Comments on TOD designs

[Squire]

First off I want to say that they are the best flying in Aces High, no question of that.

I have some feedback however, I hope it can be constructive.

*I notice a lot of the designs allow the CO to "cherry pick" the a/c type, ie "you have 109G-6s and 109G-10s at your disposal", with no restriction. In a case like that, as an example, what CO in his right mind would deliberately pick 109G-6s? Answer, well, they wouldnt (I didnt when I had the same choice as CO).

Would it not be an improvement to have the types assigned as a ratio? eg. as CO you have 6 squads. Lets say its Normandy 1944. CM says "ok, you have 2 Squads of B-26s, 1 squad of Spitfire IXs, 1 squad of P-51Ds and 2 squads of Typhoons". As opposed to "you have B-26s, Spitfire IXs, Typhoons and P-51Ds to use".

At least this way there is a balance. I have seen TODs that do this too, Im just saying "yes I prefer that" over the other way of letting the COs pick without any limits. Just thought I would mention it.

*Night Ops. It seems some night ops in AH are often best described as "USAAF 8th AF" with the lights turned off. Single engined fighters IMHO, have no place in night ops. Its completely unhistorical. "Wild Boar" seems to be the very thin veil that is used to justify 190s and 109s roaming over Germany at night. I would prefer a night TOD mission with Lancasters, Bostons, 110Gs and maybe a very small number of 190s (4-6), with the bombers in a very large (40+ players) stream. Mosquitos for the later war missions only. The LW should number about ***20 percent max*** of the attacking bomber force, be spread over 4 bases at least and sortied singly, not as squadrons. Bar dar only. I do realise the RAF did use small numbers of HurricaneIIs and the LW did have 109s and 190s as night fighters, but the numbers were small, and they did not have radar.

Night ops in AH is best represented by the heavy fighters. Also, lets face it, "night" in AH is not that dark, where in real life it was. So single engined fighters have a very unrealistic (and big)advanatge they did not possess in real life, which is why they should be restricted. Some, yes, but in small numbers, if at all. Escorts for night bombers were never single engined fighters, they would have been quite useless, which is why night fighters with radar were used, singly, to harass the opposition.

*Bomber ratios. It seems most bomber missions have 6-8 formations being attacked by a full squadron of interceptors at least, sometimes more, and the poor buffs have maybe 1 escort squadron max. Most never see home again it seems. I wonder if maybe the average escort ratio should be bumped up? Eg 2 squads of 109s escorting 1 squad of Ju88s. Give the blighters half a chance. Also perhaps assigning multiple targets, not just one target. Thats what makes it hard on the bombers, that there is no question of where they are going to hit.

The above comments are intended mainly for TODs but Snaps as well.

Just a couple of items, for your consideration. Long live AH events.

Regards.

[Miska]

I would like to reinforce some of the points above.  Ju88s and 110s were used extensively as night fighters, operating singly, with ground control stearing them to the streams of night bombers.  Once within a certain range, the backseat radar operator tried to pick up individual contacts and place the fighter.  The pilot just pulled the trigger.

The gunners aboard bombers were also very important in that they would warn the pilot to take evasive action when they actually sighted a nightfighter in a firing position (usually no more than 300 yards out, if that).

The main elements of this mix are 1) ground control of aircraft, 2) radar capable aircraft (both for ground following and airborne intercept), and 3) a majority of radar blind aircraft depending on everyone else (pathfinders etc).

Now the question is, how do you recreate this atmosphere using the tools available in AH?

[ramzey]

Im fully agree with Warloc

One more:
1 CO per side not 2

[bikekil]

Originally posted by Squire
First off I want to say that they are the best flying in Aces High, no question of that.

I have some feedback however, I hope it can be constructive.

*I notice a lot of the designs allow the CO to "cherry pick" the a/c type, ie "you have 109G-6s and 109G-10s at your disposal", with no restriction. In a case like that, as an example, what CO in his right mind would deliberately pick 109G-6s? Answer, well, they wouldnt (I didnt when I had the same choice as CO).

Would it not be an improvement to have the types assigned as a ratio? eg. as CO you have 6 squads. Lets say its Normandy 1944. CM says "ok, you have 2 Squads of B-26s, 1 squad of Spitfire IXs, 1 squad of P-51Ds and 2 squads of Typhoons". As opposed to "you have B-26s, Spitfire IXs, Typhoons and P-51Ds to use".

At least this way there is a balance. I have seen TODs that do this too, Im just saying "yes I prefer that" over the other way of letting the COs pick without any limits. Just thought I would mention it.

Yup. It's working the way you typed, but you can't implement it in any event. :-) Well... "can't" is probably not the best word here, but it's not allways a good idea. For example if you have Bf 109G-2 abd Bf 109G-6 both in the 1943 event you can't tell that limiting any of this planes are historical and true. Of course you could came up with some idea about why they are limited, but the question is - why to make LW weaker if the LW is allways running under the minimum of expected numbers?

*Night Ops. It seems some night ops in AH are often best described as "USAAF 8th AF" with the lights turned off. Single engined fighters IMHO, have no place in night ops. Its completely unhistorical. "Wild Boar" seems to be the very thin veil that is used to justify 190s and 109s roaming over Germany at night. I would prefer a night TOD mission with Lancasters, Bostons, 110Gs and maybe a very small number of 190s (4-6), with the bombers in a very large (40+ players) stream. Mosquitos for the later war missions only. The LW should number about ***20 percent max*** of the attacking bomber force, be spread over 4 bases at least and sortied singly, not as squadrons. Bar dar only. I do realise the RAF did use small numbers of HurricaneIIs and the LW did have 109s and 190s as night fighters, but the numbers were small, and they did not have radar.

Night ops in AH is best represented by the heavy fighters. Also, lets face it, "night" in AH is not that dark, where in real life it was. So single engined fighters have a very unrealistic (and big)advanatge they did not possess in real life, which is why they should be restricted. Some, yes, but in small numbers, if at all. Escorts for night bombers were never single engined fighters, they would have been quite useless, which is why night fighters with radar were used, singly, to harass the opposition.

My answer is - it can't be fun when LW are about 20% of all pilots on the arena :-(
Mission with bostons you described sounds really nice and imo it could be really good fun to fly it!
You just can't be so strictly historical with it. When you are going with Lancs on your side and you have 110's on the other side, you need to give some protection to your buffs and be sure, mossies can't do it, so you need to find another plane... and so on...

*Bomber ratios. It seems most bomber missions have 6-8 formations being attacked by a full squadron of interceptors at least, sometimes more, and the poor buffs have maybe 1 escort squadron max. Most never see home again it seems. I wonder if maybe the average escort ratio should be bumped up? Eg 2 squads of 109s escorting 1 squad of Ju88s. Give the blighters half a chance. Also perhaps assigning multiple targets, not just one target. Thats what makes it hard on the bombers, that there is no question of where they are going to hit.

Idea is good, but it's not a CM (as a designer) choice. We are giving soem objectives to the side CO's and it's up to them how they wants to complete them :-)



I really like what you've typed Warloc. Try to look at it from the other side and you will see that it's not so easy to make sometimes.
btw. i will answer your e-mail tomarrow. sorry for a delay!

[Squire]

Appreciate the reply Bikekill.

I guess I would look at it this way:

Lets say, 60 players, as an example (sunday TOD).

RAF
30 in Lancasters
10 in Bostons

Thats 120 single bombers, in 2 streams of 60 each.

Opposed by:

LW
15 110Gs (2 average sized TOD squads) Based at 3 locations of 5 each.
5 190s? (one small TOD squad)

2:1 player ratio

LW rolling from seperate bases, singly, and bar dar only, and the RAF approaching in 2 seperate streams...I think its doable. The SIZE of the attacking force is the balancer, you dont need to get into an "arms race" of escort fighters. Leave them out.

Have 3 possible targets for the RAF, but they only have to hit 2. Throws a curve ball to the night fighters.

You could have a few squads fly Allied for the night frame, and then switch over for the day frames, thats not impossible, if it was a 3 frame TOD.

To do a 1944 version, sub the Mosquito for the A-20s.

Special rules: The RAF can do a chaff drop one time only, and when the RAF CO anounces "chaff" on ch 1, bar dar goes down for 10 min. The LW CO , can announce "flares" once in the frame, when the RAF is near a city, and the arena lights get turned on for 5 min. Just a few ideas.

Anyways, I think it would be fun to try it.

[Miska]

As for looking at it from the CM's perspective, there are several in 880 FAA who DO look at it from the CM's perspective.

[Rompa]

Originally posted by Squire
I notice a lot of the designs allow the CO to "cherry pick" the a/c type, ie "you have 109G-6s and 109G-10s at your disposal", with no restriction. In a case like that, as an example, what CO in his right mind would deliberately pick 109G-6s? Answer, well, they wouldnt (I didnt when I had the same choice as CO).

I think that the rules are pretty clear on that u are not suppose to cherry pick one type of a/c for a frame

This is from the TOD rules site

Frame C.O.'s are to assign at least 3 different aircraft each frame for squads to use. This will insure at least three squads are flying 3 "different" types of aircraft. The size of the squad and what aircraft they assign to that squad is up to the Frame C.O.

[skernsk]

Some comments from my perspective.

First.  All good points and some of them have been brought up here and in the CM forum.

Cherry picking.  WhenI write up the event I like to get the planes that should be in there (hopefully no substiutions) and then list them.  I sometimes will limit planetypes and sometimes will leave it up to the CO to pick.  The CO's are usually quite good at mixing it up so that all available planes are represented.

*Bomber ratios. It seems most bomber missions have 6-8 formations being attacked by a full squadron of interceptors at least, sometimes more, and the poor buffs have maybe 1 escort squadron max. Most never see home again it seems. I wonder if maybe the average escort ratio should be bumped up? Eg 2 squads of 109s escorting 1 squad of Ju88s. Give the blighters half a chance. Also perhaps assigning multiple targets, not just one target. Thats what makes it hard on the bombers, that there is no question of where they are going to hit.

This sounds like more of a CO issue than a CM inssue.  We do not try and micromanage the CO's.  If they task only 1 squad to escort the bombers and the bombers get killed ... hopefully next frame he learned from his mistake:)


The night ops thing is a very interesting idea.  I have not done any night frames since most of the community seems to dislike nighttime.  If ever I get enough nerve to do one I think I would try and set it up that way.

[Wotan]

Plenty of Nachtjagdgeschwaders used 109g6s as well as 190as.

NJG100 are known to have used the following aircraft: Bf 109, Bf 110, Do 217, Fw 58, Fw 189, Ju 87 and Ju 88.

7./NJG200 and 8./NJG200 flew both ju88s and 190as.

Also regular dayfighter units were also sent to intercept bombers at night.

Nachtjagdgeschwader 11 flew 109gs and 190as

Nachtjagdgeschwader 11

I./NJG11

II./NJG11

Lots of single eng fighters flew at night against bombers. Theres no search lights in AH. Theres no ground observers to report hearing the bombers. There no provision for tower based radar in ah. Fighters werent just vectored by radar anyway.

[Miska]

Wotan, you say fighters were not vectored by radar.  Can you explain?  Which fighters and when?  Do you mean no GCI against night bombers over Europe?

[Squire]

***I didnt say never use single engined fighters***...my example design includes them, I just said limit them, and balance the numbers accordingly, for both sides. In the end, it doesnt matter all that much if its a 190A or a 110G that attacks the Lancaster, the end result is probably the same

*My main areas of interest are the ratio of bombers to fighter, targets, dar, ect, to make it challenging to both sides, and a historic ac set for the RAF, ie, twin engined types only.

There are a lot of different designs that could be tried, actually, quite a variety with the AH a/c for night ops, even IJ vs USN stuff.

Almost forgot, turn the icons down to 1.0 for enemy. You have to find them to shoot. Its cat and mouse at night, thats what its all about.

Skernsk: Appreciate the clarification re cherry picking a/c . I will remember that rule! As for the bomber ratios, with respect its not always the fault of the CO that they dont come back, sometimes they have to fly through a LOT of interceptors (eeek) , and a single squad of escorts is sometimes just not enough , especially when employing light/med bombers like the A20 or the Ju88 vs mid war fighters like Spitfire V and 190.

Regards.

[bikekil]

Originally posted by Squire
Appreciate the reply Bikekill.

I guess I would look at it this way:
...

i think we could use that idea. it looks like a snapshot (more or less)

[bikekil]

Originally posted by Miska
As for looking at it from the CM's perspective, there are several in 880 FAA who DO look at it from the CM's perspective.

And they think that flying with 80 guys against 20 opponents is fun? for both sides? it's a good design for them?

[Squire]

Well, like I said the #s can be adjusted...

Hey with that in mind though here are some quotes you wont ever hear from a Bf 110G pilot while fighting Lancasters at night :

"Damn he HO'd me!"

"Im dragging!"

"A notch of flaps and he still out turns me"

"High 6 watch out"

Somehow I think they would do fine, as long as victory isn't decided by having to shoot them all down.

A Snapshot would probably be a good forum, but I would like the discipline of the TOD units to pull it off I guess. Less grief.

[Wotan]

They could track planes just by there sound, twin eng eng night fighters also would track them and report positions. Spot lights would light up the sky and the single eng fighters would see them and attack.

Single engined fighters IMHO, have no place in night ops. Its completely unhistorical. "Wild Boar" seems to be the very thin veil that is used to justify 190s and 109s roaming over Germany at night. I would prefer a night TOD mission with Lancasters, Bostons, 110Gs and maybe a very small number of 190s (4-6), with the bombers in a very large (40+ players) stream. Mosquitos for the later war missions only. The LW should number about ***20 percent max*** of the attacking bomber force, be spread over 4 bases at least and sortied singly, not as squadrons. Bar dar only. I do realise the RAF did use small numbers of HurricaneIIs and the LW did have 109s and 190s as night fighters, but the numbers were small, and they did not have radar

That what you wrote. Its untrue even when you say but the numbers were small (which they were in not). Single eng fighters were a part of night operations.