husky65
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Posts posted by husky65
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I've had quite a bit of fun as the German player by simply not researching fighters and by sticking with the 3 original Luftflottes - if I lose one I don't replace it.Originally posted by Ecthelion:[QB]After reading all your suggestions i have experimented with limiting the number of air units to 5 and this is working very well.
Now we are going to limit the number of corps.Perhaps the great number of corps is the real problem.Buying lots of corps (putting them even in double line) makes breakthroughs imposible.So you need a lot of air fleets to make a breach in the enemy line.
[QB]
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Originally posted by daamion:
>>The allies did it with Spitfires, Mustangs, P-47s etc, the Germans with Bf-109s, FW-190s, Me-262s and so on - most a/c could convert roles overnight, if not faster buy simply fitting bomb racks.
1) Well, as far as realism goes, I'm not so sure that the IGO/UGO system is particularly realistic in the first place.
("Sir they're attacking!"
"That's fine"
"But sir, they're manuvering around for more attacks"
"Yes, that's ok"
"But sir, shouldn't we do something?!?"
"Son, IT'S THEIR TURN!!!")
Whilst I appreciate an attempt at sarcasm as much as the next person, it only works when the practitioner has the intelligence to understand the subject at hand, this you lack.
You will note that, even under the IGO/UGO system the attacker still incurs casualties - ie the defender IS fighting back.
Perhaps if you started out with a simpler subject for your sarcasm, you might just carry it off?
2) As far as fighters being quickly refitted with ground attack ordenance - true, but were they used primarily for attacking supply convoys, targets of opportunity, etc, or used to obliterate entire armies?
(Sigh) here we go again,
1. you can obliterate an army by destroying its logistic elements, without which it will easily collapse in the games simulated timeframe.
2. fighters were frequently used to attack ground combat elements.
3. have a look at the sheer scale of destruction at Falaise (historically), and then project that onto the numbers of air groups frequently used to attack one army in SC, all concentrated in a 50 mile area, for a week to a month! - you are using forces that make the historical allied airpower in Normandy pale in comparison.
3) I've noticed that some other games at this scale made the air-air/air-ground aircraft unit split - I wonder if those game designers were just including units for 'fun' with little care of realism, or if they noticed during initial playtesting that air units were too powerful and a combined air unit removed the need for players having to choose between different force compositions for their air fleets...
It would also depend on the objective of the designer.
4) What about if the German player (for some unknown reason) decides to place his air units on the Russian front and launch no attacks. The Russian player (not knowing any better) repeatedly attacks and the German air fleets gain lots of exp. Then, the German player moves the same air fleets to France to oppose a D-Day invasion. The high exp units then kick the snot out of the Allied fleet - that air-air exp suddenly enable the pilots to be highly experience (highly effective) in torpedo bombers and dive bombers in naval attacks!
Perhaps you should read stuka pilot, HU Rudel did not see a major distintion between dive bombing ships and ground targets, also the FW 190 was able to carry torpedoes, I doubt it was a major task to train an experienced pilot to aim them.
You also ignore the concurrent training that the military does, just because a unit is on operations does not mean that all training ceases, if they felt it was sensible to train pilots in anti ship work, they would do so.
5) What about players being forced to make high level production decisions? Say the German player has developed jet engines and production limitations require that either an interceptor or a ground attack aircraft be developed with a jet engine (hmm...sounds familiar). In SC as it stands, the fighters, tac bombers, torp bombers, supply aircraft etc all get insta-jet upgrades! (Hmmm...jet engine dive bombers - bet the Japanese would have found a use for those!)
Name the realistic production limitations that prevent using an Me262 as a fighter bomber.
Supply a/c are not present in the game, you assume that late game ground attack is by dive bomber, it could be rocket/cannon carrying fighters or by cluster bomb, also you assume torpedo bombers, why?
6) It still seems to me that air fleets are too powerful because they are too all-purpose
snipped
Welcome to the reality of WW2
Why do you think it is that the USA, USSR, UK, and Germany all built more combat a/c than they did Tanks/SP guns?
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The problem is that its unrealistic, both sides routinely put ground attack stores on fighters.Originally posted by daamion:Although at this scale it likely doesn't make sense to seperate air fleets into air superiority/fighter units and tactical bomber units, it does have interesting implications.
- what do you think?
The allies did it with Spitfires, Mustangs, P-47s etc, the Germans with Bf-109s, FW-190s, Me-262s and so on - most a/c could convert roles overnight, if not faster buy simply fitting bomb racks.
If you want to impede aircraft in game, make them consume supply much faster and recover it more slowly, look at making op moves for a/c use up all of their supply and tac rebasing use up about 1/3 of their supply, so it is hard for them to keep up with an advance.
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I doubt there is much of a market for it, I'd be very surprised if it could be done as a commercial venture.Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1b:Hmm back over on home turf I have been discussing a notion, and would care to get the Battlefront crowds slant on it actually.
But truth be known, I don't need SC, I need A3R to be happy.
Actual A3R, not a game that looks like it.
Is there a market for such a thing?
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Originally posted by Malleus:
Studies have shown that the Allied strategic bombing had neglible little effect on the German war effort, only seriously impacting it when transportation facilities (rail junctions, etc.) were put out of commission, thus preventing raw materials and components from reaching the relevant factories.
Wrong, as one example - Hamburgs (raided in force in July 1943 and not attacked in force again for 12 months) production never exceeded 89% of the pre-july level.
another - 64000 man hours was the B & V blueprint figure to build a submarine (Type VII I believe), because of the July 43 raids the actual time taken was in the region of 120000 hours.
After the war it became clear that strategic bombing could have ended the war much earlier had power generation facilities been the priority target (no electricity, no production), but the strategic bombers weren't smart enough to figure that out.
Hindsight is 20/20 and the strategic bombing planners were dealing with what was practical then - for much of the war 'point targets' were not an achievable goal, the state of the art did not make it possible to hit them with any reliability.
By the time it was possible, it was more important to shut down transport and oil and that is what they went for in support of the invasion.
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Originally posted by Norse:
Compare this.
When the Germans attacked the Caucasus mountainrange in the summer 1942, unarmed Sovjet factory workers, volentarily strapped mines on their backs, and jumped in front of the German tanks as they approached their homes.
An interesting definition of 'unarmed' that you use (unarmed but for a pack of HE?), and you also ignore the sheer stupidity of the tactic (assuming it actually happened - I would like to see a cite), if you are close enough to blow up a tank with HE on your back, you are close enough to throw the HE at or on the tank and possibly survive.
The Brits achieved a similar thing with the 'sticky' grenade (Gammon IIRC), the Germans went with Magnetic mines - all without a need for suicide tactics - risky, yes, but not suicidal.
How the hell can you compare that to anything?
Pretty easily, one HE clad idiot who commits suicide may take one tank.
One lightly trained individual with the backing of an industrial society, has a cheap sheet metal rocket launcher (Bazooka) and several rockets (each with a much smaller explosive component than a sack full of HE) - he is more able to destroy one tank and live again to destroy another.
Suicide is not noble, nor is it efficient AT tactics.
Please read the story of Leningrad. There you see that the entire civilian population, was vital to the defence of the city. My grandfather showed me pictures of grandmothers wearing AK-47's, of children throwing molotov cocktails, and little girls digging trenches.
I am now determined to read the story of Leningrad, it must be a ripping read - could you scan and post me a picture of these AK-47 wielding grandmothers in 41/42?
The axis juggernaught were blown up by some untrained, unarmed factory workers. Civilians who resisted. How much "production power" did you need to get thoose guys to actually stop the German tanks, and blow up the German crew? How can you claim that "nah they didn't produce X number of planes, so that doesn't matter...."
Ah, the innocent nobility of suicide - the workers unarmed but for a sack of HE go in to the attack.
Could you provide a reference for this actually happening?
But how much more efficient it would have been if they had either laid the AT mines as per the design spec or had access to a Typhoon fighter bomber, Bazooka or sticky mine.
Industry means you can use weapons rather than men to do the killing.
Nobody has said that the USSR didn't matter, but the simple fact is that without the west the USSR would have lost.
Without the USSR the west would have won anyway, remember in 1945 the west was still going to be swinging FDRs big stick.
[ October 16, 2002, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: husky65 ]
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Originally posted by Norse:
Here are some figures for the lend lease.
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Lend Lease Aid; major recipients 41-45
Commonwealth : 14.296.120.000$
Think about the figures for awhile.
Whilst the figure for the C'wealth is probably accurate (I haven't checked it), as an Australian I'd just like to point out that Australia was 'lend lease neutral' - we sold the same value of goods to the US as we bought back.
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Real StaisticsOriginally posted by EB.:Arby is correct; Heidman or Heidberg is not. This is not a question of believing baseless propaganda but of real history and the real statistics.
a/c produced in WW2
USSR 146,445
USA 283,230
Total crude steel produced in WW2
USSR 57.7 million metric tons
USA 334.5 million metric tons
Total Aluminium produced in WW2
USSR 283000 metric tons
USA 41232000 metric tons
Trucks produced in WW2
USSR 197100
USA 2382311
Tanks and SP guns produced in WW2
USSR 105251
USA 88410
(Hooray the USSR wins one!)
until we factor in-
UK 27896
Canada 5678
Basically the USSR took massive losses, to a large extent this was due to poor doctrine and bad leadership coupled with poorly trained troops.
They had to trade bodies with the Germans at a ruinous rate (this is NOT a noble thing, it is a disgrace that the USSRs leaders neglected their military to such an extent).
The western allies tended to achieve much better exchange rates - had the western allies not helped prop up the USSR through lend lease, then opened a second front in the skies (IIRC a rough guide for that is 40,000 88mm guns that could have been used as AT guns), then opened a third front in Italy, then a fourth in France - the USSR would not have survived.
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Originally posted by dgaad:
In 1944 there was a Fuehrer Conference in which US production was discussed.
we now know that these figures were almost completely accurate.
No it wasn't.
For example, the report stated that in 1943, the United States, alone, produced 40,000 aircraft.
1943, the USA produced 81,028 a/c
This number exceeded the total of all German aircraft production since Hitler came to power ten years earlier in 1933.
Between 1939 and 1943 alone the Germans produced 60098 a/c
[ October 15, 2002, 07:03 PM: Message edited by: husky65 ]
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I'd be interested to hear your definition of a 'front line Infantry Regt' -Originally posted by Rouge:Hitler wassnt even in a front line infantry regiment. He had trouble in his early reign from his officers stating that he was only a corporal and never offically made chief of staff.
Hitler volunteered at age 25 by enlisting in a Bavarian Regiment. After its first engagement against the British and Belgians near Ypres, 2500 of the 3000 men in the Hitler's regiment were killed, wounded or missing. Hitler escaped without a scratch. Throughout most of the war, Hitler had great luck avoiding life threatening injury. More than once he moved away from a spot where moments later a shell exploded killing or wounding everyone.
Hitler, by all accounts, was an unusual soldier with a sloppy manner and unmilitary bearing. But he was also eager for action and always ready to volunteer for dangerous assignments even after many narrow escapes from death.
Corporal Hitler was a dispatch runner, taking messages back and forth from the command staff in the rear to the fighting units near the battlefield. During lulls in the fighting he would take out his watercolors and paint the landscapes of war.
Hitler, unlike his fellow soldiers, never complained about bad food and the horrible conditions or talked about women, preferring to discuss art or history. He received a few letters but no packages from home and never asked for leave. His fellow soldiers regarded Hitler as too eager to please his superiors, but generally a likable loner notable for his luck in avoiding injury as well as his bravery.
On October 7, 1916, Hitler's luck ran out when he was wounded in the leg by a shell fragment during the Battle of the Somme. He was hospitalized in Germany. It was his first time away from the front after two years of war.
In August 1918, he received the Iron Cross first class, a rarity for foot soldiers. Despite his good record and a total of five medals, he remained a corporal. Due to his unmilitary appearance and odd personality, his superiors felt he lacked leadership qualities and thought he would not command enough respect as a sergeant.
In October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a British chlorine gas attack near Ypres.
Adolf Hitler was a brave man, a nucking futter, but a brave man.
Much as we would like it to be different, brave men are not always nice ones, nor are they necessarily sane.
Revising history to attempt to change Hitlers WW1 past is as unwise as pretending the holocaust never happened.
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Your reply:
"Actually it does follow that you can."
By that logic if a badly placed bomb can miss a platoon then three badly placed bombs can miss a company and so on... That's a lot of pressure on poor young Dwayne from Idaho at the Norden Sight of his B24.
In reality each unit and sub unit under attack would face a probability rather than a certainty of taking that well placed bomb. Many would succumb to it, but not everyone.
Covered by Bruce70
It's ironic that someone whose initial post contained the comment "Yet again someone forgets the scale of the game" is now arguing about the relative densities of the TAOR of a platoon and a battalion.
Not really, the lower unit sizes were raised by someone else, I replied in the same currency.
Being easier to find makes them more liable to attack, but not necessarily more vulnerable. WWII iron bombs were not smart weapons capable of riding a laser beam down onto Panzer Lehr's "goulash cannons" and thereby rendering the division instantly useless. Having said that, maybe they would be at tech 5!
Lars made a very good post to this effect.Having worked in an Inf Bn (both at the pointy end and in the echelon) as well as a Field Supply company, the above is utterly wrong - a FSC (as one example) is far more vulnerable to air attack (BTW, I note you don't mention rockets, napalm or cannon attack - not all air attack is high altitude level bombing) as it is very difficult to dig in trucks and harder to conceal trucks and piles of supplies than foxholes - it is always situated near the MSR and has a heap of vehicular activity (or is as ineffective as if it had been destroyed), so it is relatively simple to locate.
Everyone caught under an allied bomb carpet faced much the same chance of getting hit as bombs rained down indiscriminately.
Right yet wrong and only applicable to indiscriminate bombing.
Wrong, in that the guy in the Tiger is much more likely to survive a near miss than the guy in a petrol tanker, or the guy in a foxhole - so the 'troop type' varies the effective lethal radius of the blast.
If anything, first and second echelon troops are generally much more spread out than platoons, as the latter's TAOR is constrained by the need to provide mutual support between sections. A good QM fearing air attack would disperse his echelons as much as possible to avoid that most feared of allied weapons; the well placed bomb!
Almost logical, but wrong - you can only spread a supporting unit so much because it must be able to protect itself against partisans, raiders etc - it must also be able to function, the more dispersed the less efficient the unit is.
The air threat is not the only threat.
Brian Rock:
"Circumstances: All of the examples put forward have involved air in conjunction with ground forces:
[1]Cobra: air and ground forces
[2]Montelier: air and ground forces
[3]Falaise: air and ground forces"
He's not confused between unit destruction and occupation of land, in fact he's demonstrated he understands the distinction.
He just ignores the fact that its been done.
Your argument again contradicts Brian Rock's demonstrating in a previous post that he does understand the difference.
Stating it and believing it are different - he has been given examples where units were destroyed by airpower and then pretended it never happened because some sub units survived.
I am arguing against the points he raises not the points he pretended to accept.
Yourself again:
This is the "well placed bomb" argument again. Airpower had destroyed those units surrendering, not necessarily the whole division. No one has ever disputed that Panzer Lehr was so badly shaken that many units surrendered.
So correct me if I'm wrong you are saying that entire units can be forced to surrender by airpower alone, but entire units cannot be?
And I hate to correct you yet again, but falaise was done almost entirely by 'well placed' bombs, rockets, cannon and mg fire as well as on one documented occaision, a well placed drop tank.
"Despite this debacle, Panzer Lehr faced US First Army with unexpected opposition, but with no reserves to call upon, Seventh Army was about to collapse..."
Any opposition was unexpected to the allies, they were notably timid in attack.
Panzer Lehr itself lacked reserves to counter Seventh Corps not because of the bombing but because they had been depleted by several weeks of ground combat and FGA. I covered this in another post, so I won't labour the point.
WTF do you think FGA is?
Whos side of this argument are you on? yours or mine?
Panzer Lehr had been effectively destroyed as a division long before July 25th, a point which I will return to later. The point is not that it had been destroyed as a division, but that elements were still fighting.
Nope, it is the point that it could no longer hold a divisional frontage - in a game with 50 mile hexes, if your units are reduced to the point that they can't hold a 50 mile frontage, then they are no longer effective.
A division is considered to have lost combat effectiveness when it has lost the ability to control it's units and divisional support assets. This certainly happened to Panzer Lehr when most of it's comms were destroyed.
Considered by whom?
By your definition as long as every sub unit has an unterofficer with a radio and a luger the Division is still combat effective?
Regardless of the fact that it has no combat power at all.
Do you see why your opinion is worth little to me?
In light of such monumental stupidity, I'll call it a day now, but I'll leave you with a few quotes re Falaise.
One strike by P47s on August 13 gives a graphic indication of the sizes of German forces open to attack at Falaise, Within an hour the Thunderbolts had blown up or burned out between 400 and 500 enemy vehicles. The fighter-bombers kept at it until they ran out of bombs and ammunition. One pilot, with empty gun chambers and bomb shackles, dropped his belly tank on 12 trucks and left them all in flames.
All told, on 13 August, XIX TAC fighter-bombers destroyed or damaged more than 1,000 road and rail vehicles, 45 tanks and armored vehicles, and 12 locomotives.
2 TAF launched a series of strikes that claimed almost 3,000 vehicles damaged or destroyed. On August 19, one Spitfire wing put in a claim for 500 vehicles destroyed or damaged in a single day; that same day, another Spitfire wing claimed 700.
2 TAF averaged 1,200 sorties per day. The air war was particularly violent from August 15 through the 21st. Typhoons and Spitfires attacked the roads leading from the gap to the Seine, strafing columns of densely packed vehicles and men. Under repeated attack, some of the columns actually displayed white flags of surrender, but the RAF took "no notice" of this since Allied ground forces were not in the vicinity, and "to cease fire would merely have allowed the enemy to move unmolested to the Seine." Typhoons typically would destroy the vehicles at the head of a road column, then leisurely shoot up the rest of the vehicles with their rockets and cannon. When they finished, Spitfires would dive down to strafe the remains.
Nope, airpower can't destroy units.
[ September 22, 2002, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: husky65 ]
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If you want to simulate WW1 its a great idea.Originally posted by Brian Rock:What do people think about Hubert taking away (or seriously limiting) fighters' ground attack abilities?
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Originally posted by Brian Rock:
In conjunction with ground forces, yes. Indeed airpower, in conjunction with ground forces, can destroy corps and armies. Not the issue.
{/QB]
You confuse destruction of units with occupation of ground, airpower is quite capable of destroying units - it cannot occupy ground.
[qb]
Scale: I can destroy a platoon with one well-placed bomb. It doesn't follow that I can just as easily take out a company with three well-placed bombs, a battallion with ten well-placed bombs, and so on.
Actually it does follow that you can.
A larger formation not only means more targets, it means a much larger footprint. They are vulnerable, but not to the same degree.
A battalion is more vulnerable to scaled up air attack than a platoon, it and its supporting echelon are easier to find than a platoon.
Also you seem to be of the opinion that you need to kill all the troops to destroy a unit, a destroyed unit is one that is combat ineffective.
Circumstances: All of the examples put forward have involved air in conjunction with ground forces:
[1]Cobra: air and ground forces
[2]Montelier: air and ground forces
[3]Falaise: air and ground forces
Again your confusion between unit destruction and occupation of land - infantry are of course needed to occupy ground, however airpower is quite capable of destroying units (as it did historically).
History: It never happened. I'm still waiting for an example of a corps or army destroyed by air power alone.
Examples have been provided already, the fact that you don't understand the difference between destroying a unit and occupying the ground it held does not change the fact that airpower did it.
The fact that entire columns of troops attempted to surrender to ground attack a/c in Falaise suggests that the airpower had destroyed the units.
I was conceded it was possible the first time you posted it. I'm still not sure it's correct.
Why?
1) We know there was ground fighting after the bombing.
The div was destroyed, the fact that sub units were able to fight does not suggest that it was not.
2) Elsewhere Bayerlein puts losses due to air at 50%:
Bayerlein to Wilmott 70%
It was sufficient to limit American advances until the following day.
ie it was not a significant force on a Div scale (and since SC runs on a minimum 1 week turn would not be noticeable in game) - the allies were renowned for their lack of boldness in advance, any opposition tended to make them halt.
]Husky65, the Panzer Lehr was not destroyed. It stayed in the line for almost two weeks before being reorganisation and refitting.
PL was destroyed, the fact that sub units remanined in the line just meant that the Germans were grabbing at straws, PL was combat ineffective - the Germans were still using Div names but the units deployed were not Divs in anything but name.
If I call a surviving Rifle Squad the 2nd SS 'Das Riech' Panzer Div that does not mean Das Reich survived, it just means I am kidding myself.
I am not, ever have, and probably never will argue airpower has no combat effect. The point I've been arguing since my first post is that airpower alone - note the "alone" bit - did not destroy corps or armies.
And you have been shown to be wrong - airpower has destroyed armies, what airpower cant do is occupy land - two very different things.
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Originally posted by Scorpion_sk:
Thanks for your support, guys.
I feel a lot better now
I didn´t even bother to read the troll´s last reply to me, I just skipped over it.
yes, its better to remain ignorant and to continue to propose rubbish based on that lack of subject knowledge.
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Originally posted by Brian Rock:
Operation Gomorrah isn't an example of a combat unit being wiped out by bombing. It's an example of a city being strategically bombed.
I'm not questioning whether the Allies could drop bombs - they did - I'm questioning whether they ever destroyed an entire army or corps.
So you admit that the allies can sustain delivering a large volume of bombs onto an area target for a period of a week or longer, you admit that airpower in smaller (Cobra sized) doses can destroy individual Divisions - but you feel that armies and corps are somehow not vulnerable to this sort of attack? Why?
And I'm simply amazed that having read the article you think that "the Panzer Lehr fought virtually to the last man among the shell holes and craters of their division" doesn't imply action against ground forces.
This is simply weaseling and a poor effort at it to boot.
Having taken 70% losses in the first hour of bombing (I see you no longer dispute that), PL was still in a position to 'fight to the last man' - the reality of course was that having taken massive casualties to the air attack, the last man was not very far off and the fight was, on a divisional scale, of little consequence.
Now Bayerlein's original quote may have been solely in reference to the bombing. I don't have the original quote so I don't know, but based on the quoted article it is not clear.
The article you quote is UTTERLY clear, the bombing lasted 3 hours, the quote is 'after the first hour - 70% casualties' (or words to that effect) - feel free to provide an interpretation that excludes the bombing in the above scenario.
Perhaps, but belief in decisiveness!= proof of destruction.
More weaselling, the German commanders were on the spot and seeing it with their own eyes - I will accept their accounts over your opinion.
Let me say it again, show me evidence of an army or corp being destroyed by airpower.
Falaise.
[ September 17, 2002, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: husky65 ]
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Originally posted by Brian Rock:
General Bayerlin described the landscape as "looking like the surface of the moon. After an hour I had no communication and all my forward tanks were knocked out. At least 70 percent of my troops are dead, wounded, crazed or numbed".
Having read the article you suggests supports your contention, I'm simply amazed that you arrived at that conclusion.
"The first line has [sic] been annihilated by the bombing.... The three-hour bombardment on 25.7-after the smaller one a day before-had extermi- nating morale effect on the troops physically and morally weakened by continual hard fighting for 45 days. The long duration of the bombing, without any possibility for opposition, created depressions and a feeling of helplessness, weakness and inferiority. Therefore the morale attitude of a great number of men grew so bad that they, feeling the uselessness of fighting, surrendered, deserted to the enemy or escaped to the rear, as far as they survived the bombing. Only particularly strong nerved and brave men could endure this strain. "
You will note that the original quote says "after 1 hour, 70% cas etc" - the bombing lasted 3 hours.
I'd be interested in any specific examples.
Saturday 24th July beginning of Operation 'Gomorrah' when 746 RAF bombers drop 2,300 tons of bombs on Hamburg in 48 minutes,
Sunday 25th The USAAF bomb the city again in daylight,
Wednesday 28th The second mass raid on Hamburg by 722 RAF bombers results in nine square miles of city being set alight.
Thursday 29th The mass evacuation of a million civilians from Hamburg is ordered after the seventh British (Night) or American (Day) air-raid in six days.
Monday 2 Aug 43, The ninth attack on Hamburg in eight days. More bombs have now been dropped on Hamburg than on London during the whole of the Blitz.
- this was in 1943, later the allies ability to deliver bombs (and do so accurately) would go up sharply.
All up Bomber Command flew 3,095 sorties and dropped over 8,600 tons of bombs on Hamburg.
In the meantime, for your reading pleasure, two links to papers about the effectiveness of battlefield airpower. The first, "Attacks on German ground combat units in Normandy" is rather skeptical, the second "Battlefield Air Support
A Retrospective Assessment" presents a more complex picture of strengths and weaknesses:
I've read accounts by those on the receiving end of that airpower - they were utterly convinced that it was decisive.
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Look at D-Day, Day one, over 10,000 allied sorties plus the availability of more if it were needed.Originally posted by Bruce70:But perhaps we are concentrating on the damage rather than the policy. Why weren't air fleets used in this way week in, week out? and do these reasons exist in the game?
The reason strategic bombers were not routinely used for tactical bombing was that they tore up the ground to an extent that it made advancing difficult.
They also belonged to different commands, that did not like being subordinated.
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Originally posted by Brian Rock:
It's not clear that the 70% was caused entirely by airpower. Let's presume that it was. To put this into context they were hit with 4,000 ton of bombs on that one day (July 25).
It is clear from the context of the quote that he is referring to the Air attack prior to the ground assault.
But is it reasonable to use Cobra level attacks as a benchmark? The bombing of the Panzer Lehr is possibly the largest single concentration during the entire war (if there is another case I'm happy to be corrected). I don't think you can use a statistical outlier and then project it as a norm.
Possibly the largest tactical concentration bombing, but hardly the largest concentration bombing of the war, particularly when you consider the ability to do it day and night onto the same target for a week to a month.
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Originally posted by Scorpion_22:
Husky, whatever useful things you might want to say are ignored because you have proven yourself to be a complete dolt by adopting a hostile posture from the word go.
ie you have posted on a subject you don't understand, this has been pointed out to you in detail and now you are peeved.
Like I care about your opinion.
Here I am trying to create a sensible discussion out of it, and out of the blue comes some "historically learned person" to attack the initial poster with insults.
No here is a case of someone who admits ignorance of the subject matter asking 'who are you to say I've forgotten the scale' - remember?
I then go on to provide historical examples of why your contention is absurd, you get miffed.
You, sir, must be a very sad individual.
Because I do not spend my time doing things that I don´t like ie. talking to people like you, this is my final post on the subject. All because it is a fruitless discussion anyway as nothing will ever be done about it.
So lets just get this straight, you post crap that you don't understand, get miffed when it is pointed out you don't understand it, take the facts presented personally, then after being unable to support ANY of the points you raised as problems, decide to take a 'I'm too good for this sort of argument' approach (whilst simultaneously trying to get the last kick in and run away).
Whilst your last statement 'All because it is a fruitless discussion anyway as nothing will ever be done about it.' actually shows that you didn't understand the issues you raised, but now realise that they were not broken - they work fine, you just didn't understand how it worked.
I respect that level of intellectual integrity when displayed by a 12 year old.
The way I envisioned the airfleets :
1.Their "hard attack" value could stay at about the same while soft attack should drop a bit.
(If you think that armies are just as vulnerable to troop loss than tanks....well.....oh
it would be interesting to know if this is english - do you have a point?
and demolishing a unit´s supply, organic transports and some command sections would make that same, formerly veteran unit a green unit when reorganised?)
So you think that just because a unit has an experienced Jager in the foxhole it doesn't matter that his HQ, supply and Comms troops have never been in combat or worked together before?
You really need to read up BEFORE you comment.
Sure, massive casualties to infantry (tens of thousands of combat troops) are possible in the time frame you described but the conditions it requires are a bit special, don´t you think?
However, like I originally said, and like you confirmed multiple times, tanks are vulnerable to air units.
I would recommend that you have a good read and find out how many actual infantry there are in an infantry unit, you might also want to consider how effective they will be with no comms, little supply, disprupted leadership etc.
As I suggested before, tanks are not the only units vulnerable to air attack, Infantry units are too, all units are - there are plenty of historical references available, read some.
2. Readiness should be affected for the ongoing and the following turn.
Currently air attacks cause no damage to readiness & supply. This is probably because they cause so great casualties that if they caused readiness damage they´d be even more powerful!
This is why I think it´d be best to tone down the casualties and implement readiness damage.
I just think this´d be the best method of representing losses to supply, organic transport and command units. A low-readiness and supply unit would be crippled in combat effectiveness and would not be nearly as mobile.
Just causing strength losses does nothing to mobility....
So you want to ignore well documented historical reality in favor of a more complex and less intuitive system?
The point isn't how to do it? the point is why?
3.
Casualties caused to (especially "soft" units) rise too sharply with airfleet experience.
This is one of the major gripes for me....if the casualties stayed at the "inexperienced" level, all would seem to be fine.
Of course some improvement would be expected (especially against armor)....it just seems too dramatic.
Remember all those historical accounts I've suggested you peruse?
Go read them, you are making a fool of yourself.
The damage massed allied airpower did WAS extremely 'dramatic'.
4. There should be a way to research anti-aircraft technology (beyond for those units who are on top of strategic objectives)
The Germans thought so IRL too, their flak panzers and Halftracks were usually the first vehicles killed, because they attracted attention.
Until the advent of the light/medium weight SAM, there was no real counter to CAS and the game does not run long enough to credibly develop the SA-7/Redeye class weapons.
Air effectiveness would be more tolerable IF There was a way for ground troops to concentrate an attack on one spot ie. to stack units.
Oh good, the answer to you disliking well documented historical fact is to fundamentally change the game system?
Husky, you calling me a poor strategist is again the mark of a small mind.
So when you post things that show your lack of strategic ability and pretend they are fundamental flaws with the game I should simply giggle quietly and say nothing?
Feel free to prove your contention - how does this mark me as small minded?
I did not come here to gripe at this because of having lost all of my games to opponents using these tactics!
Inexperienced air units of similar tech level simply cannot and will not compete with airfleets of superior experience.
Are you actually setting out to prove that you are utterly clueless? - ask the Japanese about how dramatic the difference is between experienced pilots and inexperienced pilots, or take a look at the kill rates achieved by experienced Luftwaffe pilots such as Hartmann V that of a guy just out of training.
You can rant all you want here, but I won´t be here to read ´em, Husky.
I would similarly suggest that you do some reading on social interaction before you engage in "civilized" conversation again.
Thats the way, if you can't argue the points, label them as a 'rant' and then pretend that your ongoing total display of ignorance of the subject matter puts you on some higher level than people who have read up on the subject extensively.
BTW, when did a public display of ignorance become "civilized" behaviour?
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To Quote General Fritz Bayerlein, on Operation Cobra '70% of my troops were out of action - dead, wounded, crazed or numbed. All my forward tanks were knocked out, and the roads were practically impassable'.Originally posted by Brian Rock:For example Operation Cobra, the heaviest concentrated application of airpower in WWII I can think of, produced perhaps 50% casualties.
I am not aware of any units that were destroyed (by which I mean made combat incapable, as opposed to annihilated) by air power alone.
70% casualties in one day.
The shortest turn in SC is one week, the longest one month - project those casualties forward for 1 week of operation Cobra style air attacks and you are looking at combat ineffective in one turn.
To Quote Von Kluge, re air attacks on 22 July:
'Whole armoured formations, allotted to the counter attack, were caught in bomb-carpets of the greatest intensity, so that they could be extricated from the torn up ground only by prolonged effort and in some cases only by dragging them out. The result was that they arrived too late. It is immaterial whether such a bomb carpet catches good troops or bad, they are more or less annihalated.'
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Originally posted by Scorpion_22:
Husky : "Yet again someone forgets the scale of the game, your unit under attack is not representing a Jager with a Panzerfaust in the frontline it is an entire army or corps deployed in depth."
I am someone with fairly detailed historical subject knowledge.If you haven't forgotten the scale of the game and continue to push the idea that a 1 week (to one month) concentrated air campaign would have no effect on the combat strength of the unit then you are simply ignorant of the subject matter, I apologise for suggesting that you were only forgetful.
Then you need to do some study, I would suggest almost anything written by a German who served on the Western front from 44 onwards."The airforce is running amok in a 50 mile area, shooting up supply units, comms, transport and combat vehicles for a week to a month, you don't think that would reduce combat power?"
No, some reading comprehension work might not go astray whilst you study the works of Germans in Normandy too.
I never suggested that supply shouldn't be impacted on, just that combat strength is also diminished, read up on the move of Panzers towards the front line in Normandy (any unit actually), they were butchered from the air.
I don't agree with you at all.You seem to have clutched at a straw and run with it, in spite of the fact that its based on nonsense - simple fact - Tanks moving towards the front were destroyed in large numbers from the air.
You will also note in the game the strength points also represent the NUMBER of supply troops, vehicles as well (they are an intrinsic part of an army level unit) - if you blow them up then combat power reduces regardless of the readiness level or morale of those that remain.
This is really basic, commonsense stuff.
Still clutching at that straw.If you kill experienced supply troops, you get inexperienced supply troops in place of them - lowering the actual effectiveness of the unit.
You don't think that on an army scale combat that supply troops don't actually fight?See Battle of Bulge, almost every withdrawal the Germans conducted for examples.
Or that having Green rear echelons Army level (and lower) HQs, Comms staff, arty etc doesn't lower the actual combat power?
You also seem to be focussing on the support staff, Combat troops also take casualties from air attack, see almost anything written by a German in Normandy.
Sorry, but the above is nonsense.I would recommend you find out exactly how many soft skinned vehicles (or horse drawn vehicles in some cases) an infantry unit actually has, they are very vulnerable to attack by air, columns of marching troops are also vulnerable, as are unit HQs, Q stores, field kitchens etc etc.
You really need to read some subject matter.
"You have pretty much described the western allies strategy in WW2 - why is this a problem?"
Snipped for brevity.I notice you don't suggest that it wasn't the way the western allies actually did it IRL, just that you don't like it.
What response do you want? Sorry that historical reality does not live up to your expectations?
Snipped for brevity.Yes - quite often pinning attacks were used and FOs were then used to call in CAS whilst deeper ranging fighter bombers shot up the rear echelons.
Then perhaps you need to read a bit more BEFORE you try to argue these points.You seem to be of the absurd opinion that you destroy an ARMY by killing every man in it.
Snipped a whole heap of complaining about your own poor strategy and/or historical realities.Well Gee, airpower is effective, massed airpower is a good idea and experienced, massed airpower is very effective.
Who'd have thought it...
Throw in the idea that when the enemy is on a roll its difficult to stop him and we are really seeing some fresh info here.
To quote Basil Fawlty, "Your special subject, the bleedin obvious".
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The problem is that the Pac war requires a lot more detail to work, that takes it out of the SC genre.Originally posted by aku_djinn30:Maybe it's more realistic to expect either an SC2 with the design goal for a future Pac War expansion or a seperate SC Pacific War altogether. Making it a seperate game might alleviate some of the issues discussed here.
If you really want Pac war have a look at Matrix games upcoming war in the Pacific or the existing uncommomn valour.
[ September 11, 2002, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: husky65 ]
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Originally posted by Scorpion_sk:
Air power, as it is, is partly ruining the game for me.
It is much too powerful.
Sure, air support was vital in WW2. But not because it could cause horrendous casualties, but rather because it disrupted the enemy´s operations. Air attacks causing "casualties" against armies seems strange. Yes, I know strength points represent unit cohesion & readiness too, but why is there a readiness value then?
Yet again someone forgets the scale of the game, your unit under attack is not representing a Jager with a Panzerfaust in the frontline it is an entire army or corps deployed in depth.
The airforce is running amok in a 50 mile area, shooting up supply units, comms, transport and combat vehicles for a week to a month, you don't think that would reduce combat power?
The fact that several - as many as you want - air units can attack a single unit, when usually only a few land units can, leads to the fact that the most effective strategy in the game is to invest heavily in a LARGE airforce, demolish the opposition´s air force (and this usually means that the Luftwaffe will be taking its jets against russian biplanes.....) and then just keep on buying more and more air fleets to bomb the opponent´s units.
You have pretty much described the western allies strategy in WW2 - why is this a problem?
Land units become secondary in value, being used to "soften up" or "finish up" units being demolished by air power, but of course primarily for taking ground.
You have pretty much described the western allies strategy in WW2 - why is this a problem?
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Have you installed any mods?Originally posted by Panzer Cmdr:I tried to add the patch and got message that "Core files appear to have been corrupted. Program terminated." Has anyone else gotten this message. This was updating from V1.02 to V1.04 - do I need to patch V1.03 first.
Thanks
That might do it.
Idea about air fleets...
in Strategic Command 1
Posted
Originally posted by daamion:
Not the least bit interested in person attacks.
Come now, the sarcasm was a personal attack.
"2. fighters were frequently used to attack ground combat elements"
snipped
This has been discussed from a historical perspective ad naseum - with points and counter-points offered. I personally don't agree with this assertion but I have no intention to revisit that lengthy topic here.
ie you couldn't and still can't refute any of the points raised.
"You also ignore the concurrent training that the military does, just because a unit is on operations does not mean that all training ceases, if they felt it was sensible to train pilots in anti ship work, they would do so"
Interesting. Apparently this same experience to every single pilot in WW2...
Sarcasm again, and yet again your lack of subject knowledge lets you down, the vast majority of WW2 combat pilots would have undergone concurrent training.
If you were referring to the Rudel reference, just how many pilots in a luftflotte do you think need to hit a ship with a bomb to destroy a fleet?
"Name the realistic production limitations that prevent using an Me262 as a fighter bomber."
I was actually getting at the conflict between the need to develop a jet-based intercepter to combat Allied bombers vs. Hitler's desire to develop a jet based ground-attack aircraft. I certainly wasn't suggesting it is not possible to do both.
To quote you-
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Say the German player has developed jet engines and production limitations require that either an interceptor or a ground attack aircraft be developed with a jet engine (hmm...sounds familiar).
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I'd have to say, in light of the above, that you are lying, but either way your point is spurious - it was quite possible to develop a high performance fighter that could drop bombs (the Me 262 being just one example, the Tempest another, the late model Thunderbolt yet another) - the Me 262 bomber/fighter limitation was in no way a technical limitation - it was just Hitlers idea, this is well covered in Gallands 'the first and the last'.
" also you assume torpedo bombers, why?"
Why not?
Ouch, serious admission that your argument is going badly there, don't address any of the points raised and make a bad effort to turn the onus of proof onto me - you raised Torp bombers in spite of the fact that they are not mentioned in the game, it is up to you to justify it.
"Why do you think it is that the USA, USSR, UK, and Germany all built more combat a/c than they did Tanks/SP guns?"
My question is, given the system currently presented by SC, why build AFV's at all? Or bombers? etc. Just load up on airfleets and use cheap corps to occupy the areas 'vacated' by enemy units that got to experience the power of air attacks first hand.
Finally something sensible.
The problem is, if the allies had invested in airpower to the extent possible in SC, then it is quite possible that they would have done just that.
To avoid it (hard coded) you need a fairly detailed economics system, and that is beyond the scale of this game.