Why is bombardment so weak?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

But what some of you all seem to be missing is that there is a VAST difference between bombing dispersed and dug in troops and bombing troop CONCENTRATIONS of units trying to attack or remain a cohesive OFFENSIVE force.

Well the latter would be a) bombardment in support of an attack or defence and also possibly b) bombardment of a stack suffering a density penalty. I thought we were discussing pure bombardments of units without a density penalty?

Finally, in 'game terms'...everything that happened in Kosovo and Desert Storm at the least would have been carried out under what would have been the equivalent of 'Minimize Losses'.

In TOAW, minimise losses just means flying one combat round of attacks. Limit means two, and Ignore means three. It actually has nothing to do with the way the pilots fly.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

Cassino was actually off limits to the Germans, the Germans did not have any combat units near the Monastery. That changed after we carpet bombed it into nothing, the Germans then decided that since the Allies had just levelled the place, it was no longer exempt from the war.

Yeah. I'm fairly sure dude was being sarcastic.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

Actually, no we didn't.

The Allies didn't lose the Vietnam war?

And are completely useless for some time afterwards, due to the effects of carpet bombing.

To continue with my parallel with strategic bombing, no they're not. Certainly there's no convincing evidence to that effect. Both Britain and Germany were gearing up to a total war economy at the time when they were subject to strategic bombing, and both managed to double or triple their production of various major items of war material regardless.

If you turn to page 40 of Zaloga's Cobra, you'll find a nice breakdown of PzLehr. Of 3,600 troops under Panzer Lehr's control, at least 1,000 were killed outright by the bombing, and at least as many were severely wounded or shellshocked into insensate wrecks.

That's a 27% fatality rate, and a total casualty rate of 40% of the soldiers assigned to Panzer Lehr's units. Small wonder by the end of the day Bayerlein reported that he had virtually no division left at all.

And I'm sure if you focus the several hundred heavy bombers the Allies had available for this operation on those two 2.5km hexes, you'll get a similar effect. I know I shouldn't use TOAW scenarios as a source, but the disc Cobra scenario has 1500 heavy bombers. Try the scenario for yourself. In one six hour turn, I found I was quite able to obliterate Panzer Lehr. The items which went into the "lost" column (including one panzer battalion which actually evaporated under pure bombardment) added up to about 1,000 men, and the number which went to replacements were about the same. The infantry units each had their readiness reduced to 33%, though the impact on the armour was much less. All of the division's units were pushed to "mobile" status from "fortified".

[Catch21]

ORIGINAL: Industrial
I so agree, and just imagine a 7 day continous bombardment of a 25-mile front with over 1,5 million shells of various calibers, that should annihilate everything, nobody could survive this, and those few that will should be too shell shocked as to offer any resistance whatsoever! You should be able to advance without any resistance over that part of the front after such a massive bombardment, right?
Battle_of_the_Somme_(1916)

I think there's a word for this that's managed to insert itself into the English language. 'Walkover'. If anyone ever mentions this word to you whatever the context, sit bolt upright, get a grip, stand then run.

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Maybe the WW2 planes weren't that effective, but the last example I had in play was laughable : I had some 60+ Mosquitos, Typhoons and Marauders bomb a panzer unit with 2 dozens (total) of StuGs and StuH in the "2 weeks in Normandy" scenario turn 1. There was absolutely no Luftwaffe planes nor AA units.
What were the results ? Guess what ... there was *1* panzer destroyed for ... 18 planes shot down !!!! [X(][:@]
It's totally ludicrous, that kind of results had absolutely no chance of realistically happen, please fix it yesterday !!! [8|]

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.

Nope, you're tweaking the numbers : 4% was a chance to hit for one shot (or rather "4 shots out of 100 hit"), has been cited for rockets that were awfully imprecise, maybe less than bombs, and each aircraft doesn't fire once as most of them could bomb in several runs and strafe the targets.
Additionnally the game engine don't have to take into account only direct hits/kills, but also partial damage to tracks, engine etc rendering the target unusable for more than a few hours.

Yet I wouldn't have been upset of getting only a couple kills (although if that were real the USAF and RAF should have been disbanded and incorporated in other arms ...), but the 18 aircraft killed is ridiculous. From what have they been "under fire" ? Mostly nothing, StuGs and StuHs didn't even have AA MGs ... Maybe the panzer crews used their Lugers and were lucky ? [:'(]
Come on...

To be fair, though, the 4% was the results obtained on a stationary tank sat in a field in Normandy, from the photo I've seen, it was also painted white. It was not one camoflaged, perhaps moving, perhaps covered by friendly AA trying to put the pilot off, perhaps partially obscured during the attack run by smoke from a nearby fire etc etc etc.

The Mortain counter attack is one often depicted as an armoured counterattack stopped in its tracks by Fighterbombers, yet only 20% of the kills of armoured vehicles were from the air despite the hundreds of sorties flown.

As a final example, we might note that Panzer Lehr's oft quoted march to Normandy under constant interdiction from the air yielded some 80-90 soft skinned vhicles knocked out but only 5 Panthers. They clearly had a lot of trouble on the road, but their Armour seemed largely immune to it.

From your own example, Stugs were smaller, more difficult to spot with a smaller silhouette and much easier to hide, even in mobile status. As Golden Delicious has pointed out, some of your aircraft were not even rocket armed. Whilst the aircraft loss rates may seem excessive (see the patch) I don't think the Stug loss rate was unhistorical, although I would have expected reduced readiness and possibly supply.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: Industrial

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick

The other reason is a bit more pragmatic. If they were the same strength, why the heck would anyone EVER use interdiction? I'm sorry, either attack a random unit, probably a decoy, or help an existing attack... If you can sicerely pick A, I'd really like to play you PBEM.

I use Air power for CS during the first 80% of my turn and than can set them to Interdiction if I want to, has exactly the same effect as having them on 'I' during my entire turn. (Keeping fingers crossed for no turn burns or my AF will be ineffective during my opponents turn)

Maybe you can do something about that? Like, setting them on 'I' automatically sets their movement points to zero?

Oh, and could you please change the annoying behavior that air units go from 'reorganizing' back to their original mission (and thereby often straight back into ReOrg) without me beeing able to set them to 'rest'?

Beer to this.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

The Mortain counter attack is one often depicted as an armoured counterattack stopped in its tracks by Fighterbombers, yet only 20% of the kills of armoured vehicles were from the air despite the hundreds of sorties flown.

I imagine that a lot of disruption (i.e. readiness loss) was caused by air attacks, and also supply lines would have been affected. Of course rather more important was the use of good anti-tank guns in hard terrain.

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: Industrial

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

I think the best example for a heavy allied bombing campaign is the bombing of Monte Cassino, truely and utterly weakened the german defence there, hurray to heavy bombers! [8D]

Cassino was actually off limits to the Germans, the Germans did not have any combat units near the Monastery. That changed after we carpet bombed it into nothing, the Germans then decided that since the Allies had just levelled the place, it was no longer exempt from the war.

That's exactly what I ment, in game turns the paratroopers were down in the town of Cassino, which is located at the bottom of the Mount and so close to the Mount that both should be in the same hex, even at a 2,5km scale. Now the allies attacked these paratroopers in that hex, beliving that the germans were dug in in the Mount, killing not a single german but creating a formidable defence for them.

So in game turns: You attack hex xx,yy, enemy losses 0%, fortification increased to 100% [:D]

But earlier arguments were that TAOW should model such a devasting airstrike such as that nobody could survive it... and all I posted was an example from history that not only such a devasting attack could end with no enemy losses, it can also actually help the enemy in some cases. For example Operation Cobra, the moonlike landscape created by the heavy allied bombardment was a major hinderance for allied tanks, they had real problems manneuvering across all those craters.

If you take both possibilities (heavy casualties, no casualties) into account, mix it as to get a somewhat average result, you end with pretty much the numbers we have in TOAW at the moment, which is exactly what we want for an operational wargame. If you want to simulate individual battles that could easily go to either extreme, you are better off with a tactical wargame.

Good points.

You could also note that the small town of Cassino received an inordinately large amount of high explosive, yet the bewildered sometimes suicidal defenders still held against the Allied attack. The town of Cassino is an interesting case study. Ellis calculated it took 3 tonnes of bombs to kill each paratrooper killed during the air bombardment.

Massed bombing rarely worked because German defences got progressively deeper to cope with it. It was as much lack of depth that hurt Lehr during the Cobra bombing as it was the bombardment itself. The amounts dropped during Goodwood were massive, yet over defences that stretched back for several kilometres, they did not have the desired effect since the troops were well dispersed and well dug in.

As you mention. the Cobra bombing was arguably a hindrance since vehicles struggled through the torn up terrain.

regards,
IronDuke

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: IronDuke

You could also note that the small town of Cassino received an inordinately large amount of high explosive, yet the bewildered sometimes suicidal defenders still held against the Allied attack. The town of Cassino is an interesting case study. Ellis calculated it took 3 tonnes of bombs to kill each paratrooper killed during the air bombardment.

Yeah. The term is "saturation bombing". The law of diminishing returns starts to come into serious effect here.

[glvaca]

Perhaps this has already been mentioned in this rather long thread but what do the experts here think about the following I experienced in my FitE pbem game. One Russion division still embarked on trains was attacked by around 40 He-111 and 40 Me-110. Result: 1% cas to the Russian division and 17% casualties to my planes. No AA in sight. Sigh! That doesn't feel right!

Comments!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: glvaca
Perhaps this has already been mentioned in this rather long thread but what do the experts here think about the following I experienced in my FitE pbem game. One Russion division still embarked on trains was attacked by around 40 He-111 and 40 Me-110. Result: 1% cas to the Russian division and 17% casualties to my planes. No AA in sight. Sigh! That doesn't feel right!

I think this mirrors my experience in Campaign for South Vietnam where the VC are shooting down my F-100's with their slingshots. Supposedly the next patch will address this little problemo.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: glvaca
Perhaps this has already been mentioned in this rather long thread but what do the experts here think about the following I experienced in my FitE pbem game. One Russion division still embarked on trains was attacked by around 40 He-111 and 40 Me-110. Result: 1% cas to the Russian division and 17% casualties to my planes. No AA in sight. Sigh! That doesn't feel right!

I think this mirrors my experience in Campaign for South Vietnam where the VC are shooting down my F-100's with their slingshots. Supposedly the next patch will address this little problemo.

I have been having similar things happen in a PBEM "The Next War: 1979" but especially vs NVA-NLF PO in "Vietnam 1965-68."

I can agree with the argument that airpower should not be made into a silver bullet. But having high-altitude B-52s, or high-speed F-100, F-4 Phantom, whatever fighter-bombers suffer appreciable casualties when attacking an isolated hex of one or two Viet Cong battalions that are surrounded, in the orange, and have NO AA weapons in their ToE, is really annoying.

The related issue is the exhaustion suffered by air units, and maybe this is just how the Vietnam 65-68 scenario is set up. Despite the fact that turns in this scenario are week long, carrying out two rounds of specific attacks knocks a B-52 unit (and most other air units in the scenario too) from bright green into orange, even when they only lose one or two planes. This doesn't seem realistic either.

Does the 0.17 patch address this?

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
Does the 0.17 patch address this?

The 3.0.0.17 patch addresses the AA fire problem by reducing some of its effectiveness. If you're not already patched with it, you should be.

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
The related issue is the exhaustion suffered by air units, and maybe this is just how the Vietnam 65-68 scenario is set up. Despite the fact that turns in this scenario are week long, carrying out two rounds of specific attacks knocks a B-52 unit (and most other air units in the scenario too) from bright green into orange, even when they only lose one or two planes. This doesn't seem realistic either.

There may be a fundamental misunderstanding you have here, with respect to the Unit Health Indicators. If you've made a couple of ignore loss bombardments of enemy units and lost a few pieces, then you should be in orange, or at best yellow. This is because the Unit Health Indicator is an average of the unit's Supply, Readiness, and the fraction of assigned vs. authorized equipment.

So...just a seat of my pants calculation here, the actual numbers may vary slightly, but assuming that the B-52 unit is some 30 planes, starts off with 100% Supply and Readiness, makes two Ignore loss bombardments, taking losses of 1-2 pieces each attack (total of 3 over the two attacks), then the following is true:

Unit Health = [((100-60)/100)+((100-60)/100)+(.9)]/3 = [(.4)+(.4)+(.9)]/3 = .58

Cross-referencing that with the ranges shown on page 16 of the manual, you'll see that it is almost out of the Yellow range, and into the Orange. If your readiness was reduced to the minimum of 33% due to the losses, and your supply started as anything less than 100, then your numbers would be even lower.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM There may be a fundamental misunderstanding you have here, with respect to the Unit Health Indicators. If you've made a couple of ignore loss bombardments of enemy units and lost a few pieces, then you should be in orange, or at best yellow. This is because the Unit Health Indicator is an average of the unit's Supply, Readiness, and the fraction of assigned vs. authorized equipment.

So...just a seat of my pants calculation here, the actual numbers may vary slightly, but assuming that the B-52 unit is some 30 planes, starts off with 100% Supply and Readiness, makes two Ignore loss bombardments, taking losses of 1-2 pieces each attack (total of 3 over the two attacks), then the following is true:

Unit Health = [((100-60)/100)+((100-60)/100)+(.9)]/3 = [(.4)+(.4)+(.9)]/3 = .58

Cross-referencing that with the ranges shown on page 16 of the manual, you'll see that it is almost out of the Yellow range, and into the Orange. If your readiness was reduced to the minimum of 33% due to the losses, and your supply started as anything less than 100, then your numbers would be even lower.

Mmm. I DID misunderstand that. Still need to go back and memorize that manual a bit more-better [:D]

One thing that really clarified the fundaments of the game engine to me was when I finally re-noticed that "evaporated" components go back into the replacment pool UNLESS they are isolated from supply. This is so much more realistic than most turn-based strategy games, it takes a while to really appreciate what this means! And how much more realistic it is too.

Just to clarify, I suppose it is possible that a B-52 wing would suffer "casualties" even if they were attacking a platoon of cave men caught unawares and sunbathing on a bald knoll, right? Such casualties being through accidents, mechanical failures, mid-air collisions, stoned-pilots grinding the gears, unexpected breakdowns, etc.? Meaning, even in the UTTER absence of any AA capability in the target, some "casualties" (which may constitute damaged or disabled sub-units, not simply destroyed sub-units) may nonetheless occur?

I remember looking back at the Iraq Coalition casualties at one point when the fighting was not too intense and noting that, the casualties from simple day-to-day "risk" (catching the flu, getting hit by a car, helicopter crashes, car crashes, accidental weapon discharges, etc.) was seemingly rather high compared to rate of casualties in action!

This raises another question for me, which the Vietnam campaign made me wonder about. It SEEMS like bombers are more effective attacking opponents in open terrain, and in particular when the open terrain is elevated?

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Just to clarify, I suppose it is possible that a B-52 wing would suffer "casualties" even if they were attacking a platoon of cave men caught unawares and sunbathing on a bald knoll, right? Such casualties being through accidents, mechanical failures, mid-air collisions, stoned-pilots grinding the gears, unexpected breakdowns, etc.? Meaning, even in the UTTER absence of any AA capability in the target, some "casualties" (which may constitute damaged or disabled sub-units, not simply destroyed sub-units) may nonetheless occur?

That's correct, and keep in mind that the disabled results for air (and naval) units is distributed between the on hand inventory and lost, in the same proportion as the unit's proficiency.

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

This raises another question for me, which the Vietnam campaign made me wonder about. It SEEMS like bombers are more effective attacking opponents in open terrain, and in particular when the open terrain is elevated?

In open terrain, units are more vulnerable to aerial bombardment, but the "elevation" should make no difference. Since TOAW III is an operational level game, and not tactical, or grand tactical, the only concept of elevation is the look-down effect across major escarpments for adjacent artillery.

[TOCarroll]

Damn, I read this whole scream-fest hoping to quietly ask when the patch would be out (the voice of reason)[:D]
Instead I'll probably wind up PO'ing everyone with my observations:[>:]
 
You guys blog too much (but then how would you get all those stars).[;)]
 
I have chatted with and received help from Uncle Joe, Golden Delicious, and many others. What I think [>:] Is that Joe is bringing up a n issue best addressed by design modification (Not the AA part, but if the air attacks are still not lethal enough.....) Modified exe for COW or WanderED that is (sort of like bioED) and supposed to be out soon. The only other way youre gonna win is design your own game. It isnt perfect, but there are a lot of abstractions in this game, many passed down from Vol. 1. The P1/P2 thing is a good example....but it's a turn based game!
 
In my experience Matrix is very sensitive to customer feedback. There are also several Groups like TOAD that diddle with the undidillable (to us, the great unwashed). One way or another, I hope you get your issue resolved.
 
Personally, I play WW2 scenarios most....the emphasis on combined arms, logistics, terrain, command control makes the well designed scenarios seem very realistic. With the exception of airfield attacks in the first turns of Barbarossa, I usually have to hit a target (by air or land) several times to wipe it out (or surround it). It may be ahistorical, but I have found very little use for Air-Ground attacks that are not supported by ground attack. If I am stomping on an ant, yeah, it works....otherwise its counterproductive. If the patch doesnt help, either use the editor of modify the exe......I think that's your best bet for getting the results you want.
 
Good Luck.[:'(]
 
Tom OC

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

I remember looking back at the Iraq Coalition casualties at one point when the fighting was not too intense and noting that, the casualties from simple day-to-day "risk" (catching the flu, getting hit by a car, helicopter crashes, car crashes, accidental weapon discharges, etc.) was seemingly rather high compared to rate of casualties in action!

Mm. During the actual invasion, the majority of losses were in accidents and through friendly fire (besides actual casualties, to my knowledge, no MBTs were knocked out by the Iraqis, as compared one Challenger destroyed by friendly fire). Of course that's changed since.

This isn't new, either. I recall hearing that the majority of German casualties in the original invasion of Yugoslavia were through traffic accidents.

[jimwinsor]

What about "accidents" for pure artillery bombardment?
 
If "accidents" can account for plane losses in the face of no AA, why not model such accidents into indirect fire guns?  I mean, just like flying a plane...firing a big cannon is kinda dangerous too.  Lets face it, "accidents" can (and DO) happen with them as well!
 
Yet...in this game, artillery gets to bombard and bombard and bombard...with nary an "accident."  Despite all those dangerous high explosives being handled, shells being propelled constantly, etc.
 
Thats the problem I have with this whole rationalization for the seemingly excessive air loss model.  Since it's not being fairly equally applied to artillery...which if you are serious about this "accident" theory, then you really should be doing...the whole rationalization seems kinda phony baloney to me.  And I'm sure to others here as well.
 
 

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

What about "accidents" for pure artillery bombardment?

If "accidents" can account for plane losses in the face of no AA, why not model such accidents into indirect fire guns?  I mean, just like flying a plane...firing a big cannon is kinda dangerous too.  Lets face it, "accidents" can (and DO) happen with them as well!

Yet...in this game, artillery gets to bombard and bombard and bombard...with nary an "accident."  Despite all those dangerous high explosives being handled, shells being propelled constantly, etc.

Thats the problem I have with this whole rationalization for the seemingly excessive air loss model.  Since it's not being fairly equally applied to artillery...which if you are serious about this "accident" theory, then you really should be doing...the whole rationalization seems kinda phony baloney to me.  And I'm sure to others here as well.

Accidents happen an awful lot more with aircraft than with artillery.

You're right that artillery is inherently dangerous, but western armies had been dealing with those dangers for six centuries or so by the era of the second world war. Twenty times the period in which they had been dealing with aircraft in large quantities.

[Erik2]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
It's not the scale per se, but the area covered by the map. Obviously if aircraft are operating over 1/4 of the area they'll be able to spot a particular unit four times as often. I don't think changing the formula is really the solution, but if we can set areas of operation for individual air units that will solve it completely- along with various other complaints.

I think it would be kind of hard to program selecting parts of the map, but adding the radius in number of hexes for each air unit you set on interdiction should be fairly easy (?).
This could work for other missions as well.