Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell


At the end of the day I had lost 33 A/C ( 21 of them Bf109G-6) for another 73 Allied A/C and once again many Spitfire VBs ( 36 !! )

I'd forgotten how heavily the Spit Vb's got hammered in the early stages if you use them seriously. More annoying was the bug (or was it weather?) that made my B-17 raid attack the road junction rather than Foggia RR; I seem to remember this being a bug similar to that UFAC near Kiel which I could never bomb despite repeated missions to it.

Time for a rest turn and a chance to replenish those fighter losses while the weather clamps down. At the moment Supreme Allied Command is moving the preferred aircraft types to the preferred units. For example, the light A-20 bombload plus the abysmal bombing accuracy of the mediums means I prefer to allocate them to the 12th AF while the heavier bombload of the B-25 goes to the RAF medium bomber units (24 x 6 x 500lb making them fractionally more useful than 24 x 4 x 500lb in the A-20C). I've tried using Stirlings with their heavier bombloads to make the RAF tactical bomber units more effective before, but I can't remember if they made any difference. At the moment my main fighter problem is replacing the Spit Vb losses, which I normally do by converting the 12th AF Spit units to the P-38 while upgrading the RAF Spit Vbs to the IX. I also convert a couple of MAC Spit Vb squadrons to the P-40 for their higher bombload as fighter-bombers when the flow of P-38's is sufficient to re-equip the 317-319 FS.

just in case, the Meds had some trouble in the old game, and it was something to do with the FBs, get the FB to fight back and the Meds couldn't hit the side of a barn, let the FBs get clobbered and the Meds could hit, we got that screwed away, and the Meds can now hit and the FBs can now fight back, the early A-20s should be a nice plane, as it is fast, and HARD for the LW to catch (heck, HARD for the Allies to escourt too)(the Boston III has a small bombload, but once the IIIA is out and the Havoc, they are going to be nasty light bombers)


Tactically, I'm prepared to do some deep-penetration unescorted raids when the weather is right, but until then short-distance tactical raids to the Bay of Naples and occupied territories are the order of the day. BC is just going to tick over generating terror damage (although with the prospect of some SB score by targetting the larger Axis RR sites) while 5 Group will do some (attempted) precision bombing in the near future.

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell

Werner just reminded me about houserules. It might be worth posting them for reference, so here they are. As I remember them, the rules we play under are:

Allies:

1. No Andrei raids/bombing cheating (maximum alt, daylight/night attacks - apologies to Andrei who first posted on that and had his name associated with it, not that he was a cheat). Maximum bombing altitude of 25,000 feet to keep things in range of HAA.

2. No escorted recon. I would do that with fighter-recce a/c like the Spit FR XIV or F-6 on tactical targets if it was alowed, though.

3. NI's limited to four active over any airfield at any one time (I stagger mine as lone sorties at 20-30 minute intervals to ensure a good overlap coverage on active NJG airfields) at a maximum altitude of 12,000 feet to expose them to airfield flak (I don't think Werner's bothered about that, but it seems fair to me). I've actually killed 30 from an individual NJG Gruppe on one night when playing against the AI with no limit before, so I think some limit is needed.

4. No wild evasion of mandatory targeting. I am reasonable about UFAC and UPEN targeting as well as AVALANCHE and OVERLORD, but I tend to do about a third of the demanded VSITE targeting once I've done substantive damage to all visible VSITES.

5. Basic historical usage of aircraft (no B-17's in 9th AF as extra strategic bombers, etc). This is more for me than Werner, and it hits the Axis more in any case.

6. I also don't deliberately plot recce a/c along with raids on the same track to divert Axis interceptors. If the AI does it during auto-plotting, at least I'm innocent.

Axis -

1. Flak limits (Size x 10) limit to number of AA guns on any site. I prefer a strict limit to HAA as well, as it really destroys bombing accuracy and causes too many losses (as opposed to damaged a/c), but I can't remember if Werner agreed to it or not in our last game. Normally I stick to a maximum of 50 HAA on large sites (size 10 plus) and 25 on smaller ones. Werner can correct me on this for whatever he's doing in this game.

2. Historical usage of aircraft - R&D limited until an aircraft appears in production, to avoid the early appearance of jets.

3. No attacking bombers returning over the continent after making the Allied-held coast. No bomber crew in their right minds would have done that in RL.

That's all I can remember that I use, Werner can correct me and fill in any others, even if they aren't in use during our game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: swift

quote:

ORIGINAL: fochinell

Werner just reminded me about houserules. It might be worth posting them for reference, so here they are. As I remember them, the rules we play under are:

Allies:

1. No Andrei raids/bombing cheating (maximum alt, daylight/night attacks - apologies to Andrei who first posted on that and had his name associated with it, not that he was a cheat). Maximum bombing altitude of 25,000 feet to keep things in range of HAA.

2. No escorted recon. I would do that with fighter-recce a/c like the Spit FR XIV or F-6 on tactical targets if it was alowed, though.

3. NI's limited to four active over any airfield at any one time (I stagger mine as lone sorties at 20-30 minute intervals to ensure a good overlap coverage on active NJG airfields) at a maximum altitude of 12,000 feet to expose them to airfield flak (I don't think Werner's bothered about that, but it seems fair to me). I've actually killed 30 from an individual NJG Gruppe on one night when playing against the AI with no limit before, so I think some limit is needed.

4. No wild evasion of mandatory targeting. I am reasonable about UFAC and UPEN targeting as well as AVALANCHE and OVERLORD, but I tend to do about a third of the demanded VSITE targeting once I've done substantive damage to all visible VSITES.

5. Basic historical usage of aircraft (no B-17's in 9th AF as extra strategic bombers, etc). This is more for me than Werner, and it hits the Axis more in any case.

6. I also don't deliberately plot recce a/c along with raids on the same track to divert Axis interceptors. If the AI does it during auto-plotting, at least I'm innocent.

Axis -

1. Flak limits (Size x 10) limit to number of AA guns on any site. I prefer a strict limit to HAA as well, as it really destroys bombing accuracy and causes too many losses (as opposed to damaged a/c), but I can't remember if Werner agreed to it or not in our last game. Normally I stick to a maximum of 50 HAA on large sites (size 10 plus) and 25 on smaller ones. Werner can correct me on this for whatever he's doing in this game.

2. Historical usage of aircraft - R&D limited until an aircraft appears in production, to avoid the early appearance of jets.

3. No attacking bombers returning over the continent after making the Allied-held coast. No bomber crew in their right minds would have done that in RL.

That's all I can remember that I use, Werner can correct me and fill in any others, even if they aren't in use during our game.

Allied 4:
mandatory Avalanche includes not only the area given by the game - we go around it and there is also Southern France, Dalmatia, parts of Croatia, Albania and Greece included. Mandatory is not only the targets given by the game - in our houserules it includes all targets in the given area
( info for non/or not yet btr gamers: mandatory in the original only includes tactical targets like troops, RR, A/F, Radar, ports and Vsites )

Allied 6 + Axis: Axis will not concewntrate in recce killing, because it was not historically done and it is too easy to kill recce in the game!!

well, it will be a little HARDer to kill them off now, of course, the trick is to catch them, if you can catch them you can kill them, but they are HARDer to catch, (was reading some stories of the war, one was talking about a mission his unit had, to escourt a Recon 38 with there P-51 Ds, they met up flew to the target, the recon bird took the snaps and made his turn, they seen the pilot looking at them, wag his wings, and poured the coals to the fire and left them behind)

plus, we got the bug that had the AI drag intercepting units to the Recon mission


Axis 1: size +1 x10 => size 1 can have up to 20 AA added
AA will not be overused by the Axis
RR-Flak units do not count ( moveable railroad flak units - there are 2 original versions - light and heavy; the OBOA we use has also a third one JAVA with additional radar )