AA seems worthless

[SigUp]

ORIGINAL: jzardos

- FoW also would not tell me 0 western allied planes shot down if it was 10. My guess is it might inflate # and tell me 10 shot down when only maybe 5 were. Once again I'm axis and only allies would know true #'s shot down.

Why doesn't this make sense? The Luftwaffe significantly underestimated the planes its pilots shot down for example because it had a very restrictive system of recognising plane kills (either multi-witness confirmation, or a wreckage).

[KenchiSulla]

As far as I know the developers are now aware of flak inaccuracy above 20k (losses start to drop sharply above 20k already). Also, bombing accuracy seems to be to "spot on" but this might have something to do with flak inefficiency (Pavel would know)..

This is now exposed and I am sure this will be addressed in the patch. Cut the developers some slack if you will.... Developing a monster game like this is never easy..

[KWG]

Its trying to put fate into a test tube of historical outcomes.

I don't know.. is there same side FOW damage reporting?

Are you this anti-lucky every week?

doesn't have to be a complete devastation of target.
On a rainy day in August 1943 the 8th USAAF bombed Essen and inflicted heavy damage to heavy industry by knocking out "component Z" stopping all production until it was replaced. Rest of factory untouched.

On my current turn as German the Allies took good flak losses every where except in the rain where the losses were lower.
Ive noticed rain favoring the aircraft, makes sense.

[Gorforlin]

Data is what is important.

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Flak was the single biggest source of aircraft loss for me -- slight worse than operational losses, and twice as deadly as air-to-air. Interesting.

Flak losses peaked in week 9, when I made my last big push east, and right after I rebased aircraft west of Paris. I wonder whether they were flying over more unit-based flak than in prior turns, when they mostly had to contend with city-based flak. Or it may just have been that week 9 was my last all-out push in the air, before the weather turned bad.

tm.asp?m=3759416

[KenchiSulla]

That doesn't tell anything without more info about, for example, altitude and amount of sorties..

[Grotius]

That's a graph from my AAR, and I posted numbers there if you'd like to see more detail. (The link in the same post points to my AAR.) The numbers indicate that flak was my single highest source of air losses. The graph displayed reflects the number of sorties: they dropped off in the last two turns because the weather turned bad and I stood down my aircraft.

As for altitude, I used the altitudes assigned by default, so 30,000 for recon, etc. I could dig out the save and post sorties numbers too, if you think that would be helpful.

[Grotius]

OK, I loaded up the game and dug out more numbers. This was "Breakout and Pursuit," not the grand campaign, so it doesn't reflect any strategic bombing. I don't think I ever adjusted any air mission's altitude; I used the defaults. This was from the last day, when I wasn't flying much because of rain, so zero sorties in some categories. Also, I'm not sure why one recon mission was at 30,000 feet and the other at 15,000 feet; again, I was just using whatever default altitude the computer generated when I made a new Air Directive. You can see altitudes on this screen:

[Grotius]

And here were my total sorties. Again, for reference, flak was my biggest category of loss; my numbers were:

Flak losses: 811
Operational: 757
Air to air: 489

Now, maybe this is because most of my missions were below 20,000 feet? I did run plenty of recon at 30,000 feet, though. In my current campaign game, I'm running plenty above 20,000, so I'll watch the numbers and see if high-altitude flak is unduly weak. (So far, I seem to be suffering all too many flak losses even at that altitude, but we'll see.)

[KenchiSulla]

From what I've seen Flak is very effective at 15.000 feet and below, fairly effective between 15.000 and 20.000 feet and about worthless above 20.000 feet.. In other words, In tactical scenarios you will not see any issues with losses AFAIK..

[Grotius]

OK, I'll keep an eye on my high-altitude losses in my current campaign game. Seeing plenty of high-altitude flak losses so far, but it's only turn 3, and I did some early strategic bombing runs against heavily-defended cities.

[Gorforlin]

Good stuff

[KWG]

I believe most flak guns have more/less effective ranges and it's modeled in the game.

[Jajusha]

Only the US airforce is able to fly at an altitude of 27000 (b17, b24), i tested this in the air campaign scenario.

The result shows: 3 flak casualties over the 4 turns.(around 200 operational, 320 from air combat). The end result of the scenario was a draw, but as for the premise of the OP, yes, flak is virtualy none if you fly at 27000



More info:
Number os sorties turn 1 - 3500
Number os sorties turn 2 - 4400
Number os sorties turn 3 - 12000
Number os sorties turn 4 - 5000

[Fallschirmjager]

I don't have the game yet. Is this like Garuy Grigsby's bombing the Reich?
What is the effecive ceiling for the 88mm/18, 88m/41 and 105mm flak cannons?
And is the 128mm flak cannon modeled?

According to what I have, the 88/18 tops out at about 25,900 ft which would make bombers at 27,000 feet immune.
The 88/41 had a much higher ceiling at 37,100 ft
The 105mm flak was 37,400 ft
The 128mm flak was 48,500 ft

In the screen shots I see I just see a 'generic' 88mm gun. If this is the 88mm/18 only then that could be the issue if the other guns are not in the weapons database.

[Great_Ajax]

105mm and 128mm are in the game as are the Flak Towers.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

I don't have the game yet. Is this like Garuy Grigsby's bombing the Reich?
What is the effecive ceiling for the 88mm/18, 88m/41 and 105mm flak cannons?
And is the 128mm flak cannon modeled?

According to what I have, the 88/18 tops out at about 25,900 ft which would make bombers at 27,000 feet immune.
The 88/41 had a much higher ceiling at 37,100 ft
The 105mm flak was 37,400 ft
The 128mm flak was 48,500 ft

In the screen shots I see I just see a 'generic' 88mm gun. If this is the 88mm/18 only then that could be the issue if the other guns are not in the weapons database.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: el hefe

105mm and 128mm are in the game as are the Flak Towers.

Trey

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

I don't have the game yet. Is this like Garuy Grigsby's bombing the Reich?
What is the effecive ceiling for the 88mm/18, 88m/41 and 105mm flak cannons?
And is the 128mm flak cannon modeled?

According to what I have, the 88/18 tops out at about 25,900 ft which would make bombers at 27,000 feet immune.
The 88/41 had a much higher ceiling at 37,100 ft
The 105mm flak was 37,400 ft
The 128mm flak was 48,500 ft

In the screen shots I see I just see a 'generic' 88mm gun. If this is the 88mm/18 only then that could be the issue if the other guns are not in the weapons database.

What is the in game ceiling of the 88mm gun? Could that be why 27,000 seems to be the magic alltitude?
The 105mm and 128mm guns were built in small numbers and really only found on very high priority targets.

[KenchiSulla]

I'm fine with reduced FLAK losses at 27000 feet but bombing accuracy and thus effect should suffer for it...

[wosung]

In Sept. 1944 Luftflotte Reich had only 41x 88/41 Flak. In Febr. 45 there were only 287 Flak 88/41 altogether.

Flak efficiency is complex. B/c it depended on radar, electronic (counter)measures, flak target radar (Schießgeräte), flak synchronizing electronics for up to 32 batteries (Kommandogeräte für Großbatterien), actual German fuze technology. etc. From 1943 onwards Germany lagged behind in electronic warfare.
Already in 1943 the German Flak had 3 problems:
1. US day bombers and British night time Mosquitos could fly above Flak's effective ceiling.
2. Flak blindness b/c of Chaff, even in daytime: 8th AF started with H2X blind bombing on cloudy days.
3. Decreasing personell and personell quality.

Das Deutsche Reich und der 2. Weltkrieg, Vol 7. p. 207, p. 282-3

[Helpless]

What is the in game ceiling of the 88mm gun?

Effective ceiling 26K (max 36K).

[Fallschirmjager]

From my completely uneducated guess. It would seem that flak needs a slight increase in lethality above 25,000 feet while bombers flying at that altitude need their effectiveness greatly reduced. Clear weather at that altitude should be more miss than hit and flying in cloudy weather or worse should be almost completely worthless until very late in the war and radar guided pathfinders are available.

I am mostly going off Bombing the Reich which had a pretty good air warfare engine.