Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.
If on the defaults with 300 well armed FBs you're getting nothing above a 2, the odds are you are asking for too large an area. ...
Consider that it increases geometrically. A size 1 mission has 7 target hexes (maybe more if it does a weird tail thing). A size 2 has 19 target hexes. A size 3 has 37 target hexes. If you threw 500 FBs at a size three, you'd onyl have actually allocated 13 planes a hex. (Simplistically. What will actually happen is it will try to provide enough strikes to ensure every hex is hit, and then repeat some, until out of aircraft miles. But you get the idea)
You are right. I am flying in a too large area. Should I focus on the interdiction on the front or on the area behind the frontline? Or somewhere else entirely?
I’ve found three basic uses for non-rail interdiction.
1. Supply disruption/truck killing. This is best done just behind the front, preferably near HQs and paths from suspected depots. During the logistics phase, every truck that runs through a hex suffers a movement cost and potential disruption or damage. Besides reducing the supply and replacements that make it to a unit, it also eats into the German trucks. Locally that helps reduce MPs both now and in the future, and limits the overall supply they can move. Strategically, once you push those stocks past a critical point you’ll notice that everything becomes harder for the Germans, and their heavy formations in particular are less viable.
The trucks are semi intelligent though - they’ll go to an open hex rather than through interdiction if it costs less movement. So in open terrain you need to create a box. Well placed, a size 1 mission can create a 3 hex deep layer of interdiction that the Germans will feel. A size 0 can be used to target key passes, force the trucks to go through bad terrain, and whatever else. A size 2 is likely to be less destructive as a whole, but you’ll ensure everything along what is basically a Corps area is taking some hit.
2. Attack prep. When you attack, the interdiction over the target automatically disrupts things and does some damage (imagine reserves having to wait to move until night, or artillery batteries that won’t fire while there’s a P-47 circling over head that hasn’t seen them yet, and so forth) You’ll need a high number for it to be really worth it, but it is often the final piece of the puzzle to cracking a tough position. And when you win, the interdiction does more damage and disruption as the unit tries to retreat while under constant air attack.
Usually this means size 0 on the unit in question. Flak is going to be a problem, and you don’t want to take losses flying at units you won’t be hitting. For bonus cleverness, if you know where you expect them to retreat to, you can interdict that hex as well, creating your very own highway of death where the unit suffers when you attack it, when it retreats, when it enters the hex it retreated to, when it’s logistics try to come up next phase, and if it moves out of the hex during your opponent’s turn. That’ll crush a panzer division.
3. Defensive shield/reposition penalty. Usually during landings, but also whenever you think the Germans might have to move lots of forces. Whenever a unit moves through interdiction, it takes a hit. Whenever it attacks put from interdiction, it gets hit. If you lay a layer in front of your landings or breakthrough, you get two things: you damage and disrupt every unit approaching, and if any unit attacks it gets extra disruption - which means a better chance for you to hold on. The issue is that for this to work you need at least middling interdiction. Over a larger area. Which means you’ll probably be resting a lot of FBs next week.
You mention supply disruption/truck killing and attack prep. Both are set up as interdiction missions, correct? I do not see any specific truck killing missions in the ground or strategic attack mission.
I bring this thread up again as I was wondering what benefits there are for RAF to bomb during night? I would assume fewer losses, but also less damage inflicted?
Would it be better to bomb during the day instead? Or should I even change USAF to bomb during night as well?
Bomber Command doesn't have mid to long-range escorts, unlike the US 8th Air Force, so definitely higher losses, but as you guessed, you also get much less damage on particular industrial targets from night bombing.
I focus my strategic air campaign on attriting the Luftwaffe fighter force, so I send in heavily escorted 8th AF raids (usually with a 2:1 ratio of escorts to bombers) at the range of the escorts. I generally switch Bomber Command to day bombing around turn 10, after the Luftwafee day fighters have been bled down to an acceptable level.
Make sure your bomber AD's are flying at 21K or higher, and switch out of Stirlings ASAP so you can do that.
I focus my strategic air campaign on attriting the Luftwaffe fighter force, so I send in heavily escorted 8th AF raids (usually with a 2:1 ratio of escorts to bombers) at the range of the escorts.
Does this mean you fly no longer than to the point where all your bombers have escorts all the way, or do you let your bombers fly alone for part of the route? And you use quite a few escorts, I assume you rest the bombers that do not have escorts available then?
ORIGINAL: cfulbright
I generally switch Bomber Command to day bombing around turn 10, after the Luftwafee day fighters have been bled down to an acceptable level.
Do you wear the Luftwaffe down by shooting them down, or do you target aircraft factories and airfields?
Would it be better to bomb during the day instead? Or should I even change USAF to bomb during night as well?
see my last AAR vs Glorious Ruse for a long discussion about this.
Pragmatically, its a really good idea - even if you stick to the Ruhr/Hamburg (so within range of the 1943 RAF escorts). You render the German NF commitment irrelevant and you get more damage/bomb. I'd take the view that it starts to put the Allies into a game breaking position.
Now what the game doesn't model is practical training and underlying attitudes. The RAF bombed in a different pattern to the 8 AAF and used different doctrine to bring its bombers over the targets (when they got somewhere near to one as opposed to terrorising a few bemused cows). So to learn 8 AAFs doctrine would in reality have been quite a down time. Add on Harris was a psychopathic nut case who maintained that night bombers were effective despite all the evidence.
In the summer of 1944, BC started more of a mixed day/night system but by then the 8 AAF's Mustangs pretty much dominated over Germany so it was less risky. But even into 1945, BC used night raids - they bombed Cologne the night before British troops entered it (as above Harris was a nut case ... Stalin really liked him). There is no doubt that by mid-44 the RAF could have swapped to daytime raids by default but they chose to use the Mustangs as ground attack aircraft and deploy them mostly in Italy.
So its a matter of choice, I don't in 1943 as I think the effect basically ends the game as a game. Always worth remembering a good rule of thumb is the Allied score for bombing at the end of 1943 is basically their +ve score at the end of the game. Unless something dramatic happens, odds on pretty much all of 1944 and 1945 are VP neutral.
Does this mean you fly no longer than to the point where all your bombers have escorts all the way, or do you let your bombers fly alone for part of the route? And you use quite a few escorts, I assume you rest the bombers that do not have escorts available then?
If it's a vital target (U-boat factories in 1943, V rocket factories in 1944), I'll fly past the escorts, but try to avoid too much of it. Also I may target something for just one day rather than three days a week, so I damage it some by don't take as many losses. Loss rates tend to go up the more days a week you fly an air group, as morale goes down and fatigue goes up.
I destroy the Luftwaffe by trading pilots and aircraft, as the USAF did in the war. It's bloody but effective. After I get the U-boat factories and V Weapon sites under control I occasionally target Leipzig, Regensburg, and Wiener Neustadt (once I have Foggia working), because those three cities have all the Be 109 factories. Each has three factories for those producing 25-42 planes a week, so nice and juicy. If you state target 3 factories in each city per AD, it will tend to hit just those bigger factories and ignore the smaller factories making planes you don't care about. I also sometimes hit Kassel (Fw-190A's) and when I get P-51D's and P-38J's I target Marienburg and Cottbus (also Fw-190's). I do NOT target any other aircraft factories because I only care about German daytime interceptors, I don't care about NF's', LB's, Rec, etc.
see my last AAR vs Glorious Ruse for a long discussion about this.
Thank you Loki It is an interesting read!
ORIGINAL: loki100
Always worth remembering a good rule of thumb is the Allied score for bombing at the end of 1943 is basically their +ve score at the end of the game. Unless something dramatic happens, odds on pretty much all of 1944 and 1945 are VP neutral.
...Each has three factories for those producing 25-42 planes a week, so nice and juicy. If you state target 3 factories in each city per AD, it will tend to hit just those bigger factories and ignore the smaller factories making planes you don't care about.
Thank you Cary! How can you tell they produce 25-42 planes a week? What do you mean with "If you state target 3 factories in each city per AD, it will tend to hit just those bigger factories and ignore the smaller factories making planes you don't care about."
Do I understand it correctly if you then first start to bomb other targets first when the Luftwaffe is under control?
Thank you Cary! How can you tell they produce 25-42 planes a week? What do you mean with "If you state target 3 factories in each city per AD, it will tend to hit just those bigger factories and ignore the smaller factories making planes you don't care about."
Do I understand it correctly if you then first start to bomb other targets first when the Luftwaffe is under control?
If you start a Strategic Bombing AD and filter to just Air, then sort by NUM, you'll see the cities ranked with the ones producing highest total of aircraft per week at the top. You also can see which aircraft model each factory makes In my screenshot you can see Regensburg has three factories, all making Bf 109 variants, in sizes of 42 , 35, and 23. Leipzig has two currently active Bf 109 factories, but if you click on the city you'll see that it as one more that's not in production yet and you can't bomb it. Lastly you can see Rostock produces lots of aircraft, but I don't care about any of those models because they're tactical bombers and night fighters.
So when I set up my AD to bomb Leipzig I'll set the Strike NUM to 2, and the AD will usually bomb the two largest factories, which happen to be my two Bf 109 priorities.
You can see factory size either using the city filter or on map using the strategic recon overlay. That being said, conventional wisdom has it that the LW has plenty of airframes and never enough pilots. So factory bombing might not pay off in the way you think it will. Then again, you have all the math and info at your fingertips to find a way to prove CW wrong (or right) if you want to.
To Cary’s point, all other things being equal, the target selection sub-routine in a large area AD will choose the bigger targets first. So if you bomb a ten hex range for “oil” it’ll go for the 20 point oil field before it gets around to trying to hit the 2 point one.
To Loki’s point on VP, between generally equal players who play a reasonably standard game without any unexpectedly decisive ground outcomes, the ground war will often be very close to even on VPs. Maybe +/- 125. By early ‘44 VPs for bombing start to nosedive at the same time you have far more negative VP targets (V-weapons), and they simply crash by late’ 44 to the point where they at best help cancel the V weapons that you miss. By ‘45 bombing points only really reflect capturing German industry, as the requirements for a point are so high that you need to trash all of Germany to get what you might have for a raid earlier.
So - what you walk away with from ‘43 air may be the single largest pile of VP you have in the whole game, and most definitely the biggest set of air VP.
Again, that assumes a standard flow of play...but it’s standard for a reason...
Thank you Cary and GloriousRuse! I'm reading the manual, but your (and others) explanations makes it all clearer and gives depth and understanding to what is going on. Your feedback is highly appreciated!
Now I was wondering about Superiority missions. Do you know how these are flown? Do the fighters take off, and fly the specified area for a given time of the day? Or do they only take off, and fly to the area should an enemy aircraft enter it?
How do you set up your Superiority missions? Do you make the area large or small? My experience with it seem to be that they do not take such a large hit in Morale and Fatigue, even when flying almost every day... This leads me to think that they might be on the ground until enemy aircraft are reported within the area they are set to patrol?
They always fly, barring running out of miles/aircraft. As the Germans, small and tight missions let you decide where you want to kill bombers or make a stand tactically. As the allies, you typically want larger areas to try to fish out the German fighters.
Playing the Pointblank Directive I see that quite a few factories have damage even though I have not been bombing them. I can understand that other factories in the same hex might also take some damage, but these factories are in complete different hexes that I've never flown missions to. What is going on here I wonder..?
Is it somehow possible to see the last turn bombing and air combat sites? Until now I've only been able to see these when in my own ground combat phase.
Some more questions for you on this topic I'm still on the Pointblank Directive air only scenario and se
1 - Can I have my recon flights take photos of targets along the route to their main target? I've tried to place waypoints over interesting targets enroute, but still see their "Last photo taken" information as being a long time ago.
2 - Am I really only able to see the battle sites during my current ground phase? I usually complete a round before exiting the game. After starting it up again it is not possible to see where I encountered fighters and in what hexes I bombed the last turn and I often can't remember this information...
3 - In the current scenario I target HI, ARM, MAN U-BOAT and AIR. However I see in the AD summary after an air phase that the target also were Railroad, Resource production, Fuel production etc. Why is this? I can understand that such factories could be hit as well, as they are close to my primary target. But still, they are not my target, only additional damage done. For example I use the RAF to bomb Manpower in Hamburg at night. In the AD Summary I see the Type was Manpower, but Target were Railyard and resource production.
It is an interesting read!