Panzers, rückwärts! Gunnulf (GHC) vs QBall (WA)

[Gunnulf]

Sicily

At the start of the turn this is how it looks, he tried to hit both western ports with his armoured vanguard, with results to be expected, despite the attack on Palermo having the support of a British armoured brigade, some decent artillery, a bit of air and 2 x TFs of the coast. But its an urban hex full of troops, albeit 2nd rate troops. Fighting in houses needs more than just a regiment of US armoured infantry, but his is strung out across the width of the island. Until he is pushed to the coast properly there is always going to be the risk that the frisky XIV Pz corps will hammer any sign of weakness. Its now I wish I'd brought down another division for at least a couple of turns, but the reality is that I should soon take a least a tactical bound back to Messina. There is a limit to what else I can achieve now except keep his infantry busy a bit longer.

[Gunnulf]

ORIGINAL: loki100

great stuff - as an Axis player I really *hate* (ie its a lot of fun) trying to work out what the Allied player will do in Italy.

from your description I wonder if he's thinking of a one hex hit and run landing to trigger Italy out of the war? Thats worth if it a German player is defending effectively to the south, and then you can do a proper mainland landing later in the year.

It depends where that hex is I think. Just landing on the mainland triggers a surrender check (except in July) but its modified by a quarter of German CV not within 10 hex of the frontline and I already have a decent garrison in North Italy ahead of the requirement. If I am overgarrisoning anywhere it might as well be there. In other games I've had Italy stay in the war until late Sept or even mid Oct despite the Allies being on the mainland to the far south. I don't think he will go for a 1 TF attack near enough the north to negate this garrison yet, its too dangerous while he is already covering two beachheads to stick another in the belly of the beast. Near Reggio maybe offers better risk/reward but won't necessarily trigger a surrender straight away (though might do of course).

[bomccarthy]

ORIGINAL: Gunnulf

Turn 6 - 7th Aug '43

The Reich:

8th Air force switched to deep micro raids, taking a shotgun to the Leipzig / Madgeburg area and all of Berlin too. It plays to the strength of the system of course but for me doesn't quite fit with my understanding of reality. Reading a chronology of either 8th Air force (for example - https://8thafhs.org/combat1944a.htmor Bomber command) and it does't list 50 raids on different targets over the week. I believe a number of elements are missing from the equation here; the planning involved in organising raids, processing recon, briefing etc... this wasn't done on the fly with groups heading off to do their own thing relatively b) the morale element - there was a certain safety in numbers that gave confidence flying in bigger groups that maybe is not reflected in these small raids, there should be a negative morale effect of flying in small groups over germany. As we have seen the German answer is to step up interception to 300%, which means each group getting swarmed and continually outnumbered. This would run nerves hard compared to flying in raids of hundreds where the odds are better iii) navigation, this was a pretty big deal in the days before GPS. As mentioned above my grandfather was a navigator in a pathfinder squadron, completing 2 tours in 43 over France and Germany (thankfully safely, and his old log book makes interesting reading even though sadly he has long passed and was fairly quiet about the experience himself). Finding the target at night was a big deal even with the innovations in OBOE etc... These small raids on multiple targets can't possibly be reflecting the full benefit of a properly organised, pathfinder led mission. This is not a rail on QBall at all, its not gamey I don't think but I do feel something of the flavour of the campaign is being missed here. The end result will and should be the case that the Luftwaffe will be ground to dust, and the economy will be in ruins by 45, but I would like the pros and cons of various strategies to involve more incentives than trying to get at least 1% damage in as many places as possible rather than hammering a small amount of targets properly. Anyway, to re-iterate, QBall is judging it all well, has an effective strategy and its paying off in VPs. +13VP for bombs dropped, -2VP for Uboats not scratched.

I've been playing WITW against the Axis AI for almost a year and this is one feature of the otherwise great air engine that has bothered me. Very small strategic raids have an outsized effect on the accumulation of bombing VPs. It's true that the 20th and 21st Bomber Commands took a successful shotgun approach against Japanese targets beginning in April 1945 (using 10-15 B-29s per target on daylight precision raids), but they did so after examining the difference between European and Japanese targets (particularly the smaller physical size of Japanese industry targets and the almost complete lack of Japanese air defense by that point) and taking into account the weather conditions over Japan in the late spring and early summer (lots of cloud cover limiting the number of days for effective precision raids). For a good account of these studies and the resulting strategy, see Daniel Schwabe, Burning Japan (Univ of Nebraska Press, 2015). The German industrial targets were larger and the individual bombloads carried on most raids in Europe were significantly smaller than those carried by a B-29.

What have been the losses suffered by the Allied bombers on the raids so far? From what I've read in some how-to threads and several AARs over the past year, Allied players have carried on with losses that would have permanently broken the 8th AF in one month and resulted in courts martial. Is this shotgun bombing strategy resulting in heavy losses? Should it? Given that the Luftwaffe occasionally attacked bomber formations with upwards of 80-100 fighters in daylight, individual small bomber formations would have been devastated, resulting in destroyed groups and permanently broken morale in their sister groups. And a night, Bomber Command faced an almost impossible task of locating and striking individual industrial targets.

I tend to play conservatively, since I am only paying the AI, and tend to use small strategic raids only against railyards in a particular geographic area. I don't know if there is a solution to this issue (adjusting the bombing VP structure, although then the overall VP structure would have to be re-examined in light of any changes).

[Gunnulf]

I would agree with all of that. I got WITW when it first came out but the joys of a one year old AND a job forced me to shelve this and WITE/WITP. I’ve still got the kid and the job but thankfully some of my time back too, and been really getting back into WITW recently. However while it’s an awesome game and the bombing campaign is fantastically well conceived and implemented, this is one bit I feel sticks a little bit. From reading what I missed it seems like folks through trial and error worked out multiple small raids gets the best results to the extent that some could not bother invading Germany at all and win by VPs from bombing. The new optional city scoring seems to have been introduced to ‘discourage’ relying on bombing points, which looks sensible, but underlying this the problem of too many VPs from Bombing like this seems like it might remain, rather than fixing whether the bombing is a little ‘off target’.

I know relatively more about Bomber command so to look at that for example. While there had been huge improvements since the start of the war night navigation was a very specialist skill. Select crews were assigned to the Pathfinders, and my grandfathers log book, otherwise quite a functional but very interesting document is heavily highlighted with ‘!!!!’ to show the pride he felt when his crew was selected to join a pathfinder squadron. Ironically he was notorious for getting lost in a car… At the start of July 43 there were 7 pathfinder squadrons (about 10%), by the end of the war 15 squadrons. For point of reference it was considered that before Gee was introduced 25% of bombers found their target in good weather, after this rose to 40%. Following pathfinder tactics this was dramatically higher and would continue to rise. To look for example at what was going on about the time of the start of the GC on the night of 25/26 July ’43 600 bombers hit Essen, led by 9 pathfinders mosquitos using Oboe who marked the target despite the smokescreen. The German damage assessment was that more damage was done that night than all previous attacks on Essen to date. This seems to lend support to the type of attack that should be effective. At a similar time Op Gomorrah was a series of 4 raids over ten days on Hamburg (which is nice support for the usual player tempo I think of bombing on D2, D4 & D6). On the night of 27/28 July for example 787 bombers were launched. The pathfinders used H2S though the markers were dropped 2 miles from the intended centre (still better than I could do I’m sure…) but the main force dropped with notable concentration and such damage that 2/3rd of the population fled. While these are certainly large raids and relatively small ones in the region of 300 bombers were happening too I tend to use this as an indication to use 2 city bombing directives for bomber command at operating at a similar tempo, though occasionally a 3rd. Of course it’s a game at the end of the day, and I don’t begrudge Qball in the slightly for doing the right thing here. Especially as he is not in on the conversation yet, but of course we have agreed he should join when the action moves on a bit. He has no doubt got more experience on why different tactics perform better.

In summary as much as I am in awe of what a good innovative part of the game this is, I do feel there should be more thought into the effect of training pathfinders as a limited resource to support effective night bombing results, and there simply weren’t enough to support 25 small raids in a week and expect to see favourable results. There should be much more raids completely missing their targets, and as bomccarthy says the morale effect of flying in such small groups and getting bounced by 3 times your number... These were tough, stoic, steady guys, but bejesus… On the final note for those who have not heard this, here is a brief bit of intercom from a typically unflappable crew. Amazingly brave gentlemen, going about their business like it’s a drive to the shops... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R5NI-IrUU0
Bonus points if you can point out any issue with the photo paired with the clip (other than its daylight…)

[Helpless]

Interesting discussion. Thanks for bringing it up. I agree that small raids shouldn't be a silver bullet... so far I'm not sure it is.

First of all, raid size is in equation when determining defensive power of formation during the day. It also indirectly should have impact on night bombing accuracy. Damage done is also should be quite limited.

I managed to download very good save of this game just prior the WA air execution. Don't want to provide extra intel, but it doesn't really look all bright and shining for WA. Losses are quite significant. Groups suffer huge morale hit.

Don't know if you'll buy it, but still, WA player doesn't run single raids, they come in series. Since game doesn't allow to hit multiple sites (cities) in single raid it could be considered as parts of single complex raid.

Last and not the least he is doing ~10 bombing VPs per turn, which is not an exceptional achievement and doesn't come without a cost.

With all said, I'll take closer look for the possible tweaks and improvements.

Thanks again for the feedback. We can't improve the game without it.

[Gunnulf]

Interesting, of course I wasn't fishing for intel and I'm not sure I can quantify any news anyway and certainly can't do too much different anyway QBall did recently comment that 'Air resistance has been strong, though I wonder about the cost in Germans' in his email. In my loss tallies it certainly feels like he is getting the better of the fight compared to other games played so far but my reference is not extensive. As it is I've been broadcasting to the pixel-volk that everything is roses and final victory will be ours. At least I was broadcasting until a Mosquito bombed the transmitter! @$%*#!!!
I can see the reasoning that its part of a series of waves as part of the same complex raid, but in this case in the game mechanics do interceptors return to base, or attempt to sortie out each time or remain in the area of the bomber stream (ammo/fuel allowing)?

[Helpless]

I can see the reasoning that its part of a series of waves as part of the same complex raid, but in this case in the game mechanics do interceptors return to base, or attempt to sortie out each time or remain in the area of the bomber stream (ammo/fuel allowing)?

It depends. AS is staying in the area, auto intercepts are trying to sortie each time when it is possible.

[Gunnulf]

I have been doing a mix; AS around Essen, principally as I wanted to avoid projecting too far forward and get ripped to shreds trying to stand up to Fighter commands encroachments, and interceptions in the north and centre, but with gruppes carefully placed so there range doesn't extend into 'the dead zone'. It would be easier to achieve if air interception worked on a MINAC %, or if you could define the max range that a gruppe should attempt to intercept. The latter seems more useful/practical. 12 Bf109s scrambling and flying to max range in order to commit hari-kari against 60 Spitfires without a bomber in sight is always painful. The RAF did use bait tactics over France but all too often if you are not careful these impetuous fighter jocks will fly off on Operation certain death. AS over the Ruhr seems to work reasonably well but he has got occasional Spitfire VB and Typhoons over the city. We can beat them but its attritional and we need to pick out the bombers obviously.

[Helpless]

if you could define the max range that a gruppe should attempt to intercept.

It is one of the long timers on the list. Would be added long time ago if not all extra interface changes it requires.

[Helpless]

Btw, I found some of your groups (ex. I/NJG 2) with no planes and full of pilots. Probably due to the restricted replacement setting.

[Gunnulf]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Btw, I found some of your groups (ex. I/NJG 2) with no planes and full of pilots. Probably due to the restricted replacement setting.

You see, this is why I was right to join the army rather than the air force

[Gunnulf]

Turn 6 - 14 Aug '43

First things first - the defense of the Reich

Targets this week are the Ruhr & Cologne (47 raids by Bomber command!), while 8th AF hits Schweinfurt & Stuttgart with 600 bombers each, we guessed right on Schweinfurt and hurt the stream, while Stuttgart raid gets lucky as we refitted the fighter gruppe there last turn. Bombing VPs up at 14, with a negative 1 for U-boats. QBall on email is confident he will hit 20 VP per turn before the end of '43 and I've no reason to doubt him and not much power to thwart his plans. Permenant losses reported at about 200 B17 & B24s & 160 Lancs & Halifaxes. I don't feel like he is going to run out any time soon... As Japan in WITP you have a bit more control over your destiny in what you produce. Germany has to work with what we are given, and it isn't much. Oh, sorry and Italy/Romania/Bulgaria. Sorry guys, I forgot you were still in it. You complete us, and we value your support at this difficult time.

[Gunnulf]

Sicily

Some interesting tactics at Palermo. 23 Arm Bde launches a series of probing attacks, each supported by 2 task forces, and each stops short fairly promptly as a reconnaissance in force. I guess trying to burn off the defenders ammo or cause fatigue. Actually looks like the base CV actually rises, maybe from experience gains. When the 4th attack comes in its a biggie. Best part of 80,000 men; 2 Infantry divisions, 1 airborne division, 1 US Arm division, 3 Br Armoured brigades, 15 artillery btlns & 2 independent engineers (7 inc. div troops) with a few fliers for good measure. We are proud to announce another epic victory, although losses not that heavy on either side. The forts are damaged though so while supplies still hold out, the end will no doubt not be far off. We console ourselves that its turn 7, if this was the Husky scenario things would be going quite well. QBall is clearly careful to avoid VP losses and so far to date has not attacked a German unit on either island.

The Garibaldi line in Sardinia is relatively secure, no attacks even though looks like he has overwhelming strength available. Its the whole 7th Army there, although the armour is off the front line, possibly pulling back to N.Africa for phase 2 as its clearly redundant here. He has taken to launching considerable naval patrols off our final port, we counterattack but it seems clear that isolation rather than direct attacks will be the end of the Sardinia expeditionary force. We have reasonable supply levels though so might take time. We'll see... So far its playing out as expected to be honest, these troops are all but written off when I pulled the trigger on re-inforcing Sardinia. But I'd rather be losing troops here than fighting on the open plains NE of Rome while getting buzzed by Spitfires as I rush to try to evacuate the whole Italian peninsula before the end of '43... We had a vision and it was more horrible than the few regiments we might lose here. Of course this might still happen even if Sardinia holds for a few weeks, but not for want of trying on my side and while plenty will argue the rational textbook thing is to evacuate then how dull is that? Lets see how long this defense can play out.

But as a backup we are making plans elsewhere. Reggio is defended by HG PZ Div, clearly redundant on Sicily as he is not going to attack in the NW for at least a couple more turns, if ever. HG Pz more useful there though for sure. His lack of urgency here suggests to me eventually he will rely on me evacuating in response to a landing elsewhere. On which note, LXXVi Pz Korps is covering against this in the south. Best guess being 2 turns time or then onwards when the first released TFs are prepped. We also have payed out a few APs to build the Gothic line. We'll need it at some point anyway and at least a few Italian divs are helping dig while they are still around. Also II SS Pz Korps (1, 12 & 16 SS Pz Gn, 26 Pz and 4 Fallshirmjager) is assembled there within striking distance of the Roman riveria should he get impetuous... So far this seems out of character, but if they were targeted there from the start it might be tempting to pull the trigger anyway might en it...

[bomccarthy]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Don't know if you'll buy it, but still, WA player doesn't run single raids, they come in series. Since game doesn't allow to hit multiple sites (cities) in single raid it could be considered as parts of single complex raid.

But, as Harrybanana demonstrated in his thread "Strategic bombing for dummies" (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4074541), you can set up an air directive for a geographic area bounded by 9 hexes (90 miles) on each side, with "14 strikes of 100 bomber each" or "25 strikes of 50 bombers each" (depending upon how many bombers you have available in any one turn). He demonstrates how that many strikes in such a large area can generate a large number of bombing points each turn. How many negative casualty points would be generated by the loss of @600 crewman (real-life Schweinfurt raid, which caused the 8th AF to halt unescorted raids in the Autumn of 1943 and ultimately change commanders)?

Again, I am not trying to upset the cart (I'm actually a convert from WITP:AE because of the air system), but just provide some food for thought if the VP system is ever examined for renovation.

[Helpless]

"14 strikes of 100 bomber each" or "25 strikes of 50 bombers each"

In most cases it is possible to merge them logically into large complex raids. In any case, I'm just trying to say that this kind of missions wouldn't be too off from historical raids.

How many negative casualty points would be generated by the loss of @600 crewman (real-life Schweinfurt raid, which caused the 8th AF to halt unescorted raids in the Autumn of 1943 and ultimately change commanders)?

Afaik, none, unless this is air campaign game.

It is always possible to make it more strict and add some. Currently I see plenty of WA groups with morale in 10's, which is extremely low. It could be used as basis for extra rolls (ex. leader dismissal, mission activity, etc).

but just provide some food for thought if the VP system is ever examined for renovation.

Sure, I'm very open to VP system feedback. In fact, it has been changed two times quite radically since release, allowing various options.

[Gunnulf]

Currently the crew losses for aircraft don't feed into the negative VPs for the allies do they? Perhaps they should be factored in. Crew number lost x by a multiplier to have a sightly higher impact than an infantryman. Clearly there is not too much of a disincentive to ride your bomber crews hard, you are unlikely to run out. Whereas as we see, there is such a thing in reality as unacceptable losses. They were bad for morale. I remember grandma telling how she lived near the base and would count the sounds of the bombers going out and back again. But here its seems like the allies are incentivised to be very careful not to lose VPs for troops and QBall making no attempt yet try to attack on the ground, which is entirely rational, but equally bombers are encouraged to go hard and take risks going deep into the Reich because you are always going to gain more than you stand lose. This may make for more interesting choices at times for the allies. Maybe even might encourage to switch to softer French targets at times.

[Helpless]

Yes, WA probably would never run out of planes and crews, but by design morale hit should have operational impact decreasing efficiency. Adding it to VP count to make it more visible is very possible, but it might require a lot of balancing work.

[Gunnulf]

No doubt, but if anybody can do it, I'm sure you can!
Just throwing it into the mix. It's a great model, but certainly seems like potential for tweaks, no doubt some applicable to WITE2.

[bomccarthy]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Yes, WA probably would never run out of planes and crews, but by design morale hit should have operational impact decreasing efficiency. Adding it to VP count to make it more visible is very possible, but it might require a lot of balancing work.

I agree that adding it to the VP count would require a lot of balancing work, since the WA are already penalized rather heavily for ground losses.

I like the idea of extra rolls for very low morale - this would realistically reflect how local commanders and crews would react to being pushed too far. In fact, this sort of process would be ideal for addressing the U-Boat and V-Weapon threats - I'm sure it's not feasible even in WITW 2.0 (if envisioned), but instead of negative VPs for undamaged U-Boat and V-Weapon industry, the number of air directives available to 8th AF and Bomber Command could be increasingly restricted as U-Boat and V-Weapon targets remain undamaged. This would reflect mounting national political pressure on Eaker/Doolittle and Harris to do something about these targets. There then could be a point of no-return - an additional roll each turn, failure of which would result in the sacking the 8th AF and Bomber Command leaders, who would then be replaced by "suitable" commanders with the highest political rating.

[Helpless]

How it is going? As I could see you are on turn 8 already.