The tojo as uber.....

[crsutton]

July 15, 1942. Tokyo Rose

"Once again, highly trained Japanese army pilots, using their refined "high altitude sweep" tactics prevailed over the American dogs.

38 of the " universally respected and beloved" tojo fighters swept into Allied skies at a comfortable 36,000 feet and impaled a superior force of Allied P-40 aircraft-proving again the dominance of Japanese technoloy, pilot skill and industrial prowess. For the lost of just two "vaunted" tojos, the force of 38 "elite" army fighters, sporting weak armament and no armor, engaged 65 Allied planes and sliced up fourty P-40 Es in air to air combat. The highly skilled P 40 pilots while flying at the optimum altitude for their pitiful aircraft, grew over confident behind the superior armor and firepower of the hopelessly obsolete curtis fighters and were paid in kind for their reckless optimism. It is a shame that American and Australian girls have to lose their beloved sweetheat and husbands who are sent to war in this pitiful aircraft-no longer suited for any sort of front line activity but yet used by the Allies as they are unable to produce anything better. You Yanks thought you were in trouble facing our marvelous Zeros and Oscars and their tremendous high flying tactics. Now you must quiver in your boots at the the thought of facing the "new" superior tojo fighters."



Truthfully, this just totally blows. Tojos have slaughterd my hurricanes in India and are now doing a job on my fighters in OZ. This mediocre aircraft is a total killer and combined with superior numbers and the high altitude sweep just makes me sick. I have tried many solutions but it is July of 1942 and so far my the best tactic I have found to conter the Japanese air force is to pray that they do not show up in the same hex that I send my aircraft. Pretty sad. Takes me two months to build up my squadrons only to see them slaughtered in combat. I know I am not the first to complain about this but the high altitude sweep is totally out of whack. I suspect that Japanese players are going to be screaming about the same thing when our games get into the later stages. Any Japanese player who would build Tonys (service rating of 3) over these aircraft is out of his mind.

I have to confess that I am playing scen 2. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have negotiated a better deal....[:D]

[Misconduct]

I remember back in my first PBEM in WITP I had a japanese player build nothing but Tony's exclusively and worked quite well till the eventual corsair/hellcat/P47 combo.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
I have to confess that I am playing scen 2. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have negotiated a better deal....[:D]

Well, you're right about that, sir...

[freeboy]

well. notthat it answers the ? directly. but I would try lba day and night bombing of the base the planes are flying from...good luck

[Miller]

ALTITUDE. Forget pilot exp, plane stats.........max altitude is the winner. Whichever plane can fly the highest will win most of the time. Needs loooking at I'm afraid.

[Brady]

Ki-44's howeaver were not medicoure compared to P-40E's or Huricanes. The High Alt sweep aside... (which is sorta bunk presently no arguments their.)

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

July 15, 1942. Tokyo Rose

"Once again, highly trained Japanese army pilots, using their refined "high altitude sweep" tactics prevailed over the American dogs.

38 of the " universally respected and beloved" tojo fighters swept into Allied skies at a comfortable 36,000 feet and impaled a superior force of Allied P-40 aircraft-proving again the dominance of Japanese technoloy, pilot skill and industrial prowess. For the lost of just two "vaunted" tojos, the force of 38 "elite" army fighters, sporting weak armament and no armor, engaged 65 Allied planes and sliced up fourty P-40 Es in air to air combat. The highly skilled P 40 pilots while flying at the optimum altitude for their pitiful aircraft, grew over confident behind the superior armor and firepower of the hopelessly obsolete curtis fighters and were paid in kind for their reckless optimism. It is a shame that American and Australian girls have to lose their beloved sweetheat and husbands who are sent to war in this pitiful aircraft-no longer suited for any sort of front line activity but yet used by the Allies as they are unable to produce anything better. You Yanks thought you were in trouble facing our marvelous Zeros and Oscars and their tremendous high flying tactics. Now you must quiver in your boots at the the thought of facing the "new" superior tojo fighters."

Truthfully, this just totally blows. Tojos have slaughterd my hurricanes in India and are now doing a job on my fighters in OZ. This mediocre aircraft is a total killer and combined with superior numbers and the high altitude sweep just makes me sick. I have tried many solutions but it is July of 1942 and so far my the best tactic I have found to conter the Japanese air force is to pray that they do not show up in the same hex that I send my aircraft. Pretty sad. Takes me two months to build up my squadrons only to see them slaughtered in combat. I know I am not the first to complain about this but the high altitude sweep is totally out of whack. I suspect that Japanese players are going to be screaming about the same thing when our games get into the later stages. Any Japanese player who would build Tonys (service rating of 3) over these aircraft is out of his mind.

I have to confess that I am playing scen 2. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have negotiated a better deal....[:D]

Ross, the Demon was not that mediocre as you imply... [:-]
As for the complain... didn't you shoot down too many my bombers during our game? [:D]
...well, I think I can only quote the words of our guru, The Elf:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
If you set your Fighters to CAP, they will CAP. They will also try to engage the Enemy, whether it be a sweep, an escorted raid, or unescorted Bombers.
If you don't want them to engage an enemy with a superior perfroming plane at altitude don't set them to CAP. Pretty simple. If you find your position at an AF untenable, and want to avoid large losses on the ground, don't park A/C at the AF. This is a pretty basic concept of Air Warfare. Air Superiority is a nice thing to have.

Yes, air superiority AND initiative.
CAP is better than escort, sweep is better than CAP. That's a classic "scissors, rock, paper game" .
BTW:
Don't you think that the single fight is just too little to call "faul"? [;)]
My sweep was sent at 29 000, FOR THE FIRST TIME in our game (I usually set them at 14/19 000), you could have set your P40s higher (set at 14 000?) but the bounce was on my side this time. Your fighters scrambled piece by piece (only 30 airborne).

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid spotted at 31 NM, estimated altitude 32,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 8 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 38

Allied aircraft
Kittyhawk IA x 10
P-40E Warhawk x 56


No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
Kittyhawk IA: 2 destroyed
P-40E Warhawk: 19 destroyed



CAP engaged:
No.75 Sqn RAAF with Kittyhawk IA (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 10 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 3 minutes
49th FG/7th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 0 being recalled, 14 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 33 minutes
49th FG/8th FS with P-40E Warhawk (15 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
15 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead
49th FG/9th FS with P-40E Warhawk (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 12 being recalled, 0 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 2 minutes
28th CG/11th FS with P-40E Warhawk (15 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
15 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 14000
Raid is overhead

Also, my squadron leader has 70 air rating, that's the best I have.
Plus, you've been generally avoiding any bigger A2A confrontation during the first half of the year.
I feel it's a nono for the AFB. You let my air crew grow and gather experience. There are no pilots with air exp lower than 71 in this daitai, with most having about 76-80.


[:D]

[EDIT] spelling

[Misconduct]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ALTITUDE. Forget pilot exp, plane stats.........max altitude is the winner. Whichever plane can fly the highest will win most of the time. Needs loooking at I'm afraid.

Yeah I've been noticing this, im sorry but even if corsairs for example are set for 15k and Zeros bounce, corsairs shouldn't get shot down unless it was an out of the sun bounce.

there are to many variables, but i agree alt alone does not win a fight but it does however define the rules for the attacking group. They can choose to fight or leave as pleased, however the lower aircraft only have defensive actions.

However it is noticed on several ocassions japanese planes bouncing american, the americans simply went full throttle with a slight dive and they couldn't be caught.

[topeverest]

Agree Altitide is a huge factor in A2A victory, perhaps the largest effect. Certainly larger than airfame type in my experience.

[crsutton]

No, the Tojo was not a great plane. It was fast and could climb well but was not popular with Japanese pilots and had a tendency to kill the inexperienced ones as it was hard to land and prone to spins and stalls due to high wing loading. Experience pilots found it diffiuclt to control and is suffered from poor armor and poor self sealing fuel tanks. It is cited as one of the best Japanese bomber inteceptors but that does not mean much. They built about 1200 of them and eventually phased them out. The early model had two heavy MGs and two rifle caliber MGs. Not a war winning aircraft. I would expect it to be about equal if not slightly better than the P40. The tony was a much better all around fighter than the tojo but with a service rating of 3 to the tojo's 1, how many people are going to jump on the Tony bandwagon?

Ark is correct though. It is not the plane so much as it is the tactic. We all know the high altitude sweep almost always wins the battle. However the thought of Pacific fighters sweeping at 36,000 feet is ludicrous. Was it ever done? In the game this is how you do it and Ark (my opponent) was just using the best mechanics at his disposal. I would do it to if I had the planes.

But this is silly to have to play this way. There should be little or no reward for having a sweep go in 20,000 feet above the opposition. More often than not, you would not even see them.

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: topeverest
Agree Altitide is a huge factor in A2A victory, perhaps the largest effect. Certainly larger than airfame type in my experience.

Will the really high sweep ever encounter CAP?
I think I've seen several posts stating just that...

Here:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
incidentally Canoe I went back and looked at your report and noted that your sweep was around 43k'? There is no way they would even attempt to coordinate. Not to mention that the CAP could never get to them if they wanted to...

& here:

ORIGINAL: Djordje
Stratosphere sweeps and air combat in general are pure fantasy for WW2 era this game covers. Sweep that goes in at 43k altitude should most of the time fail to even locate enemy CAP.
Since the combat happened in Burma on the average overcast day there would be higher chances to completely miss the target hex than to see something from that altitude through the clouds below.

ORIGINAL: crsutton
But this is silly to have to play this way. There should be little or no reward for having a sweep go in 20,000 feet above the opposition. More often than not, you would not even see them.

Exactly, Ross, and I agree with that.
And it looks that TheElf, who was mainly responsible for the A2A rules stated just that. Very high altitute sweeps should pass unnoticed by low level CAP. My (this particular) sweep was sent at 29 000 so 15 000 above your fighters. Don't know why the OR says 32 000 feet, I am sure I set them at 29 000 just because of the mvr feature at >31 000 band.

[crsutton]

Perhaps much higher fatique and much higher op losses as a counter to flying so high-especially with early war fighters. So a high alt sweep would have some advantages but the pilot would enter the fight with higher fatique levels. Is this realistic?

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: crsutton
Perhaps much higher fatique and much higher op losses as a counter to flying so high-especially with early war fighters. So a high alt sweep would have some advantages but the pilot would enter the fight with higher fatique levels. Is this realistic?

I think that failure to fulfill the orders (sweep enemy's fighters, clear the way for bombers) would be the best solution.
High altitute sweep should miss the enemy if the difference is just too big. That's the best option IMHO.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: viberpol

ORIGINAL: crsutton
Perhaps much higher fatique and much higher op losses as a counter to flying so high-especially with early war fighters. So a high alt sweep would have some advantages but the pilot would enter the fight with higher fatique levels. Is this realistic?

I think that failure to fulfill the orders (sweep enemy's fighters, clear the way for bombers) would be the best solution.
High altitute sweep should miss the enemy if the difference is just too big. That's the best option IMHO.

Good idea, but you should be hard at work on your next turn to me......[;)]

Or just like with my CAP-there would be a chance that only a small percentage would engage. Much more random.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

July 15, 1942. Tokyo Rose

"Once again, highly trained Japanese army pilots, using their refined "high altitude sweep" tactics prevailed over the American dogs.

38 of the " universally respected and beloved" tojo fighters swept into Allied skies at a comfortable 36,000 feet and impaled a superior force of Allied P-40 aircraft-proving again the dominance of Japanese technoloy, pilot skill and industrial prowess. For the lost of just two "vaunted" tojos, the force of 38 "elite" army fighters, sporting weak armament and no armor, engaged 65 Allied planes and sliced up fourty P-40 Es in air to air combat. The highly skilled P 40 pilots while flying at the optimum altitude for their pitiful aircraft, grew over confident behind the superior armor and firepower of the hopelessly obsolete curtis fighters and were paid in kind for their reckless optimism. It is a shame that American and Australian girls have to lose their beloved sweetheat and husbands who are sent to war in this pitiful aircraft-no longer suited for any sort of front line activity but yet used by the Allies as they are unable to produce anything better. You Yanks thought you were in trouble facing our marvelous Zeros and Oscars and their tremendous high flying tactics. Now you must quiver in your boots at the the thought of facing the "new" superior tojo fighters."



Truthfully, this just totally blows. Tojos have slaughterd my hurricanes in India and are now doing a job on my fighters in OZ. This mediocre aircraft is a total killer and combined with superior numbers and the high altitude sweep just makes me sick. I have tried many solutions but it is July of 1942 and so far my the best tactic I have found to conter the Japanese air force is to pray that they do not show up in the same hex that I send my aircraft. Pretty sad. Takes me two months to build up my squadrons only to see them slaughtered in combat. I know I am not the first to complain about this but the high altitude sweep is totally out of whack. I suspect that Japanese players are going to be screaming about the same thing when our games get into the later stages. Any Japanese player who would build Tonys (service rating of 3) over these aircraft is out of his mind.

I have to confess that I am playing scen 2. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have negotiated a better deal....[:D]

it´s all about the max ceiling in fighter stats in AE. This leads to everyone trying to get as high as possible to bounce the enemy. Combine this with a sweep and you constantly get totally off results, just like the 20:1 kill rate of 1.5 outnumbered Tojos like in your example. It´s sad that a good idea (the altitude bands and actually implementing altitude in fighter vs fighter in AE) results in totally off air war that mostly happens around or above 30.000ft, which is completely wrong when we´re talking about the Pacific theatre. But hey, that´s it and don´t you dare to say it´s wrong. And I totally agree with you, the Japanese will bleed just as much as the Allied do as soon as you can mass deploy fighters that can go at least 100ft higher than the Japanese Sputniks.

It´s not right but that´s how it is.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ALTITUDE. Forget pilot exp, plane stats.........max altitude is the winner. Whichever plane can fly the highest will win most of the time. Needs loooking at I'm afraid.

at least I´m not the only one that thinks it´s wrong as it is now.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: viberpol

ORIGINAL: TheElf
If you set your Fighters to CAP, they will CAP. They will also try to engage the Enemy, whether it be a sweep, an escorted raid, or unescorted Bombers.
If you don't want them to engage an enemy with a superior perfroming plane at altitude don't set them to CAP. Pretty simple. If you find your position at an AF untenable, and want to avoid large losses on the ground, don't park A/C at the AF. This is a pretty basic concept of Air Warfare. Air Superiority is a nice thing to have.

that´s funny and nothing else because with the given routines or stats (decide yourselve what´s wrong) the Japanese fighters like the Oscar for example works best at 38.000ft and that´s just plain... wrong. And I seriously doubt that anyone here thinks that an aircraft like the Oscar should perform best when being sent in to fight at 38.000ft. Going with this argument means you should abandon ALL your airfields in Oscar (or in the op´s case Tojo) range due to the fact that those fighters can go higher than anything the Allied can field until early/mid 43 and this means you will always fight at a disadvantage due to the allmighty Sputnik feature of AE. I will soon face hundreds of Tojos myselve in my PBEM and even though production won´t start within the next 7 days I´m sure I will be even more on the receiving end from mid 42 to mid 43 than I was from end 41 to mid 42 (speaking about fighter vs fighter).

You don´t have to abandon your airfields due to being in Zero range because you´ve got fighters that can go higher than the Zero and going up high is the only thing that counts which is stated by more and more PBEM players.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: viberpol

ORIGINAL: topeverest
Agree Altitide is a huge factor in A2A victory, perhaps the largest effect. Certainly larger than airfame type in my experience.

Will the really high sweep ever encounter CAP?
I think I've seen several posts stating just that...

Here:

ORIGINAL: TheElf
incidentally Canoe I went back and looked at your report and noted that your sweep was around 43k'? There is no way they would even attempt to coordinate. Not to mention that the CAP could never get to them if they wanted to...

& here:

ORIGINAL: Djordje
Stratosphere sweeps and air combat in general are pure fantasy for WW2 era this game covers. Sweep that goes in at 43k altitude should most of the time fail to even locate enemy CAP.
Since the combat happened in Burma on the average overcast day there would be higher chances to completely miss the target hex than to see something from that altitude through the clouds below.

ORIGINAL: crsutton
But this is silly to have to play this way. There should be little or no reward for having a sweep go in 20,000 feet above the opposition. More often than not, you would not even see them.

Exactly, Ross, and I agree with that.
And it looks that TheElf, who was mainly responsible for the A2A rules stated just that. Very high altitute sweeps should pass unnoticed by low level CAP. My (this particular) sweep was sent at 29 000 so 15 000 above your fighters. Don't know why the OR says 32 000 feet, I am sure I set them at 29 000 just because of the mvr feature at >31 000 band.

and I have never seen it happen and have seen surely hundreds of high alt sweeps already. Sweeps don´t pass along Cap, especially not when radar comes into play. Same as telling you should send your bombers in at low alt when your opponent has his Cap at max alt. Lol, your bombers will just be shred to pieces, no matter if the Cap is flying 30.000ft higher than the incoming bombers. Perhaps this "game theory" or what has worked in real life works also in the game if there are 4 ac on one side and 6 on the other side but as soon as there are 50 on one side and 70 on the other side you can forget about all that theory.

It´s like crsutton says, it´s silly to play it as we do but we´re exactly doing what we were told to do. Look at the stats, trial and error and we soon found out that the high alt forever trumps everything, thus leading to airwar in the Pacific in 42 at 30-38.000ft and from 43-45 at 38-43.000ft as the Allied than got figthers being able to fly that high.

What´s the state of the Bombing the Reich game? Already released or still in beta? Airwar in ETO will probably happen around 10.000ft, it´s a game afterall... [;)]

[viberpol]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

that´s funny and nothing else because with the given routines or stats (decide yourselve what´s wrong) the Japanese fighters like the Oscar for example works best at 38.000ft and that´s just plain... wrong. And I seriously doubt that anyone here thinks that an aircraft like the Oscar should perform best when being sent in to fight at 38.000ft.

Funny, I have never tried it in our (vs Ross) PBEM, just because I thought Oscar has marvellous mvr rating at altitude set at 9500 feet. [;)]

So as you see, I can't really say from experience which altitude is better. There's just too many factors in play in A2A.
What I am just saying is that IMHO high altitude sweeps should miss the enemy if the gap is way too large.
I thought AE works this way? At least TheElf said it works.
If it does not, it's bad.

[crsutton]

Yes, the real problem is that it highly favors the side that can put the most planes in the air.

I seriously suspect that we really will hear the screams from the Japanese players as the pendulum swings. I dread to think of what mustings and thunderbolts will do up high. Problem is now that any attempt to fight off a Japanese land offensive is done without serious air support. My heavies help but I dare not fly any missions with my mediums as they just get creamed. (Wait a minute, I don't have any mediums...[:D]) I can ambush now and then but not fight for anymore than a turn or two.

I will admit, if you can close to grips with Japanese bombers they do burn like zippos.

But the high sweep problem is obvious. There must be a way to neuter it a bit.