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#Post#: 4198--------------------------------------------------
L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: pilotofficerprune Date: December 31, 2019, 3:00 am
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This is a thread stub.
#Post#: 4213--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Elias Nordling Date: December 31, 2019, 8:27 am
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Designer's notes to help the testers:
What I'd like to see is the Japanese fighters stretched between
strafing the target airfields, chasing down ecaping bombers and
protecting their own bombers. Anything that strengthens this
narrative is welcome.
Unfortunately, the altitude of the bombers is a bit of a problem
to this narrative, but I wouldn't want to mess with that, as the
sources are unusually specific that the Japanese bombers came in
at 6000 meters, used level bombing, and were just above reach of
the airfield flak.
Also, the intent is that the historical outcome (one fighter
squadron getting off from Clark before it is shut down, one
fighter flight arriving as a reinforcement) should be possible
but a real outlier, and that the point bonus the Allies get for
failed rolls should offset the advantage the Japanese get so
that it will still be a tight game point-wise, regardless of
luck on reinforcement rolls.
#Post#: 4446--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Gordon Christie Date: February 10, 2020, 4:39 am
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Andrew and I have now had three runs at Disaster over Clark
Field. We have some concerns over the scenario as initially
written, but some suggestions for change follow.
On the first run the Japanese gradually let down to altitude 9
to attack the right hand airfield in O0. Flak was effective
scoring 2 kills and 1 disruption. The US fighters shot down 2
bombers and 3 fighters against 6 losses. Good bombing rolls
somewhat redeemed the situation for the Japanese with 30 hits on
the airfield (bombing rolls were very good!).
Final outcome was 36 Japanese victory points (6 AtA) against 11
US victory points for a margin of +25 (bare Japanese victory as
written but very dependent on remarkably good bombing).
The random arrival die rolls for the US were relatively poor,
and the P35s didn't appear, which appeared to be a bit of a
shame as one of the scenario objectives is to showcase the
P35. Overall it felt distinctly fragmented. The US fighters
appearing at random intervals were almost always able to
position themselves in tactically advantageous places above and
behind the Japanese, and it felt that the Zeros had far too much
to do. As the Japanese I ended up ignoring the B17s as they are
pretty tough targets and the Zeros were struggling against the
American fighters in any case.
Bombing rolls were remarkably good, for an outlier result.
Overall it felt very different from the history and a slightly
fragmented unsatisfactory experience, especially as the Japanese
continually on the back foot as US squadrons kept arriving with
tactical advantage.
Second time as the Japanese I tried a deliberately odd aproach
as a potential scenario breaker, attacking the left-hand
airfield through the cloud and ignoring the right-hand airfield
with the aim of avoiding the flak and getting the bombers off
map via the left map edge quickly so that the Zeros could
concentrate on the US fighters, strafing the airfield in E0 and
with a bit of luck having a go at the B 17's.
In contrast to the previous run bombing was poor with only 3
hits on the airfield, augmented by 1 strafing hit. Again the
Zeros had far too much to do, and were constantly at a tactical
disadvantage against the randomly arriving US fighters. Once
again the P 35s field to show up before the end of the game. A
couple of late B17 kills clawed back some victory points for
the Japanese but the overall score was 12 US fighter and 2 US
bomber losses against 8 Japanese fighters and 1 bomber.
US final victory point total was 10 against 23 for the Japanese
(18 AtA, 5 against the airfield). The vulnerable Japanese
bombers avoided too much trouble by running away bravely and the
unencumbered Zeros, came down to strafe and had a better time
AtA but barring remarkably good bombing it remained difficult
to see how the Japanese could win, and the vulnerability of the
bombers is such that the left hand airfield and running away
seemed a better bet than going after Clark
This approach certainly wasn't a clear scenario breaker but it
had the same slightly fragmented feeling with the US
reinforcements continuously arriving in tactically advantageous
positions, and from the Japanese point of view it felt very
much like an uphill struggle.
Looking back at the history Wolf's book on Fifth Fighter Command
includes quite a bit of detail on these actions. It seems that
the B17s were caught on the ground, and didn't really get
airborne at all, suffering greatly from accurate & persistent
strafing by the Zeroes. The US fighter response seems to have
consisted of one squadron caught on the ground at Clark which
tangled with Japanese fighters and eventually managed an
ineffective attack on the bombers after a long climbing stern
chase together with 2 squadrons returning from patrol elsewhere
low on fuel which got mixed up with the strafing Zeros, whilst
the P35s put in a late appearance losing a couple of aircraft
but not achieving much. The most effective US fighter response
seems to have been by a flight of P 40Es coming back from
patrol over Iba Field (those arriving in turn 2).
With this in mind we made some fairly major changes, initially
eliminating the B17s. Including them does definitely add
variety to the scenario but the Zeros have too much to do, and
are unlikely to survive fighter combat in sufficient numbers to
do a great deal of harm to the tough B-17's (the 2 kills in the
second run hinged on some pretty fortunate confirmation die
rolls).
The left-hand airfield (Iba) could also be eliminated.
Historically it was 50 miles away and the actions seemed to be
entirely separate. Positioned as it is it makes the Japanese
strategy a bit ambiguous and doesnt add a lot to the main event
which has to be the attack on Clark where all the historical
action occurred. We removed the heavy flak which is likely to
get at least 1 kill and a disruption in barrage, and probably
just makes the bombing a bit harder for the Japanese.
Interestingly flak didn't seem to figure very much in the
accounts I read of the attack. We shifted the target airfield
(Clark) to H0 which allows the Japanese to start bombing on GT 1
with one squadron, making the US alert roll a bit more
interesting.
The Japanese bombers were moved down to altitude 9 (Wolf talks
about the bomber altitude being 18000 feet, and the initial
setup at altitude 12 feels a bit high, as this is pretty close
to late war B-17 altitude, and builds in a challenging -3
bombing modifier). We left 2 Zero squadrons high in B 11 and H
11 and moved the other two down to A2 and B2 as potential
strafers. The P-40E flight arrived on game turn 2 as a fixed
reinforcement within 2 squares of a Japanese squadron which a
sensible US player will use to have a crack at the trailing
bombers before they bomb. As an SSR we limited the Japanese
bombers to exiting the right map edge to give the late arriving
US fighters a bit of a chance to have a go at them after bombing
We eliminated one of the P40B squadrons scrambling from Clark
(historically only one squadron was present), and reduced the
Japanese order of battle by 1 Zero Squadron (I think
historically 34 or 36 aircraft were present, which probably maps
to 4 squadrons).
Otherwise we shifted the US order of battle from random arrival
to having the 2 P-40E squadrons at fuel limits set up in P5 and
Q5, and the P-35s in Z6. To simulate the fact that these units
were returning to base & not intercepting the P-40Es should be
vectored to H5 and the P-35s to H6 by SSR. This potentially puts
them in a handy position against the strafers but leaves the US
dependent on GCI to get them into a good position against the
(probably more lucrative) bombers. Interestingly Wolf mentions
effective Japanese radio jamming complicating the US fighter
control, and it would probably be reasonable to have the US GCI
is as no better than 5, possibly even 6.
Strafing appears to have been a major factor in the historical
Japanese attack, with many of the B-17s destroyed on the ground
apparently falling to strafing Zeros. In narrative terms I think
it is important to incentivise strafing for the Japanese, and
also to provide some tactical choices about how the Zeros are
used. They are qualitatively potentially good if the Japanese
player loads them with veterans (which probably would reflect
history) but their lack of radios reduces their utility, and
makes them slightly less robust. We increased the Japanese
veterans to 6 and made one of the US units Green which we felt
probably better reflected the qualitative state at this point in
the war.
As an SSR we experimented with doubling strafing hits. We
wondered about increasing the fuel target profile to +1 but
didn't do this for the third run, which used the changes above.
Based on the outcome (below) we are inclined to use the +1
airfield profile for a validation run later today.
The third run felt better. There are definitely tactical choices
for both sides, and the cloud is neatly positioned to have some
interesting effects. This time the low Zeros caught the
scrambling P-40Bs shooting down 6 for no loss. Higher up things
were a bit more evenly balanced. The Japanese lost 4 bombers and
4 fighters against a further 6 US fighters with some interesting
choices to be made as the 2 high Zeros squadrons tried to fend
off larger numbers of US fighters climbing to attack. Poor
bombing achieved 5 hits on the airfield with strafing (doubled)
achieving a further 4 hits.
Final outcome was 12 US fighters lost against four Japanese
bombers and 4 fighters for an evenly balanced air to air victory
point total of 12 each. Nine hits on the gave the Japanese +10
victory points.
We felt this was a bit closer to the history, with more
decisions for both sides and less randomness. It still feels
like a pretty tough deal for the Japanese, as the benchmark for
historical success should we thought be at least heavy
damage to the airfield, although bombing rules were poor here.
For a further validation one we are inclined to increase the
profile to +1 reflecting the large number of grounded aircraft
(B-17's) and "first day of the war" effects. We are also
inclined to add an additional expert to the Japanese order of
battle.
We will give this a validation run tonight but summary of
suggested changes:
US:
Remove airfield E0 and heavy flak
Other airfield (Clark) to H0
Delete second scrambling P-40 B Squadron
P40E flight arrives on game turned to within 2 squares of
Japanese Squadron
P40E squadronsat fuel limits arrive in set up in P5 and Q5
P35 Squadron sets up in Z6
1 unit becomes Green
Retain warning roll; retain losses to squadrons on ground
Japanese:
Bombers set up at altitude 9
Zero squadrons set up in B11, H11, A2 and B2
Add one additional expert
Increased number of veterans to 6
Increase airfield target profile to +1
Add one additional expert
Strafing hits doubled
VP levels
This is a reasonably well-known action, and historically was
clearly a Japanese success. With the suggested changes ideally
the outcome will be that bombing achieves crippling, but not
fatal, damage on the airfield as a median output requiring the
Japanese to strafe to get the necessary outcome (aided by SSR
doubling strafing hits). Air to air the Japanese should come out
slightly ahead based on the history, but will need to work quite
hard to pull this off as air to air outcomes have been pretty
balanced every time we have played so far. Aiming for an outcome
where the Japanese have a good chance of fatally damaging the
airfield but to win have to do this, and also come out slightly
ahead air to air suggests to me that we should be aiming for a
Japanese victory level of around +32 or so.
Inevitably bombing rolls will heavily influence outcome. Fixing
bombing at 2 hits for undisrupted, 1 for disrupted & none for
broken squadrons is another option, making it more predictable &
really putting the pressure on to strafe, although arguably this
just shifts the swinginess to the strafing rolls. Quite a lot
might depend on the warning roll which potentially gives the
Japanese a chance to destroy aircraft on the ground. Similarly
GCI rolls for the right-hand US fighters might well be quite
important in giving them a chance to get at the bombers. Overall
though, even without fixing bombing outputs there are enough
rolls that, on average, luck should even out.
Plan is to give it another validation run tonight.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 4447--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Gordon Christie Date: February 10, 2020, 4:49 am
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Just noticed Elias' designers notes:-))
I think we've tackled some of that. The Zeros have plenty to do
(& choices) fending the US fighters off the vulnerable bombers
(especially the G3Ms) provided it is tuned so that they have to
strafe as well (which is, I think, a key part of the historical
narrative). I'd love to have the B-17Ds in but I think it just
stretches the Japanese fighter resources too far & I think few,
if any, got off the ground. Trying to tackle B-17s with Zeros
without experts is always going to be a bit of challenge as
well. Similarly the second airfield under cloud is a neat piece
of design but stretches the Japanese bombers a bit far,
especially at high altitude.
I think bringing the bombers down a bit is OK. The late war B-17
scenarios have bombers at altitudes around 9 (though we
frequently seem to have scenarios where the bombers were a bit
lower than usual, perhaps because these were the occasions the
interceptors really had a chance?). Battle of Britain scenarios
tend to have bombers around 8 (historically 15-16000') so,
without asking Lee to reveal the secret sauce for altitude,
nudging the bombers down a bit feels like it solves a bunch of
problems for me without creating to many more.
Overall I really like the scenario premise & I think there is a
really good scenario there. I'm just a bit anxious as written
that it is a little over ambitious & doesn't quite come off.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 4448--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 10, 2020, 5:01 am
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Strictly speaking 18,000 feet is around altitude 11, but I don't
think it's a problem moving stuff up or down for effect.
I need to go through the list of proposed changes in detail
later this lunchtime, as I'm confused about one or two of the
proposals. However, one of the effects of this surgery is to
reduce the physical page space the scenario takes up.
I think there is an opportunity here to possibly simplify this
scenario even further and shrink it from two pages to one. I
will post some ideas on this below later, but if we were able to
pull this off it would give us a potential extra page in the
book for scenarios, and perhaps an opportunity to move a
favourite scenario over from the digital downloads to the main
book.
#Post#: 4451--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 10, 2020, 7:53 am
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Okay, building on Gordon and Andrew's proposals, I'd like to
explore whether we can not only adopt these changes but trim the
scenario so that it can fit on a single page. To do this we have
to (a) reduce the real-estate taken up by the Order of Battle,
and (b) reduce the real-estate taken up by the special rules. In
fact we have to trim special rules to the minimum. A certain
amount of space can be opened up by trimming the aftermath
blurb, but it's OOB and special rules that must be cut.
Here are my thoughts on doing this (again, tweaking Gordon and
Andrew's suggestions). My changes are marked in red:
(1) Remove Airfield E0 and Heavy Flak unit
(2) Remove B-17s from the order of battle
(3) Move the other airfield (Clark) from O0 to H0
(4) Reduce the number of scrambling P-40B Squadrons from 2 to 1
- the remaining squadron takes off from H0.
(5) Trim special rule 2 to the minimum. (If there's a way to
simplify this further to save page space, I am all ears.)
(6) The two reinforcement P40E squadrons instead set up in P5
and Q5 (at their fuel limits, as per SSR)
(7) P35 Squadron sets up in Z6
(8) P40E flight arrives on turn 3 no closer than 2 squares to a
Japanese Squadron (clarifies the change Gordon outlined, though
if there's a way to avoid a special rule for this flight's
set-up I'd love to hear it)
(9) Add one Green marker to US order of battle
(10) Delete special rules 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10
(11) Give the Airfield a defence modifier of +1 at all times
(12) We remove the squadron losses from special rule 6 to save
space
(13) Bombers set up at altitude 9
(14) Zero squadrons set up in B11, H11, A2 and B2
(15) Add one additional Experte marker to the Japanese order of
battle
(16) Increase the number of Japanese Veteran markers from 4 to 6
(17) Double hits inflicted by Strafing attacks
(18) Remove radio net Fox
#Post#: 4452--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 10, 2020, 8:03 am
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One thing I appreciate about this proposal is that it permits me
to drop the two B-17D counters from the asset list. That's two
counters I can assign elsewhere in what is now a very tight
list.
#Post#: 4453--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Elias Nordling Date: February 10, 2020, 8:43 am
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Gordon's description of the battle as history agrees with my
sources and I trust his ability to align it.
Just one question. Did you remember that no more aircraft can
take off once the airfield has heavy damage? It sounded like the
US aircraft kept coming despite the resounding bombing result in
scenario 1.
I put two squadrons of P40Bs taking off from Clark, as, per my
sources, they had 16 aircraft and basically tried to take off
with everyone in a maximum effort. I was concerned that there
weren't enough US units in the game to put up a meaningful
resistance but I'm perfectly fine with dialling down if the
Zeros have too much to do.
I guess the B17s is a darling that should be killed. I like the
additional objective, but if the japanese will never go for it
it doesn't serve much purpose.
Agree that there should be a vulnerable target bonus to the
airfield. i thought it was alreasdy in there.
The left hand airfield is supposed to be Clark, so I'm a bit
confused about the narrative talking about ignoring Clark and
going for the left hand field.
#Post#: 4457--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Gordon Christie Date: February 10, 2020, 10:28 am
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Hi Elias,
First time through the US rolled well on warning & the birds had
flown by the time the Japanese bombers arrived over O0. Perhaps
unwisely I went for the O0 airfield as the first 3 bomber
squadrons would have had to double back to complete a 2 square
profile against the E0 airfield starting from D12, E12 & F12.
Also I wanted time to let the bombers down to alt 9 to minimise
the bombing modifier & was willing to endure the flak to get
there (whether this is a wise decision or not I'm not quite
sure). The cloud over E0 really put me off attacking that target
(nett bombing modifier of -4 from alt 12 even with no flak) &
given that i thought completing the profile was essential. I
thought O0 was Clark as the BN-17s flew from their & that E0 was
Iba (clearly got that one wrong!).
Agree on losing the B-17s but I think it just stretches the
Zeros too far.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 4458--------------------------------------------------
Re: L07 Disaster at Clark Field
By: Gordon Christie Date: February 10, 2020, 10:38 am
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Sorry about the annoying emoticons. E 0 & I 0 were what I was
trying to say. The relationship to yellow faces with black
sombreros is beyond me....
Cheers
Gordon
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