Tristanjohn
Posts: 3027
Joined: 5/1/2002
From: Daly City CA USA
Status: offline
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by TIMJOT
[B]Hi,
I agree that Nells and Bettys can be deadly early in the game, but I find they are generally toast once allied AA upgrades kick in and or if there is any CAP protecting the TF. I find that Nells and Bettys will almost always break off Torp attacks if there is CAP. Unless there is overwelming number of escorts. When you say slaughtered shipping do you mean unescorted un-CAP transport TFs or are you refering to surface combat TFs. Are you finding Nells and Bettys holding up against 40mm and 20mm AA? Because I certainly don't find this to be the case.
I do however, think Nells and Bettys should suffer severe penalties for port attacks. Most ports (not all) covered in UV are realistically too small for effective multi-engine torp bomber attacks. I think if each port hex not only modeled functional size but actual geographic size and there were corrosponding penalties you would see the over use of this tactic greatly diminished. I think frequency tends to exagerate preceived effectiveness. [/B][/QUOTE]
Effectiveness of Japanese level bombers varies within my play experience, but even when the results are "modest" by this system's standards they're still too effective to reflect historical results; when they hit the upper limits of UV possibility then "laughable" rears its head.
I keep hearing this refrain of "Yeah, they're a bit too effective early on . . but just wait until Allied flak gears up," or words to that effect. And I'm moved to ask: so what? The point is they're too effective (make that way too effective) to begin the game, and when Allied flak does "gear up" all I'd predict is that this new USN flak prowess would only drop Japanese air power down somewhere closer to what it ought to have been at the start. How does that "correct" anything? Meanwhile, Japanese flak begins the game too effective, subtracting from the USN side of the equation. Not good.
My point's simple enough: Japanese air power in this game is off to a degree that hints at either 1) outright bias on the part of the designers (to make a better, more playable game?), 2) a certain misappreciation of this particular history and/or 3) inability on the part of the development team to get it right (assuming historical awareness on anyone's part to begin with).
As for port hexes: exactly what do you mean when you say "port"? Do you mean Brisbane's harbor, or the roads off Lunga Point that served as Guadacanal's "port" during this campaign?
I haven't bothered to mention this because I cringe when I do so, but if Brisbane is a 9-level port in the UV scale of things then I'd venture to say Noumea would represent something on the order of .1 (that's POINT-ONE for anyone with bad eyesight) in the months of, say, June through August of 1942, Using Brisbane as our benchmark again, at its height Nomea could never have been considered more than a 1-level port. Am I the only one around here to realize that, is it old hat? (I ask because I haven't seen it mentioned, though I admit to not having read one-tenth of a percent of this board's material.)
Anyway, if you're talking about the Lunga Points in the game then in some cases you'd be correct, TIMJOT (in that there wouldn't be a whole lot of room bombers to conduct torpedo runs--that, or reefs, sandbars, foul water in general would stand in the way), in others no. It would just depend on the site in question. We might talk about this more deeply if you want. This game could stand a thorough map study--I've nitpicks in that area, too. :)
By the way, Bettys could drop their torpedo loads from a pretty good height. This wasn't their established doctrine, but the ability was there. (Not in shoal water, of course.)
Getting back to AA and CAP affecting Bettys and Nells: USN flak was already a fairly sophisticated weapons system (speaking on the whole) by the time autumn of 1942 rolled around. As the Navy adopted CIC doctrine, proximity fuzes, radar fire control, better tactical skill manneuvering its TFs with flak protection in mind, plus the addition of more and more AA platforms on its ships, the Japanese not only dropped like flies but began to shy away from this murderous fire in round numbers. (For that matter, study how adroitly Admiral Turner negated Betty attempts to strike his transports off Lunga Point right after the landing, and this without hardly any flak at all and only a few Wildcats overhead as CAP.)
I'm sorry, but this system simply wasn't given enough thought coming in. I suspect that too much has been borrowed for the combat routines of this game's ancestors while not enough new programming was undertaken with an eye to correct the obvious flaws from those earlier titles. (I don't know that, it's just my feeling based on what I've seen of UV and what I know of Grigsby's prior work in this area.)
Thanks for chipping in, TIMJOT. Always a pleasure.
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