RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (Full Version)

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ratprince -> RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 7:33:40 PM)

Can someone please explain how the RAF bomber command can actually hit something? I have tried an exhaustive pattern of altitude, targets, loads...etc.. They seem to always either miss completely or do maybe one percent..or so.. While the eighth airforce smashes the crap out of pretty much everything...

Some guidance please?



Jajusha -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 8:09:17 PM)

I have a similiar problem as Axis. My Night fighters can't find your Night Bombers (from RAF bomber)
Sometimes they find eachother, and do massive 0 casualty battles.

Have you tried switching them to day bombing Manpower with incend loadouts?



Smirfy -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 8:12:28 PM)

Where is range to target calculated form the HQ's or the actual runways?



ratprince -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 8:19:02 PM)

Umm..smirf, are you asking me? or asking about my plotting? Dunno...I presume it is from their air base as they dont land at the staging base.



Smirfy -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 8:23:04 PM)


Was hoping one of the Air Gurus could help I cant get my Strategic bombers to bomb any city.



ratprince -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 8:56:16 PM)

Any?

I dont have a problem with them bombing, they just suck.... The US 8th does a bang up job and wrecks pretty much everything it hits. But the RAF bombers literally miss 90 percent of the time.... bizarre.



Helpless -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 9:05:05 PM)

There were reports that night bombing is too accurate for the non-manpower targets.

In general, night bombing accuracy is greatly reduced above Oboe range in 1943. It improves once navigation (H2S) get into play.

As with blind bombing, it is always hard to comment without more intel (details) , i.e. saves, screenshots.



Smirfy -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 9:07:02 PM)


I was finding it hard just to get it to accept night missions. Just an aside does Oboe move forward when you land in France?



Helpless -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 9:10:54 PM)

quote:

Just an aside does Oboe move forward when you land in France?


No. By that time you should have good enough H2S air navigation in place.



marion61 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/9/2015 9:46:17 PM)

You have two other Air Forces that can conduct Strategic Recon over your targets most of the way to Hamburg, because if your only using 8th AF recon to check bomb damage, that isn't enough recon for night bombing. If you recon the hex some, you will see a huge shift in results. Sometimes they just miss, but so does the 8th, but recon checks your bomb damage, and helps with your hits.



Belphegor -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 12:02:17 AM)

bomber command surprised the heck out of me here... a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook for me.
edit: but is this the too high accuracy thing? or did I just get really lucky and find a crowded airbase.



[image]local://upfiles/11973/A9171B0CDD5B478CB0C560C1E44103EC.jpg[/image]



Fallschirmjager -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 12:06:37 AM)

Has anyone had any luck setting bomber command to bomb day targets and giving them 'easy' targets in France, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and Holland?

Do you miss a lot of vital VPs by ignoring city bombing? It had dubious historical value and I wonder if you could better use the massive bomber force to target troop concentrations, rail and road networks and industrial targets not in Germany itself.



Peltonx -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 12:47:11 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Belphegor

bomber command surprised the heck out of me here... a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook for me.
edit: but is this the too high accuracy thing? or did I just get really lucky and find a crowded airbase.



[image]local://upfiles/11973/A9171B0CDD5B478CB0C560C1E44103EC.jpg[/image]


Its so easy to spam bomb airfields still aka WitE.

This does need to be fixed at some point or LW will simply spam bomb from 1939 - 45 and never lose control of the air.

Carlkey was able to spam bomb airfields with 3 AA regiments so AA seems usless vs those attacks. They work defending industry, but attacks at low levels never get intercepted and AA cant hit it.

Cheese.

I hope we don't have to have house rules like WitE?



marion61 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 12:56:02 AM)

Bomber Command can be used in daylight, but normally I use them when the V-Weapon Launch sites come active. There's no reason not to use them in France and less defended places and not still get vp's. I wouldn't fly over the Reich in the daytime with them.



Carterjon -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 1:00:12 AM)

Sorry to be dumb, but what is spam bombing?



Baelfiin -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 1:09:04 AM)

13k at nite vs airfield? seems OP



marion61 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 1:15:08 AM)

I honestly think your air is better used vp wise sticking to the program and not just hunting down the other players air assets. If you waste your heavy bombers doing that your going to lose strategic bombing vps. I do use my tactical air to do fighter sweeps, and if they are with in strike range of tactical air and are a threat to my lines, I'm going to bomb that field till it doesn't operate. Hunting someone's air assets down, just to hunt them down would be just poor gamesmanship.



JocMeister -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 6:46:24 AM)

Highest MAN damage I´ve seen from Bomber command at night was 2% damage. So I stopped bombing by night and started doing day time raids. Losses have been manageable but I´m changing targets like crazy trying to keep my opponent guessing.



carlkay58 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 8:51:35 AM)

Presenting my side of 'spam bombing' airfields is this - doing so causes a lot of aircraft losses. I can lose over 100 aircraft in a turn with an air command doing Ground Attack vs an airbase. I may destroy (to my knowledge through FOW) maybe 50-60 aircraft doing so. I do not kill pilots. The Luftwaffe is able to replace aircraft fairly quickly (Pelton's LW is increasing 150-200 aircraft/turn) but they have a problem with pilots (at least trained ones). So the efficiency of the airbase attacks are questionable from the Allied point of view. The first turn the Allies can bomb the airbases down around Paris and pick up a lot of destroyed aircraft, but then the Axis player can pull them back out of range and danger. If you look at the report above the RAF Bomber Command is sending almost 200 bombers on each sortie. Those are bombers that are not hitting the Ruhr Valley targets which can generate VPs while destroying non-fighters and losing 20+ bombers. Overall pretty much of a wash in the Allies side of things.



loki100 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 9:48:04 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meklore61

I honestly think your air is better used vp wise sticking to the program and not just hunting down the other players air assets. If you waste your heavy bombers doing that your going to lose strategic bombing vps. I do use my tactical air to do fighter sweeps, and if they are with in strike range of tactical air and are a threat to my lines, I'm going to bomb that field till it doesn't operate. Hunting someone's air assets down, just to hunt them down would be just poor gamesmanship.


I'd tend to agree. I'm doing a campaign (first go) vs AI on challenging and the attached are the air vps I've managed. I'm sure a human opponent would have caused me more grief and made me mix up targets more, but this is based around;

a) Bomber Command into 2 groups, both with Manpower (high) and HI targets, one group tends to hit the Ruhr, one group tours Germany
b) US 8th Airforce again 2 groups, one has had a target priority of U-Boat and Fuel, the other of HI and Fuel, quite a lot of swapping targets and some big disasters till I got better at setting up escorts
c) Med, started out hitting Italian ports and train stations, from about T17 been hitting Ploesti (and seeing the impact on German fuel reserves) and from T19 southern Germany and Austria (HI and fuel, with some manpower), I think this is feeding into the increase in per turn VPs despite the recent bad weather

I'm sure a human opponent would make me pay more, not least there are no fighters at Ploesti so that is more or less a free hit every turn.

[image]local://upfiles/43256/AC2512BAF01B472F8B7F54C60D06D681.jpg[/image]

A lot of RAF raids yield nothing, even with air recon over the Ruhr on a regular basis, but it does slowly add up.



Helpless -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 10:30:39 AM)

quote:

bomber command surprised the heck out of me here... a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy outlook for me.
edit: but is this the too high accuracy thing? or did I just get really lucky and find a crowded airbase.


Looks like OBOE/Gee accuracy boost.



HMSWarspite -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 2:29:05 PM)

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...



Belphegor -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 2:59:56 PM)

I think the target of airbase attacks should be the airbases themselves. The aircraft on them are just a surprise barrier to the bomb hitting the runway. Destroy enough airbases you can interfere with shorter legged fighters getting into the area you want.

question: does airbase repair cost production? If so, airbase damage is still reducing total industrial potential spent on combat items.

Just to be clear; in the screenshot above I chose for the first time to use the AI generated AD and also chose ground support for my night strat bombers. I picked airbases and railyards as targets. This was the result.




Helpless -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 8:49:57 PM)

quote:

does airbase repair cost production?


It cost supplies.




Belphegor -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 8:58:45 PM)

So if you're trying to disrupt the German economy there may be a reason to wreck airbases beyond simply denying their use. Like anything else economic I don't think you'll have a war winner just by knocking them out but every little bit counts.


quote:

ORIGINAL: Helpless

quote:

does airbase repair cost production?


It cost supplies.






marion61 -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/10/2015 10:01:10 PM)

BOMBER COMMAND ON STEROIDS!!! Recon, recon some more, and when your done, RECON!

[image]local://upfiles/39603/3FB91DA037644D8DA06DA4F12E6E4FBC.jpg[/image]



HMSWarspite -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/11/2015 8:29:39 PM)

I have just had a blinder of a BC raid... 760 heavies just got +61% manpower result on Munich. Never seen anything like it. I guess I managed to create a firestorm.



Belphegor -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/25/2015 1:04:59 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mike mcmann

Can someone please explain how the RAF bomber command can actually hit something? I have tried an exhaustive pattern of altitude, targets, loads...etc.. They seem to always either miss completely or do maybe one percent..or so.. While the eighth airforce smashes the crap out of pretty much everything...

Some guidance please?



Recce 2 turns ahead of hitting the target. You have enough recce to take lots of photos for a couple days before (and more than one target)... results below.



[image]local://upfiles/11973/4E28E58D7B004578801F6075BF99D10A.jpg[/image]



NotOneStepBack -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/25/2015 2:44:45 AM)

I've been able to hit MAN just fine in my game with RAF bomber command. Switch to day bombing, have some planes carry BIG bombs and the rest incendiaries, and RECON.



ratprince -> RE: RAF Bomber command.....how to not suck..? (1/25/2015 2:54:21 AM)

Yeah, Ive had great success on total day bombing. They just suck at night missions. RAF does just fine in comparison to 8th as long as they are in day



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