I see is not with the night fighters but that night bombing itself is too easy and too accurate. There should be lots more op losses and lots more bombers not finding the target and sometimes when they do they don't hit anything. This will make doing it less attractive and negate the need to worry too much about night fighters.



I agree completely, but i would also add that NF losses are through the roof as well. Sure, they can do well, and I too have seen several good turns in game, but I've also seen 70 B-29s bomb out 185 points of oil against in 3% moonlight against flak and 20 dedicated NF, shooting down about 5-7 of them for maybe 1-2 ops losses.

It's not that NF cannot be effective, it's just that the losses are the kinds of numbers you'd see during the day, which is just not quite right.

All of this said, I opened the door for my opponent to use night bombing, and think it should be part of the Allied capability, especially late war. He has elected to use mainly manpower bombing as this better approximates the kinds of results that were achievable.



MDDgames -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 3:28:39 PM)

I think one factor that people are missing is that a lot of the "strength" in 4E bombers is the fact they fly in tight formations. This is what makes them hard to shoot down, and this is what gives them the power to shoot things down.

At night, they shouldnt have this advantage. But the engine makes no distinction. And thus, to answer the OPs original question: Is night air combat broken? IMHO, the answer is "yes". Always has been. Michael has come a long way toward fixing it, but it is impossible to completely fix with the engine.



LoBaron -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 7:18:10 PM)

Good point. There shouldn't be a combat box bonus at night. Maybe difficult to eradicate as you say.

That said with a bit of HRs night bombing as well as night intercepts are ok (we limit ourselves to certain targets depending on the moon as well as forcing 10k min alt and 50% rest setting for attacks). Pretty much removes any issue. Night CAP with daylight fighters and 50exp should take heavy losses...



crsutton -> RE: Is night air combat broken? (8/20/2013 7:26:45 PM)

Yes, the massed raids are the issue. We allow one unit per theater on night bombing attacks so it is really just a novelty in our game. In historical fairness Ark should allow me to mass bomb with my B29s at 8,000 feet at night in 1945 but we don't.[;)] The Allies are doing pretty well without that.



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