Fighting allied 4 engines

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PetrOs
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Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by PetrOs »

Hey,

Playing for jap vs AI now, late 42 as for now, and I have a trouble that the B-17E and F raids are sweeping my zeros en masse... For example, last turn a relatively minor night raid of 6 fortresses shot down 5 my Zero A6M3s at Port Moresby. Zeros were well trained, pilots being about 60 exp, 70 air, 60 def or so. Its quite annoying, and I fear to imagine what would happen when the allies would use larger numbers... My Kido Butai 2 (Kaga, Akagi,Junyo, Hiyo) was once attacked by 16 B17s and 24 B24s, which were met by over 90 perfect trained Zero 2 pilots. One Liberator down (+3 by flak), 7 Zeros down, 2 bomb hits on Junyo, 1 on Kaga - and not a single bomber turned away from attack run.


My question is, what is the best way for the japs to counter the bombers at late 42 and 43 at both day and night? Best fighter types, and best defensive tactics.... I mass produce Tojos, Nicks, and Zeros (2/3) now, with Tony and Jack production planned.
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Lokasenna
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Lokasenna »

Nicks are the first plane you get that can really compete. Zeroes do OK, but not great. You need cannons and armor. Nicks have both.

Jacks and Georges do OK. Frank does well.
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Lowpe
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Lowpe »

Play a mod where the AA is beefed up.[:)]

Radar, lots of sets, will eventually help too.

At night, use cheap planes because they can't fight until you get night fighters. But they can help to disrupt the attacks.
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Lokasenna
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Lokasenna »

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Play a mod where the AA is beefed up.[:)]

Radar, lots of sets, will eventually help too.

At night, use cheap planes because they can't fight until you get night fighters. But they can help to disrupt the attacks.

Or just grab the database/scenario updates from Andy. The updated flak stuff really works wonders. Ask my KB fighter crews on 12/8 how they liked the flak at Pearl Harbor. 20ish A6M2 lost to flak under default turn 1 orders.
PetrOs
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by PetrOs »

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Play a mod where the AA is beefed up.[:)]

Radar, lots of sets, will eventually help too.

At night, use cheap planes because they can't fight until you get night fighters. But they can help to disrupt the attacks.
At night, use cheap planes because they can't fight until you get night fighters. But they can help to disrupt the attacks.


Could this mod be applied without restarting the game?
And I fear it would be a two-edged sword - my losses to AA are quite high currently, up to 5 (plus ops..) Nells/Bettys/Sallys/Helens per turn, as I keep Darwin down with about 100 bombers (and burned a lot of 4 engines there ;)), and also keep major pressure on surrounded Chittagong also by about 150 planes, and also ground support in mop up of new zealand....

The cheap planes are getting shot down en masse at night...
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leehunt27@bloomberg.net
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by leehunt27@bloomberg.net »

Gun values and armor value on your Japanese fighters are also key. Forget using Zeroes as CAP against Allied 4E bombers- use Tojos, Nick's, Rex etc. Also night bombing is not very effective in general, so just having some kind of CAP seems to have a very negative effect on bombing results. Maybe even seeing a single fighter makes the Allied pilots jittery, who knows.
John 21:25
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Erkki
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Erkki »

Ki-44 doesnt do better than Zero. Armor rating helps considerably against rifle and 50. cal machine guns and is a must(the 4E gunners score ridiculous numbers of hits on attacking fighters, a Zero, Ki-43 or a Ki-44 usually disengages if hit even if few are actually lost beyond repairs). For damaging and shooting down the 4Es cannon armament is needed, and that means you need Ki-45, Ki-61, Ki-84, N1K, J2M etc. and you only have one of those in 1942. Easy choice.

In the night, dont resist with the 1942 daytime fighter paper kites. You have two bad options: let them bomb, or let them bomb and shoot down your fighters that wont hit them: bomber gunners have little trouble hitting fighters in the dark.
SenToku
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by SenToku »

Also, make sure you keep hitting their fields. G3M3 has legs to do harrasment on them, so I recomend using it.

Damage to service and runway are limited and number of planes destroyed and damaged is not that great, but the aviation support will be eaten up by fighters doing CAP, instead of large fleet of dangerous 4E's allowing you to get numerical superiority against incoming raids. Switch to night bombing occasionally to make sure AI sends another fighter unit in for night figter duty. That makes 2 units some 10+ hexes from front, so that is well worth doing.
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Chickenboy
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Chickenboy »

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Ki-44 doesnt do better than Zero. Armor rating helps considerably against rifle and 50. cal machine guns and is a must(the 4E gunners score ridiculous numbers of hits on attacking fighters, a Zero, Ki-43 or a Ki-44 usually disengages if hit even if few are actually lost beyond repairs). For damaging and shooting down the 4Es cannon armament is needed, and that means you need Ki-45, Ki-61, Ki-84, N1K, J2M etc. and you only have one of those in 1942. Easy choice.

In the night, dont resist with the 1942 daytime fighter paper kites. You have two bad options: let them bomb, or let them bomb and shoot down your fighters that wont hit them: bomber gunners have little trouble hitting fighters in the dark.

SuluSea sandboxed the Ki-44IIa versus the Ki-44IIc against Allied 4EB attacks. Very much superior performance with the latter due to the 4x 12.5mm (versus the 2x 12.5mm in the former). Granted, most of these tests were on the more vulnerable B-24 lineage, but you can shoot down Allied 4EBs with just MG-armed aircraft with alacrity.
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Erkki
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Erkki »

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Erkki

Ki-44 doesnt do better than Zero. Armor rating helps considerably against rifle and 50. cal machine guns and is a must(the 4E gunners score ridiculous numbers of hits on attacking fighters, a Zero, Ki-43 or a Ki-44 usually disengages if hit even if few are actually lost beyond repairs). For damaging and shooting down the 4Es cannon armament is needed, and that means you need Ki-45, Ki-61, Ki-84, N1K, J2M etc. and you only have one of those in 1942. Easy choice.

In the night, dont resist with the 1942 daytime fighter paper kites. You have two bad options: let them bomb, or let them bomb and shoot down your fighters that wont hit them: bomber gunners have little trouble hitting fighters in the dark.

SuluSea sandboxed the Ki-44IIa versus the Ki-44IIc against Allied 4EB attacks. Very much superior performance with the latter due to the 4x 12.5mm (versus the 2x 12.5mm in the former). Granted, most of these tests were on the more vulnerable B-24 lineage, but you can shoot down Allied 4EBs with just MG-armed aircraft with alacrity.

Aye but no Ki-44-IIc in 1942. I think majority of the performance increase is from the armor though, as it lets the fighters to shoot at the bombers much more.
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Chickenboy
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Chickenboy »

ORIGINAL: Erkki
Aye but no Ki-44-IIc in 1942.

Sez you. [;)]

I brought mine forward to late September 1942. [8D]
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Erkki
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Erkki »

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Erkki
Aye but no Ki-44-IIc in 1942.

Sez you. [;)]

I brought mine forward to late September 1942. [8D]

Your Allied opponent must have approved... I've always used a HR against skipping planes.
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Chickenboy
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Chickenboy »

ORIGINAL: Erkki

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Erkki
Aye but no Ki-44-IIc in 1942.

Sez you. [;)]

I brought mine forward to late September 1942. [8D]

Your Allied opponent must have approved... I've always used a HR against skipping planes.

He's given me carte blanche to go nuts with the air model. I suggested some measures to slow this down, but he didn't require that. I'm keeping this on the ledger for 'I owe him one' later.
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panzer cat
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by panzer cat »

The mass 4e bombers are deadly late in the war. The nick does ok early on. You need 2 to 3 cannon armed fighters to every bomber.
JocMeister
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by JocMeister »

ORIGINAL: panzer cat

The mass 4e bombers are deadly late in the war. The nick does ok early on. You need 2 to 3 cannon armed fighters to every bomber.

Uhm, no. The allied 4Es are paper tigers. They really only shine during a short period in 42 before the Nick and George show up. After that allied 4Es are forced to stay within fighter cover which severely limits their range and use.

When OPS losses are accounted for allied players will lose about 0.75-1 4E for each airborne Japanese 2nd Gen fighter (or later). With the low replacement numbers on 4Es a single Japanese aerial ambush can cost you months of replacements. This is especially true late in the war.
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Yaab
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Yaab »

PetrOs, before Nicks arrive, your best fighters are Oscars Ic (they have 2 x 12.7mm MG in CL position) and Zeros (for their 2 x 20mm cannon in F position). Every fighter can score lots of hits on B-17, even Claudes. Just watch the combat animations and see how fighters attack from upper front/lower front positions and whack the 4Es. The problem is that 7.7mm MGs installed on Claudes and Zeros cannot totally destroy aircraft whose armor level is 1. You need at least 12.7mm MGs to do so, preferably in CL position, due to the higher accuracy of such arrangement. That is why the Nick is so deadly against 4Es - it packs in CL position: 1 x 20mm, 2 x 12.7mm. You have to wait until April 1944 to see a fighter that matches the Nick's CL firepower. This is when Ki 61d arrives, with its CL 2 x 20mm cannons.

Also, you need many radars to detect the bombers early so your CAP arrives in full strength. B-17s are very fast, and your CAP cannot be "diluted" - there will not be enough time to scramble or vector the fighters onto the bombers.
panzer cat
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by panzer cat »

Once the allies get a toe hold in the DEI, a lot of oil facilities are within p47 range. Now if you tell me how to kill p47's that would help.[:)] [:)]
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AW1Steve
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by AW1Steve »

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Erkki

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy




Sez you. [;)]

I brought mine forward to late September 1942. [8D]

Your Allied opponent must have approved... I've always used a HR against skipping planes.

He's given me carte blanche to go nuts with the air model. I suggested some measures to slow this down, but he didn't require that. I'm keeping this on the ledger for 'I owe him one' later.
Would this be me? Or the Lemon kid? [&:][:D]
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obvert
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by obvert »

The other key is number of fighters in the air. You have to overwhelm 4Es with numbers. If you get above a 2:1 ratio even with zeros you can be effective.

The best coming up in 43 are the J2M series. The climb rate gets so many to the point of battle and the canons get the work done. The George is great too, but you get the service 2 Jack much earlier. The Tony suffers so much from enemy fighters it's hard for them to make it through to kill any bombers. In rear areas they can work though.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
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Yaab
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RE: Fighting allied 4 engines

Post by Yaab »

And once the 4Es break through, you need flak guns to disrupt their targeting, and some engineers to repair the potential damage to infrastructure. So, you really need to have RCFE (radar, CAP, flak, engineers) in place.
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