Fighter bombers

[ParaBellum]

God, those things are a pain in the ass. In a current 2500pts PBEM one of them has been strafing my troops for 7 (!) turns now. I can't shoot him down and he even targets infantry squads in treelines. Are those guys maybe a bit too...zealous? Point-wise a strafing fighter bomber seems a friggin' bargain compared to the amount of damage he does. I expected a strafing run or two, but this is insane.

[ParaBellum]

*sigh*

Another squad slaughtered by the fighter bomber of doom. While covering beneath the trees. He's been around for 11 turns now, making attacks almost every turn.

Can I has cheesb... Flakvierling please?

:eek:

[stikkypixie]

Your guys are not safe even in trees, if the FO calling in the air support has information where they are.

[ParaBellum]

Ah, Ok.

BTW just got attacked another time. Turn 12. Do these guys actually stop or will he continue to strafe me for the rest of the game?

[Flanker15]

They have limited bullets so he'll run out some time.

[ParaBellum]

Hope he runs out of ammo before I run out of men.

[Abrams]

Seems very historical ....

it DID suck to be a German soldier during daylight time with good weather with Jabos everywhere ....

he ordeal of the German Panzer-Lehr Division offers a good example of the fate awaiting German ground forces in Normandy. .... Air attack destroyed more than 200 vehicles on June 7 alone. Despite the rainy weather, which had threatened the Allies' landing on the beachhead, fighter-bombers continued to strike at the Panzer-Lehr Division, to the dismay of German soldiers who had hoped the worsening weather would offer some respite. This was just the beginning of an ordeal that would last throughout the French campaign; Panzer-Lehr was in for some more rough times in the near future.....

This division was by no means alone in its trials. The 2d SS Panzer Division Das Reich made its way from Toulouse to Normandy, .... Once the division crossed the Loire, it had a taste of real war; as Max Hastings relates,

. . . questing fighter bombers fell on them ceaselessly. The convoys of the

Das Reich

were compelled to abandon daylight movement after Saumur and Tours and crawl northwards through the blackout. . . . [During a change of command] an Allied fighter bomber section smashed into the column, firing rockets and cannon. Within minutes . . . sixteen trucks and half-tracks were in flames. . . . Again and again, as they inched forward through the closely set Norman countryside, the tankmen were compelled to leap from their vehicles and seek cover beneath the hulls as fighter bombers attacked. Their only respite came at night.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/AAF-H-DDay/index.html

[ParaBellum]

TacAir engaging troops travelling to the front is IMO quite different from TacAir actually strafing troops engaged in direct combat with friendly forces. Fighter bombers were indeed extremely effective in performing interdiction missions against reinforcements and logistics echelons but had a much more difficult time engaging the enemy in the middle of a ground engagement.

My problem is that right now there's nothing I can do to defend against them. There's no light flak available, MGs don't shoot at aircraft and the fighter bomber seems to linger very long over the battlefield conducting a large number of attacks.