mc3744,
No need to explain the need for the post. I think everyone wants to see enlightening discussion which isn't marred by a disagreement which gets out of hand. I can understand and support that. Obviously different people feel differently but I, personally, feel like I wasn't trying to have a fight with mdiehl but actually arguing the issues. I also feel that what my intention was certainly didn't seem to make a difference. Such is life as Ned Kelly would have said [8D]
Why engage with mdiehl? Simple, I believe that most people are trying to have interesting discussions and so I try to go out of my way - on the first occasion I talk with someone - to give them leeway for being enthusiastic, annoyed or just having a bit of a bad day. I'm not some poster boy for being perfect by any stretch of the imagination and I certainly remember a time 3 or 4 years ago where after a couple of posts with mdiehl I'd have called him some sort of unsuitable epithet. I've matured and so I try to remember that other people might be interesting and intelligent but just might be back where I was 3 or 4 years ago ( and I'm certainly not saying I've reached the end of my evolution in terms of maturity and so on and so forth ). Bottom line though I believe in giving people every chance possible before dismissing them as not having anything to contribute. Why is that? Well, I am keenly aware of how various organisations in Europe's past labelled individuals and groups as not having anything worthwhile to contribute as the first step on the road to silencing their voices in public discourse and then, eventually, trying to eradicate them. I lost family in that process and while, obviously, there's a world of difference between the nazis refusing to allow someone to argue against semitism on the grounds that "they have nothing to contribute" and me going "Gees, this mdiehl fellow just isn't worth getting into a discussion with in the future" I do still feel bad for closing myself off to ANY input from anyone.
With that said sometimes you do have to draw a line and say - Really he isn't bringing enough to the table to be worth listening to in the future. This is a pity because he clearly has a lot of knowledge but the other behaviour does, IMO, now outweight the knowledge's worth.
I'm not saying any of the above to attack mdiehl etc. I'm just trying to answer your question and explain why I engaged with him for so long. It takes a lot for me to pull the trigger on green buttoning someone because I think silencing someone's voice is a really terrible thing to do. Sometimes though we need to do such things to protect ourselves. I just want to be sure that I'm not green buttoning for too little reason and so I try to provide lots of opportunity to back down and say, "Oh, I misunderstood you" or find some other way to reach a livable compromise.
GAME STUFF:
Personally I wouldn't find that tactic gamey. In my current game my opponent did it to me a few days ago. We are playing with unlimited altitude and so he is free to send planes at any altitude he wants. He has chosen to send them in at 100 feet at night because that does the best job of preserving his force while destroying mine. IMO that's simply good play.
I DO think the model could do with some tweaking in order to better model the actual real-world likelihood that his bombers would achieve 60 or 70% hit rates with their bombs while flying at night over a darkened enemy airfield. With that said though he's making the best use of the forces he has given the current game engine. I am happy for him to do that. Of course the caveat is that then when I get really sneaky and do something similar back he had better not complain either [:D]
Different people view that situation somewhat differently though and would make a HR to limit night bombing to, for example, no lower than 6,000 feet in order to get the hit rate down to a level they believe is more historically accurate. Each to their own. I play it my way, I fully support their right to draw the line in a different place and play it their way so long as they enjoy that.
Obvert:
Small bombs are more effective because with 10 small bombs vs 2 large ones you are much more likely to hit and so overall you are more likely to cause more damage with 10 x 50 Kg bombs given the current to hit calculations by bombers than with 2 x 250 Kg bombs. If you get lucky and one of the 250 Kg bombs hits then you'll do a lot of damage BUT that depends on luck. If you are looking for some certainty and following the Soviet model in which they believed that x amount of fire on target y could lead to statistically predictable results then you will be happy to settle for more certainty since then you can say: With 2 x 250 Kg bombs 20 bombers MIGHT utterly close the field or they MIGHT leave it almost undamaged. Often they'll leave it damaged but still open. HOWEVER with 200 x 50 Kg bombs it is far more likely that they'll get enough hits to cause at least some damage and it is quite likely they'll do enough to close the field.
So, more bombs means more predictability in the result, fewer outlier results and a greater ability to confidently say - x bombers WILL close the field if I send then in at such and such an altitude.
That's a simplistic example and doesn't account for a lot of stuff but it is enough to get the point across and get people to thinking why the Ki-51 is such a wonderful strategic bomber in China, certainly better than the Ki-21 etc
|Re: LoBaron and night bombing.
I'm happy with "no rules games" on the basis that "if they do it to me I'll do it back to them twice or three times as hard" [8D]. I also like the way no rules games push me to come up with new tactical solutions to problems because the options are all available, limited only by my imagination, ability and game code.
With that said do I think a night bombing raid at 100 feet results in an unrealistically high number of hits when the DL is high? Absolutely. If you want a historical game I'd suggest limiting night bombing missions to no lower than 10,000 feet for twin-engineds and 15,000 feet for 4-engined bombers.
With that said in my game I've had to face night bombing raids by A6m7 fighter-bombers dive-bombing my airfields at night [8D] so, obviously, we're doing "whatever works" and not "whatever Japan did in real life" [8D]
, the idea is good. But if bomb caliber is irrelevant in the effectivness of AF strikes, won't Babs be better then Sonia's? I can't look into data right now, but IIRC they have 4x30 kg bombs and better range.
