Air strikes

[Sven]

I've been playing CMBN for a long time, basically just PBEM, and have never ever seen or had the opportunity to order an air strike. Last week my constant opponent and I decided to invest in Red Thunder as well and in the first scenario we play I hade available air support. However, I can't seem to control it.

1. Are they always or sometimes preset by the scenario, out of my control?
2. Are they as useless as they seem after the first two sorties have been flown? The first one hit closer to my own troops and out in the open and second didn't, as far as I know, hit anything either.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Soviet air power was not directed from the front in quite the same way Allied air forces were.....Consequently you don't get any say in what their targets will be, as you are just too junior a commander.

[Sven]

Aha, interesting and good to know. Thank you .However, in this particular scenario it's a German Stuka we're talking about.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I believe the situation is broadly similar.....I think there's a comment on the subject in either the game manual or the update notes for one of the patches.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MikeyD]

I went prowling the manual and found this page 76 of the game engine manual:

 

Quote

Note: Aircraft in the WW2 setting are no longer controlled by Spotters. Available WW2 Air Support will now prowl the battlefield independently, without the player being able to command them.

The term 'no longer controlled' Implies that they had been controllable by ground spotters previously. That was changed long ago. I have a distant memory of Steve being unhappy with air controllers calling point target attacks along the front line in the WWII timeframe. Perhaps we'll see FAC return in the CMBS module. Late war the US was just starting to get the hang of it.

Edited January 4, 2020 by MikeyD

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Seems a bit harsh on the British TBH.....We were pretty bloody good at it by then. 

[MikeyD]

Brits in NE Europe only show up thru September (CMBN). Later war CMFB is scheduled to get Brits in the next module. Perhaps Steve can be strong-armed into giving Brits late war FAC privileges if its deemed appropriate. I don't know if the topic's even been broached. Maybe they'll immediately and happily accept the suggestion, maybe they'll fight it on the grounds of being outside the scope of the game. We won't know until they start talking internally about the shape of the CMFB module.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

2nd Tactical Air Force were doing their thing from June 6th onwards, I forget the precisce levels at which Air Controllers were attached to formations, but as you know we had a plethora of custom vehicles (& aircraft) just for that job.....IIRC 2TAF were on the ground in Normandy within a week or two (at the maximum) of the invasion.

However IMHO this would not make point strikes on individual tanks or even buildings legitimate at the CM scale.....The aircraft should interpret their missions quite broadly (many more KOed tanks were struck by RPs than live ones).

@MikeyD  Do you know if aircraft themselves (controlled or uncontrolled) are affected by TRPs?  This might give options for pre-planned precision air-strikes (which could still go horribly wrong).

Edited January 4, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Warts 'n' all]

6 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Brits in NE Europe 

Paddy shakes his head. "Mr Jorrocks, sir. Will yer'se listen to this 'ere idjit. I led us Limeys all the way through to Kiel. And at no point did me and me Bedford ever get to North-East Europe. In fact, when me and Stevie shared a pint in November 43 I said, "Now listen Steve, you just make sure that Georgie Z gets his arse in gear, and I'll promise you a crate of Imperial Russian Stout the next time we meet. And we won't say a word to that brandy swilling upper class twit Churchill." Oops sorry Mr J. you weren't meant to hear that last bit."

Edited January 4, 2020 by Warts 'n' all

[MOS:96B2P]

11 hours ago, Sven said:

Aha, interesting and good to know. Thank you .However, in this particular scenario it's a German Stuka we're talking about.

CMRT has roving aircraft which are not controlled by the player for both the Germans and the Soviets.  You can purchase aircraft on the QB purchase screen or use the editor to include them in a scenario but once you start the game they will do their own thing.  All other CM titles have air strikes directed by the player (despite what the game and engine manual advise).   

[SimpleSimon]

On 1/4/2020 at 11:39 AM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

However IMHO this would not make point strikes on individual tanks or even buildings legitimate at the CM scale.....The aircraft should interpret their missions quite broadly (many more KOed tanks were struck by RPs than live ones).

But towns. buildings and other large set-pieces would've been legitimate targets, and are in CM scale. 

Quote

Brits in NE Europe only show up thru September (CMBN). Later war CMFB is scheduled to get Brits in the next module. Perhaps Steve can be strong-armed into giving Brits late war FAC privileges if its deemed appropriate. I don't know if the topic's even been broached. Maybe they'll immediately and happily accept the suggestion, maybe they'll fight it on the grounds of being outside the scope of the game. We won't know until they start talking internally about the shape of the CMFB module

Nothing about tactical air support is outside of scope. Stuka squadrons bombed tanks during the Battle of France in 1940. That accuracy of aerial bombing is terrible doesn't mean it didn't happen and Battlefront's reasoning for artificially crippling RT's air support mechanics is flimsy. The issue is the way that support requests are laid out by the engine and user interface...which are carry overs from Shock Force and do not fit 1944 well. A better idea would've been to simply restrict air support requests to the planning phase and allow more options in time of arrival over a target than "lol no". 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[Bulletpoint]

6 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Nothing about tactical air support is outside of scope. Stuka squadrons bombed tanks during the Battle of France in 1940.

Well, the planes could actively spot and target the individual tanks from the air.

The thing I find a bit odd in CM is that we can target individual buildings or a specific spot on the ground in a time before laser was used to paint targets.

[SimpleSimon]

Point bombardment in CMWW2 is a suggestion of target, I don't need it to be more than that personally because I know bombing in WW2 was extremely inaccurate but still happened with friendly troops around none-the-less. It should be used on enemy rear areas (suspected HQ locations were frequently bombed) and known defensive positions that a squadron would've been briefed on with photo and map reference before their sortie. Leave it up to players to figure out why using a P-47 on a suspected German sniper nest within 200m of their troops is a bad idea. 

The other two problems with air support in CM right now are not limited to RT, mainly, that squadrons are too timid about using all of their ordinance and the other problem that the scenario designers often feature only one or two airplanes in "support" when in WW2 attacks were made in squadron or even gruppe strength (16+ airplanes!!!!!) on targets that are very much in the scope of larger CM scenarios. Aerial bombing was super inaccurate...but that was well known and thus targets were attacked the same way as by artillery, via saturation bombardment. 

 

[Bulletpoint]

On 1/9/2020 at 3:15 PM, SimpleSimon said:

Point bombardment in CMWW2 is a suggestion of target, I don't need it to be more than that personally because I know bombing in WW2 was extremely inaccurate but still happened with friendly troops around none-the-less.

 

On 1/9/2020 at 3:15 PM, SimpleSimon said:

Aerial bombing was super inaccurate

Well, in the game, you can order a plane to strafe not only a specific building out of a whole village, but actually have it hit the exact floor. And unlike artillery, there's no risk that a point strike on a building will go astray - it will appear, and it will hit what you click on. That's what I don't really understand.

[SimpleSimon]

It's not unreasonable for airplanes to target structures, TRPs, and vehicles though. I'm just saying that Battlefront's reaction to "airplanes are too precise" was a knee-jerk reaction that went too far to the other extreme of "airplanes should have little to no role in the game" which is not accurate either. 

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, SimpleSimon said:

It's not unreasonable for airplanes to target structures, TRPs, and vehicles though.

But is it reasonable for a WW2 plane spotter to call in a plane and have it hit the second floor of a certain building in a village?

I sort of understand the procedure for calling in artillery with maps, coordinates, spotting rounds, etc. But airplanes?

[DougPhresh]

I was under the impression that in the East, IL-2s roamed doing their own thing but I seem to recall Typhoons and Tempests being tightly controlled by the Commonwealth.

Which is how it works now, so far as I can tell. I believe one patch changed all WW2 air to the RT system but then it was changed back.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's about right.....Some related reading for those interested:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/2nd-Tactical-Air-Force-Normandy/dp/1903223407

https://www.amazon.com/2nd-Tactical-Air-Force-Vol/dp/1903223415

https://www.amazon.co.uk/2nd-Tactical-Air-Force-Classics/dp/1903223601

https://www.amazon.co.uk/2nd-Tactical-Air-Force-Camouflage/dp/1906537011

[SimpleSimon]

6 hours ago, DougPhresh said:

I was under the impression that in the East, IL-2s roamed doing their own thing but I seem to recall Typhoons and Tempests being tightly controlled by the Commonwealth.

Which is how it works now, so far as I can tell. I believe one patch changed all WW2 air to the RT system but then it was changed back.

The only aircraft allowed to conduct free-roam flights were recon flights, who were incidentally quite good at locating German defensive positions (artillery and HQs were the most conspicuous targets on the frontline, but other defensive positions were often located as well). IL2s did not attack or conduct any part of their mission in the search-and-destroy manner as practiced by western air forces though. Rather, they struck known and potential enemy positions passed down to them by a staff of planners at Air-Army HQ. Staff at Air Army HQ used recon obtained via their own flights, and passed information to their own squadrons from this. Substantial communication and co-planning was performed with Red Army command staff as well, so intel obtained by Army formations was also usually passed to squadrons to further verify the target. 

A good number of flights for any air offensive might well be directed at enemy airfields and a smaller number for rear-area logistics such as railheads and bridges. Red Pheonix Rising lists that for Operation Bagration around 12,000 sorties, usually consisting of Pe-2s and Tupolevs would be used for this mission. However over 50,000 sorties would be made against frontline positions by the IL2s during the Operation. 3,000 sorties alone were directed at the west bank of the Berezina River on the first day of operations. Not only should we be seeing the IL2 and Pe-2 in game more often, they should be able to attack specific targets. What they should not be able to do is respond to any kind of calls placed after the planning phase. During the planning phase however, the player should have way more rights than he does to wield the VVS in support of his troops. 

The way RT is right now few scenarios use the VVS, and usually only one or two planes meekly strafe random positions on the map before just flying away with most of their ordinance unused... 

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Possibly of interest:

 

Edited January 25, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead