el cid again -> RE: Mike, Eric - Why so much bad flying weather? (12/31/2005 6:35:06 PM)
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quote:
Why does the Game have so much bad flying weather over so much of the entire map so regularly when Advanced Weather Effects are turned "on"? Boy are we in a different universe!!! I want to know why there is so much good flying weather? Japan is socked in to the point bombers cannot see any target 85% of the time! The Aleutians in much of the year are shrouded by fog over 90% of the time (the summer excepted). Neither of these cases is clear in the game system. The situation over Japan was the reason we stopped strategic bombing. Going over to mine warfare, we cut the heart out of Japan's economy - mines were worse than submarines - and combined with submarines the US Strategic Bombing Survey (dominated by USAAF people) concluded it created a strategic situation for victory - one of only two factors created by US forces (another factor being the Soviet intervention). The OTHER factor was the decision to fire bomb. You did not have to see the target - just hit the general area and start lots of fires. Kill the people, and you kill the industry they serve. This was justified (although illegal in our own understanding of law) on the basis of many Japanese small shops. It also was more effective than in other parts of the world because of Japanese construction with wood and paper. The firebombing campaign killed more Japanese CIVILIANS in five months than the Japanese MILITARY lost in a decade of war (saying the war started in 1935 - one of the China incidents - count ALL military losses you get only 600,000 - but WE say 800,000 civilians died - it was really millions). Weather was the main reason the B-29 was a technical failure over Japan. Its great "successes" were A) the mine campaign, unpopular with senior USAAF generals, because it was not part of their theory of air warfare B) the fire bombing campaign, forbidden by JCS, and very controversial in a political and moral sense, nevertheless, it must be admitted the vast majority of Japanese cities were utterly destroyed by it - and IF you think that is warfare - it certainly had economic and strategic effects. All the effort to create "precision" bombers came to naught - due to weather. Norden bomb sights could not see their targets - the weather was too bad!
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