I HATE CAS!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Hun Hunter:

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

Friendly fire from the air is realistic. What isn't, is the high accuracy and damaging effect of typical CM air attacks. Note the P-38 incident, for example. 11 FBs attacked 5 times. 5 men were killed and 16 wounded. Try that in CM. You will get that score from 1 FB. Heck, I've seen 2 FBs knock out half a dozen tanks (including strafing immobilizations that bailed out when strafed again) - not halftracks without tops or unarmored trucks, but full tanks.

If typical air to ground sorties did as much in the real deal as they do in CM, CAS would have won the war singlehanded. The whole ground war would have been a side show. Think I am exaggerating? By 1944 the western allies flew several thousands sorties per day over Europe, which means on the order of 50k sorties per month. German KIA ran about 50k per month, all fronts combined.

The average ground attack flat missed. In CM this is rather rare.

I agree 100% about the leathality of CM CAS but in the P-38 attack note that they did manage to damage/destroy most of the companies vehicles/AT assets. That would have probably meant 2-3 per plane average, not out of line with many CM results. Perhaps the low # of personnel casualties was due to the fact that it seems most of the company were out of their vehicles waving at the planes :eek:

But as I said Jason, I think you're right, they do seem to be way to accurate. Of course who would pay several hundred points for an asset that could be (is?) such a double-edged sword. Any changes like that and the point cost would, in my opinion, need to be adjusted, perhaps drastically. I'm sure the commander of the tank destroyer units felt he wasted his points on 11 P-38s!

Greg </font>

[Hun Hunter]

Originally posted by Kevin Kinscherf:

The original intent of the thread was to question if designers should incorporate air power into scenarios. Looks like people dislike how airpower is executed in the game rather than

the random nature of the results. As someone said, once you start up CM you are in for random results. I think people want more control. For example, if my Tiger bogs I can at least blame it on me taking of the road into a damp field.

If the arty falls short, well I understand the turns are running out and I had to take the risk. How to provide control without making it unrealistic and gamey is open for debate. How about "phase lines" where CAS will only strike in "boxes" for a certain window of turns. Perhaps phase lines would only be available if the airpower is "regular" or better.

Kevin

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of control if more realism is the goal. Just a reduction of the target acquisition skills & leathality (along with a adjustment of point cost perhaps), along with misidentifcation fom ground units and allowing units to defend themselves would IMO be "good enough" (and could probably be done within the current engine). Now if you got to the point of simulating each country's system, with FACs in vehicles, ground designation of targets, etc then you could really highlight the differences and capabilities of all the different countries (same with arty). The one thing is that a relativly high rate of Blue on Blue incidents with CAS was apparently common in WW2 and ANY game system that allowed the player to avoid them totally could not even pretend to represent reality. Again, all in my opinion.

Greg

[Lt. Badger]

I'll leave to those much groggier than myself the debate over how much (if any) control the ground forces ought to have over CAS, and the realism of CM's portrayal of CAS.

My objection is the magnitude of CAS intervention as a random factor in the game. Maybe it =is= realistic, but realism in CM can be trumped by gameplay - as in the off-board artillery, which as I understand should be available in much greater quantity for the Allies in most situations, but has been toned down for a more balanced game.

Yeah, sure, there are random factors in the game as in (for example) whether or not a vehicle bogs down. First, the player can have some influence over this by where the vehicle is directed to move. Second, and more important as a gameplay issue, is the magnitude of the effect - unless there is a random factor to suddenly bog down half your vehicles in one go, this simply does not compare to the damage that can be done by a few bombs in the right/wrong place.

I'm not asking for CAS to be removed or even really changed in effect in any way - all I want is a switch to opt out of CAS when playing scenarios for my own enjoyment. Bottom line is that if I had been working hard to get my forces to capture an enemy position and the CAS bombed it and wiped out the enemy just before my big move, I would feel robbed of my victory just as much as if the bomb had killed my own forces. Either way it is a huge intrusion into the fight.

For those who portray this wish as "weak" - well, I think you're getting way over the line to tell me the right or wrong way to play this GAME for FUN. I'm not trying to ruin the way you play, I'm only asking for the option - and it seems that a number of veteran players have posted in this thread in agreement.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be editing my own versions of some of these fine scenarios, just to take out CAS - for my own enjoyment of the game. I'm sorry if that offends anyone - not!

Lt. Badger

[JasonC]

Well I tried it. I put 12 M3 GMC, 4 halftracks, and 5 jeeps in open desert. I gave the Germans one hiding FO to avoid autosurrender, and 11 Bf-109s strafing - the nearest thing to P-38s without bombs. It took a little longer than 3 minutes. The result was 17 vehicles destroyed - all the plain HTs, 2 of the jeeps, and all but one of the GMCs. The remaining GMC was gun damaged and broken. The causalties were 5 KIA and 22 WIA - surprisingly close to the historical figures. The main reason is overkill. They knock out the 'tracks easily, getting only 1-2 men in each. Then they strafe the dead ones about as often as the live ones.

[Speedy]

Try the same with P-38's and see if they attack.

[GreenAsJade]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Well I tried it. I put 12 M3 GMC, 4 halftracks, and 5 jeeps in open desert. I gave the Germans one hiding FO to avoid autosurrender, and 11 Bf-109s strafing - the nearest thing to P-38s without bombs. It took a little longer than 3 minutes. The result was 17 vehicles destroyed - all the plain HTs, 2 of the jeeps, and all but one of the GMCs. The remaining GMC was gun damaged and broken. The causalties were 5 KIA and 22 WIA - surprisingly close to the historical figures. The main reason is overkill. They knock out the 'tracks easily, getting only 1-2 men in each. Then they strafe the dead ones about as often as the live ones.

What's the conclusion, JC?

Isn't 11 planes vs around that many vehicles without defense pretty much a recipe for for death for all the vehicles... happened as expected?

What was the exp level of the pilots?

GaJ

[Los]

"I put 12 M3 GMC, 4 halftracks, and 5 jeeps in open desert. I gave the Germans one hiding FO to avoid autosurrender, and 11 Bf-109s strafing - the nearest thing to P-38s without bombs. It took a little longer than 3 minutes. The result was 17 vehicles destroyed"

Wow, it shows that a squadron of fighters with complete air superiority and no flak to worry about can shoot up a column of vehicles in three minutes. Sounds like a reasonable outcome to me.

Los

[Hun Hunter]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Well I tried it. I put 12 M3 GMC, 4 halftracks, and 5 jeeps in open desert. I gave the Germans one hiding FO to avoid autosurrender, and 11 Bf-109s strafing - the nearest thing to P-38s without bombs. It took a little longer than 3 minutes. The result was 17 vehicles destroyed - all the plain HTs, 2 of the jeeps, and all but one of the GMCs. The remaining GMC was gun damaged and broken. The causalties were 5 KIA and 22 WIA - surprisingly close to the historical figures. The main reason is overkill. They knock out the 'tracks easily, getting only 1-2 men in each. Then they strafe the dead ones about as often as the live ones.

That's interesting that the KIA/WIA were so close to the actual historical result. I too would be interested to see if a squadron of green P-38s in the same situation would pounce on all of the vehicles or just seek out the hidden FO

Greg

[JasonC]

Hun Hunter got the point - some apparently didn't. The point was that not many men were actually hit in the test, despite the (arguably, too) high effectiveness of CM CAS and the massive amount of air used. Because of overkill problems. So yes it is impressive that the outcome was similar - that an unrealistic number of men were not hit.

It seems to me real CAS was frequently less accurate than in CM, but also came in bigger quantities when in appeared. 2-4 was pretty much a minimum package, and 8-12 was quite common. Sometimes it was several times that (a whole group of P-47s - i.e. 36 planes - could be called in on a single StuG company, for example). In CM, 1-2 appear and do very high damage, more than we know an average air sortie actually managed to inflict.

Obviously if they missed more often the price would deserve to be lower. With both, perhaps you'd get strikes from more planes, but that each were less likely to do anything on any given pass.

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Los:

But put aside one of the "Fun-Chaos included" versions for me...

Since you are all for chaos, can we have a version where my side's AA guns can "accidentally" shoot friendly CAS down?

[SirReal]

Without having read all of the previous posts--

I find that in CM, CAS pilots suffer from lack of briefing. Realistically, CAS is allocated and not a random plane passing by. Thus, the pilot would know that the friendly ground forces are (for example) attacking the town. Therefore, look for troops and vehicles in and immediately around the town.

This isn't modeled in any way. So when the CAS pilot sees tanks and infantry advancing towards the town, they're unable to reason like a human (gee whiz, those looks like troops attacking the town, which would mean they're OUR troops), and just strafe what they see, because they see it.

/SirReal

[PeterX]

JasonC posted:

Friendly fire from the air is realistic. What isn't, is the high accuracy and damaging effect of typical CM air attacks.

Well, yes, if the FB always represents exactly (1) plane. IIRC, in previous CM versions it was understood that an 'FB' could stand in for anywhere from a single plane to a hornet's nest worth.

OT. It's curious how CM players seem increasingly divided into two camps; the Simulators, who revel in the randommess and chaos, and the Chess Masters who want everything nice, calm and predictable. One supposes the phenomenon of the (weird) mirrored forces/mirrored map scenario arose to gratify the latters' penchants.

[ December 22, 2003, 10:30 AM: Message edited by: PeterX ]

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by PeterX:

JasonC posted:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Friendly fire from the air is realistic. What isn't, is the high accuracy and damaging effect of typical CM air attacks.

Well, yes, if the FB always represents exactly (1) plane. IIRC, in previous CM versions an 'FB' could stand in for anywhere from a single plane to a hornet's nest worth.

OT. It's curious how CM players seem increasingly divided into two camps; the Simulators, who revel in the randonmess and chaos, and the Chess Masters who want everything nice, calm and predictable. One supposes the phenomenon of the (weird) mirrored forces/mirrored map scenario arose to gratify the latters' penchants. </font>

[PeterX]

You missed my point entirely. I think it's indisputable that certain players are not as comfortable with randommness or even the whiff of 'unfairness' as others. That's why,at certain ladder sites, you have the tug-of-war between those who, for example, insist on MEs in clear weather with regulars only and those who prefer pre-packaged scenarios. Different mentalities. There's nothing wrong with that- different strokes, etc, etc. You seem to be aguing with, not me, but BFC's rendition of CAS. I'm not a grog enough to vouchsafe for its versimiltude, but one assumes that its grounded in a seat-of-the-pants feeling for the era rather than hard data. It was never meant to be the centerpiece of the game.

[Los]

"Since you are all for chaos, can we have a version where my side's AA guns can "accidentally" shoot friendly CAS down?"

Who know's it could already be factored into the equation?

"So when the CAS pilot sees tanks and infantry advancing towards the town, they're unable to reason like a human (gee whiz, those looks like troops attacking the town, which would mean they're OUR troops), and just strafe what they see, because they see it."

We are giving way to much credit to most uncontrolled CAS pilot's ability to be be able to discern exactly what's happening on the ground in the middle of a battle. Again, this is also a function of experience level of CAS assigned. If you want accurate, error-free CAS, better include Crack or elite pilots. I you want "so-so" then go regular. What's not in CM is the carefully controlled CAS most of you are looking forward, with TAC-Ps or FACs or even ground-based controlled measures ("Start the purple!") You, like most ground commanders at the Bn or Company, have absolutely no control over this type of CAS. Even when those measure I mentioned above are present they are above Company or bn level control as there's not a lot of them to go around.

As someone stated before, the solution to this (other than a rewrite by CM which won't happen), is a function of scenario design. If you are going to design a scenario for say the start of the XXX-Corps offensive in Market Garden and you want to have Michael Caine bringing in CAS, then you are going to have to abstract this by providing an additional FO with artillery. (And make the vroom vroom airplane noises yourself)even having elite pilots won't put CAS where you think it's needed.

If you want to simulate a situation say at the start of the Crete invasion where the Luftwaffe was roaming around beating up everything that moved mostly interdicting enemy forces but sometimes getting their own, then you want CAS as it's defined in CM today. In fact I think the very term CAS as you have it in CM is a misnomer.

Los

[JonS]

Originally posted by SirReal:

I find that in CM, CAS pilots suffer from lack of briefing. Realistically, CAS is allocated and not a random plane passing by. ...

Sorry to burst your bubble, but a fair amount (at various times amounting to ~50% for the USAAF in NWE) of CAS was 'random planes passing by without briefing'.They called it "Armed Recce". I don't particularly like the CAS model in CM as it stands, but in some respects it is a realistic-ish rendition of some of the CAS-type missions that were flown. The problem (for me, and others I think) is that that's all there is.

In a previous post I suggested three-to-four distinct types of CAS missions which could be purchased in the editor, and which would give much better fidelity to the CAS model, IMHO It's toward the bottom of this page. Re-visiting it, I think that pre-planned and impromptu would probably amount to the same thing in CM terms, leaving just the three mission types.

Regards

JonS

[ December 22, 2003, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]