HMSWarspite
Posts: 1401
Joined: 4/13/2002 From: Bristol, UK Status: offline
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Interesting thread here. I have no problem with BC intercepts or losses. Highly variable, and hence tricky to form an opinion as to whether the numbers are right, but I have not seen them too wrong yet. In RL (and I hope the game) BC should not be capable of being another 8AF in Daylight. They were not trained for and didn't have the defensive armament for close formation attacks through opposing fighters, and could not fly as high so should be truly massacred if you don't have total and absolute air supremacy for them (either local or strategic). Even when they could have flown by day they often flew by night: marking was optimised for dark, and with H2S or Oboe, late war they were pretty much as likely to get concentration in the dark as in daylight. When they did fly in Daylight, they used night techniques - flying a stream rather than formations, marking etc. Also, how much damage to Manpower do people think you should be able to do. Industry represents discrete plants in or near a city. There is probably a rough idea in a Dev, or scenario designer's head as to how big a 'size 1 HI plant' is. <1 acre? 5 Acres? Similarly a size 40, which is probably 50+ acres or something. Thus it is possible to cover the target with bombs on one raid and do large % of damage. If you logically analyse Manpower, it is the ability of a city (and surrounding area) to produce men of military age and fitness in each week. Thus is something like a fixed fraction of the local population. The birth rate doesn't matter (the people we are talking about were born in the late 1920's or earlier). Pure civilian casualties count (killing the guy who would have got his call up papers tomorrow obviously limits choices as to branch of service - Even the Nazis didn't have zombie troops). However there is also the 'non-modeled' aspects. Causing the sewers to fail, or food distribution to break down will cause a diversion of manpower to those essential services, and not all of those can be covered by unfit/over-aged/female alternatives. Thus I think it is quite difficult to get you head round what 1% of manpower damage is, when you look at how to cause it. The reason why I ramble on like this is I am not sure I would want to be able to routinely do 40% Manpower damage by bombing. Also I hope FoW on Manpower is high so we struggle to know what we are doing. Anyway, I count BC as doing well if I get any MP loss in an AD. Also, don't use them in Daylight in soft areas. Use them at night to hit those irritating hard to reach Uboat factories (e.g. Danzig) or V weapons. Also I aim for HI and MP jointly... Seems to be working for me. If they do any good in Daylight in 1943 I would appeal for them to be nerfed as it just is not realistic... even with half of Fighter Command escorting them... they should make Schweinfurt look like a small playground scuffle in reality...
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I have a cunning plan, My Lord
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