Slitherine

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What these two quotes tell me ....tactics, training and teamwork matter much more than the actual weapon system.

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But I would really like to know (and might I add - innocentently) JUST HOW IN BE-JUSES are the Kaga Akagi Soryu and Hiryu airgroups rated at 90, as opposed to Shokaku and everyone elses rated at 80 and lower? -
I really am at a loss to understand how that is justified. And YES I think that has a huge impact on the game.

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Side note: Almost Every post deals with th Scen 15/16 1941 - 1943 campaigns in progress, because that seems to deal wit the period in the war that everyones' most interested in.

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I think WE would ALL have more enjoyment if the early allies weren't so hopeless in competing with the the Japanese on an individual scale.

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Conversely, if the Japanese had the possability of doing well early - AND maintaing their supply lines so they could have somewhat decent pilots later (because they never had a resource shortage, and therefore could train pilots properly) - a lot more of us might be interested in playing the later war scenarios as well.

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ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

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ORIGINAL: mlees

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And comparing PzVIE to Sherman is, well, ridiculous... we did it several times in WitP forum history and you were the only man who wanted us all to acknowledge something that is historically wrong (it's like comparing apples and oranges)...

Correct, I think. The true value judgment placed on a weapon system should be restricted to "How well did the system perform for the role it was designed to fill?"

Anything else, like how that weapon was actually used, or whether or not that weapon design reflected the actual needs of the theatre is more of a leadership and planning question.

Comparing a sherman to a tiger is apples to apples.

Some of you are answering the question like there are no other variables besides two tanks, one at each end of a football field and deciding which one will destroy the other. Don't forget to take into account things like: how many can you produce with the same materials and manpower. How many can you get to the field with the same transport. can you field repair them when they get damaged. Will they break down easily.

Sure, if you're the guy in the turret, you want a tiger. If you're the supreme commander, you want the 10 shermans that can be fielded with the same effort that you can field 1 tiger.

Ask yourself this question: Would you rather have one Yamato or two Iowas? It's the same question about whether you want a Tiger or a sherman. You just have to take into account how many shermans you get for the price of a tiger.

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ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

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But I would really like to know (and might I add - innocentently) JUST HOW IN BE-JUSES are the Kaga Akagi Soryu and Hiryu airgroups rated at 90, as opposed to Shokaku and everyone elses rated at 80 and lower? -
I really am at a loss to understand how that is justified. And YES I think that has a huge impact on the game.

The average Japanese pilot had a great deal more flight time at the beginning of the war and many had combat experience in China. At Pearl Harbor the average Japanese pilot had 600-800 flight hours with nearly all flight leaders having more than 2000 hours. The Japanese also tended to keep their pilots together in a unit rather than rotate them around as was American practise so their coordination was excellent. Shokaku is rated lower as she was brand new, commisioned in Aug 1941 and Zuikaku was even newer, commisioned in October 1941.

The average American carrier pilot had less than 300 hours at the time. It could be argued that American experience may actually be a little too high but I wouldn't have a clue what a representative number would be. However there are plenty of examples of inexperienced American pilots being added to US airwings en masse early in the war. If you read some of the unit histories, you get an idea of just how new to the fleet many were. One example would be VT-8 at Midway. When George Gay flew off Hornet with the rest of his squadron, it was the first time he had every flown from a ship with a torpedo loaded. Four other pilots were the same way. Yorktown had to replace a third of her pilots who were killed or wounded at Coral Sea. Also consider that the Lexington was still flying F2Fs at the start of the war. Their experience in the Wildcat was nil.

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Side note: Almost Every post deals with th Scen 15/16 1941 - 1943 campaigns in progress, because that seems to deal wit the period in the war that everyones' most interested in.

I don't about "most interested" but that's where nearly all the scenarios start and I think most players want to experience the entire campaign. Playing only a late war scenario certainly wouldn't be much fun for the Japanese!

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I think WE would ALL have more enjoyment if the early allies weren't so hopeless in competing with the the Japanese on an individual scale.

Sure, but then it wouldn't be based on historical reality which is where, IMHO, scenarios should start.

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Conversely, if the Japanese had the possability of doing well early - AND maintaing their supply lines so they could have somewhat decent pilots later (because they never had a resource shortage, and therefore could train pilots properly) - a lot more of us might be interested in playing the later war scenarios as well.

Now that I completely agree with.

Chez

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

Living in OLD EUROPE (thatīs a term only an American president can come up with) people here are always confrontated by the American thought that all and everything in America was and is the best. Iīm sure thatīs not the way every American thinks but isnīt that the opinion of the majority? Most people here think that in the US there has to be a process started to change the way of common thinking. No matter if itīs about the change in climate (Kyoto), terrorism, or rogue states (itīs called "Schurkenstaaten" here, no clue what you call it in English),...

No offense so I hope people donīt get me wrong. Iīve got no problem with the US or the people over there! Iīve been there for holiday, I use American products and watch American films (okay, the films would be another thread about the way of sight ) So Iīm not an anti America extremist. NOT AT ALL! But it seems to me that "American" and "overrated" just goes hand in hand.

Okay, now you all can beat me up!

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ORIGINAL: 11Bravo

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

Living in OLD EUROPE (thatīs a term only an American president can come up with) people here are always confrontated by the American thought that all and everything in America was and is the best. Iīm sure thatīs not the way every American thinks but isnīt that the opinion of the majority? Most people here think that in the US there has to be a process started to change the way of common thinking. No matter if itīs about the change in climate (Kyoto), terrorism, or rogue states (itīs called "Schurkenstaaten" here, no clue what you call it in English),...

No offense so I hope people donīt get me wrong. Iīve got no problem with the US or the people over there! Iīve been there for holiday, I use American products and watch American films (okay, the films would be another thread about the way of sight ) So Iīm not an anti America extremist. NOT AT ALL! But it seems to me that "American" and "overrated" just goes hand in hand.

Okay, now you all can beat me up!

Like an Anschluss?

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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso


Listen, guys - this is starting to get ugly.

Let's cool it, ok??

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ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Heated is better than dull. Its about time we moved onto the f4f v. zero debate anyway.

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The average Japanese pilot had a great deal more flight time at the beginning of the war and many had combat experience in China. At Pearl Harbor the average Japanese pilot had 600-800 flight hours with nearly all flight leaders having more than 2000 hours. The Japanese also tended to keep their pilots together in a unit rather than rotate them around as was American practise so their coordination was excellent. Shokaku is rated lower as she was brand new, commisioned in Aug 1941 and Zuikaku was even newer, commisioned in October 1941.

The average American carrier pilot had less than 300 hours at the time. It could be argued that American experience may actually be a little too high but I wouldn't have a clue what a representative number would be. However there are plenty of examples of inexperienced American pilots being added to US airwings en masse early in the war. If you read some of the unit histories, you get an idea of just how new to the fleet many were. One example would be VT-8 at Midway. When George Gay flew off Hornet with the rest of his squadron, it was the first time he had every flown from a ship with a torpedo loaded. Four other pilots were the same way. Yorktown had to replace a third of her pilots who were killed or wounded at Coral Sea. Also consider that the Lexington was still flying F2Fs at the start of the war. Their experience in the Wildcat was nil.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

If the zero was a superior plane, and the Japanese pilots were superior pilots, then "How is it that in the 4 1942 US CV vs IJN CV battles, when F4Fs directly engaged A6Ms, they consistently acquitted themselves better?"

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

This doesn't really address the question of fighter vs. fighter and the relative losses: it talks about fighter vs. bombers, and whether bombers got through.

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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Yes, I understand that they had more hours flight time in their units. But rating them at 90 experience allows them to be (IMO) far more potent than they were in real life - if they were that good ITRW the Japanese would have won the war in 1942. - it's a question of a mix of historical accuracy and game play. The Americans did face the Japanese in numerous carrier battles in 1942 - and came off better in virtually each one. With the current levels of ratings if the US player tried this -he'd lose everyone very badly.

A better solution to show their experience would be to downgrade everyone else to 70 and leave them at around 80. at least at those levels players could compete.

Also if I recall, by 1944-5 US pilots were coming in with 2000 hours flight time - do they come in rated at 90 experience?.

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Yes... but what is the role of fighter?

Fighter role wasn't just to fight other fighters... we have to objective look at "whole package" and not just singe aspect of Air-2-Air warfare (i.e. fighter vs. fighter)...

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ORIGINAL: Big B

Oh for Pete's sake!
We aren't going to try to spin that some how the Japs bested America at Midway??!!

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ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

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Yes, I understand that they had more hours flight time in their units. But rating them at 90 experience allows them to be (IMO) far more potent than they were in real life - if they were that good ITRW the Japanese would have won the war in 1942. - it's a question of a mix of historical accuracy and game play. The Americans did face the Japanese in numerous carrier battles in 1942 - and came off better in virtually each one. With the current levels of ratings if the US player tried this -he'd lose everyone very badly.

A better solution to show their experience would be to downgrade everyone else to 70 and leave them at around 80. at least at those levels players could compete.

Also if I recall, by 1944-5 US pilots were coming in with 2000 hours flight time - do they come in rated at 90 experience?.

They were very good in the beginning. What rating they should truely have is anybody's guess but they should be started a fair bit higher than most of the alllied air units.

And don't forget, most of the Japanese carrier pilots had been in near continuous combat since the beginning. They were probably quite fatigued. Then came Coral Sea and Midway where many were killed. What ones survived these battles died over the jungles of the Solomons and New Guinea. The replacements at this time were still good, but had little combat experience whereas American experience was growing fast. But realistically, which pilot is more experienced? The one with 500 hours of flight training or the one with 500 hours of training and combat?

And reducing experience is fine if all you want is a balanced game. What I want is a historically accurate game to the greatest extent possible. Ask yourself this question: Why do so many more players want to play as allies rather than the Japanese?

BTW, Do you know how long it takes to get to 2000 hours? Most Allied fighter pilots finished the war with far less than 2000 hours. A typical flight in a fighter lasted less than 2-3 hours. That would be 1 flight a day for almost 3 years. Outside of those areas where air attack was possible, the pilots just didn't fly that much. In a combat zone, they flew mostly 2 hour CAP. And as CAP was rotated among the carriers in a TF, a pillot might not fly for days. I have nearly 9000 hours in P-3 Orions and that took almost 26 years to get and that was flying 10-12 hour anti-submarine patrols.

Chez

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ORIGINAL: Big B

Yes The Zeroes did such a superior job at Midway - the Japs only lost ALL their Carriers! Bravo!!!

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE

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#1
Did Zero fighters did well doing CAP over KB (i.e. were they killing US attackers who come wave after wave)?

IMHO yes - they did very good job (together with IJN AA which was also rather good). What caused IJN demise at Midway was no fault of Zero CAP - it was lack of radar and combat confusion and bad organization of Japanese side.

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ORIGINAL: Big B

...As is, the Americans will always loose to the Japanese in a recreated carrier battle in 1942...

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ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

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ORIGINAL: Big B

Yes The Zeroes did such a superior job at Midway - the Japs only lost ALL their Carriers! Bravo!!!

Midway was just a "fluke" or "bad luck" or "good luck" or "God's hand" (or whatever you want to call it)...

Zero performance was excellent and has nothing to do with why Japanese carriers were sunk (in fact until those unnoticed dive bombers showed on scene and changed tide of war the Japanese were in good situation)!


Leo "Apollo11"

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ORIGINAL: Brausepaul

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ORIGINAL: Big B

...As is, the Americans will always loose to the Japanese in a recreated carrier battle in 1942...

That's why Midway is such a famous battle...

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ORIGINAL: Brausepaul

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ORIGINAL: Big B

...As is, the Americans will always loose to the Japanese in a recreated carrier battle in 1942...

That's why Midway is such a famous battle...