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#Post#: 51--------------------------------------------------
E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:22 am
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Date: 10 Feb
Playtester: Elias Nordling
Played Rocket Men
It is a cool and enjoyable scenario with all the toys, and not
so big to be unmanageable. I quite liked it, and it deserves its
place even when not considering it a showcase for the rocket
men.
The final score was a massive German victory, and there are
several reasons for that.
The trailing sweep is a bit poorly placed and has trouble
getting into the fight. 1,5 squadron of it never saw combat. I
guess I should have tried more of the tricks available to get
sweeps into position, like returning to base or follow the
alerted squadron on the same net, but still they had trouble
tallying.
All in all, 8 bombers were lost, 4 to piston aircraft, 2 to jets
and 2 to rockets. The Schwalbe broke after 2 combats and the
Kometen after one each. They were all able to easily disengage,
and none were lost.
It seems kinda slow that it takes 3 turns for the Rockets to
reach altitude. Eric Brown reached 10000 meters in less than 3
minutes when he flew it, read on Wikipedia. Also, maybe it
should have protection 3 for being volatile?
We need to know the strength of the flak barrages for mods. I'm
assuming it is 0.
The main reason for the poor US score was 5 disrupted and 1
broken bomber squadron. Not surprising since those bombers have
to pass 28 cohesion roll checks from barrage in addition to
those from fighters. I have a nagging feeling that auto cohesion
checks for barrages might be a little too powerful from my
playthroughs, but it's a nice bonus to have. For this scenario,
it serves no purpose other than generating more random hits to
have 2 barrages, so I suggest making it one instead. That would
cut down the cohesion rolls.
Final score was:
US 5 Disr, 1 Broken bomber: Exit: 36+15+1=52
4 FW190D
3 FW190A
2 BF109K
Total: 61
German:
8 B17
1 P51
Total: 25
Final: 36
I woudn't suggest a scoring interval yet (though it probably
needs to go down), as this is just one data point for a big
scenario. I would suggest moving the trailing sweep to the left
to allow it to get in contact with the fighters coming from
behind.
I used the bomb hit markers to track fuel, they looked just
right :-)
The 163:s felt a bit too good, somehow, and I think it is
because I had too much fuel left to get out after combat. Maybe
they should climb more the first turn (which doesn't use fuel)
but have fewer fuel points for the subsequent turns?
#Post#: 53--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:31 am
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Date: 5 Mar
Playtester: Elias Nordling
2nd playthrough of Rocket Men done. It felt really rough for the
Allies, so I googled the battle and discovered that the scenario
seems to get it right there, it seems to have been a brutal
mission. I found a good online resource with diary accounts
here:
HTML http://www.398th.org/Missions/Dates/1944/November/MIS_441102.html
The P51 Sweeps are spread thin and in this game they also rolled
poorly for cohesion, causing 1,5 squadron to be broken on turn
2. The Germans got several opportunities to attack bombers
unprotected.
Of special interest are of course the changed high speed and
rocket rules. The Me262 only managed to down one bomber, despite
4 attacks of which 2 were at +4, but they rolled poorly. One was
shot down. Halving losses seems to make it easier for piston
fighters to score hits on the Me262:s, since the chane of
getting 1 hit is the same as for non-high speed combats.
Both Me163:s spent the first two turns going straight up, which
meant that they had to go through their own flak, which was
awkward. Maybe something should be done about that?
Me163 #1 Made two passes at half speed and managed to kill three
bombers (two kills, two stragglers) while losing one fighter to
friendly flak. This was lucky rolling, since a green Komet at
half throttle has very little advantage over an unescorted
bomber box. (Second pass: Speed 6 -1green, -1 flight, -1 single
plane). It used the last 2 fuel points to get away from
approaching P51s.
Me163 #2 Lost one plane to flak during the climb. It made a high
speed pass on a bomber squadron protected by Mustangs. It failed
and the 163 was shot down.
6 fuel points certainly makes them more point defense, but I'm
still not sure they work quite right. there is still a heavy
incentive to use high speed when attacking bombers.
Also, it seems weird that they are destroyed when they hit the
ground, so you have to fly them off the map. I would expect them
to land at their base.
In the end, 10 bombers were lost and they took 4 cohesion hits.
The losses were caused by the following:
1 FW190 D
2 FW 190A
3 Komet
1 Me262, 1 disr
1 Me109
Flak: 2 loss, 3 disr.
I played that you roll cohesion for Flak on 7+, by the way.
So the US got 61 points for exiting, and they also destroyed 1
Me262, 3 FW190D, 8 FW190A, 9 BF109K, 3 Me163 for 24,5 points.
85.5 points total.
The Germans shot down 10 B17s and 4 Mustangs, for 34 points.
Final score 51.5 points, massive German victory.
The scenario needs to take account for half points.
This was probably a better than average result for the Germans,
and it felt like a German win. The score from my first
playthrough should be ignored. Raising the bombers one level
makes the scenario more difficult for the Germans in several
ways, and the flak has been tamed. But the VP levels should
probably go down by at least 10, unless you want to tame the
Germans further.
I still think this is a really cool scenario!
#Post#: 54--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:32 am
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Date: 18 Mar
Playtester: Dave Demko
After some practice runs, I've finished a good (soLo) playing of
"Rocket Men" which resulted in a close German win and left me
unimpressed with the Nazi wonder-weapons. I played before
reading Elias's more recent reports, to avoid experimental
crosstalk.
Setup: I used v. 0.2 of the scenario. The Bf 109Ks carried gun
pods to help make a dent in the bombers. Me 163s climbed at full
power on their take-off turns.
Narrative: One P-51 squadron used tactical flexibilty to help
cover all the Fw 190 interceptors on turn 2. The Fw 190Ds got a
shot at the bombers when the P-51s tangling with it went to
chase the first flight of Me 163s. They killed on Me 163 and
broke the flight before it could get to the bombers. Likewise
the trailing group of P-51Ds got onto the climbing Me 262
flight, traded kills, and forced it to break. The later Me 163
squadron got one full-throttle unopposed attack on the bombers
and scored one straggler. In part due to the Mustangs' target
selection, some Focke Wulfs and Bf 109s had unopposed attacks on
bombers. The Fw 190A8s managed only one bomber kill; the
Messerschmidts did rather better with their superior performance
(even when laden) and firepower, shooting down 2 B-17Gs in one
attack. P-51Ds with Veterans, gyros, and an Experte are deadly,
no surprise.
Summary: Allied VPs 16 for kills, 64 for exited bombers = 80
German VPs 15 for bomber kills, 2 for fighter kills = 17
Net 63 VP, a close German win.
Observations: This was a fun scenario even by Wing Leader
standards. The opening positions make it possible for the Me
163s to get onto the bombers without having to fly through the
flak, if they'd rather not. The rocket planes have some
interesting dilemmas for throttle management. They should be
able to get at least one full-throttle attack on bombers.
Balance seems good: I felt like the Germans were losing, but
they pulled it out. Luck was average excrpt that the Me 262s
broke early and one attack by Bf 109Ks rolled unusually well.
Recommendations: I'm about to recommend keeping this pretty much
as-is. The Me 262s have a hard time setting up before they're
swarmed by Mustangs; maybe they should start at altitude 10.
#Post#: 55--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 12, 2018, 8:33 am
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The current VP outputs for plays are:
Elias 1st = 36
Elias 2nd = 51.5
Dave 1st = 63
Average = 50.1
#Post#: 124--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: September 15, 2018, 11:03 am
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The only change I'm making on this is to drop the draw window
slightly to +56 to 60.5, and see how further tests go. I agree
this needs further test validation.
#Post#: 453--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: November 3, 2018, 5:56 am
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I'm making a small change to this scenario, designed to start
one of the Me 163 flights purposely in a non-optimal position,
and provide some choices as to how it can manoeuvre for an
attack.
#Post#: 552--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: Rick McKown Date: November 14, 2018, 3:46 pm
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John (as the German) and I set up and started our first game of
E10 Rocket Men last night; due to computer problems we didn't
quite finish the game, then I discovered today that the version
of E10 that we were playing (v04) is out-of-date :-(, although
the only change seems to be that the first Me-163 starts on-map
(we can probably re-jig our last turn and carry on without
having to start over).
Our starting position for Turn 5 (excluding any adjustment we
may make for that first Me-163):
(1) The Germans have downed four B-17s (12 VP) and seven P-51s
(7 VP), one P-51 squadron (the non-Veteran) has broken and the
flak has disrupted two B-17 squadrons (of the eight flak rolls,
one was a "C", six were "1" and one was "2", although it
produced only two stragglers plus the two failed cohesion
checks).
(2) The Americans have shot down seven German single-engine
fighters (7 VP) and both Me-109 squadrons, one FW-190A squadron,
the FW-190D squadron and the Me-262 flight have all broken (the
Me-109s tied up the Trailing Sweep, allowing the Me-262 to get
into the chicken coop with its 5FP AAR).
(3) The one remaining FW-190A squadron is locked in a dogfight
with a P-51 flight, while the Me-163s are still uncommitted.
If nothing else were to happen (unlikely) the Yanks might exit
max 66 VP worth of bombers, plus the 7 VP for German losses = 73
VP, while the Germans have already earned 19 VP, so current
delta is 54 VP, i.e., a German victory. The situation will
likely only get worse for the Yanks, however, as the second wave
of bombers has to pass through the flak, so even a Draw now
seems unlikely.
Due to John's work schedule we won't get another play
opportunity until next Tuesday at the earliest, when we'll
finish this game and switch sides to do it again.
Question: are we correct to understand that in the turn in which
an Me-163 "takes off" it remains in its start hex (like a
regular a/c) as per 13.7, meaning that it cannot shoot up eight
levels until the turn AFTER take-off (for a cost of two fuel)?
One source of frustration for the German player was to see his
unscathed Me-262 break on its initial attack on the bombers -
being Green and only a flight makes it very vulnerable to a poor
cohesion check roll; from a "playing with the shiny toys"
perspective having the Me-262 at squadron size would give it
more longevity (although making things even worse for the
Americans). Apparently knocking VPs off the Yank's score with
his flak isn't nearly so "satisfying" a win as shooting down my
bombers.
Rick
#Post#: 553--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: November 15, 2018, 1:53 am
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Yes, the Me 163 enters the map as per 13.7. So it's the SECOND
turn on the map that it shoots up. I'm trying to think whether
this is a thing we need to clarify as we look at revising the Me
163 ADC by removing the half-throttle option.
Noted on the brittleness of the Me 262 flights. I suspect they
were very much like this, if only because it was the trepid
bomber pilots flying them by this stage of the war.
#Post#: 554--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: Elias Nordling Date: November 15, 2018, 2:09 am
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I never even considered this was how the Me163:s worked. By all
accounts, the Me163 were at 10 000 meters about a minute after
the engines started, so it seems ridiculous.
#Post#: 555--------------------------------------------------
Re: E10 Rocket Men
By: pilotofficerprune Date: November 15, 2018, 3:50 am
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I was trying to avoid a bespoke take-off rule for the Me 163s.
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