Guest John Maragoudakis Posted April 9, 1999 Share Posted April 9, 1999 About the timing of air strikes. Were WWII flyboys able to arrive at a specific time? If I called in air support, would it arrive in exacly say 10 mins or would there be a range like 10-15 mins? Would the strike come in at the beginning of the turn or randomly somewhere in the turn? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted April 9, 1999 Share Posted April 9, 1999 IF you had air support available you were lucky, if it arrived where you wanted it in response to your call you were even luckier and if it chose, almost by chance, to attack the target you were worried about you were luckier still. It was very ineffective back then (at least until the cab rank and FAC system in '44. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rhet Schmidt Posted April 9, 1999 Share Posted April 9, 1999 Fionn is pretty much right on the money here. Real close air support wasn't a coordinated affair until the marines put an aviator in the jungle with the grunts late in the Pacific campaign (I believe that Iwo Jima was the first battle in which this system was used). If you were in the German army the system was much worse. Most airstrikes were pre-planned (usually the day before the attack) and were meant to be a preparitory attack for a ground assault. This didn't really change until they started forming tank busting squadrons on the Eastern Front. These were mainly arranged as area sweeps and they looked for targets of opportunity (In Rudel's case long lines of russian tanks). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 So then steel panthers is quite unrealistic since that game tells you the exact turns that air support will arrive in. The same arguement can be applied to say artillery fire. Considering that CM has 60 second turns, a call for artillery could take , say minutes, but you probably couldn't say exactly 2 turns. I guess you would call for it and wait, maybe 1min, 2min, 3min. [This message has been edited by John Maragoudakis (edited 04-09-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 Oh boy. Steel panthers IS very unrealistic in too many ways to go into here and yes, the modelling of airstrikes is one of those ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 I thought it would add a degree of tension to not know exactly, ( to the minute), when you air support might come. Hey it might never come at all. As to artillery, I guess that would be more precise. I remember this WW1 film with Gregory Peck. The french troops were in thier trenches and the officers were looking at thier watches so that there attack would coincide with an artillery barrage. Imagine CM in WW1. Whoa, the massive charges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 I would like to see a tactical WWI game done. The reason I am giving as to why this has not happened is because developers/designers say there wasn't alot of tactics in WWI warfare. I play a board game called "Landships" that is a tactical WWI game and I can assure you there is alot of tactics put to use in the game. Maybe in the future BigtimeSoftware Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 Perhaps an appropriate scale for a WWI game would be platoon/company and up since there were so many huge rushes involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted April 10, 1999 Share Posted April 10, 1999 Ooops! Missed this thread yesterday. Now I have to play catch up In general, during WWII there was really loose control of airstrikes. Planes flew in support of a particular formation (generally Reg or higher), striking anything in its path. Unfortunately, often times the targets hit were not enemy. CM simulates this, BTW. They would also go out and strike other targets if they couldn't find the ones they were supposed to hit (just read about an instance where planes flew overhead, US troops cheered, planes couldn't find the Germans in the frontline they were requested to hit, so moved further into the rear to whack anything that moved. The troops weren't too happy). However, there WERE instances of direct ground to air instructions. The Germans "invented" this in the Polish campaign (or was it France?). A Luftwaffe officer would ride "point" in a special armored vehicle, usually a Skdfz 250 halftrack. The vehicle was loaded with optics and radio equipment. From here the officer would establish direct radio contact with the planes overhead, guiding them to their targets. While this system worked very well, it wasn't that common. Generally reserved for the spearhead of an all important drive, not for some rear area infantry unit mopping up. The US took direct land to air coordination and raised it to an artform by the end of the war. It was similar to the German method, but with MUCH better communications. I would have to reread the specifics of it to give details, but it pretty much gave average US formations the chance to guide aircraft into their target areas. We have not formalized our system for airstrikes. However, it will include the following: 1. Variable time-to-target. 2. Chance of strike not showing up at all. 3. Chance of strike hitting wrong target (including friendlies). 4. Some kind of simulated "you get what you get" when calling for an airstrike. We won't have something where a side can call for a specific plane/weapon load. Well, that about does it for the air stuff. WWI version of CM? Not likely. We have several years worth of WWII games to make first Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted April 11, 1999 Share Posted April 11, 1999 Funny. You'll probably spend longer programming WW2 games than the length of the actual war. I just thought of that. Kind of weird eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Maragoudakis Posted April 11, 1999 Share Posted April 11, 1999 Will troops shoot at an attacking plane? Will the heavy machine gun of a tank be used against plaines? And, if a plane does get hit, will a pilot bail out and float to the ground? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted April 11, 1999 Share Posted April 11, 1999 Squads won't bother shooting at planes. Waste of ammo and a senseless distraction from their frontline duties. The only squad weapon likely to hit a plane would be the German MG34, which without a AAA mount and sights stands almost no chance. In general teams won't shoot at planes either, unless they are a weapon system designed for AAA purposes. Vehicles are the same way. No pilots bailing out. This is outside of CM's scope and concern. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Rock Posted September 17, 1999 Share Posted September 17, 1999 New thought on airstrikes: Will the Allies be able to use airpower against against stationary targets? It seems Ninth Air Force was doing this during the Normandy campaign: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> "Pilots of fighter-bombers armed with 500-pound general purpose or 260-pound fragmentation bombs quickly became adept at attacking enemy-held foxholes, pillboxes, and hedgerows, sometimes within 300 to 500 yards of forward American elements. Ground commanders favored an air preparation over artillery if they could be sure that the aircraft would be on time and if the infantry could exploit the psyhcological shock effect wwith a follow-up attack." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>(Scales, _Firepower in Limited War_) Comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted September 17, 1999 Share Posted September 17, 1999 Usually when TAC was brought in to take out a bunker it was a stand off sort of thing. Planes would come in and either hit it or not. Then the infantry would attack (or not sometimes) after the attack. Rarer was the time when this sort of thing was done as an attack was taking place. HOWEVER, CM's pilots do take a look for nifty things to strike. Generally it is vehicles, but this is not always the case (especially if none are to be found ). I have seen bombing runs on fortified lines, including a Typhoon rocket attack that actually almost took out a US squad because one rocket fell WAY short Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Rock Posted September 17, 1999 Share Posted September 17, 1999 That's pretty cool. Damn. It is really getting hard to find things that haven't been thought of. However I am working on a really impressive list of obscure East front stuff for CM2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest John Pender Posted September 22, 1999 Share Posted September 22, 1999 I still think the allied air attacks caused an awful lot of damage during the game in progress. I am not saying that this wasn't realistic, I am just hoping this is the case. I like playing from the German point of view. "Most successful airstrikes were vs. german tanks behind the lines, either at their camps or when they were transported to the front by rail. Rudel once was interviewed about airstrikes and he said they are very uneffective vs. tanks and VERY hard to do. We interviewed a Panther driver and he said it was pretty easy to circumvent being hit by aircrafts. Problem was of course the engine had to be running and you inside it. Btw, 60% of all german tank crew were killed outside the tanks, not inside".... Got this from the Panzer Elite site. I can't wait to sit down with a cold one and play the demo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted September 22, 1999 Share Posted September 22, 1999 FWIW as the person who got truly creamed by airstrikes I would have to say that Martin's airstrike was at the upper limit of a pilot's wet dream BUT it was possible. 2 accurate bomb strikes plus three strafing runs in the absence of ANY AAA fire (since the code to allow my roof-mounted MGs to fire hadn't gone in yet) isn't all that difficult to reconcile. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted September 22, 1999 Share Posted September 22, 1999 Scathing comment about Fionn's experience withdrawn. DjB [This message has been edited by Doug Beman (edited 09-22-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted September 22, 1999 Share Posted September 22, 1999 Think about it - clear sunny day, the air is cold and visibility is 100%, snow on the ground which highlights any targets, and no AA fire coming from the ground. Doesn't get better than that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted September 22, 1999 Share Posted September 22, 1999 Plus there was the error of the plane dropping two bombs on two targets, instead of both on one. That probably would have resulted in at least one of Fionn's vehicles surviving. Although the vast majority of airstrikes claimed their victims off the battlefield, there are plenty of examples (and film footage) of strikes happening within an active combat zone. We would like to see people keep this in mind when making scenarios and not always give the US air support. To make air support more realistic in CM we did two things. First, no "on call" strikes. The planes come in, find a target, and attack it. Second, there is a pretty good change of friendly fire against vehicles. If Martin had some tanks left during the airstrikes he might have lost one Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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