Do aircraft ever miss?

[Rudy]

Hello, I have been playing CMBB for a year now and love it, but there is one point about the game that I wonder about, and that is air power. I know that smart bombs started comming out near the end of WW2 but even they were new and not always accurate. Every scenario that I have played [with clear skys] the air attacks are successful, how truthful is that? Were the ground attack aircraft of world war 2 really that dangerous?

[farmerch]

you are a lucky guy. in my experience, aircrafts somtimes hit. often enough my own men. however, i cannot say how accurate this is in a historical way.

[Holman]

I see lots of misses. For instance, in a battle I've got going right now, my side's planes (I won't call them "mine!") have made five attacks with two kills.

Rockets often bracket an armored target without harming it. Bombs often go long. I consider it a lucky day when a plane actually destroys enemy vehicles.

Now attacks against infantry are another story, and near-misses very often pin or even panic foot soldiers. This is accurate, I think: infantry feared air attacks all out of proportion to their effectiveness.

[Bone_Vulture]

*sigh*

I still wish I could have a litle control over the aircrafts... I'd be happy by just being able to tell them whether to attack hard or soft targets. It's annoying when a 400-point dive bomber drops its payload on some remote halftrack, when there's a horde of exposed infantry some several hundred meters away.

[Doctor Sinister]

Well, it's not CMBB, but this is one experience I had in CMAK when I was playing as Germans against the British in Italy.

There was a massive firefight going on in a town which involved a small amount of armour and loads of Infantry. We each held about half of the town and we were slugging it out. The situation was prety much stalemated at the time, but the British were moving up some tanks into the town centre.

Then I heard a plane circling overhead.

Fortunately, I had deployed some 20mm Flak cannon on one side of a river which divided the town. The guns were busy enjoying themselves, knocking out light armour as the plane arrived.

When the plane started on its attack run, my Flak guns turned and opened up on the Spitfire and apparently distracted the pilot just enough so that he ended up dropping his bomb load right smack bang onto a Sherman tank on the British front line.

The Sherman had been supporting a renewed push against my own troops, and as it exploded, it took out a squad of enemy Infantry that had just vacated a building, intent on rushing me.

This single event pretty much tilted the balance of the game in my favour, and although the plane strafed me a few more times, the fact that the British had lost one of their tanks, and the initiative in the town centre, won me the battle.

Thank God for the RAF!

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I think Doc Sinister made a valid point. If you're able to throw up ant sort of anti-aircraft fire at all it greatly improves your chances of the strafing run/bomb run missing. I've noted that when your own troops aren't able to put up any ack ack then the enemy plane is invariably deadly accurate. Another thing to note is that the greater the experience level of the plane the greater chance it has of identifying the enemy and bombing accurately.

Perhaps Rudy you have been unfortunate to be up against veteran pilots or better each time.

Regards

Jim R.

[Ogiwan]

Well, in the Kalinin Raid, the Germans have at least one fighter-bomber, and it has caused some major damage...a bomb exploded like 50m away, and lit up a truck, and wiped out it's passengers and another squad, and all sorts of crap.

I'm kinda mad that my T-34s don't have the AA MGs. Uhhh...cupola?

[Bone_Vulture]

Originally posted by Ogiwan:

I'm kinda mad that my T-34s don't have the AA MGs. Uhhh...cupola?

No need to be mad. Machine guns - other than the dedicated heavy German / US halftrack variants - rarely do any damage to aircrafts.

[stikkypixie]

Originally posted by Bone_Vulture:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ogiwan:

I'm kinda mad that my T-34s don't have the AA MGs. Uhhh...cupola?

No need to be mad. Machine guns - other than the dedicated heavy German / US halftrack variants - rarely do any damage to aircrafts. </font>

[JasonC]

"I'm kinda mad that my T-34s don't have the AA MGs."

What are you talking about? T-34s did not mount an AA MG. You can look at hundreds of in action photos and you will never see one.

"Uhhh...cupola?"

A cupola is the set of vision slits around the top of the turret to give the commander a 360 view while buttoned. It improves situational awareness and makes it more likely a buttoned tank will pick up new targets effectively. It has nothing to do with AA MGs.

The only Russian AFVs that regularly mounted AA MGs were the IS (2 and later) and ISU series. Even those frequently did not have them actually mounted, as anybody can see in action photos. As for the Germans, a few SP guns mounted flexible MGs on the roof, but primarily for close defense against infantry not for AA purposes. Most tanks did not have one.

The US mania for AA MGs was part of a general overissue of 50 cals in US forces due to a (mistaken) impression, largely due to journalist level accounts of the early war period, that German "blitzkrieg" depended on close air-ground coordination. Which went along with excesses like planning 300 AA battalions for the whole US force, at one point.

The Luftwaffe never showed up for the party, because "flying 50s" (on P-47s, P-51s, B-17s and B-24s) had already done the job. So they were used for ground combat - despite limited ammo loads due to the large caliber necessary to hurt planes.

[SBS]

I generally don't use aircraft support because you have no control over it and it often doesn't help that much when the plane wanders over the map randomly shooting up targets which may not be that important.

[Chappie]

I don't agree entirely.

I had an experience playing as Axis where my aircraft(I can only remember it by a vet but not type) caused major drama for my Allied opponent.

My Russian friend had at least 3 jeeps with anit-tanks guns limbered. After the fist 6 moves all three had been KOed and that was that. He had no AA support

My air asset made no impact on his armour, ignored them all together and went for the "soft targets" only.

I don't know how the Tac-AI works but it worked for me.

I feel at least one aircraft is worth its value.

Having said that I would not be happy with anything less than a veteran as I have experience of blue on blue with lesser skilled pilots

[Tero]

Originally posted by Rudy:

Were the ground attack aircraft of world war 2 really that dangerous?

One thing you must remember is that CAS in CMXX is always on target, even if it misses it. There are no bogus firing passes on hay stacks or other miss-ID'd targets.

[Joachim]

Originally posted by farmerch:

you are a lucky guy. in my experience, aircrafts somtimes hit. often enough my own men. however, i cannot say how accurate this is in a historical way.

Oh yes... if you are lucky, you can hit a ATG and kill a whole plt nearby. If you are unlucky, the plane is a StuKa and the ATG is A 5cmPak38.

My experience with aircraft:

The enemy's aircraft does always hit, regardless how many AA I have.

My aircraft usually targets my own guys. If it does indeed target the enemy, it is immediately shoot down without causing any harm. AAMGs will do.

If I have some nice trucks in the rear to attract my own flyboys, the flyboys will not attack them, but hurt something vital.

Potential minor spoiler:

A welcome exception was the GD - Romanian defence scenario. Not that the StuKas killed anything except a few TCs. But they did not hurt my guys.

Gruß

Joachim