Why Hateing ACK is Understandable

[bustr]

The 8th Airforce put out an after war report on anti-ack efforts and German ack during WW2.

The gist of it was that the most fighters lost in the ETO were to light ack, MG/20mm/37mm during airfeild low level attacks due to not being desinged for the role. Even the P47 had higher losses due to light ack than by enemy fighters. By the end of the war after creating an anti-ack unit to devise strategies and collate data with their RAF counterpart. Both airforces came up with one simple reccomendation before all other attack stratagies.

Where ever ack is found during a low level attack, engage and destroy eimidiatly before any other target.

Secondly, Fighters during low level engagements are highly vulnerable to light ack fire. Never fly slow when attacking ack defended locations. The 8th Airforce reccomended that an Il2 type aircraft be designed specificly for low level ack attacking since the only aircraft in WW2 desinged for a role like that was the Il2. In 1939 no one was concerned or had considered the role light ack would eventualy play during the next 6 years.

Not a single one of our favorite fighters in the game were designed to survive light ack. At the time of their design the focus was on fighting other aircraft in the air. In the ETO the air war shifted to killing enemy aircraft on the ground becasue it was more efficient. German airfeild staff admitted after the war that the constant straffing was more demoralising to their pilots than being defeated in the air by bomber guns or fighters.

They also analysed all of the ack defensive guns. But, for game purposes here are the 20mm, 37mm, 88mm and the maximum effective ranges:

20mm -- 1,250 yards --- 3,750 feet
37mm -- 2,000 yards --- 6,000 feet
88mm - 11,590 yards - 34,770 feet

For comparison:

Mark 12 (5" gun) 15 round per minute.

AAC - Anti Aircraft Common Round. 55 pound projectile.

Max AA Ceiling 85° 12,400 yards - 37,200 feet

10°   9,506 yards (28,518 ft)
15° 11,663 yards (34,989 ft)
20° 13,395 yards (40,185 ft)
25° 14,804 yards (44,412 ft)
30° 15,919 yards (47,757 ft)
35° 16,739 yards (50,217 ft)
40° 17,240 yards (51,720 ft)
45° 17,392 yards (52,176 ft)

I suspect we are using the AAVT round in the game due to it's proximity detonation. A high capacity fragmenting shell with a VT (proximity) fuze. An acronym of “Variable Time fuze”, as deliberate camouflage for its operating principle during WW2.

Guess you cannot hide from the 5 inchers auto umbrella unless you are as big as a box of bombers or as small as a bread box. You can see why parking a CV group offshore makes it one gigantic ACK barge. I suspect the shore battery's numbers and arch coverage locations may need to be revisited unless how close a CV group can come to the shore line is limited. It's becoming obvious that players are taking the time to determin on some maps where the shore battery blind spots are which allow the ack barge aspect to be so viable. One would beleive in real life the planners for shore batteries would account for overlapping fire feilds, attack avenues and secondairy direct support ack which are sorely lacking in our ocean front bases. Afterall destroying of ack and heavy gun postions was SOP as part of assault planning to take any postion through out the war.

On an aside. American fighter pilots routinely watched german fighters being killed by their own light ack while being chased by or chasing american fighters on the deck. ACK in WW2 was not able to descriminate freind from foe. Wonder how the NAVY worked that one out with their anti-Kamakazi Patrol groups around Okinowa?
 

[RTHolmes]

more shore batteries pls

[FLS]

Somebody posted that report a few months ago, maybe they'll re-post the link. Very interesting reading.

[B-17]

more shore batteries pls

+1

[Daddkev]

  I love sitting in a 5 incher, just racking up the kills!

[titanic3]

I love sitting in a 5 incher, just racking up the kills!

I'd only have to change one little letter in that sentence to get a forum ban. 

[drgondog]

The 8th Airforce put out an after war report on anti-ack efforts and German ack during WW2.

The gist of it was that the most fighters lost in the ETO were to light ack, MG/20mm/37mm during airfeild low level attacks due to not being desinged for the role. Even the P47 had higher losses due to light ack than by enemy fighters. By the end of the war after creating an anti-ack unit to devise strategies and collate data with their RAF counterpart. Both airforces came up with one simple reccomendation before all other attack stratagies.

Where ever ack is found during a low level attack, engage and destroy eimidiatly before any other target.

Secondly, Fighters during low level engagements are highly vulnerable to light ack fire. Never fly slow when attacking ack defended locations. The 8th Airforce reccomended that an Il2 type aircraft be designed specificly for low level ack attacking since the only aircraft in WW2 desinged for a role like that was the Il2. In 1939 no one was concerned or had considered the role light ack would eventualy play during the next 6 years.

Not a single one of our favorite fighters in the game were designed to survive light ack. At the time of their design the focus was on fighting other aircraft in the air. In the ETO the air war shifted to killing enemy aircraft on the ground becasue it was more efficient. German airfeild staff admitted after the war that the constant straffing was more demoralising to their pilots than being defeated in the air by bomber guns or fighters.

A couple of points.

First, for the 8th AF Fighter Command, the ratio of losses strafing to losses in air to air was about 2:1. The top strafing outfit for US was the 355th FG, 65th FW, 8th AF with 502 destroyed (LW) aircraft for the loss of 90 (1 P-47, 89 P-51s).  The P-47 was lost on the very first strafing attack executed by the 355th and they converted 100% to Mustangs after the March 8 mission. By contrast the 355th was credited with 355 LW a/c destroyed in the air for 39 losses (confirmed as well as 'UNK" which probably due to enemy fighters) and lost 52 more to all other causes.

Second, the leading strafers were the 355th (all but 8 were Mustangs) and 4th FG (460 by Mustangs, 1 P-47). Behind them were the 339th (431 - all by Mustang) and 353rd (404 - 138 by P-47s, rest P-51s).  The reason the Mustangs dominated is that they had the range to harass German airfields beyond Berlin and Munich while the P-47s largely toiled west of Hannover to Stuttgart. In all the P-47s lost 200 strafing to get 740 credits destroyed, while the Mustang got 3205 strafing credits for loss of 568 Mustangs.  You will note that the ratio (favorable) of enemy aircraft credited destroyed by strafing versus losses while strafing is heavily in favor of the Mustangs.

Last, the leading strafers, who were also the leading groups in total losses strafing, figured it out early (spring 1944) and disseminated their knowledge across the 8th AF FC.
0.) Plan if possible, including direction of attack, location of spotted aircraft, location of flak, etc and fly for 5-10 minutes away from airfield, then turn back and get low for the pass.
1.) One pass unless airfield not defended.
2.) If defenses were spotted and in favorable locations for attack, send two flights to suppress flak and follow with aircraft strafing.
3.) Have one observer in the air above the strafers to put gun camera on the results to help out Intelligence debriefing
4.) Fast and very low.. and stay low until out of range of the 20mm flak.
5.) One squadron (or section) provide top cover for the strafers - looking for German fighters..



The dual and quad 20mm German flak was the major killer of US aircraft strafing the German airfields.

[bustr]

So after all of this, Hitech is not doing such a bad job historicly with his feild ack is he??

It comes down to our own fault getting shot down if we don't eliminate feild ack before we vulch and pick.

Sounds like a DWism.