[added to review list] bugs in air to ground combat engine - screenshots added

[Sly]

this is the first time i try to upload a jpg file to the forum, so please be patient if something goes wrong. For technical reasons, I took a picture of the screen, I hope that all the details will be visible.
Photo is from h2h game so I can describe the situation exactly.
The ground attack against 3rd mot ID is alone, but in the next hex is the 57th Mot Corps HQ. There are no German units on the air raid route.
game engine somehow collected 1239 Motorized Rifle Sqads, 539 Machinguns and others to fire AA fire but i am 100% there is only one division in target hex

[loki100]

rule 19.3.4:

[Sly]

Here is an additional description.
I suspect based on my observations that the game engine allows very strong anti-aircraft fire from hexes adjacent to the target hex. in the example above, the altitude of the mission is 13000ft, which is beyond the range of 20mm flak 38 (9100ft). There are quite a few 20mm guns in the HQ of the 57th Corps, only a few in the 3rd Division, but they shouldn't all be firing in the final attack at 1000 ft in target hex.
In my opinion, the problem concerns all missions with tactical bombers or figter bombers set to bomb.

[Sly]

hello loki 101
of course i know it
I repeat again, there are no German units in the way of raids,
20mm AA guns cannot fire at an altitude of 13,000 ft, only 3rd Division is in target hex, plus aa company, there is no logical way for a game engine to legally harvest this firepower

[Sly]

will write it manually:

1239 Mot Rifle Sqad, 539 Machingun squad, 238 flak 38 20 mm AA lead anti-aircraft fire in target hex, mission altitude is set to 13000ft and then auto dive to 1000ft. Except the 3rd motorized ID doesn't have and can't have 1200 rifle sqads in its oob right?
I don't want to give any more of these horrible pictures, but the other fighter bombers set to bomb attacks look suspicious as well.

[Sly]

anoter picture

[Sly]

xx

[Sly]

you can open this saved jpg image in a new tab to view the details

[Sly]

sorry for the confusion i already have screenshots

general situation, 3rd Motorized is in hex 191,130

[Sly]

here is air attack on hex 191,130

[Sly]

here is interdiction attack on empty hex 190,130 note firing motorised rifle sqads form hex 191,130

[Sly]

here is 3rd Motorised Division in hex 191,130

[Sly]

and this is another bug in the game.
The principles of low altitude attacks are theoretically as stated in the manual
"In air to ground combat (19.4) it is assumed that fighter
and tactical bombers with a mission altitude over 5,000 '
will actually conduct their attacks at 1,000 '. This will lead
to additional anti-aircraft fire at the lower altitude as nonspecialist
weapon systems can also be used in an antiaircraft
roles.
Air units that fly below 5,000 ’for their mission will evade
most conventional anti-aircraft fire but may be vulnerable
to other weapons ".
So let's set the altitude of fighter bombers to 4000 ft and see what happens. Unfortunately they still seem to dive to 1000ft and receive an extra AA fire. I do not see any other possibility for infantry and motorcycle troops to shoot at these Bf 110s at an altitude of 4000 ft

[loki100]

I'm sorry but I see nothing here that isn't WAD.

Simply setting the mission height at 4,000' doesn't stop the attack happening at 1,000', it simply determines how they are treated for AA or interception along the route. This is how FB/Tac bombers mostly attack in the game. LB would stay at the mission height.

I agree the combat table is a bit hard to interpret but this is a limit in the game engine. It shows you everything that *could* have fired on the mission.

you are showing some losses for a plane like the I-15 bis, so a slow bi-plane picks up losses, note you don't show that the losses were related to AA (the 'air losses' screen), they could quite feasibly be operational losses

[Sly]

therefore the manual is not precise enough, fb and tacb perform attacks from 1000 ft regardless of whether the altitude of the mission is set above 5000 ft or below

Can you explain how the game engine calculates AA firepower in the event of diving attacks at an altitude of 1000 ft? Where did 1,200 moto rifle sqads come from in one division, and who shoots planes in empty hexes.
If I understand the rules of the game, planes going to the target at an altitude of 13000ft are not attacked by infantry or AA wepons if they are out of their range, and AA fire at an altitude of 1000ft is only carried out by units in hex which is the target of the attack right?

PS. I will add screenshots in a moment

[Sly]

this is the screen that loki100 asked for

[Joel Billings]

In speaking to Gary about this, his recollection was that fighter bombers and tac bombers always drop down low to bomb, but as this rule goes back a long way, we're not sure. We'll discuss it later this week and see if we can find whether this is happening or not. I'll let you know what we find out. If Gary is right, they always drop down to 1000.

If that were the case, would that explain the large number of small arms elements able to fire? If there's a case where you think the display is too much, can you attach saves, before and after the attack, so we can see what you think is wrong and run it ourselves. That would help the most. Thanks.

[Sly]

I wanna help not to complain so yeah that explains a lot.
Saves are needed, I'll take care of it.
If i may, I will send them by e-mail, I'm not sure if I will be able to include them on the forum.
by the way
Gary used this rule, there are no more diving attacks below 5000ft as i remember in WitPAE (attack bombers concept) and I read about it in the WitW manual too. The Eastern Front is a good place to try it for all zerstorers and sturmoviks too

[Joel Billings]

You can always use 2by3@2by3games.com to send us saves. Thanks.

I told Gary that this rule has been around for a long time and going back as far as Bombing the Reich he thought they would always bomb at 1000 feet and didn't remember changing it. However, it's possible he's forgotten about the change or it was made by someone else. The problem is it's easier to find something in the code than to prove that something doesn't exist in the code. [:)]

[Sly]

It's good that You remember that there was something like that[:)].

There is a polish saying that illustrates this situation: "The bells are ringing, but it is not known in which church".

PS. e mail send