Question About Editing Airstrikes

[ChrisMaiorana]

I am creating a new custom scenario that simulates the fighting around Veghel during Market Garden. The 101st units during this battle worked closely with the Allied air forces and had air superiority over that portion of the Market Garden battlefield.

Is there a way in the editor to adjust the lethality of airstrikes? It seems to me that the impact of the in-game airstrikes is off in terms of damage caused.

Chris

[Arjuna]

No sorry Chris. The damage value is hard coded. Are you saying you find it too strong or too weak?

[ChrisMaiorana]

Hi Dave! I was wondering because the casualty numbers at the end of each scenario for airstrikes always seem to be low.

The Allies had a huge air advantage over Veghel on the 22nd (most of the Luftwaffe had been shifted to the Arnhem sector from what I've read) and I am trying to incorporate this into the scenario. I've set the airstrikes to 5 for them, but it doesn't seem to give them the advantage they had there, or at least it's not reflected in the results as far as I can tell.

Btw, I am new to this game and thoroughly enjoying it, so thank you!

Chris

[Phoenix100]

Try giving them 30 strikes? If you think the damage is too low then imagine each strike is a single run from a single plane? If they had massive superiority then I would have thought 30 runs in a day would be very reasonable, no?

I haven't noticed the low AAR figures for airstrikes (Because I haven't looked) but I have noticed that they are effective at suppression, breaking up attacks, neutralising bridge defenders capacity to blow the bridge, for example.

Peter

[ChrisMaiorana]

Hi Peter. I will try that! So far I've only used the 5 strikes figure based on the manual recommendation.

Chris

[Phoenix100]

There are 12 airstrikes given to the allies in the first day of the Joe's Bridge scenario. I'm not sure how much damage they do. If you can't see some results with 30 then pass it on. I would certainly agree with you that the way airstrikes feature in the game doesn't appear to represent the accounts we've all read about allied air superiority. In particular, many accounts from the Bulge speak of how devastating P47 strikes were on Axis armour. Yet, in those scenarios where you have the weather and have the airstrikes to use, I don't think I've ever seen the intel report a strike on an armoured unit as taking out a tank. MMm. Time for a little test scenario, I think.....

UPDATE: I set up 2 Panther companies in the open with no AT units in range and gave the Allies 50 airstrikes. After the first 4 strikes the Panthers fled and never came near their single objective again. I surrendered and checked. Those 4 strikes took out 5 Panthers. I would say that works ok!

[Arjuna]

Each air strike represents the delivery of 1000lbs of bombs or missiles. That's roughly equivalent to one fighter bomber with a single 1000lbs of ordnance or 2 fighter bombers each carrying 500lbs. Feel free to add as many as you like.

[wodin]

Cap remember you don't actually get full intel on how many casualties it's causing until the end of the game in the AAR which si the only time you have full enemy kill intel.

Actually just checked something..was dropping arty (8.8cm and 10.5cm and two units of medium mortars on a road which had three mech inf units on for well a good 40 to 50 mins and only caused 5 Inf casualties. Seems quite light.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks for that info, Dave. Excellent. That certainly allows you to plan it realistically, if you know that (of course, it might have been in the manual, but I never read it yet....)

On that basis I would say we should be putting in much more than we get in some stock scenarios, if we want to get near a historical outcome in terms of air superiority. But, it's a bit like a game killer in some ways. If - on the basis of a grand sample of one experiment - each airstrike (2x500llb loads) takes out roughly one tank (when targeted at tanks) then thirty takes out almost 3 companies in the BFTB scenarios (weather permitting). Which does seem like a bit of a game killer.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

There are 12 airstrikes given to the allies in the first day of the Joe's Bridge scenario. I'm not sure how much damage they do. If you can't see some results with 30 then pass it on. I would certainly agree with you that the way airstrikes feature in the game doesn't appear to represent the accounts we've all read about allied air superiority. In particular, many accounts from the Bulge speak of how devastating P47 strikes were on Axis armour.

Didn't it turn out that vast majority of tanks claimed to be destroyed by aircraft were either abandoned or destroyed by ground forces?

[Arjuna]

Remember that because you get to choose the exact spot or the AI will choose a spot that it knows has some enemy, you need to factor in that probably about half of all RL strikes missed their mark. This occurred because of poor coordination with the ground forces, map reading errors, mistaken identities, hitting spots where the enemy had been bit no longer are there etc.

Let's say you have a squadron of say 16 aircraft. Probably that amounts no more than 4 over target at any time. Of these the majority may not see a viable target before they hit bingo fuel and have to return to base (RTB). So maybe only one or 2 get to make an actual attack. So when you se a figure of five strikes in the game you have to pad these out a fair bit to get a reasonable estimate of the numbers of aircraft actually committed in support. I'd recommend you work on roughly a 5 to one ratio. So 5 strikes represents about 25 aircraft committed in support or about two squadrons worth, given that few squadrons were ever at full strength.

[ChrisMaiorana]

Okay, thank you everyone! Very helpful.

[Perturabo]

On the myth of fighter-bombers:
http://operationbarbarossa.net/Myth-Bus ... ters4.html

[Phoenix100]

Wow. That's interesting reading, Perturabo. Thanks.

[ChrisMaiorana]

Indeed thanks!