Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

With the release of the 1.02.01 version I wanted to let you know where things stand with some of the various issues that have recently been brought up with the air game.

Issue 6 – It is very difficult to auto-intercept enemy ground attack air directives, especially against units that are in the front line.
This is WAD, although it may be harder to intercept than it should be. The system must detect the enemy air mission early enough in order to scramble fighters so they can reach the bombers before they get in and get out. When we put out the Torch expansion to WitW, we made these intercepts harder as we thought earlier in the war radar and air defenses were not as effective as they were later (also infrastructure was not as developed in North Africa as in Europe). This carried over to WitE2. The system involves airbases attempting to detect the enemy mission, with the larger airfields being better at detection. In cases where the defending airfields are far from the targets, and the airfields are lower level, it can be very hard or impossible to conduct an auto-intercept. In theory, air superiority missions can be used in these cases to try to cover specific areas. With the recent fixes for AS, this should hopefully work. We are not sure if the detection level system needs a complete overhaul to account for routine fighter flights over the front lines that might be standard and effectively built into the ground support rules, but not accounted for in the air execution phase. This is an issue that is subject to discussion, feedback, and saves so we can see what’s actually going on.


So recapping, we think we fixed 3 issues in 1.02.01, and have fixes for 2 more of the issues in the next version that will go out. That leaves one issue requiring more info. We’re interested in continued feedback as players try out these changes. Thanks to all that have contributed to the discussions to date.

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From my experience and just testing myself as the Soviets on T1, launching GA on frontline axis units sometimes leads to an interception, but after that one interception, most of the time unless the area has been concentrated with axis fighters (which becomes very difficult for the axis to do as they get spread out over the Soviet Union) there are no more interceptions. This is a problem as if the Soviet fighter escort is large enough, the first interception will still leave majority of the bombers untouched. As a result on subsequent days of the air phase, the unit that is getting GA'd gets heavily weakened, making defeating the unit much easier. What I propose is that for more subsequent Ground Attacks in an area, the increased likelihood of fighter interception to reflect that the air forces are more alert for ground attacks in that particular area. I don't want to punish the Soviets for having managed to defeat the LW in a particular part of the front as they should be rewarded with the capability of dealing heavy damage to enemy ground troops but its odd that there is usually only one interception against one GA mission during the entire air phase.

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ORIGINAL: Markko

So, yes, it would be hard to intercept a single, out-of-the-blue airstrike over a front-line hex. But, this game is simulating a week's worth of battles. Thus, if one instead imagines a front-line hex of importance to the command that is having constant enemy ground support missions on call to the enemy ground commanders .... one would have to assume that your ground commanders are heating up the radios calling for fighters to come and stop the bombing.

In the west, the I've heard a term like 'taxi-rank' with regard to ground support. Ie, the allied fighter-bombers were just circling overhead waiting for a call for ground support. This would seem to be a bit different from the quick in-and-out raid discussed above. I realize that was the western front, and thus different. But still, ground support seems to imply some planes on some sort of stand-by ready to respond to calls from the battlefield? Especially when there are longer-range planes from more-distant bases? If you call for a strike on an artillery position that is pounding you, being told that the planes are now taking off from their base and that they'll be there 2 hours from now doesn't do you a lot of good.

Ground support attacks are related to the intensity of the ground battle, and thus can be predicted by a ground commander, especially one who has the initiative and is launching attacks. Its a pretty fair guess that the defending commander is going to call for his ground support after you launch your next attack. It would seem possible that the ground commanders could clue in the air commanders as to the time of the expected ground battle?

It would appear that ground attack and ground support are two different cases. Perhaps the ground attack mission on a front-line hex is a quick in-and-out attack that hits before the target can call for defending fighters. But ground support is an ongoing activity during 7 days of ground battle. Ground support should be difficult unless one has control of the air on a regular basis. Perhaps the only time it should not be intercepted would be when under a friendly Air Superiority zone that is providing such air control?

Ground support could perhaps be easy to intercept, as it is easy to predict when and where it will be. But what keeps the enemy from doing this is your own fighters controlling the air over the battlefield ... either by AS mission or perhaps by just by having 60 fighters only 20 km away who aren't doing anything else.

And on ground attack missions, there does seem to be a difference between a single, more unpredictable raid on a target, and a sustained, multi-raid bombing campaign over several days, or several weeks. At some point, one would have to expect to find more enemy fighters waiting for you.

Beta Tester for:
Flashpoint Campaigns: Sudden Storm
War in the East 1 & 2
WarPlan & WarPlan Pacific
Valor & Victory
DG CWIE 2
SPWW2 & SPMBT scenario creator

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ORIGINAL: Jango32

In my experience disruption caused by ground attack directives is very powerful and very useful to do to melt a unit's CV rating. So I don't think there is an issue 7 to consider.

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

That's because the code resolves what happens to the aircraft when it returns to land. Some of the aircraft damaged by flak would be lost enroute home, some would crash on the runway. The code doesn't know which is which, but generally I think if it's been damaged by flak or in air to air combat it generally gets counted as one of those instead of an op loss. The weather during the Op typhoon scenario is generally bad, and if so that increases the losses. My sense in general is that our sortie counts are low, but our losses per sortie are high. In a way it averages out, but I'd like to see more results from longer games played. Thanks for the feedback.

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ORIGINAL: jubjub

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

That's because the code resolves what happens to the aircraft when it returns to land. Some of the aircraft damaged by flak would be lost enroute home, some would crash on the runway. The code doesn't know which is which, but generally I think if it's been damaged by flak or in air to air combat it generally gets counted as one of those instead of an op loss. The weather during the Op typhoon scenario is generally bad, and if so that increases the losses. My sense in general is that our sortie counts are low, but our losses per sortie are high. In a way it averages out, but I'd like to see more results from longer games played. Thanks for the feedback.

The overall losses average out, but the impact of the air war is substantially reduced due to fewer sorties.

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

That's because the code resolves what happens to the aircraft when it returns to land. Some of the aircraft damaged by flak would be lost enroute home, some would crash on the runway. The code doesn't know which is which, but generally I think if it's been damaged by flak or in air to air combat it generally gets counted as one of those instead of an op loss. The weather during the Op typhoon scenario is generally bad, and if so that increases the losses. My sense in general is that our sortie counts are low, but our losses per sortie are high. In a way it averages out, but I'd like to see more results from longer games played. Thanks for the feedback.

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ORIGINAL: AngularMan

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ORIGINAL: jubjub

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

That's because the code resolves what happens to the aircraft when it returns to land. Some of the aircraft damaged by flak would be lost enroute home, some would crash on the runway. The code doesn't know which is which, but generally I think if it's been damaged by flak or in air to air combat it generally gets counted as one of those instead of an op loss. The weather during the Op typhoon scenario is generally bad, and if so that increases the losses. My sense in general is that our sortie counts are low, but our losses per sortie are high. In a way it averages out, but I'd like to see more results from longer games played. Thanks for the feedback.

The overall losses average out, but the impact of the air war is substantially reduced due to fewer sorties.

I find it kind of ridiculous how ineffective level bombers are. Ju88 production alone, for example, consumes half of the armament points produced by the Axis in 1941, yet their impact on the battle field (and in the theater boxes) is marginal at best (yes I know, the production system is only a peripheral part of the game). I am pretty sure quite a lot of players just leave them in the reserves or theater boxes so that they do not suck up valuable supplies intended for the front line units. Or maybe I just haven't found their role.

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ORIGINAL: jubjub

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ORIGINAL: AngularMan

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ORIGINAL: jubjub

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ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

That's because the code resolves what happens to the aircraft when it returns to land. Some of the aircraft damaged by flak would be lost enroute home, some would crash on the runway. The code doesn't know which is which, but generally I think if it's been damaged by flak or in air to air combat it generally gets counted as one of those instead of an op loss. The weather during the Op typhoon scenario is generally bad, and if so that increases the losses. My sense in general is that our sortie counts are low, but our losses per sortie are high. In a way it averages out, but I'd like to see more results from longer games played. Thanks for the feedback.

The overall losses average out, but the impact of the air war is substantially reduced due to fewer sorties.

I find it kind of ridiculous how ineffective level bombers are. Ju88 production alone, for example, consumes half of the armament points produced by the Axis in 1941, yet their impact on the battle field (and in the theater boxes) is marginal at best (yes I know, the production system is only a peripheral part of the game). I am pretty sure quite a lot of players just leave them in the reserves or theater boxes so that they do not suck up valuable supplies intended for the front line units. Or maybe I just haven't found their role.

They were very good in the ground attack - unit role until they decided to nerf it. You can get up to 4,000 disrupted with a sortie of 200 JU-88's. The key is to fly at 22,000 feet so 37 mm AAA can't hit and disrupt the bombing runs.

With the current state of things, I'm strongly considering moving all the German level bombers to the reserves. I may have to study a bit more about how much freight they consume per sortie to see if it's still worth it.

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Here's some examples of German bombers being good. Unfortunately, level bombers will miss ground attack about half the time now, so you have to halve the effectiveness. I will reiterate, this was the worst possible way to nerf ground attack, and it hurts the German air game much more than the Soviets.