Husky Frame 3 logs up

[ramzey]

Originally posted by 214thCavalier
Ramzey,

The link you provided to an earlier run of Husky does show an equally outnumbered frame but at least the losing side actually managed to get 12 kills.

What annoys me the most about this last frame is that only 1 kill was able to be recorded for the axis.

som aar and comments  from this SSO from my squad BB ( i was not there)

We were ordered to scout N of A13 and search for enemy fleet in max. 6 x190A5s and also cover Ju87 on their attack on the fleet in 110g2s.
Well, nobody likes to fly 110s, so I gave dinger the command for the 190s and took a 110 for escort myself.
When fleet was spotted, the stukas headed directly to the fleet and came on too early and too low. Guess what? They were slaughtered. I killed 2 SBDs over the fleet and took some damage due hvy ack fire. On the way back I killed a F4F and F4U, but then I wasn't able outrun all 4 cons and 1 F4U got me.

kills: 4 (2 sbd, f4f, f4u)
bailed

Who says 110 is a ****ty plane?
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Seriously, that frame was a mess for the Axis. I saw no ships destroyed (ack was on 1.0; I think that is not normal for events, is it?) and mostly were slaughtered by F4Us, F4Fs and SBDs (!!!).
Axis had a total of 12 kills and 8 of them belong to 308. On the other hand most of us bailed and took a bath in the mediterranian sea.
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Well, coordination wasn't very clear, some of that was my fault. Actually we did pretty well up until the point that the high hawg shot off my tail. I'm sure if I made a tape and reviewed it, it would have been one of the two ahead of us climbing around. I stretched us out too far in a line, and was judging the main threat behind us.
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i really not like critique axis CIC, but every time we  saw enemy in area , we was done with field. Flying on the deck with cover 25k above us. Usual  defenders try to intercept atackers before they reach target. I see lack of pilots for this duty and no CAP ranks

So how exactly can you seriously expect those players to be eager to return ?[/b]

i really like to know solution, as half of CM team too

As somebody else already said if you get many frames like this SSO will die and fast.

But hell why should i worry, I am trying to dump the Mag33 SOP's CO position in order to join the ranks of those who just fly when they can be bothered. [/B]

die without alternative? no way, i hope we can do something to save this event. But why everyone give up so early?

ramzey

[lucull]

Originally posted by ramzey
die without alternative? no way, i hope we can do something to save this event. But why everyone give up so early?

We need balanced setups, planesets, numbers and the event starting in time without inadequat settings like friendly collision on, planes not available, logs not started, ...

All these things happened in the past and I can see only numbers can be solved by the participating squads to a certain extend.

Frankly, we don't get more squads into this event, eventho we badly need them, when they read threads like this, but on the other hand, without major changes I agree Cavalier, this event will die soon. So, not discussing it, would be the worst idea, just before discussing without changing.

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Originally posted by 214thCavalier

What annoys me the most about this last frame is that only 1 kill was able to be recorded for the axis.

Cav, like I posted in my debriefing, this is my fault. First of all, I didn't want players to engage fighters.  I wanted to save us for the bombers. Secondly, I didn't emphasize the importance of flying together. When I got to the A10-area after the first typhoon attack, all I saw was single 109s and 190s scattered around.  Not even a single two-plane formation. I guess that some of our fighters had been shot down already...

My intention was to have regrouped all of our fighters into one place and then hit the bombers when they came. But they never came, so we never regrouped.  By the time the tiffies hit the second time, we had already lost the majority of our fighters in the 10-area furball, trying to drag the enemies away from our 110s that were hitting the ships.  They made the drop, sunk one ship, most of the 110s were lost to AAA. One got away.

The fact is, even with a small force you can have excellent results. It needs excellent leadership, coordinated and very disciplined flying. In this event, we really didnt have either.

Camo

[BlauK]

IMO there would have been plenty to do for the Axis side even just and only defending.

Attacking a formation of 2 CV groups plus 6 destroyers (total 20 ships) through their ack umbrella is a plain suicide.... and  there were 2 such formations as target for Axis side. Allies did not even have to defend them.

Even just defending, and only against normal bombers escorted by SpitIX:s and ponies, would have been a demanding task.

I agree with Cav that Tiffies, and earlier Mossies, dont really need any escort against the Axis plane set we had in these frames.

CM:S, please consider making more flexible tasks for SSO CO:s... partial plans which teh CM can activate or call off according to the numbers. Such would also demand the CO:s to consider options and variations of dividing their forces etc.

[AndyH]

Originally posted by BlauK

CM:S, please consider making more flexible tasks for SSO CO:s... partial plans which teh CM can activate or call off according to the numbers. Such would also demand the CO:s to consider options and variations of dividing their forces etc.

This would certainly have relieved the problem last week, any chance of a response from a CM as to whether this will be considered or not?

[ghostdancer]

Originally posted by BlauK

CM:S, please consider making more flexible tasks for SSO CO:s... partial plans which teh CM can activate or call off according to the numbers. Such would also demand the CO:s to consider options and variations of dividing their forces etc.

Well I have been sitting back and taking in all the comments. Thinking about them and was going to write up a response more toward the end of the week after careful consideration.

But because BlauK and Tilt have asked for a response here okay I will address this point now, not in depth though.

Actually I am sort of suprised by this. It was my assumption that frame CiCs understood that they can retask as they see fit. By this I mean the following.

If you have a short fall in troops. Lets say only 20 people turned out for the LW. The CiC is more than free to say my god what can I do? Lets see if I try to attack two targets and defend two targets I am going to dilute my forces so much that I will get slaughtered. Okay so what can I do? Only think I can do is either abandon my defensive targets and go full bore on the attack hoping to do more damage to my targets than my opponent will do his targets. Or I can throw everyone on the defense to try to prevent my opponent from hitting my targets all together.

Or some variation of. For example sit completely on the defense and then take your survivors and attack one target. Assess and then attack the second target. After all you have a full two hours to conduct operations over.

This is not a criticism of Camo. I just thought it was understood that if you suffer a serious short fall in players that you can abandon attack targets and that you don't have to go after you targets at the same time. You can spread out your attacks over the frame, you can focus your attack on one that go after the other. You can right one off completely because you don't have the forces.

Its all a give and take in my opinion. I would never have crucified Camo for saying .. the heck with attacking both fleets I don't have the troops. I am just going to go after one. Its the sort of call I thought CiCs knew they could make depending on how the numbers turn out and actually how the battle goes.

By trying to write contigency orders .. I don't know if I can cover all contigencies. I also feel like I am then spoon feeding the CiCs or the opposite that I am restricting them by making more and more rigid rules and tasks on what to do. More scripted and driving them down certain paths.

For example I never would have considered using just 110s against the allied fleets. I thought there would be JU88s up. The strategy though worked great since the 110s basically got to their targets unopposed. If it was not for the ack being set to high because I forgot to put a message to BlkKnit in to lower it, the LW would have sunk quite a few ships. The allies gambled at leaving a light screen over their ships. If not for the high AAA settings it would have cost them.

I have to think on this and how to convey what things are flexible and within the realm of the CiCs to decide and what things are not flexible.

[BlauK]

Thanks for the answer.. just asked because I do not know what exactly the CO:s are asked to do and what is required for their side to win.

What I was thinking was something like being able to complete the whole task even with smaller force. It is quite a different thing if the CO alone decides that he will go after only 2 of 4 tasks than if the CM says that forget this and that task and go only after 2 tasks because you dont have the numbers.

.. mostly thinking aloud here

[ghostdancer]

No problem. I guess what happened is that I tried to up the tasks to both sides to 4 with even number of attack and defense. Basically saying if the CiC of side split his forces evenly that there would be 10 per task with a little over.

Resulting in same 8 per task and then 8-12 reserve possibly.

When we had 3 tasks per side in frame 1 and 2 things worked better. Only problem was that one side was more defensive than the other which made it a bit tougher on the attacking side, in my opinion. Its debatable.

So I upped the tasks to balance them and then expected both sides to be in the 40s based on previous frame turnouts and the 101st Israel coming back from ViFF's wedding. Basically counted my chickens before the hatched .. Allies turned out the numbers I expected. Axis didn't.

Now there were some flaws in the setup (missed AAA setting), plane set is debatable. Only new plane added was Tiffy and to what extent that unbalanced things is to be discussed. Camo has also discussed what he consider were problems on the Command and Control of the Axis. Warloc got to apply the painful lessons he learned in frame 1 here .. so basically it was his second go around where he could address and fix what he did wrong in frame 1 in building a plan and dispersing forces. And then on top of this we had player number imbalance that magnified several flaws and issues.

Basically combining to create a perfect storm, so to speak.

But will go into details later.

A completely seperate issue is that we can't rely just on the participating squads to turn out numbers. Sooner or later they hit a wall and can only turnout so much and numbers drop off.

What we also have to address is getting new squads to come in and participate in the event. Friday can afford to lose squads at the moment becuase they are fielding close to 180. But sundays are fielding 70. Which means about 30 to 40 a side. 30 per side is maintable. But if we drop down to 20 per side .. well that is another story.

So besides working on turnout. CMs have to work on enticing new squads to play on Sundays.

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Originally posted by ghostdancer

Actually I am sort of suprised by this. It was my assumption that frame CiCs understood that they can retask as they see fit. By this I mean the following.

If you have a short fall in troops. Lets say only 20 people turned out for the LW. The CiC is more than free to say my god what can I do? Lets see if I try to attack two targets and defend two targets I am going to dilute my forces so much that I will get slaughtered. Okay so what can I do? Only think I can do is either abandon my defensive targets and go full bore on the attack hoping to do more damage to my targets than my opponent will do his targets. Or I can throw everyone on the defense to try to prevent my opponent from hitting my targets all together.

Or some variation of. For example sit completely on the defense and then take your survivors and attack one target. Assess and then attack the second target. After all you have a full two hours to conduct operations over.
 

The SquadOps has had lots of problems earlier due to COs neglecting their attack missions and therefore the defending pilots have not seen any action. I didnt want to drop any objectives, since I felt that I had enough pilots to fulfill the original attack plan, with slight modifications.  

Like I said, my strategy was to emphasize the attack. I knew that defense would be extremely difficult in any case, just like BK wrote above. Therefore I did not weaken our attack groups. I would have estimated 1-2 ships sunk from each fleet by the 110s. As the jabos only attacked the biggest ships, thats 2-4 cruisers/CVs lost for the allied. Thats a devastating blow to any fleet attempting a landing. Thats a much better result to the axis, than shooting down a couple of fighters/bombers/jabos over our home turf, while taking gigantic losses while doing so.   "Attack is the best defense" applies perfectly here.

I chose 110s because I'm sure that Ju88s would not have gotten anywhere near those results, as bombing moving ships is currently very difficult. Also, they are flying target drones to fighters as well as AAA.

Although the 110s is fast enough in getting to the target alive, I've learned that 50% losses can be automatically be expected after the first attack, even more so with a planeset like this.  The 110 is not fast enough to get out alive. Therefore the hitting power of a jabo attack would have significantly diminished, if considering a second attack. Thats why I sent in two jabo groups, one for each fleet. I wasnt expecting them to make another attack. I wasnt wrong in this assumption. But I did expect some of the 110s to come back to aid in the defense. The 110G2 is a great bomber buster.

Even with a small fighter force, I knew that we could inflict very heavy losses to the enemy bombers. Therefore I wanted to save our fighters until the bombers showed up. Half way through the event I realised that they were not coming. By then the Tiffies had already trashed the place.

This said, no debriefing or analysis will change that fact that the biggest reason for the axis loss was the unability to concentrate forces against the enemy, which was a direct result of the lack of leadership. The allied had a good plan and they executed it perfectly. Well done!

Camo

[BlauK]

Camo,
dont try to blame yourself ... it just was an impossible equation this time... due to so many unexpected factors.

[ghostdancer]

Btw Camo I was not attacking or criticizing your decision or plan. I think you did  a great job under the circumstances. I also think that if the AAA setting was not left to high (my fault) that many more ships would now be homes for the fishes.

I just trying to explain that my approach is to allow the CiCs to be flexible and not spell out everything.

It has been done before where you are given targets and are basically told exactly how many you have to defend with and attack with (minimums). I personally, never liked that when I was a CiC because I felt it took away some of my freedom to plan and felt more like I was just executing a script instead of creating a battle plan.

As said before I am thinking over all of this to see what can be done for future events.

Grayarea is up to run the next one.