Lars

A philosophy which made you one popular dude in prison, no doubt. </font>

Wouldn't having the spotting range ramp up avoid the uberBomber? You get both then. A DD spots something, the Level 0 Bomber can join in. (or vis versa). Later in the game, a Level 5 Bomber spots everything, the DD's can join in. But by that point, I'd think the seas would have been swept clean.

Some thoughts, starting with this. It's bass ackwards. Recon spots for surface. How do you think the Army got all those B-17's anyway? They sold it as coastal defense, not strategic bombing. The spotting range should be increased for Bombers, reduced for Destroyers. Would be nice if Hubert could code it to take account of range, i.e. pretty much guaranteed at 2-3 hexes, and dropping off steeply the further out you get. And of course, those spotting ranges chances need to be upped when you get advances to reflect radar and whatnot. Reduced again if your Bomber unit isn't at full strength to reflect holes in your search pattern. Also, maybe DD and CA should be the only unit that can finish off a Sub, much as JJ suggested for AF not being able to finish off land units. Would give you a reason to build DD and would reflect historical practice of hunter/killer groups. Perhaps we should be considering the spotting ranges in addition to the attack values in this debate a bit more. Can't kill what you can't see. Wouldn't matter for RA, but would for everything else. And SeaMonkey, you got on the right track when you quit considering aircraft types/ranges and started considering effects. That's all we worry about with Inf and Tank.

I made the arguement for blockade in the mining thread. Happy reading, that VP site will keep you busy for days.

Oh, might as well address this. When the old man got out of pilot training he was in P2V Neptunes. Extremely long range, twin engine bomber. And it was designed in WWII. And you really didn’t want one to find you. Too late for the war though. Still flying today in various Navies. Here’s a great link for you if you’re interested in what the Navy considered “Strategic” air. Lot’s of WWII stuff in the squadron histories. http://www.vpnavy.org/ btw, he was in VP-17 for awhile, then went to carriers.

Heh, little story for you, JJ My father was in the Navy, originally based on destroyers as radio operator. One day a Panther jet came in and did a low level mock attack on the ship. They didn’t get a gun on him. And that was with advance warning. The old man promptly said, “F*** This!” and signed up for pilot training. Moral of the story? If you’re in range of any kind of air, you’re dead meat.

Well, think I’ll use JJ’s format here, then point out what I’d tweak. a) SA= Soft Attack ... 2 / 3 TA= Tank Attack ... 2 / 3 c) NA= Naval Attack ... 1 / 3 d) RA= Strategic Attack ... 4 / 2 e) CA= Carrier Attack ... 1 / 3 f) UA= Sub Attack ... 3 / 2 I’d up the Bombers on Soft Target attack. Dumping five tons of bombs per plane tends to have a disheartening effect on the troops, but I’d lower it for Tank Attacks. If you didn’t pretty much get a direct hit on a tank, you wasted the ordinance. Naval Attack, as stated, should match the Air Fleet number. I can find legion upon legion of examples of long range strategic type (and non-strategic types, think PBY Black Cats) aircraft delivering devasting attacks to naval shipping. Remember, you only got to hit them once to ruin their entire day. To throw JJ a bone, maybe make the number for Bomber take that jump on a tech advance when they finally figure out the correct tactics. That would take care of the early war B-17 example. And making a Bomber attack (land or water) with no escorts that runs into any sort of Air Fleet or Carrier air cover should lead to devestating losses to the Bomber unit. I think this would be key to avoid Bomber becoming the uber unit in place of Air Fleet. We don’t want to trade one problem for another. But again, to repeat, it’s not really the plane, it’s how you use it. Turns out the Allies would have been better off chucking all those large four engine bombers and building nothing but small two engine Mosquitos for the strategic bombing role. Anybody want to put that option in?

Two words. Skip bombing. Again, you're getting hung up on plane types. All these problems go away if you just look at the results and don't worry about types and tactics. btw, have a beautiful pic on my wall of a B-25 coming straight in on a Jap destroyer. 5 inch guns didn't do him much good.

Christmas Party, Open Bar, ya gotta love them. Especially when it ain't my company.

What about proximity fuses? Probably the most important AA Radar advance there was as far as naval defense goes. You don't need a separate tech, just a bit of carryover.

Think I see a good story here. C'mon, tell us what happened when Mom caught you.

Several mistakes in your post, for instance, a B-24 is bigger than a B-25. And B-24's were very effective in the anti-sub war and the anti-shipping war, although they were a bit late to the party. But, I think the thing to do here is remember the Strategic Bomber and Air Fleet counters are abstractions. A plane can be either doing "strategic" things or "tactical" things. So consider one as a bunch of planes organized to bomb cities more effectively and the other as a bunch of planes organized to attack military units more effectively. Hubert never does tell you the exact aircraft type.

So the way I read this is that you've got a new job as a laxative? </font>

He's even better with the names of turds. Ancient turds anyway. Why does the name Emrys come to mind?

Somebody call Security.

Help me out with my math, when's pre-orders?

Got them wet.

Hmm… Have you considered choad for the next line?

That post was so unbelievably incomprehensible to be almost... magical. </font>

So, how about them Philadelphia Eagles, eh?

Judge Judy, at least she's female. Little Freudian slip there Stuka?

No, usually they grant me the respect a ten year old deserves.

He shouldn't have. I poured half a bottle of fine Port into him. Daft begger was singing again when I left. And he was the nice one. The other two bastages, dalem and Papa Kahn, just spent their time treating me like the only 5 year old blond haired boy in the Catholic Seminary.

I saw that too, but it looked too goody-goody and even ended up describing it as a POSITIVE experience ... I mean ... that's just WRONG. Joe </font>

Joe, you didn't even begin to describe the horror. How to Survive at Chucky Cheese ....shudder...