Dive bombers for victory

[Barleyman]

It seems tome that air power is nerfed and hard. I get it, this is table-top - esque game of DNs pounding each other, but sometimes things get just too daft. My Weimar Republic had a nice little war with Soviets in 50s, started by my US ally.

So far so good, I've got two fleet carriers of some 45000 tons and couple in 30 and 35kt size plus some squirts used for gift shop. Soviets got some legacy "Battlecruisers" (46kton BC with 16" guns and 12+ inch belt?) and so do I. I had been keeping mine shipshape with upgrades, but RNG was playing favourites on first two confrontations with my BCs limping home to the tune of vodka and pelmenis passed out all around.

OK, so remember those carriers? Couple of times I had these frustrating setups where you make contact either at dusk or at most a couple of hours of sunlight left. But then I get a dawn battle at last and I've got my four CVS raring to back up the poor BCs.. I throw a literally hundred dive bombers at them, they find the target.. And commies fall over from laughing so hard. Repeated coordinated strikes until the guys are too exhausted to go on.. BCs had like 1 or 2 bomb hits and it's not like the planes were shot out of the sky either.

Luckily on my 3rd BC vs BC confrontation RNG stopped being a jerk and comitern duly sleeps with the fishes, 3 monster BCs vs two of mine and two lighter 11 inch gun supports.. Yes, they *did* disable two 15" turrets for the rest of the battle in literally first hit but that's RNG for you.

Still, the BCs were never in any real danger from air strikes, in fact after the deluge of planes I'd get maybe 2 DDs and perhaps a CL if I was lucky. The carriers don't carry more than 10-15 missiles or so, so it's bombs all the way.

Torpedo bombers might have been able to inflict more damage if a) they survived against 50s MAA and b) they actually hit something. If you think the bomb hit rate is sad..

In fact I believe CVs give some kind of bonus to plane targeting, which may make sense.

Well, luckily with that debacle behind me, my fleet carriers now deploy attack jets which will easily sink any obsolete floating steel fortresses. Certainly they will. With their improved bomb targeting and so. </s>

[Barleyman]

Oh yeah, I never put major carriers on reserve so the guys were all good or vets.

[ulzgoroth]

Regarding night, by the '50s you could have a tech that allows TBs to fly night missions.

I haven't actually accomplished anything with that fact, but it is a thing to note.


I'd typically expect dive bombers the wrong pick against heavy gunships like that, but not being able to hit anything wouldn't have been why.

[Barleyman]

Well, the game doesn't want planes to completely dominate, so. The DBs do carry a 1000lb AP bomb, if even one in ten had hit, that'd have left the BCs a smoking wreck. Target selection also didn't help, I wonder if "BB" priority also includes BC, or they disperse to whatever.

DBs can actually carry torpedoes, do they get a malus for doing so? Is there actually a malus for heavy-not-medium bombload? By default a medium load strike is selected.

[Barleyman]

Well. Save files got mixed up as only game slot 1 is backed up to cloud and something went wrong with zipping up the game 2 .. So I was reversed to earlier state of that soviet war. Now my BCs whacked theirs in the first combat because RNG wasn't completely on their side. Plus my pilots apparently found their eyeglasses and were scoring hits on another battle, although on CLs and DDs.

Perhaps there's a big penalty on bombing large warships to keep this whole "Dreadnoughs" going on?

[ulzgoroth]

...You realize that the game very pointedly doesn't think dreadnoughts stay relevant? Supposing there's a secret plot to make carriers useless is hugely at odds with the game's behavior. And its features (note that delayed air power option). Probably also its documentation.

Originally posted by Barleyman:

DBs can actually carry torpedoes, do they get a malus for doing so? Is there actually a malus for heavy-not-medium bombload? By default a medium load strike is selected.

Yeah, I don't know. I first discovered that when I got a DB that could carry torpedoes. I haven't seen any documentation explaining its implications.

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

...You realize that the game very pointedly doesn't think dreadnoughts stay relevant? Supposing there's a secret plot to make carriers useless is hugely at odds with the game's behavior. And its features (note that delayed air power option). Probably also its documentation.

C'mon. There's even an option to gimp aircraft development to make it really explicit. And apparently bombing was nerfed from RTW2 to stop WW2 level bombing from being effective, which spills over to cold war era too. I can rain bombs on BCs (and presumably BBs) all day but BC vs BC mano-a-mano is two fleet walk in, one comes out rather often. Well, not literally completely wiped out but you get what I mean.

At least on pure jet carriers you get enough missiles to carry out ONE full missile strike. After that it's back to rockets and bombs.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by Barleyman:

DBs can actually carry torpedoes, do they get a malus for doing so? Is there actually a malus for heavy-not-medium bombload? By default a medium load strike is selected.

Yeah, I don't know. I first discovered that when I got a DB that could carry torpedoes. I haven't seen any documentation explaining its implications.

I found out, just now, that JAs carry rockets on medium load. Interesting. I wonder how much damage they actually do against warships. They do *hit* but if it's like tossing oranges at the ships..

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

...You realize that the game very pointedly doesn't think dreadnoughts stay relevant? Supposing there's a secret plot to make carriers useless is hugely at odds with the game's behavior. And its features (note that delayed air power option). Probably also its documentation.

C'mon. There's even an option to gimp aircraft development to make it really explicit.

Which I cited as clear evidence that the game doesn't intend to make aircraft useless by default. You don't need a 'slow aircraft development' button if your baseline is nerfing them into the ground.

Originally posted by Barleyman:

And apparently bombing was nerfed from RTW2 to stop WW2 level bombing from being effective

"Apparently" based on what, here?

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Yeah, I don't know. I first discovered that when I got a DB that could carry torpedoes. I haven't seen any documentation explaining its implications.

I found out, just now, that JAs carry rockets on medium load. Interesting. I wonder how much damage they actually do against warships. They do *hit* but if it's like tossing oranges at the ships..

Interesting. I'm not surprised, but I wasn't sure. IIRC the tech description only says it applies to fighters, but it certainly ought to apply to some other planes. Maybe even LJFs. Certainly should apply to torpedo bombers...

I pinged a ship with a rocket strike once, but I don't remember if it mattered. They should be fairly modest - a relatively normal rocket like HVARs has less explosive than a 250 lb bomb, and even a very heavy rocket like Tiny Tim has less explosive than a 500 lb bomb.

Still, even a small HE hit can mess up some AA mounts and such. Or probably maul a non-armored-deck carrier fairly well.

[Barleyman]

Someone else made that comment that level bombing was nerfed so MBs wouldn't take out ships. That carries over to JA glide bombing too, apparently.

Just looking at another ineffective air combat result here. CVL hit by 4x 2500lb bombs? Pretty banged up but still floating, not bad for dinky little 13.5kt shrimp.

14.8kt CA hit by 3x heavy missiles and 1x 2500lb bomb? Superstructure pretty much totalled but not in danger of sinking.

And my favourite .. 2700 ton DD hit by 3x 2500lb bombs? Superstructure gone but not in danger of sinking.

I don't know how many sorties that was but 91 JAs and 56 HJFs flying nonstop for several hours.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Someone else made that comment that level bombing was nerfed so MBs wouldn't take out ships. That carries over to JA glide bombing too, apparently.

Just looking at another ineffective air combat result here. CVL hit by 4x 2500lb bombs? Pretty banged up but still floating, not bad for dinky little 13.5kt shrimp.

14.8kt CA hit by 3x heavy missiles and 1x 2500lb bomb? Superstructure pretty much totalled but not in danger of sinking.

And my favourite .. 2700 ton DD hit by 3x 2500lb bombs? Superstructure gone but not in danger of sinking.

I don't know how many sorties that was but 91 JAs and 56 HJFs flying nonstop for several hours.

Are you checking for actual hits here? Reported hits are frequently not real.

I don't have a lot of missile hit data but I have seen bomb hits. Like my ~1000t destroyer that sank due to flooding after a near miss from what I think was a 1000lb bomb. Or the enemy carrier set ablaze by a single MASM hit. (Though I was in close pursuit, so I sank it with gunfire.)

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Someone else made that comment that level bombing was nerfed so MBs wouldn't take out ships. That carries over to JA glide bombing too, apparently.

Just looking at another ineffective air combat result here. CVL hit by 4x 2500lb bombs? Pretty banged up but still floating, not bad for dinky little 13.5kt shrimp.

14.8kt CA hit by 3x heavy missiles and 1x 2500lb bomb? Superstructure pretty much totalled but not in danger of sinking.

And my favourite .. 2700 ton DD hit by 3x 2500lb bombs? Superstructure gone but not in danger of sinking.

I don't know how many sorties that was but 91 JAs and 56 HJFs flying nonstop for several hours.

Are you checking for actual hits here? Reported hits are frequently not real.

I don't have a lot of missile hit data but I have seen bomb hits. Like my ~1000t destroyer that sank due to flooding after a near miss from what I think was a 1000lb bomb. Or the enemy carrier set ablaze by a single MASM hit. (Though I was in close pursuit, so I sank it with gunfire.)

After action ship logs as it is, those are real hits that went boom.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Are you checking for actual hits here? Reported hits are frequently not real.

I don't have a lot of missile hit data but I have seen bomb hits. Like my ~1000t destroyer that sank due to flooding after a near miss from what I think was a 1000lb bomb. Or the enemy carrier set ablaze by a single MASM hit. (Though I was in close pursuit, so I sank it with gunfire.)

After action ship logs as it is, those are real hits that went boom.

Fair enough. Weirdly different from what I've seen happen, but my total air strike data is probably less than that one battle.

[Barleyman]

Ah, there's this policy setting of stocking enough missiles. That helps. Also after you obsolete the torpedo bombers, they stop wasting storage on torpedoes.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Ah, there's this policy setting of stocking enough missiles. That helps. Also after you obsolete the torpedo bombers, they stop wasting storage on torpedoes.

Does that make them store more missiles?

[Jyson]

you can also check the effectiveness of your attacks by doing a Fleet training battle (if I remember the name right).

[Barleyman]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by Barleyman:

Ah, there's this policy setting of stocking enough missiles. That helps. Also after you obsolete the torpedo bombers, they stop wasting storage on torpedoes.

Does that make them store more missiles?

Which option? Missile storage did jump from 10-15 to 40-50 on a large carrier so something definitely changed. That many can put the hurt even on a major warship.

Italy's last big BC got hit by ~eight missiles and 20x bombs, although many of those after it was already sinking. I think my experience in baltics was RNG being a jerk or some other interaction I didn't get. Maybe prop dive bombers are "dissuaded" by LAA even although they only fire after bombs hit, if they hit.