Research: Strategic Bombers & Partisans

[Edwin P.]

Reading through the developer notes I admire how the costs, unit limits and research options are designed to interact. With build limits on units the USA may find that although it cannot build more units it can strengthen those few units it does have with technology.

I like how the strike range of strategic bombers increases at 2 titles per long range tech level vs a 1 title increase for fighter aircraft. I wonder if they, strategic bombers, will be able to strike at cities even if the city has not been spotted? I say this because cities are always at a fixed location and can't move like fleets or combat units.

I wonder if enemy air units will have any effect on your air unit's ability to spot enemy land units if they are adjacent to an enemy air unit. - Essentially; Enemy units next to an Enemy Fighter air unit can't be spotted by friendly air units. Any thoughts?

That said, I still would like to see Partisan Development added to the list of research options. This would reflect the expenditure of resources to establish partisans in an occupied country. Essentially, each level (max 1 level) in partisan development would allow a nation to activate partisans in one conquered country. Now supporting partisan units in a country would be risky, aka research, as one could never be sure how long it would take to develop such an organization. It might take 1 month or it might take 2 years of hard work, all dependent upon how much resources (research chits) are allocated to the effort. This research area would also increase the importance of maintaining a minimal garrison in conquered countries, as you could never be sure if partisans will appear.

Example:

UK could select from: Norway, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Russia, UK

Germany could select from: Finland, Spain, Turkey, Iraq

[ February 26, 2005, 08:41 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Exel]

It'd be great to have air units protect nearby ground units from being spotted by enemy air units. The air cover should not however be 100% reliable, but instead depend on a number of factors such as the levels of protecting and spotting air units (pre-war fighters would not be very effective against jets), weather and of course a little bit of random chance. In any case it is an idea worth considering.

As for partisan techs I must say I'm inclined to disagree. Partisans weren't exactly something you prepared for before the war - at best you could do some preparations during the war when the situation looked bad. I don't think any nation had prepared to lose the war in their defence plans. Partisans were more or less spontanious and improvised organizations formed often without any central command structures. So my thoughts are that there should be a varying chance that partisans would occur in any occupied country, perhaps with predetermined country-specific percentages, ie. they are more probable to occur in USSR than France, but possible in both.

[Edwin P.]

True, many "Partisans were more or less spontanious and improvised organizations formed often without any central command structures." But the only effective partisan resistance operations such as those of Yugoslavia, China and Russia had a central command structure and received supplies and support from other governments.

Those partisan operations that were denied support by the allied withered away and died; witness the fate of the Monarchists in Yugoslavia.

The unpredictability of the research tech would mirror the difficulty of building truely effective partisan operations in a conquered nation or preparing for post surrender activities in your own nation (which was done by Communist Albania, Yugoslavia, Cuba and China).

[Retributar]

As far as spotting ground units---i went up once in a 4-seater aircraft... and i can tell you...i could INSTANTLY see behind every single tree---nothing can hide from an aircraft observer unless they are camophlaged into the area surroundings.

Nothing beats Areil-Reconnaissance.

[melb_will]

Not even Aerial?

[Exel]

Originally posted by Edwin P.:

True, many "Partisans were more or less spontanious and improvised organizations formed often without any central command structures." But the only effective partisan resistance operations such as those of Yugoslavia, China and Russia had a central command structure and received supplies and support from other governments.

Well the Russian partisans weren't at first organized or supported in any grand scale. Didn't the Soviet command despise the partisans because they weren't politically correct or whatever? I remember reading about partisan fighters who managed to join the regular army being sent to labour camps. That may have changed at some point when the Red Army command realized the severeness of the war situation, however. But I must say I'm no expert at that area of information, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I'd also like more information about the Soviet partisans if you'd care to tell.

Originally posted by Retributar:

As far as spotting ground units---i went up once in a 4-seater aircraft... and i can tell you...i could INSTANTLY see behind every single tree---nothing can hide from an aircraft observer unless they are camophlaged into the area surroundings.

What was your altitude and speed? War-time recon flights couldn't fly low and slow because of the threat of being shot down. Spotting from the air can be easy, but it gets increasingly harder when you go higher and faster. Plus the weather has a significant effect on eyeball spotting. There are also a number of other factors included: you can spot movement from a lot further away than you would a still target, how the targets use the terrain to hide and maneuver, are they camouflaged, etc.

[DalmatiaPartisan]

"Those partisan operations that were denied support by the allied withered away and died; witness the fate of the Monarchists in Yugoslavia."

Such a cruel mistake by Edwin P.!!

Royalists(Serbian Chetnics) were not in any case "partisan operations"- in the beggining of the war they were ordered to stay asside from the clash of partisans and axis troups, but very soon they became axis weapon(in the first fase of war there were contacts by partisans and chetnics to fight axis together-there was no significant partisans movement in Serbia as the serbian peasants were mainly royalists)

UK goverment was supporting serbian royalists and sending them supplies beside one contradictory fact-royalists didnt fight axis troups-they fight only against partisans.

Au contraire partisans movement didnt have any political and military support neither from UK neither from USSR till they became significant military power in the Balcans.

So the idea is to stay clearly historical - Yugo partisan movement should not be researched as it was sort of "random event" - on the other hand USSR should have an option to research partisans as they were highly dependent of USSR HQ.

[Edwin P.]

I will have to return to my history books, but as I recall the UK reduced aid to the Royalists as the royalists declined to attack German forces once they begain to punish innocent civilians, in contrast the communists, as I recalled continued to attack Axis forces, reagardless of the effects on the locals. As I recall this lead to a redirection of aid from the Royalists to the Partisan operations headed by Tito. I will check into this and let you know if I am correct or wrong.

So the idea is to stay clearly historical - Yugo partisan movement should not be researched as it was sort of "random event" - on the other hand USSR should have an option to research partisans as they were highly dependent of USSR HQ.

I agree, the Yugo partisan movement should not be researched, and note that I did not list in my list of countries for the reasearch tech. What I would like to see is some ability for opposing powers to support partisan operations in a limited number (perhaps only 1) of countriesc of their choosing. Naturally researching this tech should be expensive - perhaps costing 600MPP for 1 chit, and perhaps the investment level should be limited to 1 chit. So, if it works it will divert enemy resources to garrison duty but if it fails, it will be a waste of resources attributed to the enemy intercepting supply drops and using double agents to infiltrate the resistance.

[Edwin P.]

From Encarta: Armed resistance against Yugoslavia’s invaders and their collaborators began immediately. Colonel (later General) Draža Mihailović and other Serb officers and soldiers of the Royal Army who refused to surrender took to the forests and mountains and began harassing the German occupation troops. They called themselves Četniks, the name given to Serb guerrillas in Ottoman times. Josip Broz Tito, the Croat head of the Yugoslav Communist Party, organized a rival, pan-Yugoslav resistance group called the Partisans, which was in the field by June 1941. The two groups soon moved from sporadic cooperation to open conflict. The Četniks continued to be an almost exclusively Serb and poorly organized force. They were at best loosely controlled by Mihailović, who was made minister of defense by the royal government in exile in early 1942 and enjoyed British and American support until late 1943. The Partisans, with "death to fascism, freedom to the people" and the "brotherhood and unity" of all the Yugoslav ethnic groups as their principal slogans, recruited fighters and supporters from all of the Yugoslav ethnic groups.

From late 1941 to the end of the war in 1945 Yugoslavia suffered a devastating triple war. The first war was between the anti-Axis resistance movements and the Axis occupiers and their allies, including the Ustaše and the Slovene White Guards. The second conflict was between the Partisans and the Četniks, with the latter accepting first Italian and then German support against the Partisans. The third was among the Yugoslav peoples, especially Serbs, Croats, and Muslim Slavs on both sides of the other two wars. In the end, the Partisans were the victors, primarily because of their broad appeal, better organization and discipline, and greater persistence in fighting the Axis occupiers. In 1943 the Partisans won what would eventually become exclusive British and American recognition and military assistance as the most active anti-Axis fighters.

Četnik or Chetnik, member of a Serbian nationalist resistance organization that carried out guerrilla warfare during the German occupation of Yugoslavia in World War II (1939-1945). Led by Colonel (later General) Draža Mihailović, the Četniks initially received aid from the Allies, but this was later transferred to the Communist-dominated Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito, later president of Yugoslavia. </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

Legion of Merit awarded to General Mihailovic by President Truman with the following dedication:

Chief Commander

General Dragoljub Mihailovich distinguished himself in an outstanding manner as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslavian Army Forces and later as Minister of War by organizing and leading important resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia, from December 1941 to December 1944. Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General Mihailovich and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the allied cause, and were instrumental in obtaining a final Allied Victory.

March 29, 1948 HARRY S. TRUMAN</font>