an informal poll, if I may......

[JohnDillworth]

If anyone has a second would they kindly go into their information screen and look at aircraft losses. Look at the lost by AA column and compare that number to the total losses. Is that number higher or lower than you expected?

[The Gnome]

IJN Stats as of 7/43:

Total Sorties (and boy I wished the devs liked commas better): 1284141

Air-to-Air: 3194

Airfield: 2328

Flak: 784

Operational: 2524

[TulliusDetritus]

Of course, John [:)]

April 23 1942 (as Allies)

Total losses : 796
Air - Air : 317
Flak : 8 (ONLY 8? [X(])
Ground : 123
Ops : 348

The Japanese AI has lost 558 planes due to flak though [:D]

[Kwik E Mart]

i wonder how many of the op losses are caused by planes not making it home due to damage from flak...or is this even modelled...

[crsutton]

December 15th 1942 and I have shot down about 600 Japanese planes with flak. That said, it is against an aggressive oppoent who uses his bombers at historical levels and frequently. And virtually all AA kills have been with land based flak.
 
However, I am blown away by the absolute impotence of Allied naval flak. I have religiously upgraded every ship expecting dramatic improvments but my results and the results I am reading in Allied AARs make me question if the upgrades are worth it.
 
Major air battles in 1944 have CAP shooting down 80%-90% of the attackers. I think this is innacurate as my understanding is that the major killer of Japanese aircraft attacking ships was AA.
 
And I am a bit amazed by the deadly Japanese naval AA that I am seeing.
 
Japanese land based flak seems pretty anemic though.
 
My two cents.
 
 
 
 

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

i wonder how many of the op losses are caused by planes not making it home due to damage from flak...or is this even modelled...

Quite a lot.

[Canoerebel]

I just had a major carrier clash in the South China Sea in October 1944 in my game with Miller.  A host of Japanese strike aircraft targeted a handful of Allied CVE TFs.  Over the four big days of the battle, the Allies lost six CVE with four more damaged.  As best I can recall, the Japanese lost 10 aircraft to flak over those four days.  Granted, the CVE TFs were fairly lightly protected - almost exclusively by DD and DE - but...still...ten aircraft lost to flak?
 
As of October 20, 1944, the Allies have lost 1047 aircraft to flak and the Japanese have lost 1497, according to my combat results table.
 
I don't recall flak being impotent at the time of our previous big carrier engagement (November 1943, which was about six months ago in real life).  So I think one of the patches has done something drastic to flak which has rendered it impotent.

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

i wonder how many of the op losses are caused by planes not making it home due to damage from flak...or is this even modelled...

Quite a lot.

then maybe nothing is broke...

[JohnDillworth]

If the ops losses include flack losses than maybe the numbers make sense. Looks like anything with 2 engines or more are way more susceptible to flack. Fighters are, for all practical purposes, immune (last game I finished I had 6,600 Oscars lost, 6 to flack). Single engine attack aircraft are somewhere in between.
I think allied naval flack is way under powered. Recently, in April 45 I was raiding around the home Islands. Got hit with 400+ aircraft. Fighters got 130, flack got 0. All kinds of high powered CV's BB's and CA's with a total AA value combined of 4,0000 + and they did not shoot down a single plane. I believe this was because I was attacked by mostly kamikaze fighters and as mentioned above, they are immune.
I'm trying to figure out if there is any value in even putting BB's and CA's in carrier task forces. If they provide so little AA value the only point is that they might act as targets

[oldman45]

IJN Stats as of 1/20/42:

Total Sorties 80453

Air-to-Air: 100

Airfield: xxx

Flak: 25

Operational:193

I started the game with the beta patch installed and I am also playing the bigbabes mod

[oldman45]

John, I have wondered for a while if the allied naval AAA was working right, always seemed to be kind of weak

[topeverest]

June 1, 42

Allies total 2040
A2A - 701 (34%)
Field - 374 (18%)
Flak - 76 (4%)
Ops - 842 (44%)

Many big air to naval and air to base battles, practically constantly over the last two months. Japan has 1,907 total losses according to chart and 260 by Flak (14%). IMO many ops losses are actually combat losses where the airframe was destroyed or written off after the combat sequence. Not sure how many though.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

i wonder how many of the op losses are caused by planes not making it home due to damage from flak...or is this even modelled...

Quite a lot.

then maybe nothing is broke...

Well, lots but not enough...[;)]

[Tone]

My PBEM airloss

[JeffroK]

Nov 30 1942 v the AI

Japan
Sorties     806,353
Losses       5,638
A-A           2,367
Flak           1,226
Ground         135
Ops           1,910

Allies
Sorties     717,674
Losses        2,378
A-A              856
Flak                48
Ground          357
Ops            1,137

The JAAF spent a lot of time bashing against Brit/Dutch forces on Sumatra which included plenty of AA units with the 3.7" & 40mm AA Guns

Only 48 Allied Flak losses, this is after surprising a full KB of 6 CV and sinking 4 and badly damaging 2 others!!
Plus a P39 unit in Imphal has been hitting a japanese AA Bn in Mytkinya for 6 mths!

If AAA is broke, its a random break.

[gajdacs zsolt]

Here's mine: (It's from '43 June)

[janh]

I think all those numbers can be misleading if you want to judge only the naval AAA capabilities.  You'd get a much more accurate picture if you count yourselves AAA hits and losses per anti-ship sortie.  

[bklooste]

To tell if its right you need historic figures.

From just Navy results...

Rabaul (Feb 1942), Coral Sea (some carrier actions May 7th, May 8th), Midway (including Aleutians), Guadalcanal (August 7th, August 8th), Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz.

Total IJN aircraft losses in the actions listed are 518 aircraft. Total USN losses are 305. Loss by cause breaks out as follows:

IJN

Shot down.....151...29%
Anti-Aircraft....54...10%
Ditch/crash.....92....18%
CV sunk.........221...43%
Total.............518

USN

Shot down....147...48%
Anti-aircraft...3......1%
Ditch/crash....83....27%
CV sunk.........72....24%
Total............305


However  after taking into accoutn land based fights  the AA ratio ( 1 and 10%) will change

Here are the US Air force losses for the far east
http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t162.htm

2494 lost
942 A2A 37%
546 AA ( only 6 in 42) 22%
1006 Other (ops) 40%

[bklooste]

This surprised me a lot.
 
The AAORG (AA Operational Research Group) report, covering a four month period Oct44-Jan45 (approx 123 days) lists the numbers of AAA claims by weapon type as follows:

5in-common.........22
5in-VT................17

3in-common...........5.5
3in-VT.................0.5

40mm...............115.5

1.1in...................0.5
20mm................78.5

50cal..................5.5
30cal..................2.0
 
Noting VT ( proximity ) did not shoot down as much as conventional and all 3" and 5" combined easily beaten by 20mm with 40mm being the real killers.
 

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

If the ops losses include flack losses than maybe the numbers make sense. Looks like anything with 2 engines or more are way more susceptible to flack. Fighters are, for all practical purposes, immune (last game I finished I had 6,600 Oscars lost, 6 to flack). Single engine attack aircraft are somewhere in between.
I think allied naval flack is way under powered. Recently, in April 45 I was raiding around the home Islands. Got hit with 400+ aircraft. Fighters got 130, flack got 0. All kinds of high powered CV's BB's and CA's with a total AA value combined of 4,0000 + and they did not shoot down a single plane. I believe this was because I was attacked by mostly kamikaze fighters and as mentioned above, they are immune.
I'm trying to figure out if there is any value in even putting BB's and CA's in carrier task forces. If they provide so little AA value the only point is that they might act as targets

Just a thought, maybe nothing:

The actual AA guns were thourougly researched for the device lists. They should be as accurate as any other weapon device. If they are shooting at an airplane I'd expect they (in total as a group) would perform about as well against history as any other sort of weapon in the OOB. If the Flak Loss numbers seem low, I would doubt it's because of the flak weapons themselves.

I wonder if what may be ahistorical is the detection ranges with later-war afloat radar (I often see 120 miles or so), and the CAP ranges the game allows. If I set CAP with drop tanks to eight hexes, is that realistic? Were CAP asets released to go out that far, when they had no on-board radar? Is that the orbit circumference, or the max react circumference? Is that an incoming react range, or a max pursuit range? My impression of WWII CAPs was they kept the majority of the planes within eyesight of the TF. Not 100+ miles out.

If detection is ahistoricaly distant, and CAP is allowed to leave the vicinity of the TF to intercept--by hundreds of miles perhaps--is it any wonder that fewer than historical incoming get into AA ranges measured in thousands of yards? Especiallly if a serious CAP attack can cause the whole enemy formation to abort and go home?

Measuring Total Aircraft in attacks against flak losses, and Total Losses by flak are different calculations of course, and certainly in a large raid lots of incoming do get into weapons release range, but I wonder if, in total, the results being discussed are more a sensor and C&C artifact than really a flak performance artifact.