[WarInEur] Economics of Flak/ Alternate Flak Table

[S.Graham-Merrett]

The loss rates recorded by the RAF and inflicted by the Luftwaffe are 
somewhat imprecise, because of the difficulty in interpreting the figures.

'Losses' is a misleading term. Many airframes returned that the  
Maintenance units took one look at, and immediately struck off charge. 
But taking 'losses' as they stand (which losses are recorded as those 
that failed to return to UK shores- if you crashed on landing or bailed 
out over the  airfield, that did not count as a 'loss'

I 'think' that the guestimate of aircraft rendered unfit for combat 
after a mission ran at about  3 times the loss statistic, with something 
like 1/2 of these returning from maintenance over a period of days and 
weeks subsequently, and being reallocated as new/refurbished aircraft 
subsequently.

Looking at the 'official stats for the Schweinfurt missions and applying 
such multipliers, you can readily see why 8th was unable to immediately 
return to the target

Be that as it may,  the 'actual' unadjusted figures for flak turned in 
an attrition rate on the bomber missions of between 2 and 4%.

These figures too, are misleading since light flak and point defense 
flak turned in much better figures, if the allies obliged them by coming 
down to altitudes where  aimed, correcting fire could be deployed, i.e. 
Low level. cf the losses suffered in such raids as that on the diesel 
plant at Augsburg, low level.

 About 50% of total losses inflicting on missions with Bomber command 
were inflicted by flak, the rest inflicted by night fighters at the rate 
of about 2 % on each.

When window was introduced the gun laying radar was effectively blinded 
as was the air intercept radar. For the nightfighter force the solution 
was already in hand with  AI radar operating in different wavelengths. 
However the longer wavelengths  gave you restored 'vision' but with the 
penalty of much less precision.  For the nightfighters that could be 
compensated for, by visual interception technique, but for the ground 
flak the effects were not so easily countered. Thus whilst the counter 
tactics evolved rapidly by the night fighter force allowed them to 
regain their lethality, even improve it, the effect on flak was near 
fatal. The only remaining tactic open to them was massed box barrages in 
the approximate path of the detected overflying  night bombers, guided 
by searchlight cones...

 With all of these units flak had very little physical effect upon the 
raid directly, but in the case of operational effects, the bombers were 
forced to counter by seeking altitude, and routing around the belts of 
guns. The former severely curtailed accuracy, the latter operational range.

 Such effects are inherent with  the bomber tables and simply appear not 
to be catered for.

One other extremely important feature of flak, surprisingly, was its 
mobility!  One reason Harris was dead set against sustained bombing of a 
target over a number of nights. Hamburg in 1943 was a revealing case. 
Despite being initially blinded, the Luftwaffe brought up massive 
numbers of guns over the next few days as raids succeeded raids in the 
week, so by the last moments of the batch of raids the flak being thrown 
at the bombers became a consideration in terms of sheer volume.

Flak only works at all, as an additional attritional factor on a point 
target in the game. Whereas itrw specially for Bomber command, Flak was 
deployed with nightfighters and  searchlights in belts before and around 
targets. Much of the skill in the allied bomber team was to locate and 
plot the various concentrations of flak and fighters, employ spoofs to 
destract them, and detours to avoid them.

Given these factors....

The tables and their ineffectualness are more easily explained and 
understood.

Now given these factors, what is the significance of the large of 
improvements in flak until a large concentration is achieved?

It is all to do with the mathematics of targetting....

As the war progresses and bombing starts...the Germans have to cover 
everything so your flak density is low. As the bombing effects increase, 
so the number of possible targets fall, and flak can be redeployed, 
effectively doubling up where needed. Hence the more successful the 
bomber force is, the more dangerous and resilient the defences become. 
Which in turn is almost a function of time elapsed as your bombers start 
to damage the targets, a surpisingly effective device for modelling the 
situation...

One must also remember that the original game came packaged with six 
sided die, so some of the mathematical models were severely constrained 
by this, and that is reflected more noticeably in such tables. Again a 
practical cost constraint. Decimal diice might have been a great 
advance, but when you consider the knock-on effects in the real estate 
considerations with much larger crts, more complex  tables  and the 
break with traditional dice you can see the issues that this might have 
brought in.

As a result with play, I tend to ignore the tables and mathematical 
juggling of optimisation, preferring to produce and deploy flak on a 
gradualist continual production basis, and simply 'apply' the flak 
tables to the developing situation, estimating that this way the 
modelling is far more historical and accurate as a  simulation. I feel 
that my optimising round the flak crt and multiples, given the 
simplicity of the situation, acts to severely distort the modelling 
(whilst it might make good gaming sense).

 The philosophy I tend to adopt is to run the simulation, and plan 
accordingly ., THEN, apply the crts and the tables over this, crank the 
handle watch the numbers churn, and then apply the results.

 It is a VERY different way to work the game engine, and from my point 
of view much more intriguing, satisfying, and more informative, from the 
point of view of a student.

 A 'better' outcome, does not always have to mean optimising...as a gamer.


->steve>-





Kent & Sue Haunschild wrote:
> Chuch Wrote:
>  
> And as for AA units, I never build them as I don't see them worth the 
> effort, cost is to high for to little effect.
>  
> I do usually build one per Center but beyond that I am in total 
> agreement with Chuck.
>  
> Regardless of the number of Flak points placed on a hex they can never 
> eliminate more than one SB per target.
>  
> The odds of eliminating are 1/6 for 1-5 SB and only rises to 2/6 when 
> that number is exceeded. 
>  
> Since there are only 47 SB given by the reinforcement chart (and some 
> will be recycling) and the Allied player can launch nine strikes it is 
> fairly obvious that the best allied tactic is to never assign more 
> than 5 SB per strike.  This will insure that the Axis player can never 
> shift his odds above 1/6 and never eliminate more than one SB per 
> strike.  This also means that there does not appear to be any point in 
> the Axis player assigning more than one Flak point per target either. 
>  
> I'm not sure but I think something got goofed up in the design of the 
> flak table.  I think it was supposed to look something like the one 
> below with a die roll for each Flak point (just as there is a die roll 
> for each SB attempting a hit). 
>  
> Flak Results Table
>                                   Number of Bombers
> Die Roll           1-5     6       7       8      9     10+
> 1                        -         -       -        -       -        
> 1             
> 2                        -         -       -        -      1        1
> 3                        -         -       -       1      1        1  
> 4                        -         -       1      1      1        2
> 5                        -        1       1      1      2        2
> 6                       1        1       1      2      2        2
>  
> The difference in this table is that each flak point has a 1/6 chance 
> of getting a hit when attacked by five or less SB but the number of SB 
> losses increases when the number of SB increases.  In both directions 
> the table is related to target density versus firing units.  When 
> their are few targets but lots of Flak the odds that something is 
> going to get hit is high.  Likewise when the number of targets 
> increases the probability that a round that misses someone will hit 
> something else is high.  A table such as this would give the Axis 
> player a reason to build more than one Flak point per Center and the 
> Allied player can still minimize his losses by spreading out his SB 
> over all nine strikes.
>  
> Obviously this would still increase the lethality of the Flak 
> (assuming the German Player starts build them) and we might need 
> to reduce the recycle time for eliminated SB from 10 cycles to 
> compensate but I thing it would benefit the game. 
>  
> Another idea, after we make Flak more effective is to make the Flak an 
> "air" unit rather than a "ground" unit, which would help keep the 
> German player from building out the box and then using his entire 
> production for ground units.
>  
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