Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

yes, with a few extra bits.

Correct about manpower, indeed for what I call VP bombing (ie manpower + HI) the classic British payload is ideal.

For industrial bombing, usually fewer but heavier is better (esp for U-Boats where the Lancaster's with the ultra-heavy bombs are very useful)

Naval - yep

If I go for fuel I revert to HE only. The British payload was designed for its target (they actually built terraces to German pre war standards to work out what burnt well). The idea is a small bomb blew open the roof and then the incediaries got into the attic space, from there the fire spread (this was researched in meticulous, quite horrible, detail by the RAF). They are not a sort of early napalm.

For unit bombing, it becomes a bit complex. Interdiction is best done with rockets and/or lots of small bombs. Unit and GS missions are best with 500lb bombs but there are times when you want 1000lb. All this is hard to test so its a bit by feel, but its worth looking at the blast radius and attack values. In effect a unit dug into hilly terrain needs a big bomb to really disrupt them.

The whole issue here is you want disrupted elements, those in turn don't fight in any subsequent ground combat. Outright kills are secondary.

So the trade off between volume and size is situational. If I am hitting U-boats or tank production I go for few/heavy, if I am running interdiction I'll rely on many/light. 500lb bombs are pretty good for rail yards.

Towards the end of the game, you start to get some odd load outs. The P-47s and I think the P-51s get a napalm option. This appears underwhelming in terms of losses but it disrupts a lot. Equally the US rocket/bomb combination is ideal.

Its all a bit feng shui to be honest but have a look at the 2 AARs of swapped games between myself and Glorious Ruse. By the second game the allies had got tactical bombing to a level where it could dismantle anything. In return I bombed 2 US armoured divisions into oblivion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I hardly ever disagree with Loki but after hearing people go on about rockets against ground units I tested different loadouts. I ran each loadout five times on a Ground Attack/Unit AD against a German stack with fog of war turned off so I could see accurate results. 1000lb bombs produced more destroyed men, guns, and AFV's than did 500lb bombs or rockets.

Cary

quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I hardly ever disagree with Loki but after hearing people go on about rockets against ground units I tested different loadouts. I ran each loadout five times on a Ground Attack/Unit AD against a German stack with fog of war turned off so I could see accurate results. 1000lb bombs produced more destroyed men, guns, and AFV's than did 500lb bombs or rockets.

Now sample size of five certainly isn't definitive (and it was bloody boring) and it's also possible that the generic datasets were subsequently edited and would affect my results, but I have been using 1000lb bombs against every target ever since (I never target Axis Manpower for more ethical reasons and because I'd rather bomb the crap out of their fuel, FW-190, and BF-109 factories).

Cary

quote:

ORIGINAL: The_Serious_Strategy_Gamer


...

Interesting information. Did you also track the "disrupted" elements?

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100
You have to go through the detailed combat results - look for the damage tab. Now even then its a bit misleading as elements can be disrupted more than once (and to no extra effect) but you'll get a feel for how much you've taken out of their combat elements (so here support squads etc are not really of that much interest).

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100
Given how much Cary knows about the game, you can trust his views