Air power is much too strong....

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Randall Daigre:

While I agree with your assertion that the American system is set up the way it is for very good reasons, and that the Vietnam War was ended due to political pressure arising from popular distaste for the war, that hardly refutes the fact that political interference hampered military efforts during the war.

But, when has it not? In what State, and at what time in History, did politics not play a role in ANY extended war?

Also, there is one hell of a difference in bombing strategy and IMPACT (napalm, Jolly Green Giant & gattling guns) now, than there was 60 odd years ago.

No doubt more bombing could have been done, but Rolling Thunder and the other air ops absolutely devastated the countryside (civilian terror was out of bounds, as it should have been -- had LBJ tried that, the entire world would have revolted against USA).

The fact remains: Otto stated what he may well believe to be true; however, IMO it is most assuredly not the case, and so I stated the opposing viewpoint.

That misbegotten war will not be over until every American who was then of a certain age -- is no longer on earth.

Sad to say this, but hugely true, and it has as much to do with the ongoing "backlash" to the tremendous social upheaval of the 60s -- in the protracted "Yankee-Cowboy" (or Red-Blue) culture wars that presently roar & rage, than with prissy distaste for the particular details of the war in Nam.

[Randell Daigre]

I'm wondering if this should go into a new thread, too.

Immer Etwas:

Sure, politics has always played a role in warfare, but seldom nearly to the debilitating extent it did in Vietnam (evidently, and inevitably, we're going to focus on that one).

The "Rolling Thunder" raids would have been much more effective if the pilots had been able to bomb the Russian ships laden with military supplies sitting in Haiphong Harbor (or maybe if the Navy had been allowed to interdict them in the first place). The fact of the matter is that the US military was placed in a completely untenable position in that war. North Vietnam sent troops and supplies freely across its border the whole time, but American forces (including warplanes, for a substantial portion of the war) were not allowed to follow them back across when they ran away, or cross the border to destroy supplies before they were dipersed out for transport. German forces in WWII had no such santuary.

Your assertion was that politics always interferes with war. You would be hard-pressed, I think, to present an example of a war which was won by an army which operated under those sorts of restrictions, and whose enemy had a safe haven of that nature.

[ArmenianBoy]

I've just recently received the game and I have to completely agree with the initial post. A bit of tweaking does have to be done to reduce air powers ability to remove strength points. At the same time an adjustment should be made to put the emphasis of air power on ground targets to reduce readiness and supply. Although if people read my post about oil reserve points, the issue with massing on air units might go away.

- Still love the game, which is my reason for trying to help with some tweaking.

[Jeff Heidman]

Kind of a difficult issue, really.

One the one hand, airpower is much too decisive right now, unless the players voluntarily limit themselves to some degree.

On the other hand, airpower *was* critical in the war, so reducing its effectiveness risks making it go the other way.

Suggestion:

Do not allow aircraft to use regular HQs. Rather, they must use "air" specific HQs, and these would be in limited supply.

Jeff

[dgaad]

Is Airpower too powerful in the game?

In SC entire ground armies at full strength can be destroyed by airpower alone. I have never found a historical parallel to this in WW2, or any other war for that matter. A typical full-strength Corps-sized unit was around 80,000 men. A typical Army-sized unit was around 250,000 men. The most notorious uses of airpower against corps or armies was probably the Cobra, Mortain/Falaise series of battles. While airpower was certainly devastating, it did not alone win the battles, and at the Corps or Army level every German unit involved did cause serious casualties among allied forces during the period of resistance. Most, but not all, of the German units involved in those battles were replenished during the September-November rebuilding period, indicating they survived as cadres.

Taking this as a typical context for demonstrating the historical efficacy of airpower alone, SC by comparison gives too much power to air units.

Potential Solutions

I disagree with the basing ideas on game scale grounds. The size of hexes is so huge that basing could be built for large air fleets in virtually any hex represented. I view building airbases as folded into the already high cost of air fleets.

I agree with the idea that improvement in "anti-air radar" technology should tend to improve ground unit defense against air attack, particularly when interceptors are available.

I agree with the idea that range should tend to reduce air effectiveness since this drastically reduces ToT, even at this scale.

I agree with the "diminishing returns" idea, dispersion even at this game scale can drastically reduce tac air effectiveness.

other agreements and disagreements

I agree with the "armchair general" excoriation. Well done Randall.

I disagree with using personal attacks as a means of making your point. In fact, it has the opposite effect.

[ October 12, 2002, 12:14 AM: Message edited by: dgaad ]

[daringly]

I've played quite a few PBEM games, and can truly say that airpower is not too strong. In games where Germany has 15 air fleets, it can kill 3 corp a turn, which Russia can easily replace.

There are Axis strategies much more effective than using all after-research money on air fleets.

My only frustration with airpower is that it operates more like artillery. It is offensive, but universally agreed to be a waste of time on defense.

[dgaad]

Originally posted by daringly:

I've played quite a few PBEM games, and can truly say that airpower is not too strong. In games where Germany has 15 air fleets, it can kill 3 corp a turn, which Russia can easily replace.

There are Axis strategies much more effective than using all after-research money on air fleets.

My only frustration with airpower is that it operates more like artillery. It is offensive, but universally agreed to be a waste of time on defense.

In my experience three air fleets can wipe out a corps, meaning 15 can destroy 5 corps.

[sogard]

Originally posted by daringly:

I've played quite a few PBEM games, and can truly say that airpower is not too strong. In games where Germany has 15 air fleets, it can kill 3 corp a turn, which Russia can easily replace.

There are Axis strategies much more effective than using all after-research money on air fleets.

My only frustration with airpower is that it operates more like artillery. It is offensive, but universally agreed to be a waste of time on defense.

First, it is obvious that you don't care that the real world Germany could never have built and fueled 10 Air Fleets much less the 15 you don't think are significant. So, you are playing some sort of Buck Rogers WW II game.

More importantly, I take it you are playing brain dead pbem players. Any pbem or hotseat game (against another human) that I have ever seen which resulted in 10 or more Air Fleets for the German was a cake walk for the Germans. The Germans still have enough Infantry Armies, Corps and the odd Panzer Army to smack the Russian around and kill far more than three Corps a turn. Once the Germans get their supply situation settled, the will simply walk steadily to the east edge of the map and kill the Russians.

The ONLY hope the Allies have is create a strategy where the German can not afford to build those 10+ Air Fleets. This is virtually impossible, unless you have an inexperienced Axis player who does not know what he is doing, if France falls anytime during the summer/fall of 1941.

Maybe you enjoy only playing the Axis and only winning; but, I assure you that your source of pbem or any other type of human opponants is going to dry up once they realize that the game works this way.

An inexperienced Axis player can get into trouble in a number of different ways because he does not realize that the game works in a particular fashion. But, once both players understand the basic design of STRATEGIC COMMAND (SC), as it is presently set up, against reasonably matched players, the game is going to see a very high number of Axis wins (there will be occasional Allied wins when the Allies stuff the Germans early and/or get lucky with tech research and the Germans get little if anything for their trouble).

I now have more than 30 hotseat and pbem games under my belt and that is what I am seeing over and over and over again. These games have been played with nine different human players and all of the players are gamers who have experience playing board and computer games. I am not a particularily good or intuitive player; but, if you play the game enough -- this is what you will see.

Most of the contrary opinion to this conclusion, drawn from experience, comes from players who don't play humans. They play their games against the AI using various settings. Personally, I think the AI is great because it does make learning the game alot of fun; but, the proof of SC's long term playability is its ability to be able to provide a good game in hotseat, pbem and tcp/ip play. I fear that unless something is done to fix the game, SC may ultimately fail this test.

The only way my friends and I continue to play SC hotseat and pbem is with the regular swapping of sides. The challenge is not to play the Axis. The challenge is to try to get lucky enough with the Allies to make a game of it.

[ October 12, 2002, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: sogard ]

[HankWWIIOnline]

Why don't you set your own rules and parameters when you play against PBEM opponents? Limit the Axis player to 5 fighter units at a time (Or whatever number you think is justified). Just because the game allows it doesn't mean you have to do it.

In the games I play we usually have some rules set beforehand. For example, no switching of research points. Even if an area is maxed out, you can't suddenly place those 5 points in another area. Also, to eliminate over-use of Corp units we have it to where a Corp unit must be attached to an Army unit unless it garrisons at city. This way there are more army units fighting, with Corp units only being used as support.

So until SC is fixed to perfection, use your own rules to compensate for the Axis advantage.

[daringly]

"From my experience, it only takes 3 air fleets to kill a corps"... One of the first things you learn as the Russian is to keep your troops entrenched. If you look 2 turns ahead, you can pretty well guess which points in the line you will be attacked. When a branch of your line is indefensible, you fall back, entrench again.

Sogard...

I have been mostly playing the Axis in PBEM/hotseat games, because of the consensus that

the axis win 80% of the time. While it is certainly true that the axis are easier to play, it is not the "air fleet swamping" strategy that is decisive. Rather, it is the fluctuations in tech.

I'm 6-0 so far as the allies (though I may soon lose a couple to Bob Weeks and Niklaus). But in all games, the deciding factor is not the air, but the tech advances. If Germany gets industrial tech fast, they win. If they do not get any, they lose. If they get 1-2 points by 1942, it is a good game. In my game with Niklaus, it is mid 1942. He has 18 air fleets with level 4 jets, and +3 long range. The difficulty is not the steady grind in Russia, but the allies' inability to do ANYTHING against those air fleets when trying to invade.

[sogard]

Originally posted by daringly:

Sogard...

I have been mostly playing the Axis in PBEM/hotseat games, because of the consensus that

the axis win 80% of the time. While it is certainly true that the axis are easier to play, it is not the "air fleet swamping" strategy that is decisive. Rather, it is the fluctuations in tech.

I'm 6-0 so far as the allies (though I may soon lose a couple to Bob Weeks and Niklaus). But in all games, the deciding factor is not the air, but the tech advances. If Germany gets industrial tech fast, they win. If they do not get any, they lose. If they get 1-2 points by 1942, it is a good game. In my game with Niklaus, it is mid 1942. He has 18 air fleets with level 4 jets, and +3 long range. The difficulty is not the steady grind in Russia, but the allies' inability to do ANYTHING against those air fleets when trying to invade.

A much more key issue in setting the whole Axis ball rolling is when did France surrender? This is the point when the Axis can buy into tech big time and when the differential in economic buying power is most pronounced.

If the Allies can not hold France until Fall, 1940, they are generally doomed against competant Axis play. I do not doubt you are describing what you are seeing; but, play some more pbem against more varied and experienced players and you will see what I mean.

The Allies can attempt to compensate by doing Portugual before France falls and Scandinavia after Germany turns east. This helps; but, the fall of France in the summer (the earlier the worse it is) is generally fatal to the Allies. The Allied player has to disband the French navy for MPPs and use any trick he can come up to keep the French kicking without compromising Britian's ability to survive.

An Axis player who is efficient in his moves and who quickly exploits his opportunities is going to be very difficult to stop even without an advantage in tech. And, the key to the rapid fall of France and lots of other things is the Axis ability to create as many Air Fleets as they want in a period of the game when the Allies are severely limited by what they can produce due to their anemic economy while Russia is nuetral and gets nothing added to her Armed Forces.

[Yohan]

I have to agree with the tech senitment in this thread. I play against 2 experienced war gamers and also played in the PBEM test (as the Axis and won handily).

The only games the Allies have ever one in 15 plus games is twice. Once when they teched huge and the other when Russia entered very early.

[Ecthelion]

I have played several games with human opponents and we have agreed to limit the airforces.

We can only have five and they can only attack at units at the frontline or in coastal hexes so they cant kill hq or other weakened airforces.

This way we are having more fun.