How come the AI get OP as ♥♥♥♥ dive bombers but we don't?

[G13 TALOS]

A single dauntless strike is able to sink a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Kongo, and wreck a Yamato to the point where its useless, yet if I use dive bombers against a battleship, its light damage and no flooding?

[dangiesey]

I've found both my own dive bombers as well as they enemy's to be relatively effective, but there's a lot to unpack here. Based on your post, you're playing as the IJN -- as am I.

I'm no expert, but I think that there are a couple of factors behind what you're experiencing. I don't think it's an "AI has better stuff" issue but rather the product of some technical factors.

Your dive bombers, the Vals, typically carry one 250kg (550lb bomb) and two 60 kg (130 lb) bombs. That brings to total bomb load to something like 810 lbs. The Dauntless, in contrast, has something like a 2,200 lb bomb load -- 2.7x higher! In short, the US is dropping more and heavier bombs on you using the same number of aircraft.

The Kongo-class ships are battlecruisers in everthing but name. They have a 130mm armor deck in some places, but only an 80mm deck in others. I don't have the US bomb specifications in front of me, but my assumption is that the 80mm sections of the armor deck can be penetrated. The Yamato has a 200mm armor deck and I believe certain sections that go to 230mm -- It should be decidedly less vulnerable to bomb hits that sink it.

The armored deck of a South Dakota class battleship is 154mm at its thickest. The heaviest of the Val's bombs, the 250kg, can penetrate 50mm of armor or so.

In my experience Vals can cause meaningful damage to battleships and destroy topside systems like the fire control directors. This in turn will make it much easier for you to attack and sink them with surface ships. You're very unlikely to be able to sink them with dive bombers though.

To SINK a US fast BB with aircraft, you'll either want to use Kates with Type 91 aerial torpedoes (where you hit is very important -- the torpedo defense system is relatively robust amidships but the bow and stern are of course less protected -- I'd estimate that at least four hits will be required) or Kates armed with the 1,600lb Type 99 No. 80 Armor Piercing Bomb. These were basically 16'' AP shells converted into an aerial munition. With 150mm of armor piercing capability, they should be able to penetrate many sections of a South Dakotas armored deck.

Level bombing with Kates is of course difficult, and I've never attempted it as torpedoes work fine.

As an IJN player, and in general, it's essential to protect your ships against air attack. IJN AA is relatively weak, and while I do use a large number of Akizuki-class destroyers (which have 8x 100mm DP guns) to screen my carriers, even 8 of them can only deter rather than prevent a determined air attack. Your best and only strategy during the day is to maintain continuous air cover. Even then, it's no guarantee that you'll be able to stop and air attack completely, but your odds are certainly much, much better.

[byepopejoy]

To which I would add,: if you want to avoid airstrikes, see and avoid being seen. Use your float planes, land-based air, and some CV-based Zeroes to put together a thorough search pattern, and put out a few two-Zero sweep missions a bit further from your CV task forces to shoot down any enemy scouts they can find within maybe 100 miles or so. They can't raid you if they haven't found you.

[G13 TALOS]

Originally posted by dangiesey:

I've found both my own dive bombers as well as they enemy's to be relatively effective, but there's a lot to unpack here. Based on your post, you're playing as the IJN -- as am I.

I'm no expert, but I think that there are a couple of factors behind what you're experiencing. I don't think it's an "AI has better stuff" issue but rather the product of some technical factors.

Your dive bombers, the Vals, typically carry one 250kg (550lb bomb) and two 60 kg (130 lb) bombs. That brings to total bomb load to something like 810 lbs. The Dauntless, in contrast, has something like a 2,200 lb bomb load -- 2.7x higher! In short, the US is dropping more and heavier bombs on you using the same number of aircraft.

The Kongo-class ships are battlecruisers in everthing but name. They have a 130mm armor deck in some places, but only an 80mm deck in others. I don't have the US bomb specifications in front of me, but my assumption is that the 80mm sections of the armor deck can be penetrated. The Yamato has a 200mm armor deck and I believe certain sections that go to 230mm -- It should be decidedly less vulnerable to bomb hits that sink it.

The armored deck of a South Dakota class battleship is 154mm at its thickest. The heaviest of the Val's bombs, the 250kg, can penetrate 50mm of armor or so.

In my experience Vals can cause meaningful damage to battleships and destroy topside systems like the fire control directors. This in turn will make it much easier for you to attack and sink them with surface ships. You're very unlikely to be able to sink them with dive bombers though.

To SINK a US fast BB with aircraft, you'll either want to use Kates with Type 91 aerial torpedoes (where you hit is very important -- the torpedo defense system is relatively robust amidships but the bow and stern are of course less protected -- I'd estimate that at least four hits will be required) or Kates armed with the 1,600lb Type 99 No. 80 Armor Piercing Bomb. These were basically 16'' AP shells converted into an aerial munition. With 150mm of armor piercing capability, they should be able to penetrate many sections of a South Dakotas armored deck.

Level bombing with Kates is of course difficult, and I've never attempted it as torpedoes work fine.

As an IJN player, and in general, it's essential to protect your ships against air attack. IJN AA is relatively weak, and while I do use a large number of Akizuki-class destroyers (which have 8x 100mm DP guns) to screen my carriers, even 8 of them can only deter rather than prevent a determined air attack. Your best and only strategy during the day is to maintain continuous air cover. Even then, it's no guarantee that you'll be able to stop and air attack completely, but your odds are certainly much, much better.

ive played at both the IJN and the USN, using bombers against battleships doesn't generally end well, they need a ton of torpedoes to go down, but the Kongo wouldnt be sunk by 1 or 2 bombs that are capable of being mounted on anything smaller than a B52

[dangiesey]

I agree that it's unlikely that one dive bomber or 1-2 bombs will do it. Certainly a flight of 12 can if it gets enough hits.

Another factor of course is the size of the enemy fleet. If it's just aircraft going up against a lone battleship or a battleship and a destroyer than one has a LOT of flexibility to set up the attack. Against lone ships, you can even send 3-4 planes at a time, see where you hit and then try to achieve hits on the same side that are likely to cause sinking. With dive bombers, you can really work to get a good approach angle, whether you prefer 90 degrees (a side attack) or stern-to-bow.

Against an actual task force, AA fire is going to get some of your planes and it's only sensible to attack all at once, even if you're splitting your aircraft into different sections approaching from different angles. 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock takes time to set up, but I've found it works decently well as there's almost no chance to evade.

[Markus1987]

Originally posted by dangiesey:

I've found both my own dive bombers as well as they enemy's to be relatively effective, but there's a lot to unpack here. Based on your post, you're playing as the IJN -- as am I.

I'm no expert, but I think that there are a couple of factors behind what you're experiencing. I don't think it's an "AI has better stuff" issue but rather the product of some technical factors.

Your dive bombers, the Vals, typically carry one 250kg (550lb bomb) and two 60 kg (130 lb) bombs. That brings to total bomb load to something like 810 lbs. The Dauntless, in contrast, has something like a 2,200 lb bomb load -- 2.7x higher! In short, the US is dropping more and heavier bombs on you using the same number of aircraft.

The Kongo-class ships are battlecruisers in everthing but name. They have a 130mm armor deck in some places, but only an 80mm deck in others. I don't have the US bomb specifications in front of me, but my assumption is that the 80mm sections of the armor deck can be penetrated. The Yamato has a 200mm armor deck and I believe certain sections that go to 230mm -- It should be decidedly less vulnerable to bomb hits that sink it.

The armored deck of a South Dakota class battleship is 154mm at its thickest. The heaviest of the Val's bombs, the 250kg, can penetrate 50mm of armor or so.

In my experience Vals can cause meaningful damage to battleships and destroy topside systems like the fire control directors. This in turn will make it much easier for you to attack and sink them with surface ships. You're very unlikely to be able to sink them with dive bombers though.

To SINK a US fast BB with aircraft, you'll either want to use Kates with Type 91 aerial torpedoes (where you hit is very important -- the torpedo defense system is relatively robust amidships but the bow and stern are of course less protected -- I'd estimate that at least four hits will be required) or Kates armed with the 1,600lb Type 99 No. 80 Armor Piercing Bomb. These were basically 16'' AP shells converted into an aerial munition. With 150mm of armor piercing capability, they should be able to penetrate many sections of a South Dakotas armored deck.

Level bombing with Kates is of course difficult, and I've never attempted it as torpedoes work fine.

As an IJN player, and in general, it's essential to protect your ships against air attack. IJN AA is relatively weak, and while I do use a large number of Akizuki-class destroyers (which have 8x 100mm DP guns) to screen my carriers, even 8 of them can only deter rather than prevent a determined air attack. Your best and only strategy during the day is to maintain continuous air cover. Even then, it's no guarantee that you'll be able to stop and air attack completely, but your odds are certainly much, much better.

For a carrier, 6 torpedoes are enough; a battleship, whether North Carolina or South Dakota class 7-8.

With a squadron of Vals no US battleship sinks, but it is heavily damaged.
12 Vals, on the other hand, can sink a carrier.

Best strategy as Japanese, right at the beginning aggressive, since the US AI starts with both carriers in contrast to the Japanese, who is nimble and willing to risk catches Enterprise and Hornet in the first week in the area east of the Russel islands and west of new hebrides, just constantly send out air patrols.

I do not regret it and find my 2nd Japanese campaign really interesting, I have air supremacy, although I must say that the US now use B 17.

[anger1]

Interesting Information, I have not tried the IJN (although i am itching to) due to the fact that I am not as familiar with their ships and planes. although I am working on it. thank you for the Info.

[JazzObserver127]

I'm pretty sure the SBD has 1,000 lb bomb, not a 2,000 lb one.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Holy_Crusader:

A single dauntless strike is able to sink a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Kongo, and wreck a Yamato to the point where its useless, yet if I use dive bombers against a battleship, its light damage and no flooding?

Uh, well, you see, SBD Dauntless uses 1000lb (454kg) + 2x 100lb (45 kg) bombs.
You seem to be using Japan, and your dive bomber, Val, carries 250 kg + 2x 60 kg bombs.
So the whole bomb amount is different.

American battleships can be reasonably damaged to the brink of sinking with about 24 Vals, you can try that next time, or you can simply use torpedo bombers (but it would cost you a rather high loss rate).

[Aldodrem]

It's because the bombs are OP in stock game (& torps are underpowered), and the USN are worse so than the IJN ones.

An example the 1000lb bomb the dauntless is carrying in game does 1250 TNT relative effectiveness [RE] damage in the stock game. However IRL that bomb carried just 530lb of Amatol (which has 110% more RE compared to TNT) explosives in the warhead. This means that the damage the game should list for it should be 583. So the game has that single bomb wrongly set to be a whopping 153.4% more effective than it should be.

This mod fixes it to historic values like in the example above.
https://www.nexusmods.com/waronthesea/mods/1

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

It's because the bombs are OP in stock game (& torps are underpowered), and the USN are worse so than the IJN ones.

An example the 1000lb bomb the dauntless is carrying in game does 1250 TNT relative effectiveness [RE] damage in the stock game. However IRL that bomb carried just 530lb of Amatol (which has 110% more RE compared to TNT) explosives in the warhead. This means that the damage the game should list for it should be 583. So the game has that single bomb wrongly set to be a whopping 153.4% more effective than it should be.

This mod fixes it to historic values like in the example above.
https://www.nexusmods.com/waronthesea/mods/1

I don't think anyone said the in-game bomb damage value is defined as TNT equivalent.
And as a matter of fact, both bombs and torpedoes require much, much more hits to sink a ship than IRL.
We're looking at OP damage control, not OP bombs nor UP torpedoes.

[Aldodrem]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

It's because the bombs are OP in stock game (& torps are underpowered), and the USN are worse so than the IJN ones.

An example the 1000lb bomb the dauntless is carrying in game does 1250 TNT relative effectiveness [RE] damage in the stock game. However IRL that bomb carried just 530lb of Amatol (which has 110% more RE compared to TNT) explosives in the warhead. This means that the damage the game should list for it should be 583. So the game has that single bomb wrongly set to be a whopping 153.4% more effective than it should be.

This mod fixes it to historic values like in the example above.
https://www.nexusmods.com/waronthesea/mods/1

I don't think anyone said the in-game bomb damage value is defined as TNT equivalent.
And as a matter of fact, both bombs and torpedoes require much, much more hits to sink a ship than IRL.
We're looking at OP damage control, not OP bombs nor UP torpedoes.

It is TNT in lbs as the game uses the same engine and maths values Cold Waters
https://store.steampowered.com/app/541210/Cold_Waters/
does and TNT was used in that game. Also if you are curious of other unit maths the game uses, distances are in Meters and weights are in Kilos.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

I don't think anyone said the in-game bomb damage value is defined as TNT equivalent.
And as a matter of fact, both bombs and torpedoes require much, much more hits to sink a ship than IRL.
We're looking at OP damage control, not OP bombs nor UP torpedoes.

It is TNT in lbs as the game uses the same engine and maths values Cold Waters
https://store.steampowered.com/app/541210/Cold_Waters/
does and TNT was used in that game. Also if you are curious of other unit maths the game uses, distances are in Meters and weights are in Kilos.

It's NOT.
Japanese 250 kg bomb has a damage value of 620 which, if it's lb TNT, is equal to 281 kg, heavier than the whole bomb.

Real life Japanese No.25 bomb only carries 150kg Hexanite which is less powerful than TNT. Now you go try setting the damage value to something like 120 and tell me what happens. I'd bet they would stop dealing damage whatsoever.

What you are doing now is to force the idea of "bombs damage are lb TNT and thus bombs are op" while the reality is simply "bomb damage is NOT lb TNT and thus there is no such a problem as setting the damage value too high".

It is entirely possible and legitimate that torpedo damage is after lb TNT while bombs are not. They damage the ships' damage model in different ways and thus there may need a buff on the bomb's side to make them behave closer to real life.

And that's exactly what's happening here. # of bombs required to kill a ship is already higher than real life (although so is torpedoes), there's no point in making such a mod to nerf them.

[Aldodrem]

You're right the game doesn't use TNT for damage it just magically pulls a value out of thin air for what the value should be based on no measurable unit or known game maths that the engine uses... You can argue balance all day long, as to why the values arn't set to like in my mod, but the FACT remains that the damage value used no matter what the # is set to is TNT value.

So if you want dev tuned values that's fine, if you want historic values that is fine as well, but don't try to say it's wrong to use my mod because the values are not correct when they are to me and to the history of the weapon depicted.

[boris.glevrk]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

You're right the game doesn't use TNT for damage it just magically pulls a value out of thin air for what the value should be based on no measurable unit or known game maths that the engine uses... You can argue balance all day long, as to why the values arn't set to like in my mod, but the FACT remains that the damage value used no matter what the # is set to is TNT value.

So if you want dev tuned values that's fine, if you want historic values that is fine as well, but don't try to say it's wrong to use my mod because the values are not correct when they are to me and to the history of the weapon depicted.

The thing is, the dev's value is how we get "effective" historic value.
It's rather close to historical status quos between torpedoes and bombs.
Changing that, especially like nerfing the Japanese bomb from 600 to 120, would offset that balance to the point that aerial bombs are no longer relevant.

Allow me to remind you that SBD was the greatest naval attacker (in terms of kill scores) in WWII and Val was the greatest *axis* naval attacker in WWII. Not the torpedo bombers.

[boris.glevrk]

And for your claim that Cold Waters uses lb TNT as damage value:
Mk48 (and ADCAP): "Warhead 550" (1000lb IRL)
Tomahawk TASM: "Warhead 845" (also 1000lb IRL)

Your theory is officially sunk tbh.