Why is bombardment so weak?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

I have yet to try any pure air bombardments, other than airfield attacks, which BTW seem pretty effective.

Airfield attacks are sucky- but historically they were mostly only used in situations of extreme air disparity, or at the beginning of a campaign when one air force was caught unawares (which would be modelled by a brief air shock penalty)

[Uncle_Joe]

Try air attacks in support of a ground assault- like in the situation you describe. Works fabulously.

Unfortunately, no they dont. I've just been doing some 'clinical' more in-depth testing and even when supporting a local ground attack, they are painfully ineffective and still suffer horrendous casualties.


Here is a very quick test scenario. I had to change the .zip extention to .txt to upload it so switch it back to .zip and then unzip it into your scenarios.

There are 2 units of a 1000 T55s opposed by 2 units of 500 M48s. Play hotseat, go to the 2nd player turn and launch an attack by one your M48s against an opposing T55 unit. You'll get mauled.

Now take the other unit of M48s and attack the remaining unit of T55s. Add in the 5 units of 100 A10s (500 total aircraft!). Now look at the results. Most likely, the M48s will still be wrecked (fine), but the A10s will lose around 100 and the total kills will probably be around 50 more than the first battle.

MEANING...that 500 A10s will tend to kill maybe 50 obsolete tanks while losing practically twice their number. That is complete nonsense however you wish to spin it. Note that there are no outside factors of air, or terrain or anything of the sort.

Also look at the readiness at the end...the A10s will have suffered greater readiness losses than the unit they attacked! And this is with no AA unit, no Fighter cover....nothing..just A10s and M48s vs T55s.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

Unfortunately, no they dont. I've just been doing some 'clinical' more in-depth testing and even when supporting a local ground attack, they are painfully ineffective and still suffer horrendous casualties.

Well, see JAMiAM's remark for the horrendous casualties.

My experience of airpower is from COW, not TOAW III, so I've seen it work well enough for six years when AA was much weaker.

[Uncle_Joe]

Surely one factor with air attacks is that enemy Air Superiority aircraft are causing most of your plane losses? To my mind it would help here if the combat dialog reported how many planes were lost in air-air and how many from ground fire.

No, not in my recent tests. There are no enemy air units, no enemy LR AA...no nothing....just A10s and T55s.

[Uncle_Joe]

Lessee 4% * 60 = 2.4 hits. Of course, your Marauders and Mosquitoes probably don't have rockets so their to hit chance would be less. Then there's the fact they'd be under fire, unlike in the test...

Yeah, sounds about right. TOAW's great.

Look, no offense, but the blind faith and blind praise are a little silly. Using ONE study that was conducted during WW2 using weapons that were being pioneered at the time and pronouncing that the realistic norm is assinine.

I'm happy that you think that the system is flawless as it is. Enjoy it. But unfortunately, I think most would agree that the current air/bombardment system is missing something. Perhaps it is simply the over-effective AA. I dont know without access to all the nuts and bolts. But something SOMEWHERE is screwed up. If you want to accept that as the norm, that is your prerogative.

[Chuck2]

Note that the A-10 only has an anti-tank value of 7. Compare to 89 for the Apache. When the TOAW 3 Bio-editor comes along you can give the A-10 a higher AT value in your scenario.

[Uncle_Joe]

A10s were just an example. I've seen similar (negligible) results from F-111s, SU-24s/SU-25s, F-15Es, etc etc etc. Regardless of the aircraft, the results are the same...very little loss inflicted.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

Look, no offense, but the blind faith and blind praise are a little silly. Using ONE study that was conducted during WW2 using weapons that were being pioneered at the time and pronouncing that the realistic norm is assinine.

It's not blind faith. I've been playing the game quite a long time and find the impact of airpower in COW quite satisfactory. That this has been over-egged in TOAW III is really not very important, since Matrix is aware of the problem and it will be the first thing patched (see various remarks from Ralph and JAMiAM). The examples of the test in question (which would apply to pretty much all use of such AT rockets up until the advent of guided missiles) backs this up- as does the record in other conflicts, such as Kosovo.

I think there's a genuine real-world tendency to overrate airpower's ability to achieve things on its own.

I'm happy that you think that the system is flawless as it is.

I don't think the system is flawless. I think this part of the system is pretty good.

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

A10s were just an example. I've seen similar (negligible) results from F-111s, SU-24s/SU-25s, F-15Es, etc etc etc. Regardless of the aircraft, the results are the same...very little loss inflicted.

I've been testing 100 A-10s directly attacking 100 T-72s with the tone downed AA. These results are unscientific, but losses for the T-72s are around 15% while for the A-10 they are around 2%. Seems pretty good. Try testing that with your version and see how much the stronger AA makes a difference.

[Uncle_Joe]

How are you testing with the weaker AA? Is there another beta build out there somewhere?

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

How are you testing with the weaker AA? Is there another beta build out there somewhere?

Yeah, I'm involved with TOAD Studios. I can post scientific results if you want of this test. Then you can compare it to your test results.

[Uncle_Joe]

That this has been over-egged in TOAW III is really not very important, since Matrix is aware of the problem and it will be the first thing patched (see various remarks from Ralph and JAMiAM).

And how were they made aware of it? Probably by individuals posting and questioning the results. You appear to be happy with it the way it is and there is clearly a bug or something else affecting the results. So are you going to complain that it is too effective if/when that bug is fixed? It cant be fine now and fine when it is more effective....[8|]

I think there's a genuine real-world tendency to overrate airpower's ability to achieve things on its own.

I would agree. I'm not looking for Tom Clancy style slaughter-fests. But the current results leave little room for why airpower was ever developed as a weapon. They trade horribly with land units. Until that bug IS fixed, I consider it a severe flaw in the system and one that obviously made it this far through testing.

Also note that even in 'close support', the results were pathetic. So its not just airpower on its own, its in its dedicated role and it is STILL ineffective.

I don't think the system is flawless. I think this part of the system is pretty good.

So then as I said above, be prepared to be unhappy if/when its fixed...

[Uncle_Joe]

Yeah, I'm involved with TOAD Studios. I can post scientific results if you want of this test. Then you can compare it to your test results.

Please do. In fact, if you have the test scen you are running (and it works on the older version), please post it up and I'll run it with your parameters and give you the results for comparison.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

And how were they made aware of it? Probably by individuals posting and questioning the results. You appear to be happy with it the way it is and there is clearly a bug or something else affecting the results. So are you going to complain that it is too effective if/when that bug is fixed? It cant be fine now and fine when it is more effective....[8|]

I'm playing COW (because I supposedly have a copy of TOAW III coming in the post at some point). Since those responsible for patches had already indicated they were going to reduce the effectiveness of AA before you started the thread, I take the way things work in COW to be a close approximation to how things will work in TOAW III when it's patched.

[alaric318]

only two side notes to say about aircraft, a-20 havoc aircraft in a WW2 scenario, with some modding works very well, even with powerfull Anti-Air units, i had in my testing some combat results that i must say displeased me, but the other way than this topic, sometimes, some combats, with engaged ground units only give ground casualties for the side with lesser air support involved, and very very high casualties in exchange of a bunch of aircraft, i think is a hard work to set aircraft to be effective as pure aircraft bombardment and avoid to make this aircraft very much powerfull for ground support missions, as well for modern warfare scenarios, if you make powerfull a-10, with anti-armor at 7, think what powerfull can be the apaches with anti-armor at 60 or more, at said in this topic, my point of view is that with some modding and some events, scenarios will work very well with actual given system.

[ralphtricky]

The CD should be coming soon, sorry about the delays.

AA will be ramped up quite a bit from what it is in COW, but not as much as the current executable.

[Szilard]

Just on air losses: never really looked closely into it, but I get the impression that a comparatively high percentage of losses go the replacement pool - "temporarily u/s" rather than "destroyed" - which would make sense.

One peeve: most level bombers have 0 AT strength, which I think is dubious. Carpet bombing tanks with B17s wouldn't destroy a whole lot of them permanently, but it should take a bunch out of action for a while - and you would expect to see some small percentage permanently destroyed.

And actually, isn't that pretty much the same as you'd realistically expect from mid-20th century fighter bomber strikes?

Bring on Son-of-BioEd!

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Szilard

Just on air losses: never really looked closely into it, but I get the impression that a comparatively high percentage of losses go the replacement pool - "temporarily u/s" rather than "destroyed" - which would make sense.

That's correct and the proportion is equal to the air unit's proficiency, which means that in many cases, a very high percentage of the disabled results are merely temporarily unusable.

ORIGINAL: Szilard
One peeve: most level bombers have 0 AT strength, which I think is dubious. Carpet bombing tanks with B17s wouldn't destroy a whole lot of them permanently, but it should take a bunch out of action for a while - and you would expect to see some small percentage permanently destroyed.

And actually, isn't that pretty much the same as you'd realistically expect from mid-20th century fighter bomber strikes?

There actually is a possibility of 0 AT strength equipment, like artillery and level bombers, taking out armored targets. It requires that the total bombardment factors results in at least 10% specific attrition against the hex, before any armored targets are hit. This is because 10% of the AP strength applies against armored targets, and 10% of 10% attrition results in a 1% specific attrition against armored targets. This type of "pseudo" anti-armor combat works differently though than the normal "chance to hit - chance of penetration" type of anti-armor combat. It takes basically the same form as anti-personnel combat, as all "hits" are considered lethal, and the hits are generated not by specific fired shots at the target, but by an attritional algorithm.

In many scenarios this effect doesn't really manifest itself too well, since the attrition divider, hex-scale and unit densities may yield low specific attritions in combats. In other scenarios, it may manifest itself, but the effect is masked by the high attrition that is otherwise occurring due to the same factors as above, but in opposite proportions. In a clumsy analogy, in one case, you can't see the trees, for the forest, and in the other, you can't see the forest, for the trees.

ORIGINAL: Szilard
Bring on Son-of-BioEd!

Would you settle for The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet?

[Chuck2]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

Yeah, I'm involved with TOAD Studios. I can post scientific results if you want of this test. Then you can compare it to your test results.

Please do. In fact, if you have the test scen you are running (and it works on the older version), please post it up and I'll run it with your parameters and give you the results for comparison.

Here are the test results, save file, and scenario file:

A-10 Test Case

[Szilard]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Would you settle for The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet?

Only in conjunction with large quantities of vodka.