Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Brooke on October 31, 2012, 05:06:32 PM
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I'm reading Whirlwind, by Tillman, about the air-war against Japan in WWII. I had previously thought of B-29 missions as hundreds of B-29's vs. very few Japanese fighters, and so not a fit for a special event. However, among other things, the book covers the early B-29 missions, some of which involved unescorted B-29's at high alt vs. somewhat comparable numbers of late-war Japanese fighters, with outcomes not being lopsided for either side.
Do you think that it would be fun to have a special event of B-29's vs. late-war Japanese fighters where everyone is using air spawns to get up to higher alts?
Do you think it would be relatively balanced, with the altitude helping to offset that the B-29's have no escort? Do you think it would work best with B-29's without formations if the side balance were to be 50:50 or still with formations enabled?
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If it seemed fun enough as a special event, I'd run it during one of the "This Day in WWII" slots.
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Altitude is more than just an offset for no escorts. High altitude B-29s are more than a handfull for even the specialised high alt late war monsters, Japanese fighter simply don't have enough performance up there, facing the enormous firepower of a B-29 formation with little to no speed advantage. With air starts and proper positioning, they can hope to do maybe 1 pass at most.
I'd rather suggest an altitude limit for the B-29s (and still no escorts).
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/components/com_ahplaneperf/genchart.php?p1=114&p2=78&pw=2>ype=0&gui=localhost&itemsel=GameData)
(http://www.hitechcreations.com/components/com_ahplaneperf/genchart.php?p1=114&p2=7&pw=2>ype=0&gui=localhost&itemsel=GameData)
As you can see, even as low as 20k the N1K has only a ~35 mph advantage over the B-29, which is next to nothing when attacking Superfortresses
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There would indeed be altitude limits for the bombers. I do that even for B-17's vs. German planes. I did a "This Day in WWII: Black Thusday" event once where the B-17's went up to about 32k, and the Germans could do very little in the fight.
I was thinking something like B-29's at 20-22k, no formations, vs. Ki-61, Ki-84, N1K, and A6M5b (where players can pick whichever they want to fly). Maybe throw in the Bf 110C as a Ki-45.
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Begs the question, what *was* the typical bombing height / speed for B-29s over Japan? I personally haven't a clue.
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Begs the question, what *was* the typical bombing height / speed for B-29s over Japan? I personally haven't a clue.
Depends on time frame.
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Back when the B-29 was first released, I helped do some testing with Sled and somebody else from the FSO team (or somebody pretty active on the FSO side, but I don't recall who). We had the B-29 air spawn and get to 20-25K and fly level, and we had the other two players spawn in japanese aircraft. I don't think in our first 10 tests any of the fighters got a single bomber. The fighters started with plenty of alt advantage to play with. When they could get to the bombers they had only 1, maybe 2 passes if they were lucky. And we weren't even running WEP on the B-29s.
I know that ***I***, one of the worst gunners in the game, ***I*** waxed sled twice in a row as he dove in on me in Ki84s and Ki61s, popping him at 1k out. I remind you *I cannot gun to save my life* and I popped him before he could fire twice. I also shot down the other guy several times. This was with me making turns to repeatedly fly under their air spawn. When the bombers kept going there was not a snowball's chance in hell of the fighters catching up. It would be a prolonged tail chase where the fighters would fly below the bomber for more speed, but if they closed at 10-20mph they could never nose up to fire at them because the B29s can shoot straight down at them as they tried.
I'm not saying B-29s are indestructible, but I am saying as bomber throttles are modeled in this game they hold ALL the cards. It's the equivelant of the B-1 supersonic bomber when you compare it to Japanese planes that try to intercept it.
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To be historic, there would have to be a huge amount of wind, forcing the bombers to fly lower to have any accuracy, giving the fighters a chance (unless HT is gonna give us incendiaries to turn the cities into ash trays)
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Something without score.
Or clear-cut goals
or objectives
anything that will not create a stir to offend players other than flying around and drinking beer...
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You're instigating!
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Sadly, I was being serious...
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The B-29s would need to be limited to historical cruise settings or it is all pointless to even try. At full throttle the Japanese fighters don't have a realistic chance.
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For the first deployments of B-29's into China and India for attacks on Japan, the B-29's flew very high (27-32k), were not able to hit the targets with bombs, and suffered more casualties to mechanical failures of the B-29 than to enemy aircraft.
There were some missions, though, where the Japanese launched 100 fighters to intercept 100 or so B-29's where some B-29's were shot down.
After these early days of B-29 use, the B-29's moved to Pacific islands, flew in increasing numbers, and the ratio of Japanese fighters to B-29's decreased greatly. They still used high-altitude bombing, and still mostly missed targets, so they moved from trying to hit industrial and military targets to use of incindiaries and area bombing of cities.
After that, LeMay tried a gamble/test of B-29's at 9k at night. That's as far into the book as I am at the moment regarding B-29 missions.
Now I'm in the part about the first carrier-based aircraft attacks on Japan. (The first CV attacks are definitely good for special events, as many of those fights were fairly even in numbers with the Japanese pilots having late-war aircraft.)
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Something without score.
Or clear-cut goals
or objectives
anything that will not create a stir to offend players other than flying around and drinking beer...
"This Day in WWII" events have no rules to memorize (whatever the arena let's you do is OK to do) and very simple scoring. Objectives are "kill enemy aircraft and bomb enemy ground objects" and scoring is "1 point per kill and 0.1 points per object destroyed".
They are designed so that people can jump in at any time during the event, immediately take off, and go attack things, needing no prior preparation or knowledge. I get almost no complaints about things being too structured.
The next one up is Operation Torch -- here is a description of the event:
http://ahevents.org/events/this-day-in-wwii/607.html?task=view
(http://ahevents.org/images/stories/thisDayInWWII_files/operationTorch/banner-2.png)
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Krusty, were your tests with a single B-29 or a formation? Do you think it would be any fun if it were single B-29's at 20k?
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I believe it was with formations. As far as single planes go? I don't think it's any better. In the MA I don't have enough perks, so I have to take a single plane. I can still fly faster (even at moderate heights) than a low 109K4 can, for all intents and purposes. One guy dogged me for 3 sectors as I was RTB and got close enough to pop up and make some runs on me, but I was tracking him the entire time. There's almost NO angle you cannot shoot in those bombers. I got plenty of hits on him and he broke off to ditch somewhere. I assume I PWed him. I landed safely.
A Japanese plane would never have stood a chance. The problem is historically you flew on max cruise. It was the only way to carry bombs to target and make it back home. In this game folks run balls to the wall nonstop. How much gas do you get in a B17 in our 2x fuel burn MA? 90 minutes' worth? Combat runs over Germany took 6-8 hours or MORE sometimes. It's a total disconnect with historic realities as compared to what folks do for fun and by gaming the game to win. Same as bomb-and-bailers, or folks that dive B24s at 350mph, faster than I bet was structurally safe for them. We've had 8th AF FSOs where the bombers flew unescorted and racked up more kills than their escorts, AND made it home safely in record numbers.
The idea is an interesting one, but it will be abused so horribly that IMO it wouldn't be that much fun. Except maybe for the bombers...
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With a little bit more thought on the matter, I can think of a way it might be possible: Those new AI missions you can do. Set the AI to fly at cruise speeds, and assign humans to escort, intercept, and fly along with the AI.
Stipulate that human bombers (singles) must fly in formation with the AI bombers. They cannot fly ahead, or take their own course. That way you can control the speed effectively. That way if no bombers join, you still have them. Escorts can fly, attackers can fly, and even if you get bad luck with bomber pilot turnout they still get some fun.
That is the only way I can realistically see B-29s working. But IF it could be done, it might be a blast.
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I've wondered about the realism of our scenario buff formations in one regard: Speed.
I know the B-17s, B-24s and B-29s had a top of X, but did they use this during WW2 bomb runs? In-game the buff box hits the target and flys pretty much the entire mission at 100% power. Did they do this in WW2? Or was throttle pulled back to a lower pressure, maybe 80% to keep the integrity of the formation, etc?
If so, that would mean the B-29 v Japanese fighter set would be different if you put speed limits on the B-29s. If they did run into the area of action at full speed then my post is moot. Does anyone know?
Boo
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I've wondered about the realism of our scenario buff formations in one regard: Speed.
I know the B-17s, B-24s and B-29s had a top of X, but did they use this during WW2 bomb runs? In-game the buff box hits the target and flys pretty much the entire mission at 100% power. Did they do this in WW2? Or was throttle pulled back to a lower pressure, maybe 80% to keep the integrity of the formation, etc?
If so, that would mean the B-29 v Japanese fighter set would be different if you put speed limits on the B-29s. If they did run into the area of action at full speed then my post is moot. Does anyone know?
Boo
Bombers used cruise settings. A B-17G would fly at 180-220mph depending on the specifics of load, range and altitude. In AH B-17Gs pretty much do about 280-300mph.
Fighters would also largely use cruise settings for general flying. The difference between bombers and fighters in engine management happens once combat is joined (for interceptors "combat joined" could be from take off until disengaging to return to base) where daylight bombers continue to use cruise speeds and maintain formation and fighters push the engine to MIL, sometimes WEP, pretty much for the duration of the combat. Night bombers like Lancasters might push the engines to MIL while working to evade fighters or spotlights as they didn't have a formation to maintain, I am not sure. Lancasters being used in formations during the day would use cruise only just like B-17s or B-24s.
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Yes, fighters against a horde of bombers would be great fun! Count me in!
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The only time I fly at 100% power in b17's is during climb out, after that 2300rpm manifold about 38. With no bombs that is about 260 to 270. Bombload about 245. I am most up at 27 to 32k.
This is in the MA.
So setting a restriction on rpm and manifold would have no effect other than slowing down the buff somewhat.
To keep formation one would need for the lead buff manifold about 40 to allow other to keep in formation.
DHawk
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The only time I fly at 100% power in b17's is during climb out, after that 2300rpm manifold about 38. With no bombs that is about 260 to 270. Bombload about 245. I am most up at 27 to 32k.
This is in the MA.
So setting a restriction on rpm and manifold would have no effect other than slowing down the buff somewhat.
To keep formation one would need for the lead buff manifold about 40 to allow other to keep in formation.
DHawk
You're still flying way faster than historically accurate, lol
P.S. You can't set a restriction on MAP/RPM for players. It's unenforcable. It's untrackable. Hence why I suggested using AI as the benchmark. They will stay at the speed you set.
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Flight speed in bombers is accurate for the game...Yesterday DGSII B24s 100% fuel and 8 1000lbers...manifold at 41" to get level flight at about 245 mph. I understnad though that this was not the average speed in real life so I think you would need to do a few tests Brooke to see what the bare minimum cruise speed in game is and then do like Krusty said and limit speed to that..
If I remember speeds on bombing runs for 8th AF were done at or just a bove 200 mph to increase accuracy..
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I'm reading Whirlwind, by Tillman, about the air-war against Japan in WWII. I had previously thought of B-29 missions as hundreds of B-29's vs. very few Japanese fighters, and so not a fit for a special event. However, among other things, the book covers the early B-29 missions, some of which involved unescorted B-29's at high alt vs. somewhat comparable numbers of late-war Japanese fighters, with outcomes not being lopsided for either side.
Do you think that it would be fun to have a special event of B-29's vs. late-war Japanese fighters where everyone is using air spawns to get up to higher alts?
Do you think it would be relatively balanced, with the altitude helping to offset that the B-29's have no escort? Do you think it would work best with B-29's without formations if the side balance were to be 50:50 or still with formations enabled?
:airplane: If you want to do something which is accurate and interesting, set up a special event with B-29's at 16 to 20 thousand feet, with no "air spawn", which was the normal mission profile during the early months of the Korean conflict, loaded with 4, 2 thousand bombs, which was used to destroy bridges, substitute ME-262 for MiG 15's and F-86D's and you might have a very interesting special event. Plan it with no perk points required for either the 29's or Me-262's and I would venture to guess you would have a lot of interest. Substitute the ME-410 for F-82's, which were used to attack roads, tanks and other object's on the ground.
If you are going to have a special event, stop putting all these "rules" in the game! There were no rules in Korea and it would be a lot more interesting if the "Mig's" had to locate the 29's, same with the 86D's escorting the 29's. The Yak 9's were used as "scouts" and many were shot down by 51's and 82's during early months of war. Don't restrict the altitude of the bombers, or what route's they have to follow, leave that up the mission commander to decide.
Railroads and rail yards were another target which drew a lot of attention in the early months of the "war"
If you are really interested in setting up a special event, drawn up as I have outlined, I would be glad to help. Try to use Greebo's new crater map as a setting as it closely matches a lot of the terrain in Korea.
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I'm reading Whirlwind, by Tillman, about the air-war against Japan in WWII.
How are you liking the book? Ive read it twice and loved it :aok
Always thought a event based on this would be awesome :aok
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With a little bit more thought on the matter, I can think of a way it might be possible: Those new AI missions you can do. Set the AI to fly at cruise speeds, and assign humans to escort, intercept, and fly along with the AI.
Stipulate that human bombers (singles) must fly in formation with the AI bombers. They cannot fly ahead, or take their own course. That way you can control the speed effectively. That way if no bombers join, you still have them. Escorts can fly, attackers can fly, and even if you get bad luck with bomber pilot turnout they still get some fun.
That is the only way I can realistically see B-29s working. But IF it could be done, it might be a blast.
this is a great idea, and the only way I can think of to force realistic speeds :aok
forcing realistic alts/speeds in eg. BoB events would be very easy (Ju88 is ~15mins with 25% and 2x burn), but impossible with the B-29 simply because of its massive range.
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How are you liking the book? Ive read it twice and loved it :aok
Always thought a event based on this would be awesome :aok
I like it. Some other recent favorites: The Few, Masters of the Air, Intrepid, and Flak.
There is another aspect that the book describes that would make a very good event -- the early carrier-based attacks on Japan, when there were fights with even numbers of US vs. Japanese aircraft.