Lemurs!
Posts: 788
Joined: 6/1/2004
Status: offline
|
Pasternakski, 12 came back on a return sortie the next day. 
My point was to show, as other posters noted, that one person says that 'a betty exploded, probably because of unprotected fuel tanks' and it eventually becomes 'betties always explode'.
The Sherman is a great example. The German MkIV is a basic, decent tank to historians. But, the Sherman has a rep as a death trap, people will claim daily that we needed 5 shermans to do anything because 4 would be destroyed etc.
But, in point of fact the sherman was as good or slightly better than the MkIV.
And i would not say that the Americans were more honest either during or after the war as to losses. I find the Americans and the Russians to have been the most dishonest of WW2 while the British were the most honest. The Japanese were middle of the road.
As to Zero losses a number of American written annals of the Canal mention over a period of a week or two the Japanese(by our count) losing a hundred Zeroes, but it didn't help because our intelligence sources listed 100 more flying into Rabaul.
Trist, you seem to have read one book, and that is great because Lundstrom is an above average author. However, many people have read other books giving ideas as fact that are more properly termed exageration or are downright misnomers.
How many people believe that the 250kg bomb was the main bomb used by Japan in an anti ship role during WW2? I mean everyone knows the 800kg was a conversion of a battleship round (was it 14"? or 16"? hmmm....) used only at Pearl don't they?
Actually, the 500kg bomb was widely used and probably about even in number of drops with the 250kg bomb. There was another 800kg bomb used fairly commonly by a few level bombers during the war as well. We 'learn' many things by playing Pacwar and WitP but remember it is just a game.
My point, oh so friendly one, is that we need to really look at things before we decide what is broken, not just rant and rave.
The P39 was the plane that had the lowest per opposed sortie loss rate in the European theater. This is represented in this game by giving it 2 armour and 32 durability which is above the larger, heavier, known to be durable P40.
But, its armour was hardly heavier than any other American aircraft and every Japanese account says the plane was easy to cut in half even with 2 7.7mm Mgs. Hmm... Which is it?
The Americans lost 21 P400s (with the same armour and structure as a P39D) on the Canal in what, a week?
Kind of the same with the Shturmavik. We all 'know' it was the heaviest armoured plane around! But actually its armour, all though all around, was actually very thin compared to the standard plate used on fighters at this time and if you read the design papers on it you find that the bathtub was designed for only one purpose; to keep out shrapnel from light flak bursts.
The plane actually took very heavy losses.
Mike
_____________________________
|
Printable Version
RE: Heavy Bomber Losses - 
But it's not just the B-17s. The Japanese side of the board is equally stretched. Everything's running too fast, assets being piled on top of hexes like nobody's business. It can get to be a farce in no time at all. 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread