Findings of the Strategic bombing experiment

[RUPD3658]

Posting here also. Hopefully it can be of use to the developers

For those of you who do not follow the AAR "The Battle for New Jersey" we decaliered it a draw at the end of 1944. I took over playing both sides to see if the Allies could still win by bombing Japan's supply production and stockpiles to the point that Japan's VPs woudl drop significantly. These are the results of the year long (game time) experiment:

1. Japan can not be starved out: Even after having all but 100 supplies being produced per day the total supply level barely dropped. Oddest of all, when supply stockpiles were targeted, the overall supply level in the empire went up. Case in point were the supply stock piles at Osaka and Amori. They had 920K and 800K respectively. Even when close to 40 supply hits were scored the supply levels did not change. I thought that maybe supplies had flowed in from othere bases but a check of the industry screen showed that the levels had not changed.

The only thing that seemd to cause the overall supply level to drop was doing nothing. When left alone, supply dropped between 10-20K per day. When bases were bombed the supply level fluctuated between dropping 5K to incresing by 10K. I thought that this may be caused by supply leeching out of LCUs but almost none were seen to be short supply. Also, this should have been a one time cause yet it happened for several months.

Anther supply odditiy was that the supply level at captured Irkustk fluctuated between 5K and 100K despite a minimal garrison. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how supplies were being distributed. At one point I had bombed Chungking into the red (Had I dropped nuke #3 at this point the Allies would have scored a Marginal Victory). After 2-3 weeks supplies flowed into the double the needed amount. Once I started an all out assult on Chingking by air (1000+ planes per day) the supply level did not budge.

Clearly the supply model is pooched. Hopefully this will be fixed in AE.

2. Firestorms do not work: Even with over 1000 ac attacking and scoring 2-3K manpower hits, already damaged industry was not destroyed. Fire were in the 200-300,000 level . It is possible that the only way to destroy industry is to start a fire storm when the indusry is undamaged.

3. Units take forever to starve: Kwaj was out of supply for over 2 years. While some units would starve, the overall fat/disruption level of the unit barely moved. Even after 2 years the total AV had only been reduced by about 60%.

The same thing happened at Chungking and Iman. At Chungking units were cut off for nearly 2 years. Despite the influx of auto supply the units were barely effected despite daily LCU bombardment. What did seem to work was daily air bombardment but even this took several months to show a significant effect.

[el cid again]

If one gets rid of "free supplies" - starvation works too well. It even kills the 14 inch guns on Fort Drum - long before most of the infantry goes. But in just a few weeks starvation effects are very powerful - in fact - it appears that AI likes to land any unit big enough to survive a while - and wait for weeks - then hit the place with a big landing - so the starved units fall fast.

For bomber attacks to be more effective, it is vital you use more bombs - smaller is fine. Rationalize them as firebombs if you like. Do this - even if you use values that almost do away with uber bombing - do this en masse and your bombers will take down the industry.

If the pwhex file permits ports adjacent between Korea and Japan - AI will transfer supply automatically to Japan - and probably also resources and oil. Watch out for adjacent ports - they can mess up isolation of a place.

It is very possible to run Japan down to zero production - of lots of things.

[RUPD3658]

I ran Japan (and the whole empire for that matter) down next to nothing and they still did not starve.



On some turns the total supply actually went up.