Ground Attack Directives vs Supply Depots

[Mehring]

I don't know if this is something to do with depots being both strategic and tactical targets but two turns in a row, multiple ground attack directives vs depots haven't flown. None of them, this turn multiple mission days in all three directives. All other directives fly normally. Clear weather, active white mission tabs before execution, no major supply inadequacies or over commitment of assets. Server game Mehring v SSturm.

Game is open now, should I quit with or without saving or can someone please take a look while the game is open on my PC?

[Joel Billings]

I looked at your most recent save, turn 63 in the air planning phase. I can't really explain it, as I was able to get them to bomb Saratov's railyard, but not any of the size 1 railyards nearby. I noticed that recon is showing 100% damage for the back 2 railyards, but Engels which is also a size 1 is not showing as damaged. Since the back railyards are showing damaged 100%, you must have bombed them at some point, right? I can see where it might not want to bomb the 100% damaged railyards, but why it won't bomb Engels is a mystery to me. If you've never been able to bomb a level 1 railyard? I was able to do a bomb city railyard attack against Engels, but not against the others that are damaged. I can't really explain this, unless ground attack missions won't go after level 1 railyards (but bomb city missions will), and all missions won't go after 100% damaged railyards. I got your saves so you can go on.

I actually thought I'd responded to your post 1 or 2 days ago, but just noticed that I had gotten a message that the post didn't go through. Luckily it still showed my response on my computer but I didn't notice it until just now. Sorry for the delay.

[Beethoven1]

For strategic bombing in general, you have to run strategic recon air missions in order to get the intelligence estimate of damage to update. Otherwise your intelligence estimate will tend to stay at 100% damaged forever, and so then it will never run bombing missions because it assumes that everything is 100% damaged.

The same applies for things like bombing factories, railyards, ports, etc.

Also, the intelligence estimates tend to WILDLY overestimate the actual damage. So often to the player who is bombing it may appear that they are doing significant damage, but in reality it is negligible. .... Which actually sounds somewhat realistic for WW2 strategic bombing

[Mehring]

Since the back railyards are showing damaged 100%, you must have bombed them at some point, right?

Until that point I had only done tactical railyard recon and ground attack bombing attempts. The tactical recon only reveals supply distribution but not damage, and none of the ground attack ADs flew, hence my post. All damage, estimated or otherwise, was due to other causes, see Beethoven's post for possible explanation.

After that turn I switched all AD's to strategic recon/bomb city and all AD's worked. I also found that after Saratov was treated to strategic recon, I was able to use Stukas on it through ground attack AD (you can't use Stukas on bomb city AD's), so strategic recon facilitates ground attack too, in this case.

I'm not sure any of this is covered in the manual.

[Joel Billings]

Thanks for the info. I'll put a reference to this post in the living manual section so when it's being worked on again, this information can be added to the living manual.