Help: Planes

[Bluster]

Hello...

I am just starting to play the game for the first time and im messing around with the quick battles. I have bought planes a few times but never totally understood how they work.

They have randomly come in during the battle and attacked some tanks and stuff, but i was wondering if there was a way i could assign them their targets and when they enter the battle?

Sorry for the newbie questions, your help will be muchly apprciated.

Yours sincerly,

Bluster

[imported_no_one]

The short answer is no.You can not pick their targets and they come and go as they please.Sometimes they won't show up at all and other times they may show up only to be run off by enemy AA fire.

[David I]

Bluster,

And sometimes they come in and bomb the crap out of your own side. I never buy them and I cringe when they appear in scenarios.

DavidI

[MikeyD]

When planes work they CAN sometimes work spectacularly. The King Tiger that's been blocking your route of advance is destroyed by a IL-2. Bombs fall behind a distant hill and big tank-size secondary explosions can be seen. The thing is you've got to live with 'sometimes' part of the sentence. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they get shot down. Sometimes they don't hit anything. Sometimes (especially early war) they attack their own troops!

Planes are cool when they appear, but they're a gambling man's weapon of choice.

[Brent Pollock]

Really! Do you mean historically, or in the CM games? This is the first I remember seeing anyone mention this. Pilot quality in CM should affect mistaken attacks...but date :confused:

Originally posted by MikeyD:

[snip] Sometimes (especially early war) they attack their own troops![snip]

[MikeyD]

Okay, I haven't done any testing to prove my hypothesis, but I must say t I really reallly REALLY haven't had luck purchasing Russian bombers in 1941!

My (uninformed) theory is they're simulating the rudimentary ground-to-air radio communication of the early war.

[Nemesis Lead]

Friendly fire IS a hazard when using aircraft. It is fairly rare, but it does happen.

I am not sure if the date (or anything else) makes a difference in how often this happens. My own aircraft have strafed or bombed my troops on many occasions.

This seems to happen most often when you have a lot of vehicles relative to your opponent and is especially true when your opponent has no vehicles and you have many. Aircraft like to pound what they can see and vehicles are the most obvious targets on the battlefield.

Run about 10 tests with the above settings (and perhaps an inexperienced pilot) and you are likely to see this happen at least once.

[Bluster]

You would think that date would have something to do with it. Communications were not so good and the "combat experience" of many of the pilots (especially Russian) would not have been to good.

I definetly think date would have had something to do with planes bombing allied troops.

[Corvidae]

Aircraft are a roving menace in CM,,,

Ground forces have NO control over aircraft,

the best you can hope for is that your planes will target more enemys than freindlys,, and maybe that when enemy planes bomb the enemy,, that your own units dont get caught in the blast

Always assume that the pilots are gung ho idiots who will attact anything they can see,,, because this is EXACTLY what air power is when used in ground support ,

[MPK]

"Aircraft are a roving menace in CM,,, "

Well put

I would add that they just

LOVE trucks...

...conceal your armour

as best as possible (e.g

placing it among trees or

buildings)...but leave a

truck or two out for bait...

(rationalize this by telling

yourself that the crew have

been replaced by crude dummies...)

[Slappy]

It's worth noting that aircraft will attack, in general in the following order:

Live armor in open

Dead armor in open

Live armor in cover

Dead armor in cover

Infantry, maybe

Any armor on fire

If you hide all your vehicles in trees, the air will find them, but if you leave one or two in the open, they will continue to be attacked over and over, at least until they burn.

[imported_KG_ThorsHammer]

It's too bad there is no control over planes. It seems a shame there is no forward air controller that appears like the artillary observers do. I have seen games such as close combat in which you use a forward air observer to select targets.

I can see an FAC with a pop up menu, instructing his aircraft to perform different tasks, and keeping track of weapons load out.

There is an enemy tank causing problems so you target it with your Sturmovik air controller.

The pilot selects his first 4 rockets and goes in for the attack..a miss.. You leave the target on the tank and he roars in again with 4 other rockets but misses again. the target is still on so the pilot goes with his cannon and knocks it out. In another situation, you have no LOS to enemy units but knowing they are there, you issue an "attack targets of opportunity" from the pop up menu of the FAC, and the plane selects his own targets. Just daydreaming I guess @@)

[Wicky]

Do a search and check for the threads which have discussed CAS (in )effectiveness in WW2

Originally posted by KG_ThorsHammer:

It's too bad there is no control over planes. It seems a shame there is no forward air controller that appears like the artillary observers do. I have seen games such as close combat in which you use a forward air observer to select targets.

I can see an FAC with a pop up menu, instructing his aircraft to perform different tasks, and keeping track of weapons load out.

There is an enemy tank causing problems so you target it with your Sturmovik air controller.

The pilot selects his first 4 rockets and goes in for the attack..a miss.. You leave the target on the tank and he roars in again with 4 other rockets but misses again. the target is still on so the pilot goes with his cannon and knocks it out. In another situation, you have no LOS to enemy units but knowing they are there, you issue an "attack targets of opportunity" from the pop up menu of the FAC, and the plane selects his own targets. Just daydreaming I guess @@)

[psychonaut]

i search enemy for cbm 2 can u send email to allien666@bluewin.ch

[psychonaut]

send email to alien666@bluewin.ch for battle