RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (Full Version)

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rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/13/2020 6:59:21 PM)

Today it was the turn of the Airocobras to face the wrath of George, with an almost 6:1 kill ratio.

We had a ton of bombers assigned to pound the airfield, but unfortunately only 5 flew (but thankfully after the Georges cleared the skies). Rabaul airfields were busy today.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/70ADF57BA2A74C148A25CB2E1875202D.jpg[/image]



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/14/2020 5:24:49 PM)

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/4805713E88954F4195D373792735D3BF.jpg[/image]



PaxMondo -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/14/2020 6:02:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.


Yeah, they take op losses depending on how far they fly, but IJ cannot really stop it. Having anything flying will lessen the damage.

Wait until you see what happens with them at 2000 ft ...



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/15/2020 3:35:19 AM)

April 21, 1943.

The (small) naval battle of Taberfane.

A group of three US destroyers attempted to raid a Japanese convoy at Taberfane in the Arafuran Sea, but a Japanese destroyer force moved to interdict. In the night naval battle, one US destroyer was set ablaze by gunfire while another took a 61 cm torpedo and went to the bottom. A few Japanese destroyers brushed off minor damage.

The next morning, one of the US destroyers made a clean escape but the burning destroyer was tracked by search planes and attacked by Lilys, who put 5-6 100 kg bombs into her with extremely accurate dive bombing.

I've never tried the Lily dive bombers before. Their bombs are too small to do more than scratch the paint on large warships, but they seem pretty good as DD hunters!

[image]local://upfiles/14041/AA27A9B72B0D4E71BABEF296355B7451.jpg[/image]



mind_messing -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/15/2020 11:10:48 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.


It's a challenge, but it's not impossible.

Some other things to add from me are that barrage balloons to keep 4E's above 6000ft goes some way to mitigate damage. Night-time counter-raids on Allied 4E airbases also can be effective. Japan doesn't get anything with the capability of Allied 4E's, but throw a couple squadrons of Nells at an airbase and you'll land some hits, and it adds up to the damage pools.

Night fighters need high EXP pilots. Put rookies in them and you'll just make the cycle of losses worse. 90+ EXP and as high defence as you can manage gives them the survivability they need. I've still got the Endo Detachment and the three 90 EXP monsters I put in the squadron going after about 6 months of night CAP. They won't rack up crazy kill counts, but they do throw the bombers off.

It's a hard war to fight as your limited in the feedback you get, but I think it's an important one to fight. If you set things up right, you can seriously limit damage, which then helps if you get lucky with weather, and to put holes in bombers, which keeps them away for longer.

quote:

I've never tried the Lily dive bombers before. Their bombs are too small to do more than scratch the paint on large warships, but they seem pretty good as DD hunters!


I really like the Lily as a general purpose dive bomber, and it helps that it's IJA too.

They're good up until they start to go against battleships, though there are a few classes of cruisers they'll struggle with. Having the two bombs really helps generating the hits against destroyers, and they ruin the day for any softer targets quite nicely.



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/15/2020 4:13:07 PM)

The 100kg bomb is about 220 pounds. An 8 inch artillery shell is about 200 pounds while a 5"/38 caliber shell is 54 pounds. So those light bombs work nice on unarmoured and under armoured targets.

"Hammering Hank" Talmadge MOH sank a destroyer with one 100 pound bomb.



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/18/2020 5:45:47 PM)

What's the best altitude for the Japanese to bomb to avoid the worst of Allied AA and still be effective? (airfield bombing)

I suppose it doesn't make a difference night vs day bombing?



Q-Ball -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/18/2020 7:10:12 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.



Contesting them with fighters will limit the damage; it breaks up the attacks. The problem is, as you have found out, contesting them in force results in ridiculous damage to Japanese fighters, with no corresponding damage to Allied bombers. It's so bad the code is borked or something, because defensive fire from 4Es seemingly has no penalty, while your pilots can't hit anything.

So, use very small units that wont' really engage....for example, Jakes on CAP at 1000 ft. By having them in the base, the bombers aim is impacted, but the Jake has such bad climb rate it will never actually engage and place itself in danger





mind_messing -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/18/2020 9:19:56 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

What's the best altitude for the Japanese to bomb to avoid the worst of Allied AA and still be effective? (airfield bombing)

I suppose it doesn't make a difference night vs day bombing?



Depends on your tolerance for losses, I suppose.

The omnipresent Allied 20mm AA gun maxes out about 6k, the 40mms at about 9-10k. I go usually for 11k unless there's a worthwhile target.

I tend to go lower at night too.



GetAssista -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/18/2020 9:53:44 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mind_messing
The omnipresent Allied 20mm AA gun maxes out about 6k, the 40mms at about 9-10k. I go usually for 11k unless there's a worthwhile target.

Different 40mm Bofors models are up to 9800 in stock and them are many and nasty. All larger guns fire through stratosphere. So 10000 seems ok to keep Bofors and ower calibers out. Or 11 if there is some wiggle space in AAA height reach model.



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/19/2020 10:07:22 PM)

Very helpful, thanks all! [:)]



PaxMondo -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 4:39:03 AM)

Rader: Alfred did a writeup on this a couple of years back. well worth reading. The answers above are correct, but not entirely accurate. Alfred's detail is worth reading for a complete understanding. Like many things in this game, the models used to simulate AA in the game are not simplistic linear models, but rather more sophisticated to better model the reality.

My last game against my son in Scen 4, I did ground/naval bombing almost every day non-stop shuttling between 2 groups in Rabaul. So in 6 months, I lost only 42 to flak (27 ops). I sank 27 ships via torpedo, a few more to bombs, in addition to ground bombardments for months. My son hated my 2E bombers ....




rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 5:17:47 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Rader: Alfred did a writeup on this a couple of years back. well worth reading. The answers above are correct, but not entirely accurate. Alfred's detail is worth reading for a complete understanding. Like many things in this game, the models used to simulate AA in the game are not simplistic linear models, but rather more sophisticated to better model the reality.

My last game against my son in Scen 4, I did ground/naval bombing almost every day non-stop shuttling between 2 groups in Rabaul. So in 6 months, I lost only 42 to flak (27 ops). I sank 27 ships via torpedo, a few more to bombs, in addition to ground bombardments for months. My son hated my 2E bombers ....




What did you do to reduce Flak losses? Altitude settings/plane numbers/something else?



PaxMondo -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:04:59 AM)

When you read Alfred's writeup altitude matters, there are "holes" in every AA gun's trajectory pattern. has to do with the mechanics of the guns, the ballistics of shells used, and the fusing. These also change during the war for the allies (hardcoded) representing advances implemented during the war (similar to the sonar advances). You find these holes and you can bomb below the max altitude of a gun with less loss, non-zero though in most cases. The trade-off of course is bombing effectiveness: lower altitudes are always more effective.

Knowing this, you can also flip it around and improve your defense by minimizing the holes in your defensive flak at key bases. Obviously the allies have far more ability to do so than the IJ, mainly as they have far more units with the capability. But, even as IJ I was able to make things "hot" for my son at key bases. Please note: this is my younger son (11) who has the elegance of a 10 lb hammer, not an experienced opponent (yet).

I believe that herb, master of everything air in this game, has been using this all along to his benefit. He never mentioned it (that I recall) specifically, but the effectiveness of his bombing runs and general low losses tells me that he must have incorporated this into his overall air tactic manual.



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 4:28:45 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

. . . You find these holes and you can bomb below the max altitude of a gun with less loss, non-zero though in most cases . . .



Do you mean ". . . You find these holes and you can bomb below the minimum altitude of a gun with less loss, non-zero though in most cases . . . "

So you can find the sweet spot in the ranges between the 20/25mm AAA and the larger guns by bombing between the maximum altitude of the 20/25mm AAA and the minimum effective altitude of the larger guns?



Dili -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 4:42:11 PM)

Flak gap.



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 5:05:42 PM)

May 3, 1943.

I did a bad thing. Set a fleet to scout out in front of Rabaul to draw some Allied bombers over it and set a LRCAP trap over the fleet. Managed to slaughter over 40 Allied bombers.

I know this sort of thing happened occasionally during the war (at least the Allies did it with their carriers around Formosa) and I think it's ok and my opponent sometimes does this sort of thing too so I think it's ok now and then... or too gamey?

Keep in mind this is an air war where my opponent frequently sweeps right next to my bases (without sweeping the bases themselves) to lure small elements of my leeky CAP to its death, which I think is a fairly similar thing.

EDIT: Note that he definitely hasn't complained about it and probably won't but just soliciting opinions anyway.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/B5C7716DA1154CE9A985203FACA8869B.jpg[/image]



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 5:24:53 PM)

If he does not escort his bombers, then he deserves that.

Just be careful of an invasion at Hokkaido![;)]



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 5:35:19 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Just be careful of an invasion at Hokkaido![;)]


I am aware of the possibility (and had it happen to me with Greyjoy) but why do you say that specifically here?



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 5:40:08 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader


quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Just be careful of an invasion at Hokkaido![;)]


I am aware of the possibility (and had it happen to me with Greyjoy) but why do you say that specifically here?


His AAR got me interested in this game. No other reason than that. But where are his fighters if not with his bombers?[&:]



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 6:16:31 PM)

quote:



But where are his fighters if not with his bombers?[&:]


Well, there are over 500 Allied fighters in India plus over 300 I know of in SoPac, so that's ~800. And there seem to be tons of US troops in India because he (correctly) guessed I was planning to invade there after toppling China. And there are some US land units in Australia for sure.

But I do agree that there are a lot of US forces unaccounted for, which is why I am very concerned about a sudden dash into Hokkaido, the Kuriles, or even Honshu. On the other hand, they could be mostly in India in which case he might try an amphibious invasion of the Burma coast, Andamans, or Sumatra. Or might come from Australia through Arafura, or across to the Bonins/Marianas. Tough to tell which way he might go.

I don't think he's driving very hard toward Rabaul, so that's just a pinning operation and he'll probably eventually just try to isolate Rabaul. But holding him there suits my purposes for now, so I guess I will just sit tight while trying not to overcommit there. It's kind of like having a wolf by the ears. I don't like it but can't let go.



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 6:18:16 PM)

How many operational land-based fighters should the Allies have in front line units in May 1943?



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 6:39:07 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

How many operational land-based fighters should the Allies have in front line units in May 1943?


I don't know since the computer always gives up before then. [:D]

But there is a way to supersize some RAF land based air squadrons.[:-]



tolsdorff -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 6:51:35 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe


I don't know since the computer always gives up before then. [:D]

But there is a way to supersize some RAF land based air squadrons.[:-]


gamey tactics against a computer are for the kindergarten, if that is your thing.

Rader is a bit more up in capability and talent



RangerJoe -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:30:35 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tolsdorff


quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe


I don't know since the computer always gives up before then. [:D]

But there is a way to supersize some RAF land based air squadrons.[:-]


gamey tactics against a computer are for the kindergarten, if that is your thing.

Rader is a bit more up in capability and talent


I am not stating that I do it against the AI but in a game with no HR against it, I am sure that the Japanese will supersize some if not all of their air units even if it is just for training purposes. But if you are playing against a human who does so, then you can do so as well although the RAF is much more limited in the number of airplanes received.



PaxMondo -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:36:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

How many operational land-based fighters should the Allies have in front line units in May 1943?


The answer will depend upon what the losses have been to date. PDU On in this game, correct? Post the losses and I will see if I can calc it out for you.



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:45:09 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

How many operational land-based fighters should the Allies have in front line units in May 1943?


The answer will depend upon what the losses have been to date. PDU On in this game, correct? Post the losses and I will see if I can calc it out for you.


PUD on. Here's the Allied fighter losses so far, but wouldn't it be easier to calculate from the air groups? We've both been fairly conservative so I doubt he's running low on fighter pools.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/8DBB8A2F45574616A661B9EC20C03E20.jpg[/image]



GetAssista -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:45:58 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
quote:

ORIGINAL: rader

How many operational land-based fighters should the Allies have in front line units in May 1943?


The answer will depend upon what the losses have been to date. PDU On in this game, correct? Post the losses and I will see if I can calc it out for you.


Maybe you can teach the man to fish instead of giving him a fish? [:)]
Info about monthly production levels is there in the scenario, as well as reinforcement queue of the air groups. I suppose Tracker accumulates all this too. I don't think it is gamey to look into the scenario start to see all this data as the opposite side. A seasoned player would have gone through each side OOB multiple times anyway. Minus the accumulated losses, which are subject to FOW but the deviation from truth is not critical in this case.


quote:

ORIGINAL: rader
PUD on. Here's the Allied fighter losses so far, but wouldn't it be easier to calculate from the air groups? We've both been fairly conservative so I doubt he's running low on fighter pools.


It would still come to the numbers of the most modern fighters in the pools. With PDU on you opponent would probably want the best models flying on the frontlines, not sitting in reserves



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:46:52 PM)

And here's the Japanese fighter losses for comparison. They're higher but I do think compared to most games I'm making a serious effort to fight over my own territory so my pilot losses have been comparatively light.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/7C031BC7613846489E2523ED1FBDA001.jpg[/image]



rader -> RE: Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!) (12/23/2020 10:48:27 PM)

May the fourth be with you!

In Burma, the lightnings decided to sweep Prome today and met some Georges. Losses were close to equal but Allied pilot losses should be higher since this was above a Japanese airfield.

[image]local://upfiles/14041/76898979FE3346C6A95791BFDEF532E0.jpg[/image]



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