Carrier Flak

[mike254]

Wow, where to start.  My first question would be about the fusing of the ack rounds.  Were they fused on the deck to pop at a certain altitude?  Are they proximity fused?  I was in a 262, 450 MPH, 14K, at least 8K from the CV horizontally, headed in the opposite direction of the CV and got hit???  I do not think that for a second was realistic.  How much of a lead would that human gunner, yes they were humans shooting those things, have to put on a plane that fast and at that altitude.  I was varying my alt by 1000 feet and moving left and right.  This is not a gripe, just a general discussion about realism.  I would personally request that HITECH dumb down the range of the CV ack or the accuracy of the gunners.  I have no experience as a WWII Flak gunner and would like to open this one up for discussion. 

OMG! The same thing happened to me in a 262 yesterday. I was going 500mph at 10K atleast 9K away from the cv and I got hit and killed. That's a load of BS!! I really don't care about the perks that much, I have enough, but its so unrealistic to be hit 10k away going 500mph.... Besides I had 8 kills I wanted to land! Ok, enough whining about that one incident. This has happened to me alot lately, infact, I got hit 5 times yesterday and killed by puffy ack when I wasn't even close to the CV or strat. It seems to me that the puffy ack (and auto ack) has become alot more accurate lately. Alot of people i talk to think the same. I just think it's too unrealistic.

[SlapShot]

I think these 5" shells have little rudders and elevators on them...they are always in front of me.they should be poppin where i WAS going.i'm up and down left to right bobbin..and there they are.lately last few weeks they seem out of control. i dont always remember them being this accurate.

What makes you think that they should be only popping where you WERE ?

If the guns have the right "lead", and you get within the detonation area, you will see them burst where you are GOING.

If you look all around you, you will see that they are popping behind, to the sides, and in front of you.

Maybe they did turned up the accuracy to see what the fallout would be ... and all this current gnashing of teeth is the result.

[SlapShot]

OMG! The same thing happened to me in a 262 yesterday. I was going 500mph at 10K atleast 9K away from the cv and I got hit and killed. That's a load of BS!! I really don't care about the perks that much, I have enough, but its so unrealistic to be hit 10k away going 500mph.... Besides I had 8 kills I wanted to land! Ok, enough whining about that one incident. This has happened to me alot lately, infact, I got hit 5 times yesterday and killed by puffy ack when I wasn't even close to the CV or strat. It seems to me that the puffy ack (and auto ack) has become alot more accurate lately. Alot of people i talk to think the same. I just think it's too unrealistic.

10K in altitude is a walk in the park for 5 inchers to reach out and touch you ... you guesstimation of how far away you were is just that ... a guess ... you may very well have been within "kill" range ... and one more thing ... your speed has little or no bearing on getting whacked by the ack ... you just happened to be in the wrong area at the wrong time.

It seems to me that the puffy ack (and auto ack) has become alot more accurate lately. Alot of people i talk to think the same. I just think it's too unrealistic.

I am sure the Japanese pilots thought the same as they fell from the skys like flys after a "pest bomb" was set off.

Flying near a CV group should be a very dangerous undertaking ... I would tend to believe that most pilots that attacked carrier groups lost their lives to ack-ack, more than air-to-air combat.

[Oleg]

If the guns have the right "lead", and you get within the detonation area, you will see them burst where you are GOING.

You cannt 'lead' unpredictablly moving targets, but puffies can. How often you kill 5k away furballing fighters from manned 5'?

[toonces3]

Great posts back there Slapshot.

I never knew about that proximity fuses on the ack...I thought it was a timed burst.

I actually feel a bit better now about the flak in this game.

And not to derail, but Blooz I think you're a bit out of line here.  This was a legit question that you read the wrong way (imo) and if anything you owe the OP an apology.

Just sayin.

Again, thanks for taking the time to post that Slapshot, I really didn't know about the proximity flak before this.  <S>

[moot]

You cannt 'lead' unpredictablly moving targets, but puffies can. How often you kill 5k away furballing fighters from manned 5'?

The real question is what the size of the wall of incoming shells (on target or not) is, what the time of flight is. From this we'd know how fast/far we'd have to be to dodge it... And whether the game allows that or not.

[Anaxogoras]

btw, you questioned something about the game, prepare to get flamed, this game is perfect, nothing has ever been changed due to input from the community, its always been the way it is now.

    So true.  The people who defend AH in every detail are so cute.

[SlapShot]

You cannt 'lead' unpredictablly moving targets, but puffies can. How often you kill 5k away furballing fighters from manned 5'?

Please ... take a look at that photo ... I don't care how "unpredictable" you try to be ... fly into that hell storm, and things are not going to go right for you. The guys laying that flak out there are "guessing" where your going to be and trying to lob shells to that area ... get enough guys doing the same thing ... and your in deep doo doo.

[moot]

Yep, you certainly couldn't dodge it by flying directly away from the guns.

[Oleg]

Please ... take a look at that photo ... I don't care how "unpredictable" you try to be ... fly into that hell storm, and things are not going to go right for you. The guys laying that flak out there are "guessing" where your going to be and trying to lob shells to that area ... get enough guys doing the same thing ... and your in deep doo doo.

And how many flaks had all these ~200 US ships at Leyte Gulf?
Our strats have 5 flaks, CV group have few dozens i think. What works for hundreds guns wouldnt work for 5.

[moot]

That salvo doesn't look like too many guns.  Our flak clouds disappear a lot sooner than the real ones did, I suppose.

[Rich46yo]

An interesting story. The development of the Proximity fuse. And the use of them changed warfare forever.

They must have come as quite a shock to both the Germans and the Japanese. If I remember right we used the new fuses in our land artillery shells against the Germans to devastating effect towards the end of the war. And the Japanese?? The 5" AA guns, when using the new proximity fuses, were devastating. In Britain the new shells increased the hit percentage against V1 buzz bombs 3-fold.

I dive into carriers all the time in the game. Just yesterday I was shot down while 12,000' on the fringes of a CV group. Just like in real life was, in late war, flying around a Yank CV group is very hazardous. The game is modeled correctly. I'd never take a 262 anywheres around a CV and if I was over water I'd be constantly on the lookout for them.

[SlapShot]

And how many flaks had all these ~200 US ships at Leyte Gulf?
Our strats have 5 flaks, CV group have few dozens i think. What works for hundreds guns wouldnt work for 5.

Your grasping at straws now.

[Oleg]

Just like in real life was, in late war, flying around a Yank CV group is very hazardous. The game is modeled correctly.

In same time you can fly in bombers group around CV for hours w/o any significant damage (leave alone manned guns). Paradox, isnt it?

[Oleg]

Your grasping at straws now.

lol. Most likely you ignore simple logics trying to defend absurd flak's behaviour.

That salvo doesn't look like too many guns.  Our flak clouds disappear a lot sooner than the real ones did, I suppose.

Well, i dont know how many ships fire in this case, not all 200 of them of course. But if there are so many 'puffs' just because they stay long enough time, then real flak fire density was low. There are no threat for plane if it pass through 'old' explosion cloud.

I will repeat my main point about flaks, because some guys constantly miss it: until AH flak dangerous for fighters and useless agains bombers in same time, they are wrong.