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The ridiculous Naval vs Bomber model


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Anybody besides me notice how unrealistic this model is as it exists in SC?

OK, I can rationalize that a cruiser or destroyer force can bombard the airfields and cause losses, night bombardment most likely, right? But when bombers tend to return the favor they are met with abnormally high "operational" losses and rarely gain a "hit".

Come on, Bill...Hubert, really??? I can warm up to the model being modified by a campaign creator, but please, give us the naval warfare upgrade to bombers, so that at least bombers can get some pay back.

Do you want me to cite the many times "bombers" of all classes were used in the naval attack mode in WW2?

Just give us the option. I can swallow a lot of miss possibilities, but the operational losses are well overstated.

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Hi SeaMonkey

High level bombers were largely ineffective against naval vessels in WW2 at sea. At the time the various US strike units operating out of Midway claimed a significant number of hits against the Japanese TF's approaching the island. In reality they achieved very little. The damage to naval units was typically done by dive bombers and torpedo equipped aircraft both of which had to attack at low level. High level bombers did have some success against slow moving convoys and static warships such as those at Pearl Harbor. Even in this latter case the number of hits achieved by the Kates equipped with modified 16" shells was quite a low percentage.

If you read accounts of the Japanese attack on POW and Repulse you will see that it was the torpedo bombers that caused the real damage. For example the first wave of 8 x Nells armed with ordinary bombs achieved one hit that did trivial damage whilst 5 of their own number were hit by AA fire although not actually downed.

The next wave of 17 Nells armed with torpedoes achieved only one hit but it was a devastating one that crippled the POW's ability to maintain speed, knocked out a significant amount of AA due to the list and electric failures and reduced her ability to manoeuvre. Thereafter subsequent torpedo attacks sank both ships and the Japanese only had 3 or 4 aircraft actually downed although a number were damaged.

In my own scenario adaptations I tend to treat the Japanese bombers differently to those of the Allies. First they had very much longer ranges, second they carried relatively small bomb loads and third the naval bombers were equipped and trained to carry torpedoes.

In the case of the Allies I give bomber units relatively low capability against shipping but do give TAC Bombers higher values as these are equivalent to dive bombers such as the Dauntless (which sank more Axis shipping than any other aircraft type) and various types of torpedo carrying aircraft. The heavy bombers deployed by the Allies were virtually useless against warships except in situations like the Tirpitz when they were immobile in ports.

Regards

Mike

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Hi SeaMonkey

I think you may be thinking too literally about an individual aircraft operation rather than the deployment that occurs in SC GC. In the standard game the time period elapsed between turns is 4 weeks in the summer and longer in the winter. If you assign a bomber unit to be attacking ships during that period then you have to consider that they will notionally undertake a number of actual sorties. As standard bombers are virtually useless against naval ships they will put themselves at risk several times but will achieve very little. The risks are not just combat related because some equipment malfunctions will result in the loss of planes. In 1942 the US Douglas A 20 Havoc bombers based in the continental USA were averaging 1 accident for every 500 flying hours with 40% of accidents resulting in total loss of the aircraft but this would be worse for deployments over water.

Perhaps you might like to give examples of the attrition rates that you consider unreasonable when deploying bombers against ships.

Regards

Mike

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A rational explanation, I can see your point. So for my average of 2 to 3 strength loss steps for each attack, I normally see (this is without an intercept) 40 to 60 % losses for the one turn time period, equating to 100 to 150 MPPs for the non upgraded bomber unit.

Now, anyone tell me, and be convincing, offer rationale, critical thinking, that this is indicative of reality?

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How about some "literal" offensive thinking for bomber upgrades for naval attack, anyone?

Would we consider weapon systems delivered by PBYs, Do 217, He 177, B 24, the aforementioned "Bettys" as bomber type attacks? Read up gang, remember this is a WW2 setting and we're talking tech upgrades, the key word here is "guided" munitions.

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A rational explanation, I can see your point. So for my average of 2 to 3 strength loss steps for each attack, I normally see (this is without an intercept) 40 to 60 % losses for the one turn time period, equating to 100 to 150 MPPs for the non upgraded bomber unit.

Now, anyone tell me, and be convincing, offer rationale, critical thinking, that this is indicative of reality?

Hi SeaMonkey

Perhaps the problem is that the ship's Naval Defence values are too high, rather than the ineffectiveness of the Strategic Bombers themselves?

Therefore if we could lower the bomber casualties things might not seem so skewed against the bomber, as I agree with Mike in that this type of bomber wasn't on the whole very good against shipping.

How does that sound?

Bill

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I think this is a good idea but the only problem I can potentially see is that the naval unit defense value against either a Strategic Bomber, Tactical Bomber, or Carrier in Naval/Tactical mode is the 'BD' (Bomber Defense) value.

So if we lower the 'BD' value then it might be too low for all the other potential attacks.

Ideally we'd have a separate defensive category in order to differentiate between attacks initiated by Strategic Bombers and Tactical Bombers and that might help the most to alleviate the results seen when a Strategic Bomber attacks a naval target.

Something for us to consider for SC3 I think :)

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Hi SeaMonkey

Going back to your earlier post about guided munitions I presume you are talking about the Baka kamikaze system for the Betty and the Fritz X system for the Luftwaffe. I am not sure that the Allies had that type of technology in the timeframe of WW2. The Baka was not actually very effective for the Japanese although the Fritz X did have successes.

I think it would be quite difficult to add that technology to a standard upgrade for a Betty. I tend to use V Rockets to simulate Kamikaze operations for the Japanese and that is the route I would go to simulate the Baka. You can play around with the increments for tech upgrades but Naval Warfare applies to ships as well so you cannot isolate bombers and give them one big increment.

One method I have used where I want a plane with a special ability is to change the characteristics for a minor ally. Thus I generally equip each side with a very long distance plane type for recce purposes. In the case of the UK I use Canada and give them a long range plane (the Sunderland). Japan is a bit more difficult as they do not have minor allies. I modify Thailand so that it is a Japanese ally and it provides the ultra long range Emily bomber (strike at 18 spotting at 12) for use as a recce plane but with relatively low offensive capability and rebuild costs as it was typically deployed as a single plane unlike the masses per unit in UK Bomber Command. For Germany and the Fritz X I cannot use V weapons as they are needed for real so it would need to be a modified minor Ally. That is not too difficult as none of them actually had anything in the way of Heavy Bombers.

Regards

Mike

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Hey Mike, to continue the discussion, according to my sources the US was the first nation to deploy guided munitions, the Mark 24 Mine. Actually a homing torpedo dropped from a Liberator bomber and said to be responsible for the demise of about a dozen uboats. Another weapon by the US known as the "Bat" was an anti-ship missile dropped from a PBY which used its special radar to home the ordinance into the target.

You mentioned the Fritz, the USAAF developed a similar munition, codenamed AZON, that also scored accurate hits on a number of targets. Funny, that the German devised Henschel 293 glider bomb was the first "guided" ordinance to be credited with sinking a ship, the "Egret, a RN sloop off northern Spain.

Anyway, I could go on with others, but you see there is an historical premise for including the tech upgrade into the game. I mean we do have things like jets and missiles, not to mention rail guns.

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Hi SeaMonkey

The standard game tech tree does not really cope very well with step change enhancements. Thus you can progress a German fighter through various marks of Me109 and FW190 but when you get to the Me262 you cannot really carry on incrementing the capability by 1 as it should be a much bigger jump. I have played around with adjusting the German Tech Tree so that air warfare can go up to 5 whilst the Allies only go to 4 but Me 262 should really be a different weapon system altogether. I try to emulate the Me 262 by allowing the Axis to get one or two experience 5 strength 5 fighters by means of events in mid 1944 but it is not ideal.

There is a similar problem with BBs. It should not really be possible to enhance for example the Oklahoma so that it becomes an Iowa class. It can be dealt with slightly more elegantly and with greater historical accuracy because of the long historical build time for BBs. Thus a typical WW2 era BB would take at least 4 years from order to commissioning. I allow the US and Japan to have Naval Warfare level 3 immediately but make the cost of upgrading a ship so high that in practice it is not worthwhile to upgrade existing BBs. I either place the historic Yamato's or Iowa's in the build queue with tech level 3 or have them arrive by means of events. I have to tune the % repair and rebuild costs because the very high tech upgrade charge would be a factor in those. By this means I can have the USN operate its historical mix of old and new battleships without having to assign some of them to Mexico or some other minor ally.

I was not aware of the AZON ever being used as an anti-shipping weapon and the Bat I think was pretty late war effort whilst the Germans deployed their anti-ship missiles with some good results in 1944. It is interesting to consider what impact those might have had in the Mediterranean if, for example, they had been available in 1941 or 1942 or in the Pacific if the Germans had given the technology to the IJN.

I think there were a number of circling devices and of course the Germans originally introduced the magnetic mine but I do not think these were potential game changers like kamikaze or Fritz X but rather a progression on existing technology. The Germans actually developed the technology for missiles (V1 and V2) to be launched from submarines with the intention of attacking New York but it was too late as US patrol aircraft dominated all the approaches. Again it would be difficult to match this real historic capability into the SC GC sub tech tree. If you wanted to try to match the true German capability it would have to be by giving V weapons a tech upgrade to ICBM style range but that would inhibit allowing lesser tech upgrades and stop the actual defence the US effectively deployed against encroaching submarines although I do not think they were aware of the submarine launched missile threat.

All in all I think there are ways to provide historic capabilities but some of them are less elegant than others. Having the two unused research slots made available for those units, such as subs and fighters, that do not already have 3 types of upgrade could be a way forward.

Regards

Mike

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The German guided weapons were singularly ineffective. They had a (very) brief window of opportunity in which they achieved a couple of spectacular successes (Roma, Warspite, Savannah, and that's about it), but after that the Allies developed cheap and very successful countermeasures and the air-launched guided weapons were largely worthless. In game terms, this is the equivalent of an existing bomber (or, rather, tac air) with moderate tech levels executing a single attack that is effectively an outlier - something that is possible, but unlikely. This is already in the game, so there is no real need to explicitly model guided weapons.

Remember, guys, that SC is a strategic/grand-strategic game. At that level you, as a commander, should be thinking about overall capabilities rather than weapon characteristics.

Therefore, I think of the different types of air units (and naval units) as representing focussed capability, rather than specific airframes. Thus, I assume that there are Ju-88s (and the Mosquito) present in bomber units and fighter units and tac air units. At a micro level, I imagine that any given fighter unit consists of a wide mix of day fighter types, long range fighter types, night fighter types, and all the other gubbins that goes towards creating air-superiority. Similarly an RAF 'bomber' unit consist of Lancasters and Wellingtons and Mosquitos, and Spitfires, and Halifaxes, and Bostons, and Typhoons, and all the other paraphernalia that goes towards attacking 'strategic' targets. A 'tac air' unit contains Mitchells and Bostons, and Mosquitos, and Typhoons and Hurricanes, and P-40s, and Spitfires, and Mustangs, and - to a degree - Lancasters and Halifaxes and whatnot, which are good at attacking ground combat units and ships. I don't really care specifically what airframe they use, or what weapons they drop, I just care that they are "good" or "better" at their designated role.

Air units of all types also consist of the ground crews, the command and control organisation, intelligence agencies, associated log spt, etc. That is, they're NOT just the airframes and pilots.

The units are capabilities, and exactly what model of aircraft they consist of, or what bombs they drop, is immaterial. To me tech upgrades are not the difference between a unit that is comprised solely of Hurricane Mk.I or Spitfire Mk.21 or Meteor F.1 (which would in a lot of ways, like the 262, be a step backwards in terms of capability). Improved tech represents that the unit is 'better' at whatever its core capability is. Being 'better' could be due to better aircraft, or it could equally be the same mix pf airframes as before but with better training, or command and control. Or maybe just better log support - such as using trucks instead of horses.

The way that improved tech is indicated in the game - flasher looking and sounding planes - I think creates some confusion, as if it's all just about better airframes. At the level of SC it's not.

Exactly the same applies to naval units, of course. So called "Battleships" are fleets that are organised with the intention of fighting other ships and supporting amphib invasions. The actual hulls are immaterial, and the tech tree represents them getting better at their role - it's not the difference between the USS Texas and the USS Iowa, it is better training, better ammunition, better radar, integral (but abstracted) carrier support, better fleet management, better fleet tactics, better damage control, refits of weapons. And, yes, sometimes it's newer and intrinsically more capable hulls.

"Carrier" units are basically the same as "Battleships" except that they carry out their offensive and defensive role with aircraft, rather than guns. The role of the so-called "Destroyers" is primarily defensive, with a focus on maintaining maritime trade (and thus geared towards combating subs), but the actual hulls can be abstractly thought of as including cruisers, carriers (and the addition of jeep carriers to the escort fleets can be considered to be represented by one of the tech upgrades), battleships, as well as destroyers, destroyer escorts, trawlers, and other small ships.

Again, I think the way that improved tech is indicated in the game - calling fleets things like "USS Washington" - creates some confusion, as the unit represents a single hull. I think calling naval units more abstract things like "TF 74" would be better, since it encapsulates the idea of a wide range of hulls that have been brought together to create a specific kind of capability, and that's the level that you should be thinking at when you're playing SC.

FWIW, IMO, etc.

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Exactly how I have always envisioned the various units in SC, a conglomeration of different platforms joined together to perform certain missions. The tech upgrades are more representative of a greater leaning towards a combined arm approach as you add capabilities to the units.

So...my original point, bombers being used through an expansion of capability to better initiate the naval attack. In the beginning success is fleeting, but as the training, doctrine, platforms improve so does the success rate. Be that as it may, but the losses now sustained by bombers at any tech level in the naval attack role is totally ludicrous.

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No, you've completely missed my point; the Heavy Bomber (capitalised) capability never got good at hitting naval targets at sea, even though heavy bombers (lower case) were sometimes able to hit ships.

Let me put that another way; in 1944 turning RAF Bomber Command (BC) or the USAAF 8th or 15th Airforces, with all their B-24s and B-17s and Lancasters and Halifaxes and Mosquitos and Mustangs and P47s and Lightnings, loose on maneauvering ships would have been a waste of time. They simply weren't organised, trained, equipped, or set up to deal with that kind of target. But RAF Coastal Command (CC) or the USAAF 5th and 7th Airforces, with by and large the same kinds of aircraft, could. Similarly, 5th Airforce would have been largely useless over the Ruhr. Same aircraft, different outcome.

In SC terms, then, 8th AF, 15th AF, and BC are "Bombers", while CC, 5th and 7th AF are "Tac Air" with some naval warfare tech upgrades.

If you want planes to shoot up ships; buy that capability as a tac air unit.

If you want planes to shoot up cites; buy that capability as a bomber unit.

But don't buy one capability and expect it to be able to do the other's job. If that were the case you might as well bin the three distinct plane types, and just have one generic "Plane" unit, and make it magically good at everything with every tech upgrade available.

If you find that you've bought yourself 8th Airforce (bomber) when what you really want is 5th Airforce (tac air with naval warfare), well, you can either suck it up, or do what the game allows you to do; sell the bomber unit at a huge loss, and buy a tac air unit. The loss of points and the time taken to build the new unit reflects the gross inefficiency in trying to turn Arthur into Martha, and the time it takes to train an entire airforce in a completely different doctrinal role.

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Hi JonS

I do of course realise that a BB unit actually represents a Task Force rather than a single ship. In the scenarios I create for my own enjoyment I have done the work of allocating every ship of DD size and above that existed in 1942 or later to a specific naval unit. My BB units comprise of the order of 80,000 to 90,000 tons of shipping and contain at least one ship with gun calibre of 14" or more and at least 6 x DD units to give it a defence versus submarines. After that I try to group ships together that have a similar performance. Thus I would not assign Pennsylvania to the same TF as South Dakota because the speed characteristics are dissimilar. The nature of the ships within the TF will determine what level of naval warfare and what strength and experience I assign to the unit. Thus Iowa would be the only BB in its own TF but would be augmented with cruisers up to the necessary tonnage its TF would have naval tech 3 with strength 12. Pennsylvania would be in a TF with another similar BB and have naval tech 0 or 1 and typically strength 10. It is extremely expensive in my scenarios to upgrade naval tech so a player might choose to upgrade Pennsylvania once which might reflect addition of improved radar etc but it would not be cost effective to upgrade 3 times. This reflects the fact that no matter how much training or bolt on goodies you give a Pennsylvania it still only has 14" guns and cannot exceed 21 knots. I also look at the different characteristics of individual countries BBs and adjust accordingly. Thus Italian BBs were typically fast and their doctrine tended to be risk averse so I give them a higher evasion factor but less hitting power to reflect the likelihood of their withdrawing from an engagement before they suffer much damage.

Turning to aircraft I think it is hard to simulate the deployment of kamikaze by use of the tech tree. If you compare the outcome for the Japanese air attacks during the Battle of the Phillipine Sea and the battles around Okinawa there is no way that a gradual progression in air capability can handle that. Also a tech advance would require you to spend money to upgrade the unit but in fact kamikaze was a relatively cheap option as they used pilots with minimal training and aircraft that were becoming obsolete in terms of performance. Thus kamikaze does need to use a different unit type.

Having checked back on Fritz X I see it was actually deployed in 1943 rather than 1944 and it took the Allies about 6 months to develop fully effective radio jamming counter measures. It was of course deployed at a time when the Allies enjoyed substantial air superiority and were on the offensive so in a position to retrieve samples from crashed or captured units. If Fritz X had been ready to be deployed against the Malta Convoys in 1941 or 1942 it could have had a very major impact on the progress of the war and, like the kamikaze, represented a potential step change increase in the likelihood of achieving a hit. I have not tried to implement Fritz X in any of my scenarios yet but, if I did, it would probably have to be given to a German minor ally as I already use all the units available to Germany.

Regards

Mike

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You said it JonS, "weren't organized, trained, or equipped", doesn't mean they couldn't have been, the capability was present. Yes, the powers that be decided that there was a better platform for the role.

Problem is in SC, no stacking = limited deployment options, especially islands where in real life fighters, TAC, and bombers, as well as recon elements were all deployed on multiple airfields. IE. an island group had all the air elements. The only way to accomplish that reality, coupled with the "what if" aspects of SC is give the units multiple capabilities, the ability for the the player to customize his military strategy.

You can still have differences of specializing, but there should be an overlap of one specie to the other displaying characteristics of all in different degrees of effectiveness. Isn't that kind of how "nature" works?:cool:

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Hi SeaMonkey

You can of course use the editor to change the combat values for various air units, however, only fighters can intercept and only bombers can interdict convoy routes. Thus you have to choose what the fundamental type of the unit is but within that you can give units some enhanced capabilities. If you are really desperate to have the ability to deploy extra aircraft you can always give a minor ally some rather weak CVE units but with instant and cheap rebuilds for the hull and park them near the island where you want to have multiple aircraft types.

Regards

Mike

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An unattractive alternative at the best Mike, but I like your thinking "outside the box", unlike Mr. JonS' rigidity.

Actually, I'm quite fine with the results delivered by SC bombers, it's the losses they sustain when they attack naval targets that borders on pure fantasy. The conversation escalated as I had hoped to include some possibilities for SC3 and expanding the features for future campaign designers, that was my secondary agenda. So we can lock this thread up unless someone has additional WW2 hypotheses in this arena.

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You said it JonS, "weren't organized, trained, or equipped", doesn't mean they couldn't have been, the capability was present.

No, the capability wasn't present. A military capability consists of training, C2, doctrine, equipment, organisation, and a bunch of other things. You can't just wave your hand and say "oh, well, they had B-24s so the same crews can bomb Berlin and the Bismark too."

Problem is in SC, no stacking = limited deployment options, especially islands where in real life fighters, TAC, and bombers, as well as recon elements were all deployed on multiple airfields. IE. an island group had all the air elements. The only way to accomplish that reality, coupled with the "what if" aspects of SC is give the units multiple capabilities, the ability for the the player to customize his military strategy.

Oh boohoo. You have to deal with an abstraction and make a choice that has consequences.

If you want to make consequence-free decisions - have a single unit that can do everything - be honest and just say so.

That'd be a boring game though - you'd only need three types of unit; an air unit that can do everything, a naval unit that can do everything, and a ground unit that can parachute with it's tanks after making an artillery strike. *yawn*

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