How to improve the performance of my Nachtjagd

[Fallschirmjager]

I realize this forum is on life support. But I recently got back into ED-BTR against the AI and I am having fun with it. I am going slowly and simply, not trying to kill myself on German production. I made some small changes and I continue to tinker with it every few turns but for the most part I am just enjoying the game.

But one area where I am lost is my night fighters. They are simply awful. The last turn is a good example. Sept of 43 and a estimated 800 bomber raid hits Essen extremely hard, 17,000 fires and the vital Krupp Steal now has a damage of 59.
I put up almost 300 night fighters and they get 7 kills [:(]
Flak gets another 12 for a grand total of 19 confirmed kills including ops losses.

Is this expected? I am still used to the old BTR where ECM was not modeled that well and you could shoot down night bombers by the dozens. The new BTR does a lot better job with AI and ECM.
I realize that Window may still be in effect. When does this effect end? The winter means longer nights and more RAF activity and I want to be ready. My operational strength is good and I am researching about 12 He-219 a day and I may get them a month early and then be able to fill out about 1 squadron a month.

Most of my sightings seem to be either visual sighting or search light conning. The radar on my aircraft never seem to pick up a bomber. Will this change?

One last question. That ME-262 night fight variant looks attractive. Is it worth diverting a few Me-262 frames a day? I am trying to streamline my production as much as possible.

[Denniss]

What about using some old BTR tactics? Place them in smaller groups above your cities in alts from 15k to 22k? Your radar should not be of much use due to window so you have to rely on sightings above cities (fires, searchlights).

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Denniss

What about using some old BTR tactics? Place them in smaller groups above your cities in alts from 15k to 22k? Your radar should not be of much use due to window so you have to rely on sightings above cities (fires, searchlights).

I did this with my single seat fighters emulating the Wild Boar tactics. They have some occasional success. I hate putting my twin engine fighters above my cities in the bomber streams because friendly fire flak incidents have been a problem in the past.

I am at wits end with my night force. I am getting no where near historical kill numbers.

[Dobey455]

Essen has a lot of flak, but isn't very deep into hostile territory so your fighters dont have a great deal of time to pick out targets.
Playing as allied against the AI I would consider 19 losses from a Raid on Essen to be a very bad night.
From raids I've launched to Berlin however losses from an 800 plus raid would be 20 - 30 (If a human was playing the LW I would expect it to be much higher.)

The deeper BC go the less ECM Coverage they get and the more effective German Radar Will be. Remember Window is still very new in Sept of 43 and so German radar operators and airbone sets have not yet adapted.

I believe that the effects of Window will diminish more and more as better Radars come on line for the Germans.

I've not tried the 262 NF, so cant say how good it is, but the concept seems bizzare to me. Surely when you are in an environment where often the aiming point is the flames on the exhaust outlet, or a shadowy silhouette the last thing you would want is to be moving at 500 Mph.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Dobey

Essen has a lot of flak, but isn't very deep into hostile territory so your fighters dont have a great deal of time to pick out targets.
Playing as allied against the AI I would consider 19 losses from a Raid on Essen to be a very bad night.
From raids I've launched to Berlin however losses from an 800 plus raid would be 20 - 30 (If a human was playing the LW I would expect it to be much higher.)

The deeper BC go the less ECM Coverage they get and the more effective German Radar Will be. Remember Window is still very new in Sept of 43 and so German radar operators and airbone sets have not yet adapted.

I believe that the effects of Window will diminish more and more as better Radars come on line for the Germans.

I've not tried the 262 NF, so cant say how good it is, but the concept seems bizzare to me. Surely when you are in an environment where often the aiming point is the flames on the exhaust outlet, or a shadowy silhouette the last thing you would want is to be moving at 500 Mph.

Thanks for the tips

My thinking on the 262 NF is that the night war is about detection and getting in as many attacks as possible in a small window.
The 110 while heavily armed and with good endurance struggles in speed and to gain altitude. Once it attacks a bomber it usually losses energy and altitude and that is it's only attack of the night.
The 262 can attack a bomber and then regain speed and altitude and attack again.

I may convert over a high EXP squadron and see how they preform.

In past games I was successful in getting about 30% of my night force converted over to 219's.

I will just wait it out and see how performance goes. My was mostly just upset because Krupp got hammered [:(]

[Dobey455]

I usually play allies, and Krupp is one of those great targets for BC because it is big and it is inside an urban area, which gives them some sort of chance to hit it.

In getting night kills I have found that the approach angle to the target is actually very important. I have never seen a head on or side on attack work out. Only tail chase attacks have been successful. It makes sense that there needs to be a time delay to allow a radar contact to become a visual contact and for that visual contact to then become an actual attack. These were not F-16's with FLIR and HUD's, they couldn't make snap shots or head on passes based on radar contact.

The Beaufighter is great for getting kills loitering over airfield because of its good endurance, but it is always the mosquitoes that get the kills against the night fighters in flight as they have the speed to slightly overtake from behind, so the fighter is able to get a radar contact then make altitude adjustments to get to the next step.

I take most of my losses from fighters sitting in the middle of a disperesed group of bombers and cruising at a similar speed as they make radar contact after radar contact which eventually becomes visual, then BAM! down they go.
The only thing that I think is off is that most NF attacks on bombers result in damage. My limited knowledge suggest that on the occasions when German NF actually pressed an attack it almost always was fatal for the bomber.

[CV Zuikaku]

I don't use my nightfighters at night. I use them during the day against B-17s. Night is time for FLAK as NF efficiency is not satisfactory. And it hurts me more if my industry is ruined.

[Roko]

Finally (1943 Campaign ) i've got He219 A2 with SN2 radar. And big disappointment - not even single radar contact [:(], only Flensburg detector is working.

[Rusty1961]

Agreed: Don't waste those Night-fighters on night-bombers; use them against the 8th AF to pick off the stragglers or deep raids.

[wildweasel0585]

How many bombers are you expecting on shooting down in a night? Using them during the day has drawbacks though. It just makes the job of BC that much easier.I love massacring those slow maneuverable night fighters during the day.[:D] The most night fighters I've shot down during the day is 42. On the other hand, I don't waste my night fighters during the day. Day fighters are already extremely effective in that role. Using night fighter in their role, I can usually shoot down around 10-15 bombers, sometimes 20+ and sometimes 0. It all depends heavily on weather, Luck, and how well the Allied player can use their RCM, and your skill in effectively employing the night fighters. This is against humans also.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: wildweasel0585

Using night fighter in their role, I can usually shoot down around 10-15 bombers, sometimes 20+ and sometimes 0. It all depends heavily on weather, Luck, and how well the Allied player can use their RCM, and your skill in effectively employing the night fighters. This is against humans also.

10 to 15? That's all? that's a lot of effort to shoot down so few planes.

Far better to use the German NFs against UNESCORTED deep raids and stragglers. You'll shoot down far more than 10 to 15-or even 20-doing that.

[CV Zuikaku]

Nightfighters tend to do too much sightings with too less engagements (attacks). Even when the nights are bright with moonshine. Something is just wrong with NFs. My FLAK does 95% of bomber losses (damages, crashes on the way home, crashes during landings).
and sending force of 200-300 nightfighters into stream of 500-600 bombers which results with only 2-4 kills is just not right!
Is there any tactic that works or is nachtjagd just bugged?!

[yubari]

It is possible to get large numbers of kills with night fighters. I have had turns where the RAF have lost 121, 91 and 82 heavy bombers on raids to Berlin, although I cannot now remember how many of those are shot down by flak and how many by nightfighters.
It does seem to be rather random, the number of attacks are made. Some turns see night fighters make attacks every minute or two, some turns only a very few are made and there seems to be more than just the moonlight involved in this. I have no particular special tactics, just set large groups of nightfighters on patrol at around 20000 feet near the city which looks to be the target. The most attacks are always made while over the cities.

[CV Zuikaku]

ORIGINAL: yubari

It is possible to get large numbers of kills with night fighters. I have had turns where the RAF have lost 121, 91 and 82 heavy bombers on raids to Berlin, although I cannot now remember how many of those are shot down by flak and how many by nightfighters.
It does seem to be rather random, the number of attacks are made. Some turns see night fighters make attacks every minute or two, some turns only a very few are made and there seems to be more than just the moonlight involved in this. I have no particular special tactics, just set large groups of nightfighters on patrol at around 20000 feet near the city which looks to be the target. The most attacks are always made while over the cities.

I tried that with no effect at all. Max RAF night losses in my game have been 30. Most of them due to heavy FLAK over and on the way to target. I really can not see any use of nightfighters. On the other way, RAF night intruders seems to not have similar problems. They just wait for my NFs to land and then shot them down. But maybe all of my pilots are blind and braindead...

So if anyone knows any nachtjagd tactic that actually works, please share your knowledge. Otherwise, nachtjagers are just a waste of effort, resources and pilots....

[wildweasel0585]

You missed the 20 plus kills. 10- 15 a night ends up being 70-80 kills a week. Its hardly any effort at all either. Without attrition to Bomber command pilot, they just keep getting better. Besides deep unescorted happen once ever blue moon in pbems anyways. I'd rather take shooting down 70_80 bombers a week than not trying at all. If youre expecting 50+ kill a night with bomber command, it just isnt going to happen.

Nightfighters are hardly a waste. You see them as a waste, i see them as an effective fighting arm. Like i said earlier, 70-80 kills a week is way better than waiting for deep unescorted raids that rarely take place. Allied players love when german players dont use their nightfighters because that means that terror boming points will come easy.

[yubari]

As wild weasel says, they are an effective fighting arm, and they can rack up a significant number of kills, albeit not as consistently as the day fighters. Here is my most effective night fighter unit, all kills I think were made at night. These Dorniers seem to be more effective than the early Dornier (217J?) or the Junkers 88C planes and I have had very little success with the single seat fighters, in particular the Bf109 night fighter just doesn't have enough firepower and seem to crash fairly regularly on landing.

It might be worth checking the real life effectiveness of night fighters, if this wiki article is to be believed, of all Lancaster sorties over Europe, 2687 of 107085 planes were shot down, an atrition rate similar to what I am seeing in game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_for_George

[CV Zuikaku]

ORIGINAL: wildweasel0585

You missed the 20 plus kills. 10- 15 a night ends up being 70-80 kills a week. Its hardly any effort at all either. Without attrition to Bomber command pilot, they just keep getting better. Besides deep unescorted happen once ever blue moon in pbems anyways. I'd rather take shooting down 70_80 bombers a week than not trying at all. If youre expecting 50+ kill a night with bomber command, it just isnt going to happen.

Nightfighters are hardly a waste. You see them as a waste, i see them as an effective fighting arm. Like i said earlier, 70-80 kills a week is way better than waiting for deep unescorted raids that rarely take place. Allied players love when german players dont use their nightfighters because that means that terror boming points will come easy.

I'm not having problems with 20 kills per night. I'm having problem with 18-19 of them being result of FLAK. And if I send 200 nightfighters into the bomber stream, 1 kill is a bit too less. can we set nightfigters over english airfields and shoot the bombers down while they attempt to land??

[Ralzakark]

ORIGINAL: CV Zuikaku

... can we set nightfigters over english airfields and shoot the bombers down while they attempt to land??

Not in the game. Historically the Luftwaffe did fly a few intruder missions over the UK but they were very infrequent. The usual story told is that this was as a result of a direct order from Hitler, who wanted to see bombers come down over Europe where they could be seen by the German population and that of the occupied countries, rather than over the UK where they could not.

Regular missions over the UK would also have risked German electronics falling into British hands, which would have significantly changed the corse of the electronic warfare battle. This is the reason why the RAF night fighters in the game usually have quite poor radar as the best was not risked over Europe until late in the war.

[npsergio]

Historicaly NJG were also used on day time...
Anyway there are some tips:
Last turn (March 3rd 1944) was my better turn so far. Bomber command is no longer restricted and my opponent sent 3 raids, some mosquito diversionary attacks, and some Night Intruders attacks.
He sent a raid (about 150 bombers) to the Ruhr, other raid (150 bombers) to Bremen, and a large raid (250 bombers) to Hamburg.
The losses in the night were: near 50 planes destroyed and between 100-200 damaged (in combat and AA fire). More than 20 losses were because of the air combat.
I have this losses: near 20 nightfigters destroyed. 12-14 of them killed in an airport attack by intruders.
I think this is not bad. Why? His losses percentage is about 8%. In Hamburg raid alone is more than 10%. And he gets a lot of damage, so he will need some days to recover, and he have lost some crews.
Night light was bright: 24%. Weather bad: 40% in Germany.
I sent some NJG to patrol near the raids. Then I give them an objective. Then they split into small groups and get into the stream to look for their enemies.
I think that light helps a lot to find the enemy. When they see an enemy, they usualy try to kill him. Some other times they use their radars too. Radars are not very accurate in that time... that's why I think that moonlight helps a lot. Of course searchlights in an urban area helps also.
I regularly take a look into the "list raids" menu. Then I order by speed. I look for the raids with a speed from 200 mph to higher (these are fast planes). I see if they are being attacked by my nighfighters. If so, I put that nightfighters to patrol and I send them to attack slow speed raids (bombers).
I wait some more time to see if you can see the night intruders. I try to avoid them giving some rest to the AF with intruders.
I usually send more patrols to attack when bomber command go home.
There is not so many more than you can do...
Of course, high experience and moral is another key.
- hope that helps