Island Warfare

[Robbyroy]

I have had a Japanees Island under heavy airfield bombardment for over 3 months now. Mostly from 2 squads of B 17s. I have the island surrounded and no ships have been allowed in and the ones that left have been sunk. The airfield seems to always have about 19-40 points in damage. But I cant seem to accomplish thier demise. They started with 34 fitghters-12 bombers and 122 auxs. Now it is 18f -11b - 66 auxs. Their Air bal is -320. If I leave them alone they seem to climb back to original strength even without supplies. I know I don't know there supply status but after 3 mos it has to be very low. Can the AI be forced out with the method I'm using? I just had a thought. Maybe supplies are being flown in. Except they have no airbases, that have long range transports, close enough.

[tsimmonds]

IJ has some transport aircraft with extremely long range. Some of them are flying boats for which airfield damage would have no effect.

On "very Difficult" the AI does not need supplies.

[Robbyroy]

Thanks for the Info on the Long range transport. My question now becomes , Does extended bombing of an airfield accomplish anything besides temporary control of the local airspace?

[rockmedic109]

It will eat up supplies when he repairs the field {always a good thing unless playing the AI on Very Hard}.  Attacking the airbase will also kill aviation support squads which will render any planes at the island impotent.  It is also good training for aircrews.
 
Take the numbers of his planes with a grain of salt.  They are probably inflated by FOW. 

[Robbyroy]

What's FOW?

[BrucePowers]

FOW - Fog of War

[wwengr]

ORIGINAL: Robbyroy

Thanks for the Info on the Long range transport. My question now becomes , Does extended bombing of an airfield accomplish anything besides temporary control of the local airspace?

My experience, so far, is that you can bomb the snot out of a hex for a very long time. Without putting boots on the ground, the best that you will accomplish is to soften up the enemy and cause damage that hinders his operating effectively out of the hex. If you want to finish him off, you need to get some LCU's in there.

[Feltan]

ORIGINAL: wwengr
My experience, so far, is that you can bomb the snot out of a hex for a very long time. Without putting boots on the ground, the best that you will accomplish is to soften up the enemy and cause damage that hinders his operating effectively out of the hex. If you want to finish him off, you need to get some LCU's in there.

Just like real life! [:)]

Regards,
Feltan

[Milman]

Afther 3 months they probably have 90% of squads disabled but if you want to wait till you kill them by planes it can take few years . Like wwengr said it is time for you to send INF to finish job there .

[saj42]

2 squadrons isn't enough if you want results - use 2 GROUPs [:D]. With the increased bombers you should be able to get airfield damage over 75%, this is the magic number where the runway is deemed non-operational and aircraft can't operate (including incoming supply flights).
As for the Japanese aircraft numbers the AI is probably flying in/creating replacement aircraft. All the more for you to destroy and deplete its aircraft pool.

[VSWG]

ORIGINAL: Tallyho!

2 squadrons isn't enough if you want results - use 2 GROUPs [:D]. With the increased bombers you should be able to get airfield damage over 75%, this is the magic number where the runway is deemed non-operational and aircraft can't operate (including incoming supply flights).

There is no single "magic number". Instead, there are 2 "magic numbers" for every size of an air field:

• Strike Mission can be launched only if Runway damage < 20 + (Airfield Size * 5)
• Patrol / CAP Missions can be launched only if Runway damage < 50 + (Airfield Size * 5)

Sounds more like "math", not "magic" to me... [;)]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: VSWG

ORIGINAL: Tallyho!

2 squadrons isn't enough if you want results - use 2 GROUPs [:D]. With the increased bombers you should be able to get airfield damage over 75%, this is the magic number where the runway is deemed non-operational and aircraft can't operate (including incoming supply flights).

There is no single "magic number". Instead, there are 2 "magic numbers" for every size of an air field:

• Strike Mission can be launched only if Runway damage < 20 + (Airfield Size * 5)
• Patrol / CAP Missions can be launched only if Runway damage < 50 + (Airfield Size * 5)

Sounds more like "math", not "magic" to me... [;)]

i think these numbers are (relatively) widely quoted, and may be in the manual, but i've always found **at least** for the second number the number is 50%. If you had an airfield at size 5, it (the math quoted above) would mean things would keep flying up to 75% damage - not true in my experience. And strangely, seaplanes will stop flying if damage on the AIRFIELD is 50% or more.

[VSWG]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

i think these numbers are (relatively) widely quoted, and may be in the manual, but i've always found **at least** for the second number the number is 50%. If you had an airfield at size 5, it (the math quoted above) would mean things would keep flying up to 75% damage - not true in my experience.

I'd have to check, but I'm quite sure I had planes flying CAP from PH on Dec. 8th with more than 50 % runway damage.

There's probably a die roll involved when planes try to fly from bases with runway damage, something like d(X) > runway damage, with X being the number as calculated above. This would mean that the higher the runway damage is, the less likely it is for planes taking off, until the threshold is reached - then planes will never fly. So we may be both correct.

And strangely, seaplanes will stop flying if damage on the AIRFIELD is 50% or more.

So far I only noticed that seaplanes stop being repaired if a base has airfield service damage, although an AV/AVD is present. I will look out for this.

[VSWG]

I just checked, and in my game against ctangus I had a decent CAP flying at Pearl Harbor (size 10 AF) on Dec. 8th - with 100 runway damage!! I think the "math numbers" are correct, and there is no "magic number".

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: VSWG

I just checked, and in my game against ctangus I had a decent CAP flying at Pearl Harbor (size 10 AF) on Dec. 8th - with 100 runway damage!! I think the "math numbers" are correct, and there is no "magic number".

Hmmm... perhaps it was changed in the 1.804+ patches... air units would always abruptly stop flying at 50%.... [&:] - this was in the 1.6xx patches, though.

[saj42]

Damn I really opened a can-o-worms with that throw away statement of a "magic" number.
I'm re-learning something about this game every week [;)]