Strategic bombing your way to a win

[DarthMaximus]

@Jennifer:

So basically, if you DONT roll a 2-6 then you got a 1 and that skews the numbers.   You’ll end up with more '1’s then any other “random” number in that method because you are eliminating results, not determining a random result.Â

For instance, if you have a 4 out of 6 chance of hitting (say a battleship) you actually have (50% + 66.67% + 83.33% + 100%) / 4 or 75% chance to hit, not a 66.67% chance to hit.  If you have an infantry, say, attacking then instead of a 16.67% chance to hit, you have 58.33% chance to hit.  This explains why AA Guns have an insane accuracy rate and why you almost always seem to win a 2 infantry vs 1 infantry scenario at DAAK.

Now, as I said, I do NOT have their code, I have never SEEN their code, I cannot prove this theory in a court of law.  However, it seems to fit the results.  And yes, I have tracked the number of bombers that hit.  I’ve done too many infantry assaults to track those.  However, let me put it this way, if I had 20 infantry without armor or fighters and I wanted to attack someone, I would use DAAK because I’d get 8-14 hits out of 20 infantry almost every time.

Just to follow up on my last post.  This is not true.  While I don’t doubt it may have happened to you, it certainly isn’t the norm

I just ran 4 battles of 20 inf vs. 20 boms (to look at 1’s rolled).
units/hits         units/hits

Test 1
20/3                 20/3

Test 2
20/4                 20/4

Test 3
20/2                 20/4

Test 4
20/3                 20/0

Not once out of 8 tries did I even come close to even 8.  The closest I got was on one when I rolled 17 and got 6 hits.

Total results for the tests
           hits/rolls (both inf and bom)
Test 1 - 32/217 = 14.7%
Test 2 - 34/172 = 19.8%
Test 3 - 25/156 = 16.02%
Test 4 - 32/215 = 14.9%

Total - 123/760 = 16.18%

Again, I’m not finding a giant skew with DAAK.  I don’t doubt that the weird results may occur, but I do doubt that it is common place enough to say you almost always see….  
I saw a 20 - no hit, an 18 - no hit, 16 - no hit, but I don’t consider that normal for DAAK which would refute your claim that you constantly get 8-14 hits with about 20 or so inf.  The Best/Worst I got were two 17/6, and two 16/5, two 17/5  but I have a ton of 1-3 hitters in there.  IMO, it basically all evens out.

[DarthMaximus]

@General_D.Fox:

I kinda have to agree with Jen that the DAAK AA gun must have heat seeking missiles some of the time, because when I was playing steady online against others, the majority of the times I tried SBR’ing, I’d be roasted duck.  I’d be willing to get back in the saddle again and play online against someone to test out my SBR campaign, just to see how … liberal DAAK is with shooting down me precioussss bomberssss.Â

The AA gunners may be a different case.
But I was scared off a long time ago on the those. :-D

The old CD seemed to hit at will.  I’d put it at like 75%.  Ugh.

[frood]

It’s hard to imagine why they’d use a different randomizer for the AA Guns than for other attacks.

It may just be observation / confirmation bias -  those times when your bomber is shot down really stick out in your mind, because it hurts so much when you lose that bomber, whereas the times when nothing happens we don’t remember it because it’s no big deal. But everytime your bomber is shot down you think to yourself “Ah ha! This proves that they always hit!”

[DarthMaximus]

That’s a great point Frood.  I know I remember my disasters much more than my successes.  I can easily recount times of losing 2 planes to one transport or having the lone “Rambo” inf that seems to kill everybody.  But I can’t really pinpoint the battles that took without loss.
Just like I have an easier time recalling the games I lost then those I won.

And just to finish up on some more of the rolling (can anyone tell I’m bored at work today  :-D    )

I ran 4 battles with 20 planes (10 ftrs, 10 bom) vs. aa fire.

Test 1 - lost 4 (3 ftr, 1 bom) - 4/20 = 20%
Test 2 - lost 3 (3 ftr, 0 bom) - 3/20 = 15%
Test 3 - lost 3 (3 ftr, 0 bom) - 3/20 = 15%
Test 4 - lost 2 (1 ftr, 1 bom) - 2/20 = 10%

Total - 12/80 = 15% hit rate.

It’s a small sampling but still right around the 1/6.

I also tested SBRs specifically.  20 bombers vs. aa gun

Test 1 - lost 3 - 62 damage, 15% hit rate
Test 2 - lost 6 - 45 damage, 30% hit rate
Test 3 - lost 1 - 74 damage, 5% hit rate
Test 4 - lost 1 - 63 damage, 5% hit rate
Test 5 - lost 3 - 52 damage, 15% hit rate
Test 6 - lost 4 - 53 damage, 20% hit rate

Total - 18/120 = 15% hit rate.

Since we have it and this is an SBR thread here is:

Test    Bom/Avg damage per bom    Boms (20)/Avg damage all boms
Test 1 - 17 for 3.65                              20 for 3.1
Test 2 - 14 for 3.21                              20 for 2.25
Test 3 - 19 for 3.89                              20 for 3.7
Test 4 - 19 for 3.32                              20 for 3.15
Test 5 - 17 for 3.06                              20 for 2.6
Test 6 - 16 for 3.31                              20 for 2.65

So to focus on the expected damage per bom I’ll use the second column only and come up with 120 boms for 349 damage.  So you can expect to do about 2.91 IPC damage per bom.
And (102/349) about 3.42 IPC damage per surviving bomber (first column).

Since the hit rate is 1/6, your looking at for every 6 bombing runs either:
A)  (5 * 3.42) = 17.1 damage  or
B)  (6 * 2.91) = 17.46 damage

So, you spend 15 on a bom and you’ll probably need to be lucky to get up to 16, 17, 18 damage with it before it gets shot down.

Of course the risk could be worth it to essentially trade UK or US income for German income.

[frood]

That’s also a good final point - just like in chess, even trades are to the advantage of the player with the material advantage. As both sides lose an equal amount, it represents a bigger loss for the player who has fewer IPCs to begin with. And it’s easy for the UK player, there’s nothing Germany can do to stop it except hope his AA gun works. I may be warming up to the idea of SBRs after all.

[General_D.Fox]

:-o :-o
I hail thee DM and thoust homework you have done.  Wow, those numbers sure tell a tale.  Thanks for that.  I think actually seeing some numbers and examples helped put things into perspective.

[Guest]

I think much of the DAAK AA issue is selective memory.

EVERYONE remembers the BOM shot down, but not the successful runs.

And then the cases like 4 FIGs out of 4 being shot down (as one of my gunners did in a game recently) also stick out while all the flights with NO hits are quickly forgotten…

[rjclayton]

Still, how much money do you want to bet that the first 8 people that read this thread and decide to start SBRs again discover their bombers have met with the afterlife prematurely :)

[Guest]

LOL!  Since it would take a large number of games for the averages to even out, and with selective memory remembering only the failures… quite a few :-)

[mojo]

in my game right now i sent 2 japan bombers to moscow, daak rolled snake eyes.
then jsp sent 2 USA bombers to berlin, the in house roller rolled snake eyes. 
you get what you get live with it.

[General_D.Fox]

Yeah, but, how often does the AA gun get super accurate when it comes to F2F play?  It’s never that accurate when playing with people as opposed to on the computer, which seems to have delayed fuses and the like, and maybe magnetic flak.

[Jennifer]

Well, you can do all the tests you want, but it’s been my personal experience that if I want to do an infantry only push, I use DAAK.  If I want realistic results I use FROOD.  If I have to, I use the FOE or In house roller, both are fair, but hte in house one is a pain to use sometimes because of the typing and the FOE one you have to have an FOE game to use.

And yes, I’ve seen many of my 20+ infantry pushes score 30-60% accuracy on DAAK.  I see it almost routinely.  I’ve also seen 15 armor, 6 fighters score 0 hits on DAAK. (Same battle no less as the 60% accuracy on the infantry!)

I’ve oft thought of how pointless it is to bring armor, artillery, fighters or bombers to war with the DAAK server because those units miss more often then my attacking infantry.

[Guest]

And at the same tiem you are posting this tripe, you are making comments about dice being in MY favor during our game, and I am the only one of the two of us USING DAAK!  And I am a bit heavy on ARM in my ofrces in case you ahve not noticed, so I should be getting DESTROYED if your argument had ANY validity…

[U-505]

Well, if there is any validity to the DAAK AA myth then why not just use the in-house dice roller for SBR’s. I trust both dice rollers and you’ll be hard pressed to find an opponent who will demand using one or the other exclusively. If the myth is true, then you would be turning it to your advantage by avoiding the DAAK roller at the right time. Personally, I don’t see it, but if someone does, then more power to them.

[Guest]

Well, I lost both of my Axis bombers on their first SBR’s in my current game against Jen… using the in-site dice roller NOT DAAK.

[U-505]

Well, nobody seems to have any problems with frood. If there are concerns about skewed results then maybe the singles tourney should make frood the default roller. I don’t mind using DAAK or the in-house roller. But, if other poeple do then maybe we should discuss it.

[Guest]

My plan is to allow folks to use either DAAK, in-site or Frood as they choose, alternating within games as they choose.

[Guest]

When you have maxed out your IC’s, have a few BOMs sitting around, are mainly securing vacant territory to finish securing Africa, Europe and Asia… then som SBR’s from Hawaii on the US for from Europe on UK might be worth it :-)

[Jennifer]

As I said, ask JSP what it’s like to be on the business end of an American/British bombing strategy. :)

[Guest]

Getting ready to ask YOU what it is like to be on the receiving end of Japan’s SBR’s against the US :-P

-$7 on the first wave… totally average  :evil: