Flying Boats

[WO Katsuki]

my opponent has a corps of PBY flying boats operating out of manila, sinking tons of my transports around luzon,

and it seems that my sallies can't take them out (both airfield and port attack don't do any damage, and yes the PBYs are stood down for the day (they didn't have any targets left) I sent 100 sallies for 3 days an no hits scored. the airbase has 100 dmg and all the warhawks were destroyed, but no catalinas

are flying boats invulnerable on the ground?

[Yaab]

Are they ever on the ground?

[WO Katsuki]

seem to be on Naval Torpedo mode, waiting for my transports to come around, lost a pile of transports to the 2xMark 13 wielding PBYs

guess he's using B-17s for Nav search

[bk19@mweb.co.za]

Flying boats are generally not parked on the ground....

Hint here is in the name.....

They fly and land on water....

[jmalter]

being water-based, they seem to be 'protected' to an extent, an airfield attack generally will not target them, and they can continue to fly when the airfield is 100% suppressed. also it seems that they draw on land-based AVsupport, if naval AVsupport from AVD/AVP ships has been destroyed.

[oldman45]

I wonder if fighters at 100ft doing a port attack would have any effect?

[foliveti]

Try giving your transports fighter cover. The flying boats get chopped up pretty quickly if you have fighters covering them. Perhaps you are trying to move forward a little too quickly if you can't give them land based or carrier based fighter cover.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: foliveti

Try giving your transports fighter cover. The flying boats get chopped up pretty quickly if you have fighters covering them. Perhaps you are trying to move forward a little too quickly if you can't give them land based or carrier based fighter cover.

+1

Also, airfield attacks can work. In my game against Khyberbill, I destroyed a few and damaged a ton "on the ground" (actually, in the water). He had about 90 of them (according to recon) at Batavia. I hit the airfield with about 100 Netties based at Singkawang. For a couple of consecutive turns, I got combat reports showing 3 or 4 destroyed and about 20 damaged.

[TheLoneGunman_MatrixForum]

Setting up LRCAP of a juicy bait TF of xAKs and xAKLs is always a good way to get the PBYs to stop attacking. Make sure you calculate how far you need to be to keep his own fighters out of escort range.

[kbfchicago]

I've used this PBY technique...much to the annoyance of my worthy IJN opponent who would much rather use his fighters to protect his stikes or sweep the skies. It stops when the transports get any kind of figther protection, at that point the PBYs migrate South (stay'n alive...as the song goes...) and fall back into NavSearch mode. I have lost float planes in airbase attacks, can not recall loosing any in port attacks...although you do lose the AV spt ships. They do seem to transparently "share" between AV ship type and land base support. Since floats are not tied to runways on land I can see where Manila keeps'em flying even though the runways are cratered.

Kevin

[crsutton]

I would suggest to your opponent that you limit these attacks. Otherwise you and he will find that your emily flying boats are even more deadly at this sort of thing than his catalinas and can return the favor. Either way works.

[Commander Stormwolf]

flying boats' main weakness is their low speed, so they suffer against flak + fighters

but their payload will do heavy damage

[Dili]

Gamey.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

being water-based, they seem to be 'protected' to an extent, an airfield attack generally will not target them, and they can continue to fly when the airfield is 100% suppressed. also it seems that they draw on land-based AVsupport, if naval AVsupport from AVD/AVP ships has been destroyed.

So port attacks are useless as well?

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Gamey.

Not quite. Asiatic Fleet Cats were used for naval strikes in the opening days (no other planes available), albeit usually armed with bombs and not torps.

By Dec 13th, 11 out of 28 Cats had been lost to AA and CAP - so LRCAP your convoys and the threat should diminish.

Maybe use of air torps should be limited to Naval Air HQs, so Far East USAAF HQ would not be able to supply torps to those Cats.

[Biggus63]

I dont see it as all that gamey. They have the capability do to so even if it's not standard doctrine. Much innovation in warfare has to do with thinking outside the box and I don't see it as gamey in the sense that using B-17s for skip bombing would be. If an opponent used it against me I'd regard it as a legitimate tactic and take steps to counter it. If that's gamey then so is using Japanese subs against commerce targets.

[jmalter]

i've had some success at sinking Mavis FPs w/ combined airfield/port bombing, but those kills didn't start happening until their base AF/P was pert' near 100% ruined. i assume they were damaged planes that couldn't repair b/c of trashed airfield service facilities. even so, those losses accrued slowly, mebbe 1 destroyed every 3 days.

has anyone had success w/ strafing/low-ground attacks vs. either the port or airfield, to sink FPs?

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Gamey.

I shouldn't think so..., it's exactly the doctrine that the "Black Cats" used so successfully in the Central/South Pacific later in the war. Or by "gamey" do you mean helps the Allies rather than the Japanese? [8|]

[Rising-Sun]

Sometimes they are on the ground for repairs and upgrade. So normally they park in the water near the piers, docks, etcs.

[Dili]

I mean the crews were not trained in torpedoing and even if they did in real life the planes couldn't have the outstanding success levels we see in game.

For a successful torpedoing aircraft it implies that a plane must be maneuverable at low level to make corrections at last minute. Mavis, PBY's, Emilies had nothing for it. The Italians hated the S.84 that was supposed to replace the S.79 because of that and it was certainly still a better plane for torpedoing than a PBY. Even the Albacore was considered not a good improvement over Swordfish. Also the crews should be trained exclusively in torpedoing and units should be exclusive for that propose to have consistent results.

It was an error in WITP AE to have the bombers with same maneuverability in all altitude bands.