Mike D Posted August 1, 1999 Share Posted August 1, 1999 BTS, With the allies superior numbers in aircraft and availability in calling in air support I have the following question in terms of game play balance and realism. How much intelligence / spotting info will the allied player be able to glean once an aircraft flies over on a bombing / strafing run? I'm thinking specifically here about what level of spotting, if any, the aircraft might be able to pick up as it flies over the target unit, and/or, other previously unspotted units. Will woods, etc., help reduce aerial spotting of units like infantry and tanks "hiding" in them? I would certainly think that while an aerial view provides for a great overview of the battlefield that spotting and level of spotting of specific units would be difficult at best when flying by at several hundred miles per hour. My other concern here is how efficient were the allied fliers and communications systems in relaying aerial intelligence on spotted enemy ground units to nearby allied ground units in a timely fashion? I would think that there would be some difficulty in this area as well. In any event, I guess I'm just curious how CM is going to handle this and hope that the allies upper hand in terms of aerial power won't 1) mess up the games balance and 2) will be handled in a realistic manner so that the allied ground forces won't receive an undue and unrealistic amount of intelligence from flyovers of friendly aircraft. I've seen many a game such as Steel Panthers and the like where, IMHO, aircraft gave way too much info to friendly ground troops on enemy positions, units types, etc. Regards, Mike D aka Mikester Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted August 1, 1999 Share Posted August 1, 1999 An attacking aircraft will not spot anything for the player. Obviously the aircraft itself needs to spot (and things like cover/weather/unit type are quite important), in order to find a target, but that information is not conveyed to the ground. In reality this happened very rarely. Towards the end of the war the Americans (don't know about the Brits) had fairly sophisticated air-ground communications. However, this was achieved through special a airforce liason officer and was certainly not "standard issue". Generally these guys were given out for very crucial armor drives. For game purposes we decided to leave these guys out of CM as its battles are generally too short/small for this to be of much realistic use. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixman Posted August 2, 1999 Share Posted August 2, 1999 I thought Piper Cubs were used fairly extensively for arty spotting. Am I wrong on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los Posted August 3, 1999 Share Posted August 3, 1999 While they were around, the mechanism where Joe Blow the platoon or company commander could get on the horn and call in an airstrike wasn't there. Airstrikes were usually laid on for specific missions, particularly in the ETO and not available on a GS basis. The air force did a lot of ground attack, but that was mostly either interdiction or ground support being directed from their own FACs in Piper Cubs. Basically they were busy fighting their own war or working for ground commanders way up the food chain. While this could be built into a specific scenario, air to ground coordination in the Army in ETO, generally wasn't quite up to the Marine a2G coordination displayed earlier in the PAC. Of course their were exceptions. By the way we're kind of back to that same situation today. :-( Los Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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