japan bombers

[caldy]

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english

[Uncivil Engineer]

Against Chinese troops I usually go down to 5k feet, as there is no AA. You can do the same against other Allies, if you know there is no AA. Troops in defensible terrain (woods, rough, etc) usually take very few losses, if any, to Japanese aerial bombardment. That's just the way it is.

[Theages]

Japanese bombers are inaccurate, especially at that altitude. I only get "good" results at altitudes 6k to 12k (the lower the better), which is only adviseable at sites with few flak guns.
Moreover, damage is reduced against targets, that are not in open terrain and/or entrenched.
Also experience and ground bombing skill matter.
The smaller the airfield and the higher the number of airplanes present the higher is the probabilty of damaged/destroyed airplanes

[btd64]

Sometimes it's the roll of the dice....GP

[m10bob]

As in real life, the lower you go, the more you can damage, but the risk to your planes will also increase.
If the plane type is not listed as an "attack capable" plane, you will also suffer high daily morale decreases as well, because the pilots of those planes are not considered to have gotten the training to perform low level missions without familiarity.
Low level attacks can be from 100 feet to 100 feet, generally..
Attack type planes also get a hit bonus against an enemy unit.

If you use non-attack types against low targets, (which you can do)...be ready to check them on a daily basis as they will suffer those morale and attrition hits as time goes on .

[GetAssista]

Japanese ground bombing is more about suppression and harrassment than destruction. Ramp up enemy's fatigue/disrution and use up their supplies before assaulting with your land units. Works great in 41-42 before Allies get ample AA assets and fighters

Still you can have very fruitful bombings now and then - in clear terrain which is an absolute must for significant results in terms of disabled/destroyed squads and devices. Recon and no air opposition help a lot. Also bombs are best weapon against Allied tanks if you can catch them undefended.

[ITAKLinus]

Generally speaking I have experienced very good results with Betties and Nells in ground bombardament. Much better than the whole bunch of Sallies and Lilies.

In China I bomb from 3k and I do massacres (in the range of over 1,000 casualties for larger raids).

Against Western Allies, I bomb only if I have total air superiority and the enemy is in clear terrain. Altitudes are far higher, generally from 7k to 12k. It depends on who I am bombing: against tanks in open field I go quite low (3-5k) and I do bloodbaths. Against AA defended targets I usually don't go to kill, rather to slow down their movement and/or hit port/AF.


Tbh, Jap bombers are quite disappointing if you are interested in inflicting high casualties. They do very well against Chinese only.

Still, massed bombers are useful in increasing disruption independently from casualties.


I also use (as Jun-42) a lot of Ann as 1E LB in ASW but also ground bombing. They do nothing against troops but they do score decent results against AFs and are useful in slowing down fleeing enemies.



My behavior is pretty straightforward:

I bomb few targets and when I decide to do bombings I do them with massed LBs and I don't care for losses. I never ever spread my bombings among different targets: one at time.

I had a huge amount of FlaK losses in my campaign, though. Roughly 700 at the end of May.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: caldy

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english

What is your detection level (DL) prior to bombing?

[RangerJoe]

I only tried the japanese once but there are these things to consider:

1) Lots of small bombs to try and get as many hits as is possible,
2) Larger but fewer bombs so those that do hit do as much damage as is possible.
3) What type of target are you going for and what kind of damage do you want to do:
i) ground targets, destroy or raise the disruption and fatigue levels,
ii) sea targets, do you go for sinking or just damage to send them to the shipyards.

Then there is the production considerations:

1) The cost of a one engine airplane, one engine and one air frame versus
2) The cost of a two engine airplane, two engines and one air frame.
3) The cost of engine and air frame factories to produce said aircraft. Engines can be stockpiled but I don't think that air frames can be stockpiled.

Then there is the aircrew consideration per engines produced:

1) Single engine aircraft units will require twice as many trained aircrews per two engine aircraft units, presuming only a set number of engines are produced,
2) The cost of training the aircrews to the level needed for the most accurate bombing,
3) The number and cost (real and opportunity) of having training squadrons and the availability of the resources to support said training.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: caldy

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english

Your post is hard to answer effectively as your information is not precise and doesn't include screenshots or combat reports.

As many have said, you may be operating too high, but that depends on what AA is in the target hex and what kind of terrain you're bombing.

Note there is an important difference in game between IJN Betty/Nell/Frances and IJA Sally/Helen bombing at normal range. The IJN bombers use 2 x 250kg and 4 x 50kg against land targets. The IJA bombers use 4 x 250kg. The IJN has more chances to hit and less chance to do major damage (as bigger bombs hit harder).

What is the landing bombing skill level of your pilots?

Playing Japan most players find it fairly easy to increase the skill and experience of IJA and some IJN land bombing pilots by bombing Chinese troops daily. There is little good AA in China to start. Make sure you know what altitude is safe relevant to the AA devices of the Chinese. If you go below 6k even the 50cal MG might do some damage, but I generally find at 6k I get good results with few lost or damaged.

By the end of 42 I usually have more 70exp/80 land bombing skill pilots than I am able to use for the rest of the war.

[ITAKLinus]

Few considerations:

* Sea Targets : until you have the Peggy (T) and the Lily DB, IJAAF are almost completely useless against naval targets. Such targets are both difficult to hit and to destroy because IJAAF carry small bombs (250Kg max), therefore you can't easily hit targets you can really damage (such as DDs) and you can't deal damage to large targets you can somehow hit (such as BBs).

* Engines: you are right in saying you cannot stockpile airframes.

* Damage: you do not have choice between large and small bombs. Either you have the 100Kg ones or the 250Kg. Smaller ones are really too small to do something. You can do a lot of runway hits with them though.

* Costs: 2Es are more expensive. That's obvious. It should also be listed the fact that they carry more bombs and so you spend more supplies because of the larger payload. However, they are also downed less easily. Helens get the armour and that's a very big improvement in air warfare for Japs.


I think a lot depends on how you play the game. I love to mass LBs in China to blast Chinese until I get the armoured Helen and then I begin to use LBs against Allied in a more aggressive posture. Real issue to me is not to give free kills to enemy pilots, rather than problems with industrial production (I compensate somewhere else).


Broadly speaking I don't rely on ground bombing at all to inflict losses to Western Allies so I really don't care about LBs' effectiveness. Most of my LBs are designed to equip ASW patrols or to be converted in FBs as war goes on.


Don't forget ASW: I use 1E-Anns as ASW asset from small AFs / AFs with low AirSupp in areas where I expect subs just to transit (f.ex. southern DEI). The idea is to early spot them approaching their patrol zones and to harass those poor bastards.
I use old Sallies/Lilies for major bases and places where enemy activity is remarkable.

If needed I have also a roaming group of Betties with ASW skill at min 70 which go wherever they are needed to blast enemy subs adding punch to local ASW service.



Betty and Nell are important Anti-Ship assets so I focus on naval warfare for them after the first months of onslaught in China. They are also good pilot trainers and wonderful ASW platforms.

[btd64]

Recon the location. It will increase DL....GP

[RangerJoe]

Like I said, I only tried the Japanese for a little bit once. But as Allies, 14 Devestators dropped 19 500 pound bombs on a Japanese battleship wrecking her topsides and starting fires. Then I switched them to torpedoes the next turn . . .

But as Japanese, would it be worthwhile to train bomber pilots on LowNav skills both to hit the agile DDs and then save the save the pilots for Kamikazes?

[HansBolter]

Getassista hinted at what is important that you may be overlooking.

Your REPORTED combat results are meager.

Your UNREPORTED combat results may not be.

The unreported results I am referring to are:

Morale Suppression: LCUs take a morale hit when they are bombed and daily bombing prevents them from recovering low morale.

Disruption increase or at least maintenance: Bombing increases disruption and suppresses disruption recovery.

Fatigue: daily bombing suppresses fatigue recovery.

in clear terrain with low or no forts you should have a high expectation of causing real casualties that will be shown in the combat report.

In heavy terrain and/or heavy forts the expectation of causing casualties must be lower and one has to be satisfied with the unreported combat results.


Many new players have a similar perception of night CAP, often complaining that night CAP is ineffective because no bombers are being shot down.

Night CAP is effectively doing its job if the incoming raids are sufficiently broken up that no damage is being done to the airfield.

EI... the primary purpose of night CAP is protection of the airfield, not downing enemy aircraft.

If you look at aerial bombing of hard targets (heavy terrain/heavy forts) as primarily suppression, rather than damage infliction, you will be less dissatisfied with the results.

[ITAKLinus]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Getassista hinted at what is important that you may be overlooking.

Your REPORTED combat results are meager.

Your UNREPORTED combat results may not be.

The unreported results I am referring to are:

Morale Suppression: LCUs take a morale hit when they are bombed and daily bombing prevents them from recovering low morale.

Disruption increase or at least maintenance: Bombing increases disruption and suppresses disruption recovery.

Fatigue: daily bombing suppresses fatigue recovery.

in clear terrain with low or no forts you should have a high expectation of causing real casualties that will be shown in the combat report.

In heavy terrain and/or heavy forts the expectation of causing casualties must be lower and one has to be satisfied with the unreported combat results.

I add to this important contribution that

1) these results are probably much more important that casualties per-se;

2) mantaining a high level of disruption is quite hard to achieve, but morale and fatigue are extremely important as well and they get quite a huge shot (especially morale) from bombing.

3) bombing for the sake of bombing is, from my point of view, wrong. Bombing as part of a broader strategy makes the effects listed by HansBolter very significant even if you see 0 casualties inflicted.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: caldy

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english

Also, bombs as devices have ACCURACY rating. Try dropping accurate bombs i.e. 250kg GP bombs from 2000 feet (this altitude still uses GndBmb skill), and then see what happens.

[RangerJoe]

quote:

ORIGINAL: caldy

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english



Also, bombs as devices have ACCURACY rating. Try dropping accurate bombs i.e. 250kg GP bombs from 2000 feet (this altitude still uses GndBmb skill), and then see what happens.

This is why dive bombers are so effective.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

quote:

ORIGINAL: caldy

I've been playing witpae for some time and I often use japs.
many times I use Sally and Betty to bomb 'ground' targets, often filled with enemy troops. Set 14k, 15k altitude with good weather and successive waves of even hundreds of bombers give insignificant or more often null enemy losses. It is normal or the program sometimes gets stuck. I note the same things bombing enemy airfields, a lot of damage on airport structures but less or nothing on airplanes on it.sorry for my english



Also, bombs as devices have ACCURACY rating. Try dropping accurate bombs i.e. 250kg GP bombs from 2000 feet (this altitude still uses GndBmb skill), and then see what happens.

This is why dive bombers are so effective.

.. and also why you'll lose a lot of them attacking flak defended bases. Need to pick what bases you attack or use them as LBs.