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Air Support


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Guest Michael emrys

Usually when you have moved onto the ground formerly occupied by the enemy so that your troops receive the bombs intended for him. Life is hard.

Michael

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Sorry, did you say "air support"? There must be a typo in the game... what you're purchasing is volume-enhancing hairspray for your troops, so they can go into battle confident that their locks will be manageable, vivacious and full of vitality.

David

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They lost all of their equipment and had to swim in under machine gun fire. As they struggled in the water, Gardner heard somebody say, "Perhaps we're intruding, this seems to be a private beach."

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Aaah! Air support....I've never actually bought any, usually playing as Wermacht and all. But I have played someone who *did* buy some.

One time there were a couple of "near misses" which did not do much harm. Another time, a different opponent's air support showed up in turn 2 and killed my beautiful Panther, then strafed and panicked a couple of squads. Turn 3, came back and killed my beautiful Jagdpanther, strafed and panicked a couple of squads. Turn 4 came back and strafed and frightened another couple of squads.

Seems a bit like a lottery to me - but if you win, you win big.

So my advice Pat, don't buy any when you are playing me. :^)

OGSF

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CAS is literally "out-of-control" in CM, they show up "when it is ready" and they have their excuse for not showing up at all (and they don't have to tell ya). Well even if they show up, they can miss, near miss, wreak havoc to opfor -- a "near-hit" of 2 500-pounders are good enough "scare" tank crew away from their AFV, of course, they can wreak havoc to your own troops too. Search in the "CM - Scenario" section to see my screenshot on how they wipe out over 60% of my troops in one shot.

I remember a joke goes similiar like this:

"When the Luffwaffe came, the Allies hid;

When the RAF came, the German hid;

When USAAF came, everybody hid!"

In short -- better spend your money elsewhere.

May the Il-2, Ju-87G, Hs-129, Fw-190F/G be better in CM2.

Griffin.

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"+" is just the beginning. Expect to see "GriffinCheng76", "GriffinCheng(105)" or "GriffinChengA3E8" more should Forum problems occur again :(

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It's definitely a gamble if/when you'll get air support. An opponent of mine reported that he heard his air support overhead one turn, but that they didn't do anything and never returned. I've never used them myself, but was on the receiving end once against the AI...

It only made one pass, but dropped its bombs (I seem to recall seeing three bursts) right in the heart of a village. Took out a few buildings, killing my Company CO, a spotter, and three on-board mortars... effectively all of my support that game. I don't even know how he spotted them. The CO and spotter were hunkered down in a building, while the mortars were in some nearby woods.

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"You know our standing orders. Out of ammo become a bunker, out of commission become a pillbox, out of time... become heroes." - The Beast

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In addition to what's already been mentioned:

- Air support never show up if the weather isn't CLEAR.

- They don't like having off map artillery filling the air with incoming shells, so don't use artillery when expecting/wanting an air strike.

- If they show up, how long they will hang around depends on present air defences.

Hope this helps some more

Olle

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This is all true about the dangers and possibilities of friendly fire and/or of the CAS not showing up at all(very frustrating),

but let it be said that when it does show up it is very DEVESTATING(either to your troops of, hopefully the enemy). My record for a loss was a full platoon, half of another, plus some other units that happened to be too close to the two bomb drops when CAS came by. They were clustered because there was almost no cover except for a small grove of trees, so they were there when the bombs fell on the grove, all clustered up and stuff. Sure, they were my units, but it was impressive regardless.

For the enemy I've killed multiple vehicles at once with lucky CAS strikes.

So, it's hit and miss, but when it's a hit it's a HIT, and it blows things up real good.

(Aside: See, I'm playing nice. I'm not griping, not moaning, not antagonizing. I like being here, and am trying to make amends for my recent outburts. It was the medication, I swear.)

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Hey Pat!

Are you talking about our own QB... Uh oh! I know it is an occasional thing at best but I have witnessed it first hand and it can be gruesome....Still, since you like neat toys and had lots of points, I thought you'd buy air support! Send it on or at least pray it will show up before I wipe out all your troops he he he he.

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No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy

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My advice to see a good example of CAS in action is to play the scenerio Haminkeln. I had a pbem w/ a guy and saw it used a little too effectively. First... He got my last panther w/ a bazooka halfway into the battle... then about turn 16 or so... the CAS comes in and takes 2 passes at the KOed panther (where hes got a platoon positioned by now). This panics his troops and delays his attack for the hill.. it then comes in and knocks out the remainder of my half tracks... I guess it made at least 7-8 passes in toto... A little extreme if you ask me.. but it was pretty amusing to see it confidently go after that dead panther and take out a few freindlies.. thats war i guess,

Zaf'

-not a speck of cereal- FZ

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I lost a heroic Stuart to my own air support that way. The Stuart had just taken out two Mark IVs (ok, ok, Joe, I know one had a disabled gun) and a Stug. The flyboys seemed to be trying to kill the dead Mark IVs over and over again. They overshot and got the Stuart, disabling it. The Mark IV was in my line of advance and the continued strafing did more damage to my troops than to my esteemed opponents :) (sucking up now so he will be nice in our present game - even though he is a cesspool dweller and therefore not entitled to any respect)

My asessment of the battle was that if you are expecting air support and have dead or disabled enemy tanks in the vicinity of your own, keep pumping the dead enemy tanks full of shells until you brew them up. The flyboys ought to be able to see that.

What enraged me is that on the other side of the map, a small gun kept terrorizing my troops and holding up their advance. The planes had just taken out my last tank, I used up my last artillery on it unsuccessfully, and I had no way to take out the gun, as it was commanding a bridge that I had to cross. How I cursed the flyboys for hitting my position instead of the gun that I severely needed it to hit and that was out in the open. Basically, my planes took away what could have been a significant victory for me.

One suggestion I have for CM2 is to allow us to pop smoke to direct the planes to some degree. In my reading this was done in the Western Theater. See A Fine Night for Tanks for one source. Had I been able to pop smoke on the gun (maybe one color for the enemy, one color for where _not_ to attack) my air power would have been much more effective. As it is, I am so traumatized by the incident, I never select air support if I have the choice.

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