HEAVY LOSSES FOR THE 457TH BG[H]

Some of this is bad luck - but some is due to changes in the rules that heavily disfavour the US side - I have addressed this up to a point but am still not sure it's balanced how I want it to be. It's like all the losses in the BG are suffered by my starring B-17! Up to a point that may be OK - but it is still very heavy.

I have corrected some errors in the ESCORT cover which may have saved a couple of these a/c.

But a loss rate of 100% in a/c and 50% in aircrew is not how I want it to play. I'll have to press on for a while to see if this was a combination of errors and bad luck or if indeed I need to help the US a little.

For a long time the Germans wer unable to damage the B-17s even with ACES and heavily armed fighters - but I changed the mechanics for the AIFT and the balance swung heavily the other way. Then I increased drm for evasive maneuvers and the gunners on the B-17 couldn't hit the bandits! I've compensated for this.

The last 2 losses were freak events or perfect storms in effect.

PS - Another error I just noticed was not changing the BANDIT X dice to the April-June version - which has a much lower basic chance of bandits. More reason to hold off on any re-balancing.

GREEN WITCH - SHOT DOWN ON MISSION 6

B-17X FIGHTER COMBAT

The ESCORT battle has become very important with the increased number of both BANDITS and ESCORTS likely to appear.

Here is an illustration of a P-47 zooming attack on an FW190.

The P-47 starts high at level 10 - goes into a steep dive - and attacking several times before destroying the FW190 from range 2 [100m] and level 5. After the victory it zooms away to level 7 using its high speed and full throttle.

The P-47 starts at speed 4 - accelerates to speed 5 following a dive of 2 levels - dives 3 more times at speed 5 and then climbs 2 levels - loses 2 speed and uses full throttle to finish at speed 4 having moved 5.

Notation for movement speed is M/S [moved/speed]. In this example the P-47 has M/S

0/4 -> 1/5 -> 2/5 -> 3/5 -> 4/5 -> 5/4.

It is necessary for simplicity to alternate movement so the Fw190 was frozen and unable to maneuver during the P-47s diving attack. It was allowed to fire back however.

I can live with this gross simplification since we imagine the ESCORTS only attack if they have height advantage and can surprise the BANDITS.

I could I suppose allow higher BANDITS to go first. I could sequence the attack POSITION depending on who is highest? When the ESCORTS are in formation they will always be the first to attack but in the event of a second/third wave if the ESCORTS have been drawn down a new wave of BANDITS might get to bounce them....worth thinking about maybe.

HEAVY LOSSES IN WINTER 1944

I've noticed loss rate of about 17% in A/C and 6-7% in crews over the 30+ missions I've flown during 1944.

So far  in my 90+ missions of this campaign not a single US crewman has completed 25 missions. I'll need to reevaluate some recent changes and adjust the balance a little. At some point in 1944 or before the number of missions needed to complete a tour was raised to 30 and finally 50.

LOOPY LULU LOST RETURNING FROM ROSTOCK

TENINTIN LOST ON MISSION 5

TENINTIN TAKES OVER

 

RECENT PICTURES FROM 1944 TOUR

 

B-17 SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES

I've been tinkering about and made the following changes to the rules-

• the AIFT now gets much more dangerous at higher FP and there are more columns
• Now its [1|2|3|4|6|8|10|12|16|20|24|28|32|40|48|64]
• The heavier armed fighters - LW Fw190A-8/R8 for example] have 48FP
• HEROIC fighter pilots now have a -2 DRM - so a 32 FP shot would use the 48FP column
• if a HEROIC pilot is firing with 48 or 64 FP already I just make the result one step worse - X2 -> X3 etc
• This helps the Germans damage the B-17s [and especially the B-24s] which counterbalances the improved effectiveness of ESCORTS and B-17s in FORMATION.

The initial test is promising  - and GREEN QUEEN IV was shot down after dropping out of formation due to HEAT and OXYGEN out in multiple compartments.

GREEN QUEEN III LAST MISSION

GREEN QUEEN III - 1944 BEGINS WELL

GOTHA mission went well - apart from missing the target that is!

This is what we might call an FW190 sandwich

One shot down and the other broke off damaged - 1 P-47 also broke off due to violent maneuvering

More intense ESCORT battle

But GREEN QUEEN III made it home with no damage and only the CP lightly wounded
- this was a lucky escape from an X3 on the Pilot Comp thst could easily have been devastating