Why Do I Need to Hit V-Weapon Sites in Feb '44?

[GeneralDad]

Why Do I as WA Need to Hit V-Weapon Sites in Feb '44? I checked and if Wikipedia is accurate then V-weapons were not fired until June 1944. I am losing significant VPs to V-Weapons and because of bad weather I have not been able to bomb them until now. So to avoid losing VPs I need to bomb the inactive sites rather than something currently more meaningful?

The Living Manual on page 163 is pretty clear that I lose the VPs from '1944' and that appears to be January 1944. Apparently V-weapons are not even hitting me yet but I know enough about them and am losing enough to unfired V-weapons that I need to take them out?

The factories are another problem since they are out of range of my fighters. Do I risk bombers with partial escorts or just suck it up and lose the VPs?

Thoughts? Thanks.
GeneralDad

[cfulbright]

You ought to be able to hit all the V weapon factories including Stettin with P-38J's with 300 gallon tanks and P-51B-10's with 2x108 gallon tanks. Use Lowesoft as a staging base.

Cary

[Gunnulf]

You start losing points from January but there is nothing stopping you from bombing in December in order that they start 44 in a state of disrepair and you never even start losing VPs. Operation crossbow actually started in August 43 but that's too early in the game.
Regards V1s actually launching from June44 - looks like the real life player did a great job at delaying production and preventing those sites getting operational

[GeneralDad]

Hi Cary

Bigger tanks for the P-51s are not available yet. But apparently I can lay one strike on to the big V-weapon factory at Griefswald with Lightnings. Because of intense combat the last two turns I have some resting Thunderbolts that can be switched to P-38s, so can lay on more strikes in the coming turns.

Thanks,
GeneralDad

[GeneralDad]

Hi Gunnulf,

Yeah, I did not even think about them until I noted my VPs going down. Thanks for the tip about bombing them next time in December, though in my current game much of December was not flyable due to bad weather.

GeneralDad

[jtaCumming]

What I do is on the first available turn, either in very late Dec or early Feb, send the Libs and P-38 to bomb the biggest V factory up on the Baltic coast while sending the B-17s and p51s to attack Nordhausen, the second biggest factory.

In addition I use BC loaded with the biggest HE loads they can carry to hit the individual launching sites ( don't forget Cherbourg, the largest). You can set a 5 or 6 hex target box over the northern French coast and hit the vast majority of them while targeting Cherbourg independently. BC can do a great job knocking them out for a couple of months or so.

It will tie up your bomber force for one week but the results should allow you to ignore targeting the V sites for quite awhile.

[cfulbright]

Also, don't forget The Hague has a launch site.

Cary

[GeneralDad]

I hit it - I am back to positive VPs after taking heavy action against the V-weapons.