Fortress over Europe, It was awful!

[Devil 505]

I admit this scenario seemed to be stacked a bit in favor of the allies, but I still managed to get six in my G-14 in frame 3, and force one B-24 to bail before I could get in gun range. All with only a single 30mm.  

Indeed. Well done last night. 

[Kenne]

Being handcuffed to inferior AC in the midsts of the latest tech has historical precedent.

As late as 1940 and into 1941, pilots were still flying 109E1s!

[Shamus]

Sorry Bug, I had a big bowl of bran flakes a bit ago, much better now:)

shamus

[kilo2]

 

[ReVo]

Indeed. Well done last night. 

Same to you and the rest of the Laughing Devils.   

[Getback]

Bran flakes are awesome!

Hopefully I'm not narcissistic. I was frustrated though and I just had to express that. Took me a full day to recover. Not normally like that but I have my moments. As one of my squaddies said it's uphill from here.

[1Cane]

I would like to thank the AKs for allowing me to fly with them.  Their squad performs well with minimal chatter and they stay on the objective.AKBunk was able to put us in a good position for the fight.

Frame 1        Bf109k vs.47m with 47m having alt advantage, stayed with wing man until I had to go defensive, radiator hit had to take the ditch was all I had to show for 1 hour.

Frame 2        Fw190d we were in good position to attack bombers that were co-alt, several kills and assist when I got the call to precede to rally point.  Unfortunately I had a shot up B24 right in front of me so I went for the kill and got PW forcing a rtb and safe landing!

Frame 3       Fw190d again we were in excellent position high above 24s on reciprocal course.  The best day yet made three or four diving passes before getting engine hit forcing a rtb.  And ditching short of the runway!  That was the most fun I've had in FSO after being away for nearly a year.  I'm really looking forward to the next  FSO.

[Viper61]

I agree with the original post - This wasn't one of the better FSO scenario's at all.  But I would cut some slack to the CM in control of it if I would have seen any attempt what so ever to make any adjustments as the frames played out.  Personally I didn't see any at all.  Once again a decisive AXIS victory has played out and like what has been going on now for the last 6 months plus.  And if disagree with this statement start pulling the logs and seeing which side won.  in fact there was a 3 month window (3 different scenario's or 9 frames) IN A ROW where the AXIS won each one.  You CM's need to fix this before the FSO numbers begin to drop.


Mr. REVO's post bottom of Page 01:  It looked like a ALLIED tipped setup.  (Kudos's to you Sir for 6 victory's) But not at all a ALLIED favored setup and here's why:

    The Side split was 50/50
    The ALLIES had to put up a min of 50 bombers each frame (50 pilots) or somewhere between 30-45% of our total available pilots.  The AXIS ALWAYS had great fighter AC numbers in every encounter minus squad turnout or navigational blunders.
    AXIS radar coverage and DARBAR made surprise attacks impossible - and what holes or gaps there were, were obvious to any AXIS squad CO
    ALLIED Bombers were limited to 14-28K for not only bomb dropping but flying into the target.  only after drop on a west bound heading could a ALLIED bomber descend lower than 14K.  Again this fixes the ALLIED bombers into a fairly tight range which is easy to locate and identify
    6 targets per frame - Whenever the targets move past 3 in any scenario and we've seen this play out before, then your forces have to be split into smaller elements in order to cover the missions.  in any scenario this favors the defender even though his forces are split his target is fixed - For the attacker when your forces are small then you can't use Fighter Sweeps, deception operations, faints or Recon AC unless you are fine with a higher risk of the ordnance carring AC.

The AXIS had the fighter advantage in every engagement - As always: the plan, squad turnout, fog of war, decisions and the capabilities of individual squads will impact and possible trump shear numbers.  So I cant see how anyone could look at the setup and see a ALLIED tipped event.

Next AXIS advantage was in the possible points that the ALLIES could event get, example:  FRAME 3 target the 325th VFG was assigned to hit.  A V-Base with 5 hangers (HVT's worth 25 points each = 125 possible points).  I don't count the secondaries as HVT's and not worth a dedicated bomber to hit unless it just happens to be in the same track at drop.  By the setup I had to use a minimum of 10 pilots in B-24's, if I choose formations that's 30 bombers worth 5 points each or 150 points to lose.  In other words I had to risk 150 points to get 125 points.  Formations were optional - but because of the lopsided AXIS fighter advantage and radar / BARDAR I had to launch formations so that at least a few bombers "might" make it.  So once again the setup points greatly favored the AXIS side.  And in this case as "ImADot" pointed out in the 3rd post the entire force (bombers and escorts) were wiped out 25 miles from target.

             With a map full of STRAT's and huge city / industrial targets, Why would a V-Base even be used as a target for a bomber formation with a min 10 to a max 60 bombers????????????????

In this scenario I was looking forward like many others on the ALLIED side to flying the B29 or the P-51 as we don't get to very often.  Not likely in this setup and that was a mistake that should have been corrected in Frame 2.  I'm sure there are plenty of AXIS pilot that got stuck in less then optimum planes as well and would have rather flown the jets or the 152's.  Its a "What If" scenario for goodness sakes - just give us all available planes in unlimited numbers and let us have some fun once a year!!!  Who cares if I take my B-29's in NOE, would be a fun mission to fly I think.  I wouldn't have cared if the entire AXIS side were in Jets.  Would have enjoyed watching horde's of Jets hit my B-29 formation!!  Even if you get shot down at least its in something you'd like to fly in a mission that's fun, challenging and has a chance of success.  in this scenario: Air Spawn into AXIS territory - No really possibility to fly around and hit from off angles - Have the enemy know where your at due to radar and BARDAR - limitations in altitude.

I am one to point out the mistakes when I see them.  I'm also one to provide recommendations as well:
      1.  Scenario designs are not expected to be perfect - But I would expect the CM in control to make changes as the frames play out to ensure playability and fairness so that each side has an even chance to win.  The CM should make course corrections and even extreme ones in order to ensure fairness and evenness in as much as possible.  This has happened very little in the last 6 months and not at all in this scenario
      2.  If Frame 1 was a BIG AXIS victory and you only make only minor "tweaks" for Frame 2 and the AXIS wins again, then make a BIG adjustment and allow the ALLIES to win Frame 3.  I would rather see a mistake in Frame 1 corrected with a over correction in Frame 2 so the other side wins, so that Frame 3 could be the perfect even match.  Or as close as possible given the variables of turnout, planning and mission decisions.
      3.  Points - Most don't care about them and I get that.  Some of us do and use it to evaluate who wins.  Also there is a direct correlation between BIG point victory's of a side and the fun that was probably NOT HAD by the losing side.

In the end it comes down to play time and fun for me in this scenario:
  Frame 1: Killed in 15 Min's in a B24 with no escorts
  Frame 2: Killed in 60 Min's in a P-47 during an encounter with a "Horde" of 152's and 190's outnumbering our fighters by 3 to 1 and in my final fight at least 10 to 1 as I was the last fighter near our bombers
  Frame 3: Killed in 25 Min's in a B24 again after being horded by 190's that outnumbered our fighters at least 2 to 1
I might just as well stay in the Late War arena - And I'm not the only one thinking this either.  I've been flying the FSO since 2003 and had a ball but this last 6 months have really been disappointing and this scenario capped off a bad FSO year in my opinion.  If it continues along this way much longer I'll make my statement with my feet.

Jan 2014 starts a brand new year in the FSO - CM's time to make some changes to the setups and start controlling the frames for fair and even play.

Signed:
A concerned cartoon flier looking for a fun time on a Friday night

[ReVo]

What adjustments would you have liked? We could try this again and give you 35k airstarts and 163's with unlimited fuel... We could also move the no-fly zone forward half a dozen sectors and limit the Axis side to three pilots..

[j500ss]

Viper,

I can understand your feeling about the setup, especially given the results you experienced in the 3 frames.   But in frame 1, that was not a CM thing, or even the setup itself.

Frame 2 was strictly a numbers thing, and imo...... They could use some looking into from that aspect.

Frame 3, you should have said something to the CiC. No reason any squad had to draw the same buff twice in this setup at all.

The changes I saw made during the 3 frames suggested to me that the AXIS were at the dis advantage.  Had to be challenging from both side judging by what folks are posting here.

My overall assessment?  Really not all that bad for a first time run setup. 

 

[HighTone]

Man you guys sure do cry a lot. Always easy to look back at an event and point out what should of been done to ensure that YOU had a successful flight and there for a good time. Seems like every week some Monday morning quarter back comes in with a whole bunch of "well this is how it should of been setup" posts. I thought FSO pilots were of a higher cut than the standard MA pilot.

You all sit back and complain about "poor us", like the CM set out to screw you out of your fun. I say poor them. The CM's take time out of their personal lives, and put in what I am sure is a but load of hours pouring over the pages of history to try and bring us historical, unique, and as best balanced events they can come up with......FOR US. And all you all can do is whine like a bunch of school kids who just lost your bucket to the bully in the sand box.

Why don't you all put up your personal time up for sale and become a CM, and come up with some of these perfect events that your so sure are possible?

Thank you too the CMs that do the impossible job of trying to provide fun for a bunch of undeserving, childish, disrespectful idiots like us. I honesty don't think I could handle the jobs you all VOLUNTEER to do. 

[Devil 505]

Given that BOTH sides claim to have been boned, I think it's safe to call this one fair.
Sure, there are tweaks that could be made, but in my opinion, this setup doesn't rank in the top three most unbalanced setups of 2013 in my opinion - those being Breaking Gustav, Green Desert, and Coral Sea.

[viking73]

Looking at just personal experience, I would think that, like Viper61, that it was a little Allied sided. In all three frames we had a avg to bad missions. The P47M's were very fast and had altitude. They made it hard for us, or at least me. Especially the last frame where I got swarmed by 4 of them, put 30mm in B24s and got only a fuel leak on one.

However, after looking at what happened other places, I think it's just a matter of where you were at. From out views, none would've been seen as a huge Axis victory. Just the opposite. I saw in the logs of lots of bombers going down (as I put in an earlier post). I have to be honest and say the numbers don't lie. Some places bombers got wiped out and axis fighters reigned and some (mostly where I was) bombers made it through fairly easy and allied fighters were heavy.

Plus I don't know why Viper61 would need 10 bombers sets for 5 hangers. That's putting alot of tonnage on a single target. Plus Viper61 wrote of 125 possible points. For the Axis, we got 2 pts per fighter and 5 per bomber. How many would that take to get to 125? I haven't read any totals yet but that seems very low per plane. It would seem hard to me for the CMs to balance out a FSO when only one side has the bombers. Now that's 'game' speaking. Just being somewhat close to realism, what if or not, bombers should have problems.

I honestly didn't enjoy it. But being honest to Bino and the CMs, looking at the overall picture, reading the logs, that wasn't their fault or the setup when, like Devil505 wrote about, both sides have problems. Just my frustrating bad luck. A lot has to do with where the missions and numbers are.

So, Viper61, you and I were just at the wrong ends of the map.   

[LilMak]

I'm guessing this was a pretty fair setup based on what I see here. From my point of view it didn't feel that way at all.  The Axis had a superior number of fighters by about 1/3 or more, knew ahead of time exactly which targets the Allies were supposed to hit, knew exactly which direction we were coming from with radar, knew what altitude block the bombers were going to fly, and had inferior (sarcasm) 152s 163s and 262s.

The only advantage I see in allied favor was high altitude performance of piston powered fighters. The last frame I had 12 P-47s to guide a group of B-29s. When we arrived at target, there were 32 Axis fighter aircraft at altitude waiting for our arrival. If my crew wasn't in P-47Ms we would have been decimated by the horde that nearly wiped out our bombers.

In the interest of being constructive, I'd like to make a few suggestions if we're to run this scenario in the future. First, if fortress Europe held off the invasion, perhaps this fight should take place over the channel rather than deep on the continent. Second, it seems to me the Axis would have some offensive objective as well allowing for Ar234s, 111s, Ju88s. Third, perhaps a strat target to punch holes in radar or something similar allowing the use of Jabos or medium/light bombers.

[BFOOT1]

I'm guessing this was a pretty fair setup based on what I see here. From my point of view it didn't feel that way at all.  The Axis had a superior number of fighters by about 1/3 or more, knew ahead of time exactly which targets the Allies were supposed to hit, knew exactly which direction we were coming from with radar, knew what altitude block the bombers were going to fly, and had inferior (sarcasm) 152s 163s and 262s.

The only advantage I see in allied favor was high altitude performance of piston powered fighters. The last frame I had 12 P-47s to guide a group of B-29s. When we arrived at target, there were 32 Axis fighter aircraft at altitude waiting for our arrival. If my crew wasn't in P-47Ms we would have been decimated by the horde that nearly wiped out our bombers.

In the interest of being constructive, I'd like to make a few suggestions if we're to run this scenario in the future. First, if fortress Europe held off the invasion, perhaps this fight should take place over the channel rather than deep on the continent. Second, it seems to me the Axis would have some offensive objective as well allowing for Ar234s, 111s, Ju88s. Third, perhaps a strat target to punch holes in radar or something similar allowing the use of Jabos or medium/light bombers.

+1