unrealistic air combat...

[bigbaba]

first of all, this is NOT a whine-posting.[:-]

i am in a PBEM against a little nasty gaucho[;)] and at the day, we have nearly 1:1 air loses. it is the night air combat what upsets me a little bit.

he slams the PM airfield night by night with 300 or more kate/vals from his carriers..even through rain or thunderstorm. and the cap is simply ineffective against such raids. even with 50 FB flying night cap, the results of night CAP and operational loses are nearly zero for him.

from what we now, the japanese started only ONE major night attack from their carriers in 1942 in the battle of coral sea. this raid resulted in a disaster with 21 of 27 japanese planes lost.

i think, in a further patch, this should get some attention and should be fixed. night air combat should be more realistic imho, because 1942, night carrier operations "put in childs shoe". even the US navy got its first night air operations capable carriers at 1944 and the japs were even more behind.

edit:

one general question:

how do the allied night fighters with radar preforme in UV? i hope much better then the ones without radar.

[Ike99]

i am in a PBEM against a little nasty gaucho

[:D][:D][:D]

[SuluSea]

i think, in a further patch, this should get some attention and should be fixed. night air combat should be more realistic imho, because 1942, night carrier operations "put in childs shoe". even the US navy got its first night air operations capable carriers at 1944 and the japs were even more behind.

No question about that should be patched.

Why am I surprised that the fellow who has spent a year complaining about the long lance  also exploits gaming tactics as opposed to keeping it real?

[Ike99]

No question about that should be patched.

Why am I surprised that the fellow who has spent a year complaining about the long lance also exploits gaming tactics as opposed to keeping it real?

Japanese carriers were night capabale Sula and they did have a landing system for night landings in 1942. Japanese carriers were not ¨behind¨ compared to US carrier night operations. The opposite is true actually. They were more advanced compared to US carrier capability at night.

Same as the Long Lance was superior to any torpedo of the western Allies btw. [;)]

¨The apparatus, called chakkan shidoto (literally, landing guidance light), was invented at the Kasumigaura Naval Station in 1932 as a night landing aid. It was fitted on Japan's first carrier, Hosho, in 1933 and after being proved on Hosho, adapted to the other carriers. It was used both day and night from about 1934 onward.

The red and green lights were one kilowatt, variable in intensity, and each had a refractory mirror to produce a relatively narrow cone of light. The red light was mounted 10 to 15 meters (approximately 30 to 45 feet) aft of the green light.

It could be raised or lowered to adjust the separation between the two to vary the glide slope between four and six degrees, depending on the type of aircraft in the landing pattern.

The angle was usually 5.5 degrees for fighters and 5 degrees for attack aircraft.
As the pilot rolled in astern of the carrier with wheels, flaps and hook down while maintaining his own interval, he adjusted his flight path until he had both pairs of lights in sight. Losing Sight Of one or the other pair of lights indicated that the pilot was right or left of the ideal lineup, and called for a correction to regain the errant pair of lights and land on centerline.

The pilot adjusted his approach path so that the green light was
superimposed immediately over the red. If he could see only the red light, the aircraft was below the desired glide slope. If the red light was on top of the green, he was dangerously below glide slope. Conversely, if the green light was far above the red, he was too high on glide slope.

Due to the offset from the centerline and the narrowness of the cone of light, the pilot would lose sight of the landing aids somewhere prior to touchdown. Presumably, if he had kept the lights lined up properly just before he lost sight of the lights while close to the deck, he would be in the ideal “cut” position.

From here, as with his U.S. counterpart, he would then make final lineup corrections and land."

[Ike99]

No question about that should be patched.

I agree, the US night carrier operations are represented way to good.

[;)]

Interrogation of: Captain YAMAOKA, M., IJN, Operations Officer, Staff 5th Air Flotilla at Battle of CORAL SEA, 7-8 May 1942.

Interrogated by: Captain C. Shands, USN.

Q. Had your pilots been trained to land on the carriers at night?

A. Yes, about 2/3 of all pilots were thoroughly trained at night.

Q. When did you first start night carrier operations?

A. About 1933.

Q. Was one carrier used for night operation or did you have pilots on each carrier?

A. Each carrier had a few night pilots at first, then increased. About 2/3 of all pilots on each carrier were thoroughly trained in night carrier operation. About 1/3 were familiar but not so well trained.

Q. How did you land at night?

A. We used a green and red light which were lined up for a flight path to come aboard. We also used a signalman.

Q. Did he control the speed during the landing?

A. No, after a night battle, only signal used was O.K. and should land, or that he was not O.K. and should be waved off; in which case he made another approach. During the training more signals were used to indicate speed and altitude. These signals were given by blinker guns at night.

Q. What accidents incurred in training?

A. Thorough basic training was given at night on land; therefore, we had very few accidents in night landings aboard ship.

[bigbaba]

whatever this little japs cptn. says...fact is, that nearly all japanese carrier operations in 1942 (all naval attacks and even the attacks on bases like darwin, colombo or the attacks on handerson field at guadalcanal) were started after daylight and the only known japanese night attack resulted into a fiasco for the japs with 23 of 27 planes lost.

now, if the japs KB-pilots and carriers were realy that good at night air operation, they would try to use this advantage for sure instead of attacking only after daylight.

i have read a book about the attack on PH (the book "aircraft carriers in 1st and 2nd WW" from Clark G. Reynolds) about Fuchida in his kate TB waiting for several zero-fighters to bring them home after the day attack, because they simply had not a radio direction finder to find their carriers self.

so, i dont think, that the japs were able to start huge and massive night attacks with 300 planes from their carriers at 1942 without forcing the commander to write a lot of letters for the widows of the pilots at the next day.[:-] [;)] whatever my respected "ike san" says.

[Ike99]

i have read a book about the attack on PH (the book "aircraft carriers in 1st and 2nd WW" from Clark G. Reynolds) about Fuchida in his kate TB waiting for several zero-fighters to bring them home after the day attack, because they simply had not a radio direction finder to find their carriers self.

Well someone had a radio beam detector because they used the Honalulu radio stations signal to guide them in to Pearl Harbor before the attack.

[HansBolter]

Take the high road bigbaba.

Honor your committment and finsh the current game.

Then strike him off your list of potential opponents.

After all, since according to him, he has plenty of people who want to game against him the loss of you as a potential opponent won't be any skin off his posterior.

I suspect that if he keeps this up long enough against enogh different people he will eventually find no one willing to play against his exploitative rear end.


Let him reap what he sows.

[SuluSea]

LMAO did the Lexington or Yorktown have these landing lights? I'm certain you won't see this next sentence but here goes..... If the Japs were so proficient at night ops how do you explain the airmen trying to land on a U.S. Carrier during the Coral Sea engagement?
 
On another note there's a difference between taking off and landing in the dark and being proficient at night attacks. I think most here are able to see that. Bigbaba produced a statistic to back up his assertions and you produce nothing to counter it as per usual. No question you're using gaming tactics against him and the game going forward needs to be patched.

[bigbaba]

its ok guys. the days of ikes carrier supremacy are over soon.[;)] 

[Ike99]

Take the high road bigbaba.

Honor your committment and finsh the current game.

Then strike him off your list of potential opponents.

After all, since according to him, he has plenty of people who want to game against him the loss of you as a potential opponent won't be any skin off his posterior.

I suspect that if he keeps this up long enough against enogh different people he will eventually find no one willing to play against his exploitative rear end.


Let him reap what he sows.

(1) Family Language. Use of offensive language will not be tolerated. This will be treated as a family site. So use language you would be comfortable with your wives, mothers, girlfriends, kids, grandkids, etc. viewing. This include limits on thinly veiled words, like using obvious substitutes or pictures. So if we can figure out that you are using offensive langugage, then you are using offensive language.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Ike99

Take the high road bigbaba.

Honor your committment and finsh the current game.

Then strike him off your list of potential opponents.

After all, since according to him, he has plenty of people who want to game against him the loss of you as a potential opponent won't be any skin off his posterior.

I suspect that if he keeps this up long enough against enogh different people he will eventually find no one willing to play against his exploitative rear end.


Let him reap what he sows.

(1) Family Language. Use of offensive language will not be tolerated. This will be treated as a family site. So use language you would be comfortable with your wives, mothers, girlfriends, kids, grandkids, etc. viewing. This include limits on thinly veiled words, like using obvious substitutes or pictures. So if we can figure out that you are using offensive langugage, then you are using offensive language.

Pot-Kettle-Black


See Ike's "**** you" response to me in another thread.

[tocaff]

Ike you quote the forum rules and yet violate them in a way worse than any other I have ever seen. You are truly a self serving character with very low standards. This forum is about a game and as such doesn't warrant such extreme behavior. If this is how you are in the RL world then I pity those who have to deal with you on a continual basis.

In other words behave yourself or do us all a favor and pull a disappearing act.

[tocaff]

What is being lost in all of this dirt is that many of us play the game for the sheer fun of it and win, lose or draw we enjoy it.  If somebody does things that we consider an abuse of the game system and there were no HRs agreed to then we have to live with it unless both see the problem it causes.  This is why I usually ask for HRs against a new opponent and once I know what kind of person I'm dealing with I'll play against them in the future without them.  Most of us are honorable and believe that certain things shouldn't be done as they are so far from the reality of what actually happened 65 years ago we won't do them. 

CV ops at night?  OK name the USN Admiral who ordered the famous LIGHT THEM UP command for a late returning airstrike.  Never did strikes launch at night with a planned night return simply because you can't land on what you can't see.  Make yourself visible to returning planes and the enemy can see you too.  Modern electronic systems have changed all of this and yet a daylight CV landing is more stressful to the pilot than actual combat.  Now imagine night landings.  This was discovered and confirmed by monitoring pilot's respiration rates so it's not even a topic for debate.  The navigation methods of the early 1940s were not capable of accurate fixes even if trying to "ride the beacon."  Don't believe me?   Then look at Europe and what the British and Germans tried to do for night bombings and this was for LBA and land targets and was inaccurate at best. 

[HansBolter]

That would be the premier carrier admiral of the war: Marc Mitscher

[tocaff]

We have a winner!
As Bruce Willis said in the original Die Hard movie, "Hans........................."

[mdiehl]

"They were more advanced compared to US carrier capability at night."

That claim is incorrect. All USN and IJN carriers had the capability to land and launch at night, but at no time during or prior to WW2 did the Japanese train extensively at it, because operational losses were (unsurprisingly) high (in both navies) and because the IJN's pool of pilots for replacing those operationally lost was low.

Several USN CVs trained extensively at night operations prior to the war (but it was not until 1944 when it became common in the training of USN pilots but not for IJN pilots -- for example USS Enterprise operated in late 1944-e.1945 as a solely night-operations CV and was home to Night Operations Group 90, and other such as USS Saratoga trained extensively for it but were not exclusively dedicated to the job as was Enterprise). Examples include USS Ranger, USS Hornet, and USS Enterprise, all of whom conducted training in night launching and landing, and night torpedo attack, glide bombing, and radar directed fighter intercept. Needless to say, night dive bombing was right out, and really effective night operations required good moonlight or good radar (the Japanese lacked the latter). Royal Navy Swordfish squadrons also trained extensively in night torpedo attack, as they were the first (IIRC) naval aviation squadrons to be equipped with on-board radar on their aircraft.

[bigbaba]

because we are talking about night air combat...here is a intresting youtube-link for the 5 parts of "Dogfights - Nightfighters" from history channel also with some navy F6F and army P-61 nightfighter combat at 1944-1945.

it is not totaly on-topic but may be intresting for you.

thats the first part about the navy hellcats. for the 4 other parts, just scroll at the right side of the screen.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=lDH_qFOZHE8

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

We have a winner!
As Bruce Willis said in the original Die Hard movie, "Hans........................."

Hans Gruber was one of the best bad guys of all time in the movies.

Then again Rickman just seems to be perfectly typecast as a quintessential bad guy, his Sherrif of Nottingham was great as well.

[mdiehl]

Rickman is one of my favorite lead actors these days, and he's not limited to villains. He was a real hoot in Galaxy Quest.