Air Strikes

[JasonC]

"How the hell would you independendly confirm air-to-ground kills"

The gold standard is for trained operations research teams to go over the battlefield afterward, assess every knocked out vehicle and determine the cause of its destruction, and correlate that with own-side reports of effort expended in that exact area. Naturally this is only possible in certain cases, but it has been done, and it allows to to establish a "gold standard" benchmark for the reliability of own-side loss claims.

The second best method and the one that can actually be used in a much larger number of cases is to ignore friendly claims about enemy losses, and to instead accept only the reports of loss each side makes about itself, internally, in their unit strength reports. Then correlate those reports with the units known to be engaged and the specific time of engagement. Basically, never believe anyone saying "I got one!" but always believe someone saying "we lost one today".

When this standard is applied, one readily finds that e.g. German pilots in Russia overclaimed their air to air kills by a factor of 2. That made them exceptionally good at it - but they still overclaimed by a factor of 2.

When the OR ground study afterward standard is applied, we find instead that in the WW II era, pilots overestimated the ground effect of their attacks by a factor of *10*, routinely, against armored targets in particular. (For softer targets they still overclaim, but by a lesser factor - varying from 2 to 5 times typically).

We also learn that the first effective anti armor munition for air to ground attacks was napalm, and the first effective large scale use of it against armor didn't happen until the Korean war. We learn, in particular, that while pilots considered unguided air to ground rockets extremely effective and against armor in particular, in reality their effectiveness was abysmal. As in, mass fighter bomber attacks that claim 50 to 100 tanks on the ground destroyed, that actually knocked out 4 AFVs.

We learn further that the only effective way air to ground munition before napalm or (later) guided smart weapons, dealt with enemy armor, was by blocking their routes and leading to their abandonment for basically automotive reasons. Cut the bridge ahead of them when they have to retreat, or block the road with scores of knocked out soft skinned vehicles over a span of miles, and the like.

The only air to ground weapon in the WW II era that can reliably hit a target as small as a tank was their machineguns and autocannon. And they did not pepper them with thousands of hits, but with a few, only. That rarely did any significant damage, however. Rockets and bombs could take them out with direct hits and very near misses respectively. But their chances of hitting were miniscule, short of carpet bombing whole grid squares with hundreds of heavy bombers. Even then only a medium fraction of full AFVs under the bomb carpet would actually be neutralized by bombing.

While the OR data are completely clear that the notion of fighter bombers KOing large numbers of tanks is a complete fantasy using WW II weapons, those data are equally clear that a light or medium flak gun on the ground was a vastly superior weapon system, in exchange efficiency terms, to the fighter bombers it was used against. In periods in which FBs knocked out less than 50 tanks in ground attacks, they lost in the low thousands of aircraft to ground fire.

Flak did not need a high chance of a kill on every attack, let alone with every round, to accomplish that. They were very easy to supply with ammunition. They lived a long time to deliver that ammunition. They did not lack opportunities to fire it, if their side was under any significant enemy air attack - they were only ineffective for lack of firing opportunities if the enemy air was non-existent, basically.

An airplane may seem particularly hard to hit because it is flying fast, but it is inherently a much more vulnerable target than a tank on the ground. And the plane can expend only a tiny number of effective air to ground munitions against a tank target, while a flak gun can expend its own with wild abandon, whenever a plane is in range.

Economically speaking, the side putting out light flak and shooting down the expensive planes flying overhead is winning handily, and the side spending gobs of resources on those expensive planes, to pinprick inaccurately 1-2 times a day while being shot at on every mission, it spending resources hand over fist.

The only targets soft enough and high enough in value to form a good target set for ground attack aircraft are soft forms of transport - trucks, horse drawn wagons and the horses themselves, and railway rolling stock. The other economically effective target for a fighter is the other guy's plane. Every other ground target is a waste.

Air can still be effective in two other ways - morale impact and suppression of enemy artillery, which may go quiet to avoid revealing its positions when enemy planes are overhead. But its direct destruction effect on ground targets is only significant vs soft transport - and indirectly on their ability to move and their supply thruput, as a result of hits to those transport links.

This doesn't change significantly until the advent of smart munitions.

As for WW II era *claims*, if believed literally the WW II pilots thought they were knocking out enemy tanks with their guns and unguided rockets at rates equal to those *actually* achieved by modern fighters using TV guided HEAT warhead missiles. Needless to say, they didn't. There aren't any evaporating tank armies on the ground in the operational narratives to support such claims. Nor are they present in any verifiable cause of loss accounting, or after action objective OR.

[Skwabie]

I was never very into flight sims, but I'd love a good new operational-level game that treated the air battle with the same attention to realism and detail as CM.

Well I was a die hard flyer of Falcon4.0, it's considered the most hi-fidelity combat sim far as aircraft system and performance go while it has a "operational layer" as you call it at the same time. So it's the best damn good one out there.

Problem is once you join a virtual squadron going thru all the hard training and talk to real F-16 pilots etc and practice all the things the real guys do and whatnot it got so immersive that.. well let's just say there were down sides to that for quite a few of us.

Atm I'd say yep sticking with CM is a solid good choice. It's got realism and fun packed all in one, yet doesn't make you forget where ya live:D

[Bastables]

The rules were the rules. If the Luftwaffe was the only branch with eyes on the enemy, and if no other pilot claimed the kill, it needed another pilot who had seen the kill and testified it, in case cameras did not film it. Under rare conditions and only with the word of of honor, a claimed kill was accepted as confirmed kill. Otherwise it was unconfirmed and not counted.

Contrary to the Luftwaffe, the western alliied air forces allowed the claim of partial kills. The Soviet air force even had collective kills additionally to individual kills. Contrary to these armies the Luftwaffe used the strict principle of "One Pilot - One Kill".

How extraordinary strict the German rules were, can probably seen best, when it comes to sharpshooters. Their kills needed to be confirmed by an officer. Everyone knowing how German sharpshooters operated understands that their confirmed kills are a conservative number.

Eh German Staff would halve enemy casualty claims before examining them in detail. Such a reaction indicates they were pessimistic even after "kill claims" were passed up the chain with all "due process."

There was a understanding of human failings of veracity when you set up a system to focus on "kills" that lead to medals and promotions. Not everyone is going to tell the whole truth.

[Fenris]

Rudel's supposed tank kills are even more dubious when you consider the strategic situation Germany was in in 1944-45. An army constantly on the retreat is not going to go through all the effort to determine whether or not that T-34 a pilot claimed destroyed 2 kilometers behind the front was actually destroyed.

Late to the party. Was just discussing this earlier in the week on another board. I tend to agree. Rudel was definitely very good at his job, no argument. But at the same time Goebbels needed heroes and it wouldn't surprise me if kill claims were rushed through the system somewhat to help provide them. In addition it's pretty well known that everyone over claimed, even in good faith. IMO WW2 CAS was great for soft targets, armoured ones not so much.

BTW you guys do know that before CM, Chris produced two WW2 tactical air combat games. I've still got them both...

Achtung Spitfire - http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article?id=19708

Over the Reich - http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/46-content/games/simulation/20489-sp-853066880

-F

[Bastables]

Late to the party. Was just discussing this earlier in the week on another board. I tend to agree. Rudel was definitely very good at his job, no argument. But at the same time Goebbels needed heroes and it wouldn't surprise me if kill claims were rushed through the system somewhat to help provide them. In addition it's pretty well known that everyone over claimed, even in good faith. IMO WW2 CAS was great for soft targets, armoured ones not so much.

BTW you guys do know that before CM, Chris produced two WW2 tactical air combat games. I've still got them both...

Achtung Spitfire - http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article?id=19708

Over the Reich - http://www.hotud.org/component/content/article/46-content/games/simulation/20489-sp-853066880

-F

They used to sell "hard" copies of the game off this site before fights over the rights with their old publisher cropped up. Do the games work in windows 7/8?

[Fenris]

Win7 - yes mostly. IIRC some of the menus are a bit screwy but the core tactical board game part runs fine.

-F

[LukeFF]

You are still ignoring the other half of this equation, the effects of air power on morale Even if the physical damage is not that great there is still the damage to the morale of the unit hit. Sure this will be a temporary state and will wear off after a period of time. However, if that unit gets hi by a ground attack very soon after the air strike its' performance will be degraded. The attacker hopes it will be seriously degraded

I'm not ignoring it at all, because it isn't the point of the conversation. You can bring up effects on morale all you want, but the fact remains that Rudel's list of tanks destroyed is highly suspect. The Nazis were desperate for heroes once the war started to go poorly for them, and he fit the bill perfectly. After all, he was the only person awarded the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.

[Apocal]

I'll just say air power is a formidable force on a mechanized battlefield there's no doubt about it. With its speed and firepower it decimates equipment and infrastructure hence crippling a fighting force on all aspects. AFVs and other land crawlers are hapless facing air threats, they are in a way... lower on the battlefield food chain.

More planes were shot down trying to kill tanks than actually managed to kill tanks on the East Front since mobile formations were habitually associated with flak units and even light flak organic to the formations involved would maul aircraft. Which is what I imagine is JasonC's big issue with this: aircraft knocking out full tanks in contact with the enemy was pretty exceptional, especially on the Eastern Front, while losing duels to flak was quite common.

I could run more realistic tests later (if the download onto my second laptop works) to cast more light on the issue rather than fighting over relevance or non-relevance of the OP's test, if anyone is interested.

Even after the invention of SAMs, the biggest threat air power faces is still enemy air. So once the sky is controlled the opponent is at a major disadvantage.

No, the biggest threat is ground defenses. Killed more aircraft than opposing air in both absolute and value comparison terms, currently occupies about two-thirds of the thinking behind modern air campaigns.

edit (off-topic):

Well I was a die hard flyer of Falcon4.0, it's considered the most hi-fidelity combat sim far as aircraft system and performance go while it has a "operational layer" as you call it at the same time. So it's the best damn good one out there.

F4's campaign has the same relation to the conduct of a real air campaign as Call of Duty does to real infantry combat. Its a good tool for setting up interesting situations for the flight simulator portion, but the lack of sortie rate limitations, simplified target sets, completely hand-waved BDA, near-irrelevance of intelligence/surveillance/target acquisition systems thanks to perfect intel capabilities from the ether, frequent "respawns", dumbed-down EW and communications modeling and weapons modeling easily two times (and sometimes five or ten times) higher than empirically established norms, etc. all make it clear its not meant to be air campaign simulator so much as a flight sim mission generator.

[JonS]

"How the hell would you independendly confirm air-to-ground kills"

The gold standard is ...

Yup.

This doesn't change significantly until the advent of smart munitions.

And, as an indication of just how tough air-to-ground BDA is, even with the advent of smart munitions air forces still routinely over claim by a significant factor, as seen in GW1 and the former Yugoslavia.

[costard]

I reckon four 37mm autocannon would do something for my morale, if I were flying into it. The fact would impact severely on my decision to follow up an initial attack.

[Skwabie]

No, the biggest threat is ground defenses. Killed more aircraft than opposing air in both absolute and value comparison terms, currently occupies about two-thirds of the thinking behind modern air campaigns.

Yah ofc, from a historian's perspective it's absolutely correct strategically. From my tactical pov enemy air will always pose a greater threat to a blufor flight because they're mobile at 500kts.

edit (off-topic):

F4's campaign has the same relation to the conduct of a real air campaign as Call of Duty does to real infantry combat. Its a good tool for setting up interesting situations for the flight simulator portion, but the lack of sortie rate limitations, simplified target sets, completely hand-waved BDA, near-irrelevance of intelligence/surveillance/target acquisition systems thanks to perfect intel capabilities from the ether, frequent "respawns", dumbed-down EW and communications modeling and weapons modeling easily two times (and sometimes five or ten times) higher than empirically established norms, etc. all make it clear its not meant to be air campaign simulator so much as a flight sim mission generator.

Man... I read this section multiple times but can't make heads or tails with most of them, lack of sortie rate limitation, respawns, intel from the nether??? Are you sure it's falcon4 we're talking about here... Also falcon's gone thru many iterations over the years so you can't generalize the pro/cons in short as different versions are quite distinct in their features. For sure some aspects are abstracted especially SEAD stuff but find me one better in the civilian world. If you're just looking for air warfare results summarized on a piece of spreadsheet displayed on the user interface this is certainly not that cuppa tea....

As for CM's air strike precision, I leave that to you guys capable hands. So far I see a lotta forum loud mouthing and nobody bothers to make any test it becomes a bit meaningless. For myself it doesn't really matter that much, if I really want to speculate tank hits percentage with dive bombers there're well, flight sims instead of land sims. Perhaps when this thread runs enough pages it'll attract Steve's attention, that is another way I suppose..

[JasonC]

costard - exactly, that is what I meant by "ruin your whole day". The likely outcome is that a Stuka gets damaged rather than actually shot down, and then they cut short their attacks after dropping their primary bomb loads. But all 4 Flak getting taken out by MG fire? Not a chance.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

I'm not ignoring it at all, because it isn't the point of the conversation. You can bring up effects on morale all you want, but the fact remains that Rudel's list of tanks destroyed is highly suspect. The Nazis were desperate for heroes once the war started to go poorly for them, and he fit the bill perfectly. After all, he was the only person awarded the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.

According to Brassey's EncyclopedaFirepower has two effects

"Firepower has two principal effects. The first, in the pre World War 1 words of French marshal (Then cloelHenri Petai 'fire kills' In other words , firepower inficts casualties or destruction upon the target The second, and perhaps more important effect is suppression.

Suppression s a psychological phenomenon, resultig from the fear induced in human beingd who are, or believe themselvest be the targets of firepower.They instinctively seek cover from hostile fire. When they take any kind of action that might expose them to hostile fire their movements are cautious, careful and usually slow....

Obviously the effectiveness of a person who is suppressed is degraded. It is generally acknowledged thast the suppressve effect of firepower degrades the perfomance of a hostile military force mre than does the casualty producing effect of that firepower" (Brasseys EncyclopediaP379)

An air strike is, as we all know, one of the forms firepower can be applied to a target. Therefore, as with any otherform of firepower it will have an effect on morale and will therefore suppress the targets to some degree (ie. have a nrgative impact on their morale.

So, even though the physical damage done might not be that great - and two tanks out of a company of ten is only 20% (nothing much for the air boys to boast about particularly as they were not even burning so he air boys might not even be able to claim they killed them - the ground troops however know they lost two tanks.

And, again from Demolishing h Myth (Zamuli) a Russian reort from 29 Tank Corps (5th Guards Tank Army)

"Losses :25th Tank Brigade - 60% of Personnel. SU-122 - 4 (left burning) SSU-76 - 4 (knocked out) Losses are primarily from enemy aviation and Tiger Tanks. ur own ground attack aviation twice bombed friendly combat formatioms

And here is how Zamulin describes the specific Luftwaffe ground attack tactic we are talking about:

" A 'Devil's Wheel' whirle over our position - that's how Red Army soldiers chrisened the special tactic that the German Dive Bombers used. Having arranged themselves into a circle, from 30 - 70 bombers, one after another, would lasunch heir individual strikes. They would continue this operation without interruption , as a rule from thirty minutes to wo hurs. Sevralminutes before the completionof the bombing a large group of armour, usually with heavy Tiger tanks moving in front would advance. At the moment thebombing ceased he tanks would be just several hundred metersfrom our rifle enrenchments. Th infantry, still not fully recovered from the bombing, were now compelled to repel a ground attack. It was very difficult to withstand such an attack, lacking a second line of trenches, as was the case in he vicinity of the Konsomolets State Farm The Germans first used this method of breaking thrugh combat positions at Kursk, with the aim of overcomng our well engineered and deeply echeloned defences" (P190 Demolishing the Myth Valeriy Xamulin#)

Sure, in this game we are (probably) not going to be employing 30 -70 Stukas or any other aircraft for a ground attack lasting thirty minutes to two hours. But we mght well be employing up to a dozen aircraft in a shorter duration air attack so we may well expect similar results to the above albeit on a far smalller scale

[Michael Emrys]

...the Fw190's astonishing roll rate...

I have read that the fastest roll rate of any first line fighter in the theater during the last two years of the war was by the P-47. Remember the "big, clumsy" Jug? It may not have been all that clumsy after all. Surely it did not have the turn radius of its opponents, but if instead of trying to turn with them, you go into a high scissors, that may not matter at all.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

...I'd love a good new operational-level game that treated the air battle with the same attention to realism and detail as CM.

Ever play Bomber from Yaquinto? It came out a bit over 30 years ago and I always thought it should have been made into a computer game. IMHO it is brilliant.

Michael

[Apocal]

Yah ofc, from a historian's perspective it's absolutely correct strategically. From my tactical pov enemy air will always pose a greater threat to a blufor flight because they're mobile at 500kts.

Uh no, enemy air has not presented a comparable threat to aircraft in something like sixty years with outliers centered exclusively around the Arab-Israeli wars. Ground-based air defense are a tougher, more numerous and more persistent threat to aircraft than other aircraft.

Man... I read this section multiple times but can't make heads or tails with most of them, lack of sortie rate limitation, respawns, intel from the nether??? Are you sure it's falcon4 we're talking about here...

Also falcon's gone thru many iterations over the years so you can't generalize the pro/cons in short as different versions are quite distinct in their features.

Positive. Shoot down all of North Korea's MiG-29s or annihilate air defenses west of Pyongyang and seven? ten? in-game days later the forces lost respawn. Each airframe pushes three or four sorties per in-game day instead of the historically accurate 0.6 to 1.2 sorties. There is no SIGINT/ELINT functionality in-game: detection and tracking of radar-based air defense is based upon either their firing on aircraft or proximity to friendly ground forces. Higher than accurate (or even reasonable) weapon effectiveness is something that plagues the flight sim genre, but its made especially egregious when the player can reliably kill a platoon or two of tanks every sortie and this snowballs into the extreme influence of single aircraft (player-flown, naturally) on the campaign.

You're right, I'm generalizing based on Red Viper circa 2007 or so, when I last played the game, but given that I can't find mention of any kind of improved SIGINT/ELINT or other electronic warfare improvements in BMS, nor dialing down weapon effectiveness to match empirical norms or even added decoy targets so I doubt they've shifted gears to make the campaign a realistic simulation of air campaign instead of a very good mission generator.

For sure some aspects are abstracted especially SEAD stuff but find me one better in the civilian world.

Modern? Harpoon 3.0, Command: Modern Air/Naval Ops. For WW2 air campaign, TalonSoft's Battle of Britain from 1999.

As for CM's air strike precision, I leave that to you guys capable hands. So far I see a lotta forum loud mouthing and nobody bothers to make any test it becomes a bit meaningless. For myself it doesn't really matter that much, if I really want to speculate tank hits percentage with dive bombers there're well, flight sims instead of land sims. Perhaps when this thread runs enough pages it'll attract Steve's attention, that is another way I suppose..

Testing is a bit slower because aircraft take awhile before they show up and you can't pre-plan them anymore. I'm using a quick battle map under three conditions: two 37mm flak in cover/concealment, four 37mm flak in same and undefended. Target set in all three cases is a company of T-34s moving back and forth across the map.

edit: Actually, I'm going to use five sets of conditions: undefended, two flak, four flak, six flak and twelve flak because initial test runs have made me suspicious of something.

Does anyone know of a way to track aircraft status besides hotseat?

[Skwabie]

Good to have a flashback to frugalsworld!

Uh no, enemy air has not presented a comparable threat to aircraft in something like sixty years with outliers centered exclusively around the Arab-Israeli wars. Ground-based air defense are a tougher, more numerous and more persistent threat to aircraft than other aircraft.

Because the war in the last 60 years has not presented an "air worthy" enemy to the Unites States/NATO forces. I say this again, you're a history grog. I'm a, heck, virtual pilot if that is good enough for you. Different point of view. Since you've flown falcon imagine this. You're on the way for a sead strike and a pair of migs appears. Do you continue on to the SAM site or jett your harms and deal with the migs?

Positive. Shoot down all of North Korea's MiG-29s or annihilate air defenses west of Pyongyang and seven? ten? in-game days later the forces lost respawn.

That is to simulate war production. Lost airframes get replenished over time, lost SAM FCR occasionally get replaced, under-strengthed battalions get refit. Abstract? Yes. Reasonable? yes too just like CM's campaigns where you have refits between scenarios. But nope shooting down all the red ACs are not the way to air dominance. Shutting down all the airbases are.

Edit: if you're saying a battalion that surrendered before (0% strength) respawned some days later, that's gotta be a bug...

Each airframe pushes three or four sorties per in-game day instead of the historically accurate 0.6 to 1.2 sorties.

Firstly, there're values in the config files you can set to change this. Secondly, not sure multiple sorties a day is unacceptable in a cold war gone hot scenario as it is for Falcon4's campaign setting. And thirdly, maybe these fast paced replacement and activity levels are there to liven up game play. Not fun staring at a map when nothing's happening.

There is no SIGINT/ELINT functionality in-game: detection and tracking of radar-based air defense is based upon either their firing on aircraft or proximity to friendly ground forces.

False. Detection of AWACS, JSTARS and GCI is simulated. That of course and friendly units proximity detection you say here.

Unless the FreeFalcon team screwed that up. The FF team were a group of 3D artists mostly, they lacked coders hence their ability to produce quality software. The RV guys were pulled in to fill that role but as you prolly know their stay was swift, reason for that isn't hard to deduct. The dynamic campaign engine is the deepest and least well known aspect of Falcon4 I wouldn't be surprised if something went wrong. Not surprisingly FF is now defunct.

Higher than accurate (or even reasonable) weapon effectiveness is something that plagues the flight sim genre, but its made especially egregious when the player can reliably kill a platoon or two of tanks every sortie and this snowballs into the extreme influence of single aircraft (player-flown, naturally) on the campaign.

No one prevents you from flying realistic sorties. If you carry 8 JSOW mininukes on every interdiction flight it's your own business hell some just wanna have fun, but you can also choose a 4 mavs/gbu-12s/gbu-38s, 2 bags, 1 jammer and a 3-0-1 loadout. You kill no more than 4 vehicles per flight, unless you go for guns. If you use CBUs on anti-tank missions set their release altitude below 1000 and a long arming delay, drop in pairs instead of single. Those are realistic settings. If you've read Vipers in the Storm, Rosen did destroy 3 Tanks on one CBU pass so it's not at all unrealistic. For the RV version you flew, their weapon damage code was still inherited from BMS2.0 which was indeed very exaggerated. That was long corrected in OpenFalcon hence BMS4, and Lead Pursuit's Allied Force. Why FF/RV did not do it see the part about lacking coders also their interest in a survey sim with little regard for realism which is what Falcon always emphasized. The ground formation code also was old for even a threatened/engaged vehicle battalion stayed in column, making it an easy target for bomb ripple releases. That was long corrected in other versions too. Heck, with F4browse you can directly change weapons effectiveness yourself if not happy about it.

You're right, I'm generalizing based on Red Viper circa 2007 or so, when I last played the game, but given that I can't find mention of any kind of improved SIGINT/ELINT or other electronic warfare improvements in BMS, nor dialing down weapon effectiveness to match empirical norms or even added decoy targets so I doubt they've shifted gears to make the campaign a realistic simulation of air campaign instead of a very good mission generator.

see above. but you're also right that BMS is more geared towards the F-16's systems and flight model, actually it's the fun version of an air force flight simulator even I saw the boredom in that later on, as a history/strategic hobbyist ('cuse me for lack of a better word) you won't find BMS that attractive. Still it did rework stand-off jamming and active radar missile guidance mechanisms. (Beware though much of the modern day EW is considered classified you wouldn't see em in civilian software.) Campaign related stuff was being worked on slowly but from what I see more damage was being done than improvements. The Lead Pursuit guys had the most in-depth dynamic campaign knowledge so with their commercial endeavor... that talent is now lost forever to the community, still F4 Allied Force is considered to have the best campaigns by many today. However, following on:

Modern? Harpoon 3.0, Command: Modern Air/Naval Ops. For WW2 air campaign, TalonSoft's Battle of Britain from 1999.

Geez, those games are so abstracted, when put in CM terms you don't even see the tank, or you see a paper model of the tank!, on a small window of your screen doing something. It is boring on an exponential scale I need another 20 years on my age to appreciate it. Perhaps it does have some appeal on ya old timers or ppl with classical tastes or summin'. Does the 1999 BOB has anything to do with Rowan's BOB and BOBII? Those 2 are actually pretty decent with dynamic campaigns and epic, well, three dimensional, air battles, although the dynamics are less so compared to Falcon.

Jokes aside it just shows again that war-gaming interests are different. You like being in front of a map playing commander and I need to actually witness it happening. If I venture a guess you were using falcon for something it's not designed for which no doubt there'll be disappointment.

[akd]

Does anyone know of a way to track aircraft status besides hotseat?

If it is not essential to have the tanks moving, play on the aircraft side in scenario author test mode. Of course, you could give the tanks an AI plan and have them moving either way.

[Apocal]

So anyway, I've done a bunch of tests so far: ten minutes, four Ju-87Ds, heavy loadouts, ten T-34s moving through mixed clear and light cover terrain, 37mm AA if present placed in a medium density (I think) wood line, all forces regular, normal motivation, etc. Here are some preliminary results:

Undefended

1. 3 tank KO

2. 2 tank KO

3. 5 tank KO

4. 1 tank KO

5. 5 tank KO

Two 37mm

1. 1 tank KO, 2 AA KO

2. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO (literal last second knockout)

Four 37mm

1. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 2 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO (got suspicious at this point and went straight to an extreme case)

Twelve 37mm

1. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 2 tank KO, 2 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 4 tank KO, 1 AA KO

I'm going to definitely do more tests, but so far my observation has been that the influence of AA is fairly weak, even at high-density end of things. During none of these tests have all the aircraft been driven away (I can't determine how many - if any - have been driven off) as air attacks have continued to the very last minute and last second in some cases. 37mm guns a typically nearly dry at test end, with more AA present tending to cause more expenditure of ammo (some guns run actually run out, which did not happen in two flak tests) for reasons I cannot determine.

It would be very helpful if there was a way to determine the status of opposing aircraft without hotseat (which would double time to test, effectively) so I could say with more certainty if flak is having any effect. As it stands so far, I don't think its working, but I'm still open-minded.

Flight sim vs. wargame aside past this point:

Because the war in the last 60 years has not presented an "air worthy" enemy to the Unites States/NATO forces. I say this again, you're a history grog. I'm a, heck, virtual pilot if that is good enough for you. Different point of view.

I'm not restricting myself to US/NATO or history, I'm including every serious air war fought post WW2 (Iran-Iraq War, Arab-Israeli Wars, Indo-Pakistan Wars, Ethiopia-Eritrea, etc.) and looking at the order of battle of other nations we could plausibly fight today or in the near-term. All of them feature preferential focus on long-range and mobile SAMs, numerous AAA systems, etc. with some of them spending on the order of three or four times their expenditures into fighters.

Since you've flown falcon imagine this. You're on the way for a sead strike and a pair of migs appears. Do you continue on to the SAM site or jett your harms and deal with the migs?

In Falcon? I'd just fire my AMRAAM and keep the HARMs or ignore them totally by pushing up AB. Not like I'm going to die if I get caught.

That is to simulate war production. Lost airframes get replenished over time, lost SAM FCR occasionally get replaced, under-strengthed battalions get refit. Abstract? Yes. Reasonable? yes too just like CM's campaigns where you have refits between scenarios. But nope shooting down all the red ACs are not the way to air dominance. Shutting down all the airbases are.

Firstly, there're values in the config files you can set to change this. Secondly, not sure multiple sorties a day is unacceptable in a cold war gone hot scenario as it is for Falcon4's campaign setting. And thirdly, maybe these fast paced replacement and activity levels are there to liven up game play. Not fun staring at a map when nothing's happening.

Well, multiple sorties per day are possible, but you pay for that with reduced sortie rates later on, with the sustained average sitting around 0.6 to 1.2 per day (depending on airframe type, maintainability, parts, etc.). The nature of a real air war is managing your sortie rates to ensure that downtimes aren't exploited by an alert opponent to play while the figurative cat is away. Done well (or if your opponent does this poorly) its possible to fly a modern air force into the ground without striking them directly. There is nothing reasonable about reconstituting a lost air force or disintegrated air defense system on a one or two week timescale. As for the third point, I already said the F4 campaign worked well as a mission generator, one of the best I've seen.

But it isn't real air war, anymore than Call of Duty is real infantry combat.

False. Detection of AWACS, JSTARS and GCI is simulated. That of course and friendly units proximity detection you say here.

AWACS and JSTARS have little to do with SIGINT and GCI has nothing to do with it.

see above. but you're also right that BMS is more geared towards the F-16's systems and flight model, actually it's the fun version of an air force flight simulator even I saw the boredom in that later on, as a history/strategic hobbyist ('cuse me for lack of a better word) you won't find BMS that attractive.

I found Falcon 4 attractive as a study sim, I just don't feel the need to defend it as being realistic at scales above individual aircraft or flight tactics. Past that, its a cartoon version of real air war with only the barest concession to realism.

Geez, those games are so abstracted, when put in CM terms you don't even see the tank, or you see a paper model of the tank!, on a small window of your screen doing something. It is boring on an exponential scale I need another 20 years on my age to appreciate it. Perhaps it does have some appeal on ya old timers or ppl with classical tastes or summin'.

I'm not old. Judging by the age thread, I'm one of the youngest members on this forum since I was born in the eighties. Most of the games I play aren't actually seriousface wargames, they are ArmA3, Titanfall, War Thunder, Wargame: AirLand Battle and Red Dragon, so my desire for visceral visual stimulation is pretty well satisfied.

Does the 1999 BOB has anything to do with Rowan's BOB and BOBII? Those 2 are actually pretty decent with dynamic campaigns and epic, well, three dimensional, air battles, although the dynamics are less so compared to Falcon.

Jokes aside it just shows again that war-gaming interests are different. You like being in front of a map playing commander and I need to actually witness it happening. If I venture a guess you were using falcon for something it's not designed for which no doubt there'll be disappointment.

Talonsoft's 1999 BoB has no connection to Rowan's as far as I know. Its a turn-based wargame. I don't need to witness something happening for it to be entertaining, I just need to be presented with a reasonably representative range of choices and influenced by the same factors as a real commander would.

[Volksgrenadier]

And here is how Zamulin describes the specific Luftwaffe ground attack tactic we are talking about:

" A 'Devil's Wheel' whirle over our position - that's how Red Army soldiers chrisened the special tactic that the German Dive Bombers used. Having arranged themselves into a circle, from 30 - 70 bombers, one after another, would lasunch heir individual strikes. They would continue this operation without interruption , as a rule from thirty minutes to wo hurs. Sevralminutes before the completionof the bombing a large group of armour, usually with heavy Tiger tanks moving in front would advance. At the moment thebombing ceased he tanks would be just several hundred metersfrom our rifle enrenchments. Th infantry, still not fully recovered from the bombing, were now compelled to repel a ground attack. It was very difficult to withstand such an attack, lacking a second line of trenches, as was the case in he vicinity of the Konsomolets State Farm The Germans first used this method of breaking thrugh combat positions at Kursk, with the aim of overcomng our well engineered and deeply echeloned defences" (P190 Demolishing the Myth Valeriy Xamulin#)

Maybe it should be posted in the CAS-thread, too.

According to the "experts" in this forum, this was not possible, because their preferred armies were not capable to do this.

Two 250 kg bombs, with 30 machines, are only 60 bombs for a wave.

The believed "wisdom" in this forum, that Stukas were not highly effective, ignores the fundamental fact of the mimimum amount of bombs that Stuka attacks used. The low number of bombs (compared to other methods) is proove, that they were more precise than every other bombing method, because also the other methods would have been available for the Luftwaffe. But no other airforce in that time had the capability to use dive bombers effectively.

And it should also be not too compplicated to understand: if they would have been not effective, there would have been no wish to use this highly daring and risky method wherever and as long into the war as possible and instead use methods that are more secure for the scarce Luftwaffe pilots. Especially in a time when German aviation technology was ahead of all others anyway.

The answer is simple: Stukas were the most precise bombers of the time and the best pilots, like Rudel, could drop a bomb literally on top of a tank. But chauvinists can't stand this, becaue their preferred armies had nothing comparable.

Aces like Rudel again and again used the slow and highly endangered JU87 - even with one leg lost, the prohibition to actively fly - instead to choose a much more secure conventional bombing method... Why? Because according to some "experts" here, he just didn't know his weapon!

[Apocal]

Maybe it should be posted in the CAS-thread, too.

According to the "experts" in this forum, this was not possible, because their preferred armies were not capable to do this.

Two 250 kg bombs, with 30 machines, are only 60 bombs for a wave.

The believed "wisdom" in this forum, that Stukas were not highly effective, ignores the fundamental fact of the mimimum amount of bombs that Stuka attacks used.

Steiner, most of the contention in this thread is about CAS against full AFVs. I don't think anyone is arguing that soft vehicles, exposed infantry, etc. could not be effectively attacked by aircraft.

[Volksgrenadier]

Hi Apocal,

you are already the second board member calling me that way. Is that some secret joke I don't understand? :confused: There's a cool movie "Steiner, the Iron Cross", and it's a nice German sounding name, but I'd prefer to be called by my nickname. So why are you calling me that way?

Against soft targets artillery is effective enough, there was no need to waste dive bombers/Stukas. This weapon achieved the highest success against armored targets and heavy entrenchements, like bunkers, bunker-artillery or forts. Everywhere a bomb needed to be dropped very accurately on target.

Very dangerous and extremly bold pilots needed, not only because of approaching the enemy with such a slow and weak machine, but to know that you will lose your consciousness for a few seconds in the moment of highest danger, is nothing that is risked without very high rewards and nothing that is done, if much less dangerous methods are available.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

So anyway, I've done a bunch of tests so far: ten minutes, four Ju-87Ds, heavy loadouts, ten T-34s moving through mixed clear and light cover terrain, 37mm AA if present placed in a medium density (I think) wood line, all forces regular, normal motivation, etc. Here are some preliminary results:

Undefended

1. 3 tank KO

2. 2 tank KO

3. 5 tank KO

4. 1 tank KO

5. 5 tank KO

Two 37mm

1. 1 tank KO, 2 AA KO

2. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO (literal last second knockout)

Four 37mm

1. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 2 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO (got suspicious at this point and went straight to an extreme case)

Twelve 37mm

1. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 2 tank KO, 2 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 4 tank KO, 1 AA KO

I'm going to definitely do more tests, but so far my observation has been that the influence of AA is fairly weak, even at high-density end of things. During none of these tests have all the aircraft been driven away (I can't determine how many - if any - have been driven off) as air attacks have continued to the very last minute and last second in some cases. 37mm guns a typically nearly dry at test end, with more AA present tending to cause more expenditure of ammo (some guns run actually run out, which did not happen in two flak tests) for reasons I cannot determine.

.

Methinks we are going to start needing an excel spreadsheet and its analytical functions pretty soon

Test 1 Average 3 tanks KO

Test 2 Average 3 tanks and1 AA KO

Test 3 Average 3 tanks and 1AA KO

Test 4 Average 2 tanks and 1AA KO

Which might indicate to us that a heavy AA defence of the sort indicated in mny earlier qoute from Days of Battle (Szamveber) would certainly have an impact. And the numbers are broadly similar to those my test came up with.

It would be interesting to know a couple of things

1 Did any of he KO tanks actually burn. Any that did we can assume were total wrte offsor, at the very least, would have required extensive refurbishments.

2 What the Morale impact of the air strike was against the4 target unit and how long this effect lasted

[Apocal]

Hi Apocal,

you are already the second board member calling me that way. Is that some secret fun I don't understand? :confused: There's a cool movie "Steiner, the Iron Cross", and it's a nice German sounding name, but I'd prefer to be called by my nickname. So why are you calling me that way?

Because you post like Steiner: the same misspellings, sharing the same point of view and even structure your posts similarly.

Against soft targets artillery is effective enough, there was no need to waste dvie bombers/Stukas.

There is a good reason to use ground attack aircraft instead of artillery: aircraft can go deeper and don't exist off the limited logistic assets of your advancing forces like artillery. That being said, the story you referred to was hitting infantry in trenches + dugouts, keeping them contained within their positions until advancing armor was in a position to utterly dominant them, not knocking out AFVs of any sort.

This weapon achieved the highest success against armored targets and heavy entrenchements, like bunkers, bunker-artillery or forts. Everywhere a bomb needed to be dropped very accurately on target.

Unfortunately for you, Soviet loss accounting where available does not bear this out.

It would be interesting to know a couple of things

1 Did any of he KO tanks actually burn. Any that did we can assume were total wrte offsor, at the very least, would have required extensive refurbishments.

2 What the Morale impact of the air strike was against the4 target unit and how long this effect lasted

1. Not many that I noticed, but I'll start keeping track. Good catch.

2. The morale impact was restricted to extremely localized (in time and area) maxed-out suppression bars that cleared within thirty seconds. Tanks did not enter a panicked state unless struck by directly by bombs - which always knocked the tank out and inflicted crew casualties.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Maybe it should be posted in the CAS-thread, too.

According to the "experts" in this forum, this was not possible, because their preferred armies were not capable to do this.

Two 250 kg bombs, with 30 machines, are only 60 bombs for a wave.

The believed "wisdom" in this forum, that Stukas were not highly effective, ignores the fundamental fact of the mimimum amount of bombs that Stuka attacks used. The low number of bombs (compared to other methods) is proove, that they were more precise than every other bombing method, because also the other methods would have been available for the Luftwaffe. But no other airforce in that time had the capability to use dive bombers effectively.

And it should also be not too compplicated to understand: if they would have been not effective, there would have been no wish to use this highly daring and risky method wherever and as long into the war as possible and instead use methods that are more secure for the scarce Luftwaffe pilots. Especially in a time when German aviation technology was ahead of all others anyway.

The answer is simple: Stukas were the most precise bombers of the time and the best pilots, like Rudel, could drop a bomb literally on top of a tank. But chauvinists can't stand this, becaue their preferred armies had nothing comparable.

Aces like Rudel again and again used the slow and highly endangered JU87 - even with one leg lost, the prohibition to actively fly - instead to choose a much more secure conventional bombing method... Why? Because according to some "experts" here, he just didn't know his weapon!

Hmm/ Methinks the "believed wisdom" may require some revision. The German Luftwaffe cerainly seems to have been capable of using such a tactic and,based on accounts in George Nipe's "Last Victory" were certainly using such tactics at 3rd Kharkov. These tactics may well have been used even earlier i the war although further research into that period would be required to establish that. It is likely however that the Germans had worked out how to do this with great effect by the winter of 1942/3

The Western Allies' "Cab Rank" system appears very similar to the German tactic. We kow howver it took the British and Americains a couple of years to evolve their own version and it may very well be that the Russians too developed their own version by 1944. My knowledge of Russian air to ground attack tactcs is more limited but, from what Ihave read the Russian airforce were capable of making life very unpleasent for Axis troops particularly after the Luftwaffe finally lost control of the air inthe last few months