Night Fighters

[Hooper82]

Hey Duders,

I'm having problems with my Night Fighters. I can't get them to escort bombers set for night ops. Nor can I get them to do a night time sweep.

I've checked moral, its 99. I've made sure they have heeps of supply/AV/HQ in the airbase. They have agressive leaders...

Any ideas?

[zuluhour]

Never tried it but I do not believe night escort will help in any way. It's hard enough to get a full package over the target and accurately bomb in the first place. In short, not necessary. Be a man and fight in the daylight.[:D]

[Alfred]

There is no fighter escort for bombers on night operations.

Alfred

[zuluhour]

Sorry for the rude response, If you think about it, night bombing is intended to evade CAP at the expense of accuracy and lower casulties. It's hard enough for late war fighters to make an intercept with radar and ground control let alone find, track, and engage enemy escorts, which are not the targets of the CAP in the first place. IMHO the "update" WITP-AE works well. Only occasional raids find and hit the targets effectively. In my "war" I have only one night fighter with a kill at night. They have I believe "distracted" the bombers though. Just a guess.

[JeffroK]

My RAF Beaufighters have plenty of kills defensivly.

But even the RAF over Germany couldnt escort the Bomber stream so I doubt it possible over the wilds of SEAC/SW Pacific.

Use them to sweep the target, you might get some value or at least divert defenders

[StK]

As I'm new to this I might be off here and the game handles them in a different way, but also to what the previous posters said night fighters where in no means designed to take on fighter aircraft.
They were big and bulky planes (which they needed to be because they needed to carry all those night fighting equipment and someone to operate it) with big calibre guns to make the few shots they would get on a bomber at night count. This is not a plane that should go up against fighters. It won't do well in a dogfight, it was designed to intercept the unescorted bombers.

[Hooper82]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

My RAF Beaufighters have plenty of kills defensivly.

But even the RAF over Germany couldnt escort the Bomber stream so I doubt it possible over the wilds of SEAC/SW Pacific.

Use them to sweep the target, you might get some value or at least divert defenders

Sweeps don't seam to work ether =(

[Puhis]

You can't sweep or escort, just CAP.

[artuitus_slith]

I haven't yet gotten any of the better NF in my game -still in mar 42, but i do use the British NF sqd to harrass the japs with airfield attacks at 100ft or 1k ft. Every hit to the airbase affects morale, and occasionally you get a damaged or destroyed plane or 2 as a bonus. One other use, mostly effective against the ai, is to use them as daylight bomber intercepters, just make sure they stay away from true fighters or they will get slaughtered.

Of course take anything I say with a grain of salt, since I'm also 'massing' all those little 4 plane antiquated British/Indian bi-planes to use as night raiders as well...if only the ai would hurry up and 1)take an af in range and 2) actually park aircraft there.

[Dobey455]

ORIGINAL: StK

As I'm new to this I might be off here and the game handles them in a different way, but also to what the previous posters said night fighters where in no means designed to take on fighter aircraft.
They were big and bulky planes (which they needed to be because they needed to carry all those night fighting equipment and someone to operate it) with big calibre guns to make the few shots they would get on a bomber at night count. This is not a plane that should go up against fighters. It won't do well in a dogfight, it was designed to intercept the unescorted bombers.

Hi StK,

The RAF Night Intruders (mainly mosquitoes and Beaufighters) did successfully hunt numerous German Night fighters over Europe, but as others have pointed out this was in lone hunting (Intruder) missions, not in any sort of escort role.