Uncontrolled AIR in CMBN

[Fizou]

Mission 3 of the Road to Nijmegen is a good example of why uncontrolled air support does not work very well for game play reasons. Regardless of whether it is deemed more realistic or not, we all need to remember this is a game and if you take some of the more important aspects out of the game then it becomes less enjoyable.

4 x Typhoons laden with rockets and AP ammunition. All four are totally uncontrolled at present and you have no way to cancel the mission. Even if you hide your units as best as possible within the alloted time you will still take casualties. I replayed that mission through dozens of times testing it, and every single time I would take casualties. More often that not, the allied aircraft would not even target the enemy forces because it took too long to find them.

In that case it sounds like the probability of blue on blue is to high. I think it was good for CMx1, but looks like its higer for CMx2 v3. Wouldent it be possible just to lower it? I like the idea of free roaming but blue on blue should not be super probable as it will hamper game play/fun.

[phil stanbridge]

In that case it sounds like the probability of blue on blue is to high. I think it was good for CMx1, but looks like its higer for CMx2 v3. Wouldent it be possible just to lower it? I like the idea of free roaming but blue on blue should not be super probable as it will hamper game play/fun.

I'm not entirely sure it's as easy as just 'lowering it' although I know what you mean. I think there are a number of reasons why blue on blue seems high. But a lot of that depends on the design of the mission - for example, green aircrew *might* mean higher friendly casualties. But the balance of the mission is very good in this campaign and it always has been. Friendly fire has been an issue for me, but with 3 it is crazy high and with the lack of control it takes all the fun out of the game. It's just my opinion of course, but I'd like to see it reverting back to how it was.

[Baneman]

Have to say that when I played that campaign, all my air missions were cancelled because by the time they were due, I had reached the target area.

So unless other people found it super-useful, the quick fix for now would be to remove the air completely.

Although I confess I don't know if campaign scenarios are accessible for tweaking as normal scenarios.

[phil stanbridge]

Have to say that when I played that campaign, all my air missions were cancelled because by the time they were due, I had reached the target area.

So unless other people found it super-useful, the quick fix for now would be to remove the air completely.

Although I confess I don't know if campaign scenarios are accessible for tweaking as normal scenarios.

Yes I've experienced that also. But having the *option* of air support is a really nice feature and it's not something I'd like removed, especially now the AAA assets actually look for it. It does make spotting those pesky guns somewhat easier.

When you had control of your air support you could tell it roughly where to look, and you could cancel it. At present, certainly in the campaign to date, I've had two separate missions where I've been straffed to pieces and had platoons obliterated by massed rocket fire. I've not been able to cancel the missions at all, and because I like to play the slow game, using small squads to recon the area before planning an attack, I suffer lots of friendly fire before I even get started

[Fizou]

Yeah thats right Phil. Dident think of the balancing change. Higher level air crews migh in turn be to accurate hitting the enemy. A delicate balancing act.

My best memory from CM and air support must be a CMBB battle (George MC, Panzer Count, 1941), with a huge map and the air roaming and attacking at will. Not very accurate but with the ability to change a dier situation. Get to close to the enemy and the blue on blue gets very likely.

[JoMac]

Have to say that when I played that campaign, all my air missions were cancelled because by the time they were due, I had reached the target area.

So unless other people found it super-useful, the quick fix for now would be to remove the air completely.

Although I confess I don't know if campaign scenarios are accessible for tweaking as normal scenarios.

Yeah, actually a problem for both Arty & Air in general in CM...

Since ground units can move and react around the battlefield rather quickly, it usually means outpacing the more realistic arrival times of Arty & Air.

Joe

[JoMac]

Yeah thats right Phil. Dident think of the balancing change. Higher level air crews migh in turn be to accurate hitting the enemy. A delicate balancing act.

My best memory from CM and air support must be a CMBB battle (George MC, Panzer Count, 1941), with a huge map and the air roaming and attacking at will. Not very accurate but with the ability to change a dier situation. Get to close to the enemy and the blue on blue gets very likely.

Yes, with CMx1 and bigger maps the Air-Support had a better chance of hitting more of the enemy then friendly. this is especially true since Air-Support usually did a fly-by for air-recognition before making an attack.

[YankeeDog]

Have to say that when I played that campaign, all my air missions were cancelled because by the time they were due, I had reached the target area.

So unless other people found it super-useful, the quick fix for now would be to remove the air completely.

Although I confess I don't know if campaign scenarios are accessible for tweaking as normal scenarios.

I found them hugely useful.

For example, in Mission 3 I used the two Tiffys you get at setup pre-planneed into areas that I thought were likely to contain the forwardmost enemy units, and then when the second pair arrived, I used them on a TRP I had set in the final treeline, which I also thought was likely to be well-defended. I was also able to get a second set of (strafing only) missions out of the first pair in this way.

Not all of my guesses were right, but they did hit some stuff, and the very fact that I had hit some of the possible enemy positions with rocket salvos enabled me to move much faster in the early going.

Remember, you get no bonus points for finishing the scenario early, so as long as you're not really pressed for time, it's worth waiting a few minutes for the air strikes to come in. Furthermore, ammo conservation can be a significant concern in that campaign and unlike your 25 pdr and tank HE ammo loads which have to last you through several fights, the Air Assets are "use it or lose it". Those 60 lb. rocket warheads are about as powerful as a naval cruiser shell, so just make some educated guesses and let them fly at something that looks like a likely defensive position. At the very least, the rocket strikes will tell you where the enemy is not (anymore)!

[Holman]

One problem with the Nijmegen campaign is that (at least in the missions I've played) your forces are out in the open while the enemy is in cover. I believe undirected air units will attack what they can see, so the odds of blue-on-blue may be much higher than 50%.

[YankeeDog]

One problem with the Nijmegen campaign is that (at least in the missions I've played) your forces are out in the open while the enemy is in cover. I believe undirected air units will attack what they can see, so the odds of blue-on-blue may be much higher than 50%.

Correct. Air assets that are directed to make their own targeting decisions, (i.e,. either using CMRT's "Roving Only" system, or on an "Area" Target order in the 2.12 CMBN system) seem to have a strong desire to attack SOMETHING, and if they don't see any enemy, well, then, something else will just have to do...

So of the attacker has Air Support, but he also has a whole bunch of vehicles out on the open while the defender's unit are all under under top cover, blue-on-blue is much more likely.

In the same situation, but the well-hidden defender has the Air Assets, and Blue-on-Blue will be extremely unlikely.

[OrdeaL]

Any one in the know able to say roughly how long a hotfix might take for this 3.0 patch? I mean i'm not rushing it, just would be nice to know if i should pop back in a few days or a month etc..

[Guest]

I'm hoping to get it out as soon as possible.

[Guest]

The hot fix is out and, in addition to fixing a number of bugs, also changes air support in CMBN and CMFI back to its original way of working.

[Wicky]

LinkyPoo? Nothing in the stickied announcements.

Edit - I see it under "houskeeping" Thanks Phil

Edit II - Should it be "CMBN v300 Upgrade Setup.exe" or sumfink like "v3.01" to indicate a newer version?

The hot fix is out and, in addition to fixing a number of bugs, also changes air support in CMBN and CMFI back to its original way of working.

[Guest]

Sure!

http://www.battlefront.com/community/announcement.php?f=124&a=711

For reference, though, it's at the top of the announcements in the forum.

[Holman]

Thanks!

And this can be applied on top of the first release of 3.0 with no problems?

[Guest]

Yep, it can be.

[MikeyD]

I joked 'elsewhere' that the new release announcements are starting to resemble the old release announcements and can be overlooked if you're not paying attention. So big bold letters:

"3.0 UPDATE ON THE UPGRADE WITH IMPORTANT FIXES!!! GRAB IT NOW!!!"

Do you think that got their attention?

Visiting the board for fourteen years, this is the first time I've changed font color

[John Kettler]

Apropos of Russian CAS, several of us did a lot of work investigating it, and the thread is here. The CAS study I provide I linked to in that thread is an excellent read.

http://imap.combatmission.com/community/showthread.php?t=113499

In a nutshell, it appears that actual CAS went down only as far as corps level. The air controller, if you will, was in the command point with the corps CO. In the course of the battle the CO and his entourage would move as the situation dictated, and that's from whence the aerial hammer was brought down. Other situations might be fighters returning from other missions, Il-2s returning home yet still with cannon ammo (or even tail gun ammo--an Il-2 attacking with a single 12.7 which engages from the side or pulling off the target!) Apparently, aircraft were forbidden to bring back ordnance. Il-2s typically operated in a four plane unit called a zveno, but armed recon, which may or may not be appropriate at this stage of the war (forget date of implementation), was a pair.

I think there's a distorted view of Allied CAS circa CMBN. At GOODWOOD, for example, the British had exactly one FAC, if you will, at the point of attack and lost him on the first day. One Sherman died, and there went CAS!

http://www.strategos.demon.co.uk/D-Day/Goodwood.htm

(Fair Use)

"Artillery faded and close tactical air support which would have been critical in maintaining the suppression caused by the heavy overnight aerial bombardment was hindered by the loss of the only Forward Air Controller early in the morning."

One whole FAC supporting the main thrust of the entire operation. Am therefore not overly worked up, at this stage of the war, at least, over loss of direct control over CAS birds. In practice, we'd be more realistically looking at armed recon or fighters returning from missions and still having MG or cannon ammo available. The real action wasn't a Tiffie or a Thunderbolt going after a Panther jamming up the frontline works. Hardly. It was the operational level mauling of Das Reich trying to get into the battle and being savaged for something like two days and nights to do so. That's where the real killing was done, on a force trapped on a single narrow road, and it's why, except in rare scenario defined circumstances, I would not expect to see a FAC present.

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

MikeyD: Next time, pick a colour that doesn't look black to those with sub-par colour vision... Just for maximum effect, I mean. I didn't even notice it was a different colour til you said...

Blue is good for most colour-blind blokes.

[OrdeaL]

Thanks Phil! Back to the campaign for me!

[John Kettler]

For those wanting to know how CAS was really organized and conducted during World War II, I highly recommend this study. Chapter 3's on the Russian side of CAS.

Case Studies in the Development of Close Air Support, Office of Air Force History, U.S.A.F. 1990

http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media...100924-035.pdf

YankeeDog,

I think your notion of a 50 meter target zone for dive bombing is way too optimistic. US experience, on one island in the Marshalls, against targets of known locations, over a course of days, with highly experienced combat pilots of three squadrons (2 SBD, 1 Corsair), produced a a CEP of 53.4 meters. That would seem compatible with your figure, but the case I cite is, despite there being active opposition (extent unknown), practically in the realm of bombing range conditions. Referring to the above study, I noted in my #16 here

http://imap.combatmission.com/community/showthread.php?t=113499&page=2

"There's also the astounding claim that the CEP for a Russian squadron that switched to dive bombing was 18m! I call that astounding because in the Marshalls, three SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber squadrons, attacking Japanese targets as small as 15m diameter gun pits while under fire, averaged 53.4m! That's in Tillman, Corsair. There was also some information about tasking fighters for ground strike, after which they immediately reverted to air-to-air and strafing targets of opportunity."

You may wish to tweak your number considerably in light of the information I just presented. I wouldn't surprised if JasonC dropped in and provided us, from memory,

the historical CEPs for various air-to-ground weapon deliveries.

Regards,

John Kettler

[YankeeDog]

You misunderstood my comment. I have a copy of the 4th MAW Marshall Islands study you cite and have also read similar studies on e.g. U.S. F/B attacks in Italy, which show data in a similar range.

What I said was that the 50% CEP for dive bombers flown by Veteran pilots under *ideal* conditions was measured to be about 50m, which is roughly what the Marshall Islands study found. So with an airframe like a Stuka or Dauntless dropping in good weather, no opposition against a well-identified target, about half the bombs should land within about 50m of the target.

Add any complications to these conditions (and the vast majority of the time, there would be complications), and the CEP increases, in some cases dramatically -- we 're talking double, triple, quadruple once you add factors like significant AA opposition etc.

I don't buy the Russian numbers showing sub-20m CEP for dive bombing for a second. If Russian dive bombers could achieve that kind of accuracy consistently, they would have ditched virtually all other forms of air attack and focused on dive bombing exclusively. But the Russians actually did the opposite late war, shifting from bombs to multi-shot, area-of-effect saturation weapons like large caliber guns, rockets and PTABs.

JasonC and I are actually pretty sympatico in our view of WWII Tac Air, I think. I'm sure we differ a few degrees one way or the other in certain areas, but overall we're read the same data and have come to pretty much the same conclusions.

[Warts 'n' all]

Mission 3 of the Road to Nijmegen is a good example of why uncontrolled air support does not work very well for game play reasons. Regardless of whether it is deemed more realistic or not, we all need to remember this is a game and if you take some of the more important aspects out of the game then it becomes less enjoyable.

4 x Typhoons laden with rockets and AP ammunition. All four are totally uncontrolled at present and you have no way to cancel the mission. Even if you hide your units as best as possible within the alloted time you will still take casualties. I replayed that mission through dozens of times testing it, and every single time I would take casualties. More often that not, the allied aircraft would not even target the enemy forces because it took too long to find them.

It is no criticism of Battlefront. But, it is virtually impossible to design a game that recreates how the British used their fighter bombers on the day. Having them "uncontrolled" to roam at will, or giving them a pin point target via a F.O. will not work. Vandeleur had about 100 Typhoons (rather than 4) available that afternoon. The troops on the ground fired yellow smoke anywhere they suspected the Germans to be. The "Tiffies" were then allowed to "go hell for leather for a quarter of an hour" i.e. they used all their gun and rocket ammo, and blasted every thing to bits. They didn't waste time looking for "targets", or give up if they couldn't find any, and they didn't hit their own troops. They just got on with the job. I think those of us who have attempted this mission would love that kind of air support.

[YankeeDog]

With large preparatory air strikes or any large preparatory concentrations, whether they be from aircraft, guns, or rockets, it's usually better to assume that they have happened immediately prior to the start of the CM scenario, and the action continues from there.

While there is a certain amount of war gaming ecstasy that can be derived from watching your preparatory plan blow up half the map, the fact of the matter is that including his kind of firepower in the scenario adds a very large random element to the battle which makes play balancing very hard.

If the player guesses right and/or gets lucky with the exact impact location of large preparatory ordnance, the battle will be a cakewalk. Conversely, if the preparatory concentrations do not fall well, the battle can go from a challenge to impossible.

So it's generally better for the secenario designer to model the effects of assumed preparatory strikes on the condition of the defense at start, and go from there. Sometimes it's appropriate to include a couple of modules of heavy support that can be assumed to represent the last bits of the preparatory strikes as he attack starts to move forward, but not the whole prep fire plan.

One thing I would like to see in the game eventually is he option for secenario designers to designate certain indirect support assets as "Pre-Planned" only, to force the player to use them as part of a prep plan, rather than quick-response. Even the Americans and Brits, who had lots of radios and a comparatively flexible, responsive artillery/CAS system, fire support assets were still often assigned in what would be considered a "pre-planned" mission in CM terms.

Again, the purpose of adding such Pre-Planned Only assets to the game would not be to include whole 40 minute+ prep plans with dozens of guns and/or planes, but rather to give the SD the option of including the very tail end of the prep strikes -- the last phase of the gun fire plan, and/or the last few aircraft to make their attack runs.