Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti?

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Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 4:45:01 AM

GeneralDad

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Can P-38 J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti from the east coast of southern Italy?

With Naples in hand and the Foggia area mine it is time for me to start re-basing the 15th Air Force. If I can reach Ploesti escorted by fighters then I may give a try to knocking out that heavy fuel producing region. Britain has the P51's, so 15th Air Force has gotten P-38s, before I re-base it would help to know what they can hit when they get there. The LW seems to take a beating anywhere I can escort the bombers - so I am wanting to try targets further away if I can keep the fighters with the bombers.

GeneralDad

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 7:40:23 AM

loki100

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pretty sure the answer is yes, if not fully over the target then close to it (just make sure you have the default partial escort option ticked). This will be safe vs the AI but wouldn't risk it PBEM as many Axis players will put quite a strong force there (using their less useful fighters).

There is a catch, if you push the P-38s to the end of their range they really build up fatigue badly. So you'll tend to find they can only escort over these distances say 1 turn in 2 or, at best, 2 in 3. It might be worth moving some P-51s to the Med to give you that option - when you don't need them for long range escorts they can always fly AS missions in Italy - there are some tough, but hard to replace, Italian FB formations and it does no harm to directly engage them.

The other catch is I think 15 Air has 3 disparate clusters of targets. The rail net in Italy, some locations in S Germany and Austria (bit dependent on your wider bombing strategy) and Ploesti et al. But I tend to find you have to concentrate on one or the other to really get the results you want. If you are still actively fighting in Italy then the rail net may pay the biggest return, if you are happy to sit back and count your VPs (a valid approach once you have Rome), then the two other groups of targets can be the priority.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 3:10:27 PM

cfulbright

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Not quite. Even if you give them the 300 gallon drop tanks, base them in Peschici and use that as the staging base, they come up a hex or two short.

Cary

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 3:12:45 PM

cfulbright

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quote:

The other catch is I think 15 Air has 3 disparate clusters of targets. The rail net in Italy, some locations in S Germany and Austria (bit dependent on your wider bombing strategy) and Ploesti et al. But I tend to find you have to concentrate on one or the other to really get the results you want. If you are still actively fighting in Italy then the rail net may pay the biggest return, if you are happy to sit back and count your VPs (a valid approach once you have Rome), then the two other groups of targets can be the priority.

I tend to focus on bombing fuel and oil with my strategic bombers, so for me the 15th's targets are:

1. Ploesti area
2. Vienna area
3. Blechhammer

You also can go after the M-262 and V-weapon factors around Augsburg/Nuremburg.

Cary

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 4:10:49 PM

loki100

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this is where the game gets interesting

Having played the Axis in a few PBEMs I've become very aware of a few choke points in the production system - especially for replacing losses in the EF box.

Taking out the medium tank and Stug production really hurts as you need a lot of these to keep not just the Pzr divisions but most of the PzGr and AG units up to strength. So any lost production hits you hard in the second phase of the game - usually after your at-start Pzr divisions have become fully engaged in France.

Now does this mean more or less VPs in the end compared to a direct VP strategy (which hitting oil/fuel is)? No firm idea to be honest.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 6:19:34 PM

cfulbright

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quote:

Now does this mean more or less VPs in the end compared to a direct VP strategy (which hitting oil/fuel is)? No firm idea to be honest.

I hit the fuel on the assumption that shortages will hurt the German army, but having played several 1943 campaigns, I'm not sure I've ever seen the Germans run out of fuel, so I guess I might as well hit the AFV targets you suggest!

Cary

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 6:28:24 PM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

quote:

Now does this mean more or less VPs in the end compared to a direct VP strategy (which hitting oil/fuel is)? No firm idea to be honest.

I hit the fuel on the assumption that shortages will hurt the German army, but having played several 1943 campaigns, I'm not sure I've ever seen the Germans run out of fuel, so I guess I might as well hit the AFV targets you suggest!

Cary

aye, thats the problem. You should be undermining the Axis by taking out the fuel but the game system has so much of it that you can't possibly recreate the historical problem - this affects WiTE and is still an issue in WiTE2. So hitting Ploesti is a VP garnering exercise - you may as well do it a few times in Spring 1944 to get those VPs before it falls to the Soviets but my feeling is its a bit of a diversion.

my very rough model is that BC hunts VP targets, 8 AAF does a mix and 15 AAF hits things that directly intersect with on-map operations (and any VP are an accidental bonus).

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 6:40:23 PM

cfulbright

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quote:

You should be undermining the Axis by taking out the fuel but the game system has so much of it that you can't possibly recreate the historical problem - this affects WiTE and is still an issue in WiTE2

So should the Axis Fuel and Oil reserves be reduced in the campaigns?

Cary

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 7:29:38 PM

loki100

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

quote:

You should be undermining the Axis by taking out the fuel but the game system has so much of it that you can't possibly recreate the historical problem - this affects WiTE and is still an issue in WiTE2

So should the Axis Fuel and Oil reserves be reduced in the campaigns?

Cary

I think so, the problem is either that production-usage is out of step or the at start stocks are too high and no amount of damage (or usage) is going to alter that.

Now it maybe a matter of pragmatic design that its a hard parameter to calibrate, it might be hard for the AI to cope with managing a more realistic stock and there are other design approaches that capture the decline of the Axis armed forces towards the end of the game? If so the VP model works - there is an incentive to the Allied player to make an effort aimed at fuel production but it doesn't introduce hard to resolve challenges into the game.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/3/2018 7:35:53 PM

cfulbright

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I've only played as Allies against the AI and I've always captured Berlin long before June 1945, so the VP's don't matter to me. I would prefer to see my strategic bombing focus on fuel and oil actually cripple German industry and the army and Luftwaffe rather than get VP's for the effort. I'm tempted to reduce starting fuel and oil stocks in a mod version of the 1943 campaign, but I'd be making a wild guess at what the appropriate levels are.

Cary

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/4/2018 12:24:20 AM

bomccarthy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Not quite. Even if you give them the 300 gallon drop tanks, base them in Peschici and use that as the staging base, they come up a hex or two short.

Cary

Yes they can - from one base (but I can't remember which), also using that as the staging base. I have found that using that same base, the P-38J reaches just 3-4 hexes short of Ploesti with 150 gal tanks. Against the AI, this is usually good enough, if the raid isn't intercepted en route.

Historical catch: I can't find any accounts of P-38s using 300 gal tanks on combat missions, just for ferrying purposes. However, P-38s did reach Ploesti during the war on shuttle missions (landing in Soviet airbases), even with a small bomb load.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/4/2018 12:32:44 AM

bomccarthy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I've only played as Allies against the AI and I've always captured Berlin long before June 1945, so the VP's don't matter to me. I would prefer to see my strategic bombing focus on fuel and oil actually cripple German industry and the army and Luftwaffe rather than get VP's for the effort. I'm tempted to reduce starting fuel and oil stocks in a mod version of the 1943 campaign, but I'd be making a wild guess at what the appropriate levels are.

Cary

Reading through the scholarship on the industrial production war, it seems that the German petroleum fuel reserves were never really crippled; the transportation bombing campaign prevented the fuel from getting to where it was needed by late 1944 (it just sat in storage near the refineries). The transportation campaign did hurt the synthetic fuel industry, since the synthetic fuel was converted from coal and the shipment of coal was virtually halted by December 1944.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/4/2018 1:44:11 PM

GeneralDad

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Hi All,

Thanks for all the info. Looks like I will pass on Ploesti for now - no sense risking un-escorted bombers unless it will truly harm Axis fuel availability. Almost all of my VP seem to be coming from the air war. The Axis stopped retreating a little north of Naples. They have put up an impressive wall of units, so I need to attack their supply to weaken them or I go nowhere. I am hitting rail yards but I need to figure out or get help on what to bomb in Italy so a to get the Axis retreating again.

GeneralDad

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/4/2018 9:16:32 PM

bomccarthy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: GeneralDad

Hi All,

Thanks for all the info. Looks like I will pass on Ploesti for now - no sense risking un-escorted bombers unless it will truly harm Axis fuel availability. Almost all of my VP seem to be coming from the air war. The Axis stopped retreating a little north of Naples. They have put up an impressive wall of units, so I need to attack their supply to weaken them or I go nowhere. I am hitting rail yards but I need to figure out or get help on what to bomb in Italy so a to get the Axis retreating again.

GeneralDad

In my last game, I had the heavy and medium bombers in both the 15th and Tactical AFs virtually ignore any targets except the railyards in Italy, with ports as a secondary target. I set the radius to 9 hexes and the requested aircraft to 100 US bombers or 60 Lancasters per raid. I then calculated the number of raids per day based on the number available, so that 1/3 - 1/2 of the total available aircraft flew on any day, while giving them at least 2-3 days of rest each turn. I probably could have gone heavier on the number of days, but it worked.

I also kept the raids up even when all of the railyards in a "box" were red - the developers have noted that railyard raids also hit supply (which you can't see). I kept this going throughout my entire campaign in Italy, until I had pushed the German defense line to the Alps by late July 1944. Throughout the campaign, German unit supply status in Italy was in the red and they didn't seem to get much in the way of replacements (because their CV remained low).

As a way of piling on, I also interdicted 2-4 key rail hexes each turn with fighter bombers, using 2 strikes per day every day on each hex, 16 FBs in each strike.

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/5/2018 5:23:01 AM

GeneralDad

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bomccarthy,

Thanks for the advice. I will try adding some interdiction. I have turned nearly every rail yard in the peninsula into rubble, but the Axis still seems well fed. Plus, they have thrown up a WALL of X rated defensive stacks - plus reserves - I get one hex a turn if I am lucky. I am playing the beta version, 43-45 campaign - all I can hope for at the moment is for the weather to clear so I can resume bombing in the north, and that the Axis strength in Italy comes at the expense of France. At least I have Naples.

GeneralDad

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RE: Can J/L Lightnings Reach Ploesti? - 4/6/2018 1:43:33 PM

rjs28023

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Historical catch: I can't find any accounts of P-38s using 300 gal tanks on combat missions, just for ferrying purposes. However, P-38s did reach Ploesti during the war on shuttle missions (landing in Soviet airbases), even with a small bomb load.

A change to the two 300 gallon Ferry Tanks is in the works. You are correct in that combination was never used in combat.

< Message edited by rjs28023 -- 4/6/2018 2:28:28 PM >

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Randy

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