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Post by sagaren on May 20, 2022 2:12:45 GMT -6
Hi folks, I'm just reaching out to the community to see if maybe I'm just doing something wrong. I've got ASM tech, I have Medium bombers that should be capable of carrying them, but they keep wading into AA and SAM fire to launch torpedoes rather than launching missiles. I know it's not just a dead tech because at least twice since I started playing RTW 2 I've been on the receiving end of them. Is there something I need to be doing to trigger their use? Thank you in advance to anyone helping.
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Post by flamedraken on May 20, 2022 6:45:54 GMT -6
Air-to-ship missiles are rare but in the game. I don't recall the exact ratio for missile to torpedo/bomb but I recall encountering them only once when one took out a carrier of mine with a single hit.
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Post by dorn on May 20, 2022 6:55:06 GMT -6
This is to simulate missiles as eg. Fritz X.
They were very rare but there are some examples even on larger ships as Roma and HMS Warspite.
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Post by fronstermog on May 20, 2022 11:46:28 GMT -6
This is to simulate missiles as eg. Fritz X. They were very rare but there are some examples even on larger ships as Roma and HMS Warspite. They weren't even necessarily that rare. The USN stockpiled a couple thousand "BAT*" or "SWOD" (Special weapon something-something) munitions while the Germans dropped hundreds of the Fritz and Henschel weapons. The limiting factors were that (A) the German weapons weren't that effective after the Allies knew how to deal with them**, (B) by the time the USN had a bunch of BATs the IJN was mostly on coral reef patrol, (C) the weapons were mostly limited to medium or heavier bombers*** and (D) early guided weapons, independent or not, has a load of targeting issues. *Not the Bat bomb that ties incendiary munitions to literal bats, but the anti ship missile. **The German weapons were initially quite dangerous. An American light cruiser had her bottom blown out (USS Savannah, IIRC?) And HMS Warspite was crippled in ways that, though survivable, were never really repaired. After this though a combination of jamming and constant allied air cover (it's hard for a JU88 to slowly guide a bomb to a target when half a squadron of fighters is assaulting it's backside) mostly neutered them. Roma and (IIRC) Italia were both bombed effectively with them, but this was from a Luftwaffe that was executing it's unready erstwhile ally. Using Roma's killing as a means to give credence to the German guided weapons is like using the Katyn forest massacre to give credit to Soviet handguns combat performance. Interestingly, the kamikaze concept skips many of these issues. Of course, it's flawed in its own right, but Kamikazes inflicted heavy losses on the USN, losses far beyond the German success. Kamikazes also ignored the issues with radar clutter that the SWOD had, though on the open ocean this mattered less. I would go so far as to argue that modern naval vessels, not Carrier groups per say, but independent frigates and smaller vessels, would still be surprisingly vulnerable to Kamikaze type attacks as the pilots brain allows him to ignore 80 years of ECM and other soft kill advances. Of course, deck mounted RAM type weapons would take a serious toll, but a group of say 30 (~2.5 squadrons) Kamikaze should be able to swamp a ship that lack serious SAM magazines. (Now, a modern carrier group is the obviously different due to both it's fighter compliment and the absurd number of VLS tubes available). ***In the Americans case they used a B24 derivative. No way was the SWOD getting mounted to, for instance, a TBF. Sorry for the soliloquy mate. It has a little to do with an old job of mine and I enjoy being a little nerdy fo a minute. |
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Post by seawolf on May 20, 2022 12:33:34 GMT -6
This is to simulate missiles as eg. Fritz X. They were very rare but there are some examples even on larger ships as Roma and HMS Warspite. They weren't even necessarily that rare. The USN stockpiled a couple thousand "BAT*" or "SWOD" (Special weapon something-something) munitions while the Germans dropped hundreds of the Fritz and Henschel weapons. The limiting factors were that (A) the German weapons weren't that effective after the Allies knew how to deal with them**, (B) by the time the USN had a bunch of BATs the IJN was mostly on coral reef patrol, (C) the weapons were mostly limited to medium or heavier bombers*** and (D) early guided weapons, independent or not, has a load of targeting issues. *Not the Bat bomb that ties incendiary munitions to literal bats, but the anti ship missile. **The German weapons were initially quite dangerous. An American light cruiser had her bottom blown out (USS Savannah, IIRC?) And HMS Warspite was crippled in ways that, though survivable, were never really repaired. After this though a combination of jamming and constant allied air cover (it's hard for a JU88 to slowly guide a bomb to a target when half a squadron of fighters is assaulting it's backside) mostly neutered them. Roma and (IIRC) Italia were both bombed effectively with them, but this was from a Luftwaffe that was executing it's unready erstwhile ally. Using Roma's killing as a means to give credence to the German guided weapons is like using the Katyn forest massacre to give credit to Soviet handguns combat performance. Interestingly, the kamikaze concept skips many of these issues. Of course, it's flawed in its own right, but Kamikazes inflicted heavy losses on the USN, losses far beyond the German success. Kamikazes also ignored the issues with radar clutter that the SWOD had, though on the open ocean this mattered less. I would go so far as to argue that modern naval vessels, not Carrier groups per say, but independent frigates and smaller vessels, would still be surprisingly vulnerable to Kamikaze type attacks as the pilots brain allows him to ignore 80 years of ECM and other soft kill advances. Of course, deck mounted RAM type weapons would take a serious toll, but a group of say 30 (~2.5 squadrons) Kamikaze should be able to swamp a ship that lack serious SAM magazines. (Now, a modern carrier group is the obviously different due to both it's fighter compliment and the absurd number of VLS tubes available). ***In the Americans case they used a B24 derivative. No way was the SWOD getting mounted to, for instance, a TBF. Sorry for the soliloquy mate. It has a little to do with an old job of mine and I enjoy being a little nerdy fo a minute. TBF could carry a Bat ASM actually *This was never used in combat though |
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Post by fronstermog on May 20, 2022 13:02:34 GMT -6
They weren't even necessarily that rare. The USN stockpiled a couple thousand "BAT*" or "SWOD" (Special weapon something-something) munitions while the Germans dropped hundreds of the Fritz and Henschel weapons. The limiting factors were that (A) the German weapons weren't that effective after the Allies knew how to deal with them**, (B) by the time the USN had a bunch of BATs the IJN was mostly on coral reef patrol, (C) the weapons were mostly limited to medium or heavier bombers*** and (D) early guided weapons, independent or not, has a load of targeting issues. *Not the Bat bomb that ties incendiary munitions to literal bats, but the anti ship missile. **The German weapons were initially quite dangerous. An American light cruiser had her bottom blown out (USS Savannah, IIRC?) And HMS Warspite was crippled in ways that, though survivable, were never really repaired. After this though a combination of jamming and constant allied air cover (it's hard for a JU88 to slowly guide a bomb to a target when half a squadron of fighters is assaulting it's backside) mostly neutered them. Roma and (IIRC) Italia were both bombed effectively with them, but this was from a Luftwaffe that was executing it's unready erstwhile ally. Using Roma's killing as a means to give credence to the German guided weapons is like using the Katyn forest massacre to give credit to Soviet handguns combat performance. Interestingly, the kamikaze concept skips many of these issues. Of course, it's flawed in its own right, but Kamikazes inflicted heavy losses on the USN, losses far beyond the German success. Kamikazes also ignored the issues with radar clutter that the SWOD had, though on the open ocean this mattered less. I would go so far as to argue that modern naval vessels, not Carrier groups per say, but independent frigates and smaller vessels, would still be surprisingly vulnerable to Kamikaze type attacks as the pilots brain allows him to ignore 80 years of ECM and other soft kill advances. Of course, deck mounted RAM type weapons would take a serious toll, but a group of say 30 (~2.5 squadrons) Kamikaze should be able to swamp a ship that lack serious SAM magazines. (Now, a modern carrier group is the obviously different due to both it's fighter compliment and the absurd number of VLS tubes available). ***In the Americans case they used a B24 derivative. No way was the SWOD getting mounted to, for instance, a TBF. Sorry for the soliloquy mate. It has a little to do with an old job of mine and I enjoy being a little nerdy fo a minute. TBF could carry a Bat ASM actually *This was never used in combat though You are right; I should have said that PB4s were what used them in combat. They were certified on TBFs, F4Us, Helldivers and possibly could have been used on more. The mounting was a bear though, and I have doubts about it's efficacy beyond the theoretical. Even worse, it wasn't JU88s but Dorniers that carried the Fritz. Damn if I'm not rusty. I'll maintain the general point however; the early guided weapons were not especially rare, especially in use by Germany against the Western Allies. Germany produced some 2000+ of the things and happily used them. They just didn't have as much as effect as might be expected even against unready targets. It turns out that it's difficult to guide a bomb via radio from thousands of feet away when lacking guidance aids or a self guiding bomb. They do show the general problems of bombs and Battleships though. A multi thousand pound bomb at a high angle is absurdly difficult to armor against. |
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Post by director on May 24, 2022 10:58:45 GMT -6
Part of the horror of receiving a kamimaze attack is realizing the motive behind it is entirely practical.
To paraphrase one Japanese commander, if we attack the US fleet conventionally we lose planes, pilots and do little damage.
With a suicide attack, we lose plane, pilot and sometimes do a lot of damage.
The key, of course, is being able to indoctrinate hard enough to get the pilots to actually commit suicide. Even the Japanese only managed to get a percentage of pilots to actually carry through and the only other nation (that I know of) to try it, Germany, failed pretty completely. There are of course modern examples of suicidal pilots, but thankfully very few.
Guided weapons are a technological way to achieve the same end without using up the very expensive trained human assets. I suspect we will see more of the air, naval and ground battlefields shift to equipment that is at least partially autonomous: drones, missiles and such are the future if not the present.
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Post by maxnacemit on Jun 24, 2022 3:45:54 GMT -6
I think I found how an ASM attack looks in the logs... after a battle I saw hits from HE bombs on the enemy ships, while normal bombs used in an anti-shipping role are SAP or AP. Can anyone confirm this?
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