If you have 1 example that was :
1) Within our tech level (no postwar designs)
2) Widely deployed
3) A radio guided glidebomb
Post that one.
The Japanese fighters WERE a large advantage, yes. But AAA is still very deadly against TBs and, to a lesser extend, DBs, because they move directly at the target for extended periods of time. And remember: The game does not calculate every hit and miss, instead Sensei says "They have an antiaircraft cruiser. Aircraft that rely on getting in close lose effectiveness" according to his abstracted point system.
Which is a bigger argument against your glidebomb than against the Torpedo Bombers and Dive bombers.
Remember, you're not dealing with self guided ammunition here. You're dealing with a simplistic, radio guided divebomb. In order to work, you need to keep the plane stable and pointed at the target at all time. If you loose sight of the bomb, you miss it. There's no option for evasion.
Meanwhile, a Torpedo bomber and divebomber will come much closer with much higher relative velocity. This means that the guns have to adjust their aim much more often, instead of slowly zeroing in on the near standstill distant plane.
The closer you are, the faster you go, the harder it is to aim.
...
One outdated and shortranged bomber, the other a cargo plane never intended as a bomber.
"widely deployed" is irrelevant to an arms-race game. We are here to revel in absurdity.
And we can jump our technology if we want it. If we really want transistors I would expect we could get it from 2 designs and 2 revisions dedicated to pure technology alternating over 4 turns. It'd proably even be worth it...
The glidebomb launcher is MUCH more resistant to AA fire than dive/torpedo bombers.
1: Greater range, it is less visible. The gun crews have a lot to worry about, they are ill-equipped to be concerned about a level-flight bomber up in the sky.
2: Angle of approach. The torped./dive bombers are flying AT the target. The glide-bomber is flying OVER the target. The speed of the glide bomber is unfortunate, as is its need to maintain only slight and pre-announced course corrections or else the operator(Who we can reasonably put in an under-body turret) will lose track of the bomb. It does, indeed, make them vulnerable. The D/T-bomber, on the other hand, is flying ALMOST DIRECTLY at the target, thus its speed and agilty are ALMOST COMPLETELY irrelevant. It is not the rate of motion that matters, it is the rate at which the angle from the target changes, with a bonus for distance due to small targets and long travel-times. Also, the importantce of altitude cannot be understated. If a fighter attacks low-level bombers than it can't attack high-level bombers for an extended period of time. Forcing them to split between two engagements will be a large help, especially if we can gain an altitude advantage.
The "near standstill distant plane" is a tiny target, being shot at by shells that have a tiny spread, by people who don't know if their guns can even shoot that far. And good luck with range-finding unless they are really really really on-the-ball about radar communication with their AA crews and coordinating that with the different targets at different altitudes that their AA crews might be aiming at. Omn the other hand, the close target is a massive target, the bullets cover a larger area, arrive sooner, fly straighter, hit harder, and the target is, in fact, also just sitting still in the sky because it is flying straight at you.
Given that the guided-bomber needs to maintain course for longer, it can, potentially, be in a worse situation. But they were used successfully against people who ought to have had antiaircraft ordnance, and the allies felt it was serious enough to develop specific countermeasures. It was a weapon that actually worked, and successfully sunk warships, and would be undiluted murder on merchant shipping if they could get their planes out there. Unfortunately the latter is not really modeled, unless we can add it as some sort of side-bonus? This bomb has a special bonus of reducing naval T.C. to one less than normal if there is a sufficient air advantage?
If our bomber is outdated then we should update it.
Battleship would be too hard to armour properly, and would also likely be too slow to keep pace with our carriers.
@Andrea, we don't need destroyers, we do already have one. And they aren't going to be surviving the larger cannon shots at any rate.
@Evicted: We cannot rely on carrier only fleets, they do need screen ships and we do need to have some presence at sea. We cannot be deterred from the sea whilst victory relies on having some measure of control of it. A missile cruiser or submarine is too complex for our shipbuilders, the munitions of the former and the hull of the latter are the biggest issues. A regular escort cruiser is the one thing we need for our carrier task forces.
Agree, mostly, on the battleship. Though I feel that we could get over most of the technology hurdles by building an absurd national-effort transport ship with, like, nine TC...
We have a destroyer that cannot survive enemy gunfire. Torpedo-boats are different, they are never intended to survive enemy fire, they are faster and smaller than torpedo-boat destroyers, and thus depend upon evasion and expendability to survive in sufficient quantities to damage larger vessels. We would, of course, need something dramatic to field them effectively, like 300mm rocket variants to keep the destroyers honest, or flare guns that blind enemy spotters... Torpedo boats are extremely effective, but have flaws, and the enemy can probably defeat them with their existing well-rounded fleet. Not to mention that they are called "boats" for a reason and are thus mostly defensive unless we build a boat-carrier to safely carry them at sea and maintain them while in the field while being able to drop, like, a dozen of them in no time flat and send them out in swarms... That would also be a prtty effective measure for locating submarines too... Not to mention that we could do the wooden hull thing and get mine-clearers/layers...
So you are wrong about torpedo boats, because the Archer is not a good example, but that doesn't mean that torpedo boats(potentially without torpedoes, much as destroyers can be designed to hunt missile submarines...) would be a good idea unless we have a good idea as to how to make them a good idea.
A cruiser would help, but would be vulnerable to much the same things that the existing fleet is. To a lesser degree, certainly, but still, it could be swarmed or outgunned. All they need do is revise a naked victor with less armour and more speed and the cruiser is suddenly in the same boat as an archer...
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Topic: Intercontinental Arms Race: Finale (Read 590984 times)