SOPS tonight

[BlauK]

I suppose it was "boring" for USAFFE since they could not meet the bombers. What was the reason though?
-IJN CAP (15 zeros) kept the 24 P-40's down and away?
-Refuelling at critical time?
-P-40 performance inability at 25-28k alt?
-P-40 vs Zero performance?

Camo's (and Tilt's, sorry) plan seemed to work perfectly for IJN, S! for that. Was that the cause to lack of fun for USAFFE? There was no way Ju-88's could have made 2 runs anyway (one life only and bases quite far away) so it was natural to make one run only. Too bad if they were not there to meet the bombers.

For myself this frame was fun even though I saw only a few (maybe 5) enemies a bit below my bomber and only for a minute. Flying bombers in big formation and making it home alive is actually fun sometimes. 5min instant kill runs can always be flown at MA.

7 kills in total sound much more historical to me than some of those frames where hardly anyone returns home.

[BlauK]

btw, minimum JU-88 pilots required was 4
.... now IJN used 13 Ju-88 pilots.

[Gremlin]

As an allied player last night, I think it is fair to say that allied strategy didnt help either.  If flights and refuels were staggered there would certainly have been many more P40s available however even after last weeks frame we didnt learn our lessons and just repeated the strategy which failed us last week.  Yes, I still wonder what would have happened evern if all the allied force were able to attack the IJN formation.  May not have turned out any different, but we would have at least tried:)

I would *not* be in favour of cancelling frame three.

[Flyboy]

tilt, brilliant tactic

but that was no fun for us allies, 101 squadron didnt even fired a shot.


now my question, did japaneese planes were equiped with oxigen bottles in that phaze of the war?

if my memory serve me right they where NOT.

this could be applied in the rules limmiting the IJN forces to a certien ceiling.

it might ruin the fun for the IJN but:
A: its more historacly correct.
B: it will give the allies a chance to fight back

[BlauK]

Flyboy,
good suggestion about alt limit. The more historical, the better and also more fun.... at least for me

Oxygen is actually one aspect that has not been considered in AH. There should be a bottle which can run out for those planes that had it and others should suffer blacking out if they go too high for too long!!!!!  Could someone suggest this to HTC !!!!

This would very effectively limit or restrict the high altitude flights and would make it all more historical, intresting and possibly more action packed.

Maybe the CM's should also get a power to enable oxygen bottles of different sizes for all planes so that some plane types could be used as replacements for missing types.

[BlauK]

btw, at least the altitude had "some" effect to Ju-88's in last frame. Above some altitude the manifold gauges stopped working... we all thought and speculated that they were frozen

[bikekil]

yeah! that's good idea

Till we have that feature we could confider some alt restrictions tho... but then it was mentiones some time ago and overall opinion was that this is not a good idea to restrict the alt. Maybe it's time to think abou it?

[RGJ]

What was the axis objective?

As it seemed to me that not a lot of damage was done, was either airfield destoryed?

So from that point looks like the allied fighters did thier job, with out firing a shot:).

I agree good tactics for the axis well researched and well planned and excuted.

But like Tilt said

"I would accept the critique that it broke the spirit of SO's."

I would agree.

But on a personal note, yes it was the most boring SSO I have taken part in, and one out of all the SO's I have taken part in, thats not bad %:).

Thx to Warloc for leading us.

RGJ

PS. I am not for cancelling the next frame

[LLv34_Camouflage]

First of all, I'd like to apologize to those that didnt have fun.

The axis plan was to minimize losses while fulfilling our bomber mission. The attack time was calculated so we'd hit the allied while they were refueling. The axis squadrons executed the plan perfectly. I received reports that over half of the allied force was refueling just as the Ju88s calibrated their bomb sights.

The high altitude of the bombers practically removed the allied from the game altogether. While a good plan as such, it was probably not in the spirit of SquadOps. The bombers should have been brought in at a lower altitude. Again, I apologize for that.

Generally speaking, do people participate in the SquadOps for the air combat action or to experience as historically accurate mission results as possible?

Camo
Axis CO

[wipass]

It was a poor SSO, axis damaged very little and allies damaged little too.

P40 max is 30 k, Zeke 36 k, put bombers at 30 k (historically       in- accurate too) and nothing is going to happen.

ah well

wipass

[BlauK]

wipass,
Ju-88's could not climb higher than 29k and even then it was very hard to keep them in formation. During the bomb run we were all between 25 and 28k.

[wipass]

It's ok blauk  

our p40's  at 25 k were not very good either

wipass

[Rompa]

Basicly to me it looks as we have a very frustrated Allied side of this frames SSO, based on the fact that they had to fly approx 60 min of area CAP before spotting any enemys,
and when Axis forces show up we are too high for them.
The P-40 where too low to even try to engage the JU-88īs and Axis fighters were very strict on just protecting bombers and not engaging in furballs with the low P-40īs

The few P-40īs that was high (30k alt) over targets (A-10/A-11) before JU-88 came in was draged down by Axis fighters.

Maybe it is just the fact that the Axis squads knows the big advantage the A6m2 has over the P-40 at higher alt and is using that,  that has thrown the Allied squads of now.


But I can admit that JU-88īs at 25-28k is too fast for any fighter of this time to even try too catch up or attack it.

[artik]

The main problem is not Tilt's tactics - it is great and right.

The problem is setup:
[list=1]

• Planeset is not really balanced P-40B is outperformed in allmost all by Zerro.
• IJN get 2 lives for bombers ? When did it heppen last time in SSO?
• Ju88 just has no place there - they can outrun p-40b when light - and how do you suggest to intercept them with cover of 30k Zerros? At least turn formations off.
• What wrong with Vals - looks like they should be main bombers for IJN - at least that will give better chances for interseption
• Fuel settings 1.5 - if it was reduced to 1.0 it will make the setup more ballanced and would require less refules for USAF
• Alt limit - I do not think it is good idea to set it up. But it is possible to make restrictions for bombers alt to 20k - that is much more reasonable then for fighters that can go high during combat
• But there are many other ways to ballance the setup - give limited P-40E or force more bombers for IJN.

Most important part of each senario is ballance and if it is not present it is impossible to have a fun (at least not for all of us)

[Vladd]

I had no intention of patrolling my squad's P40s higher than 25k. At frame start I simply didn't believe any buffs would be higher than that, in fact I thought 25k might actually be too high  If we had been at 30k our performance edge over the Ju88s meant we would not have accomplished very much, even if they had been unescorted.

Congrats to the Axis for doing the unexpected but... the plan was a only really a success in that it kept the bombers safe (it could hardly have done otherwise). Should not the Axis' primary objective have been to destroy the fields, rather than conserve aircraft through avoiding combat? Only light damage was inflicted to the bases after all.

Anyway I am also not in favour of cancelling frame 3. The setup is OK IMO, lets put this one down to experience and move on.


Vladd