All aircraft were improved. Why?

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

Hi Kete
Note that SPWAW models WWII combat, not modern warfare...

oh are we not the smart one, yes I do know that fact, I was compareing your intell reports with modern intell reports, and since we know how the modern smart weapons work, it should show that "some" intell reports are not worth the paper they were written on

Well, we have only your word for it now. Could you present some researched facts about how flawed these "intel reports" about caused damage are?

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge
and for the East, I guess by your reports, Rudel never killed a tank in his stuka, it was all press releases, to keep the folk back at home happy

Yeah that was exactly my point...[8|]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

the IL-2/Il-10's were a scam just to keep the US sending Spam to the Russian troops

Yeah, that was exactly what the reports claimed...[8|]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

now I will agree, that I doubt many "tanks" were ever knocked out by 20 mm or 50 cal gun fire, but bombs and rockets did at times hit the target, and if not, if close, they tended to damage or flip the tank onto it's side (strange, wonder what the intell report would make out of a tank that was near missed by rockets that had been overturned, it was not destoryed, so a plane didn't "kill it")

but I do believe that the planes with 23 mm, 37 mm, 50 mm, 75 mm guns, may of knocked out a few tanks while they were flying

Did somebody claim otherwise? I have to disagree with the "flipping tanks" with rockets part though.

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

and as somebody else tried to say, killing tanks is not the whole story, troops, transports, support, without those, the Tank is useless

Yes, it was me who "tried" to say that...

ORIGINAL: Hard Sargesince we are in a game, I think the effects are seen to be much larger then they would be in real life, but then so are most of the fights in the game

The game presents tactical level combat. If you want to present operational level effects of air power in a scenario, then present the other side depleted, low in supply etc. If realism is the goal, no matter how far away it may be with this game, then there's absolutelly no reason to present Tac Bombers as unrealistic überweapons.

[JJKettunen]

double post

[Alexandra]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Try to use a little imagination here. Suppose you're in a Typhoon and fire off all your rockets hoping to knock out a vehicle or two. Suppose one of more of them miss. Does the dust that kicks up obscure your judgement any from the misses? And, if you're flying some 200MPH+ over the target, do your really have the ability to access the damage IF you bothered looking. From the looks of the films, the only hope you have of hitting anything any smaller than a buliding was to fire at it from quite close in, thereby limiting even more your power to figure out a kill.

Now, suppose that watching the target getting hit is too bothersome or difficult to access the damage, that you don't make an accessment until you make another pass. If you're the only plane in spotting the kills probably won't be too difficult, but, then again, if you're the only plane in, even when you have air superiority, you're unlikely to hang around very long. Now, if there's other planes in the strike, and there's no ground forces fighting these units, particularly if the accessment is done on any subsequent passes, then you 'might' be able to note a few probable knockouts, but whether you yourself had knocked out your target may be quite a different issue, when you consider that a lot of the targets will have scattered and that the more ammo flying with more planes, the more seeing through dust/smoke will be difficult.

Charles has this right. Ground attack is hard! Both to execute and to assess. Don't believe me? Go out and get IL-2 Sturmovik. Get a ground attack mission. Come zipping in at 200 mph, at 300 or so feet, and, you'll see how hard it is to target ID, while trying not to slam into the ground, or stall, or get shot down. Hits tend to be luck more than anything!! Heck, I consider a mission a success if I get to fly home, and when I do get a kill, I rarely know when exaclty, I got it. Air Support is hard, with very limited room for pilot error, so it's not suprising to me, at all, that claims were exagerated.

Alex

[FNG]

One interesting first-hand report from "The Guns of Victory", G. Blackburn, p.365:

"..an attack by bomb-carrying Spitfires - which were supposed to knock out a Jerry self-propelled gun... mistakenly knocked out six of our tanks instead..."

I can't see that a huge number of aircraft would have been called in to attack one SP gun, and I don't think that the author would overstate friendly-fire losses just to boost the figures for ground attack kills, so from this report, albeit isolated, one must surely concur that sometimes bombs vs. tanks got kills, and in this case, a substantial number.

[Frank W.]

mhh.. depends on the type of tank, or ?

let´s say a M10 or M18 is perhaps easier to kill than
a tiger ? open topped + quite thin armor.

i´m mostly with the party that say the air is too
deadly in this thread but as in PBM´s you can get
limits on air ( or often just got no option for air
because of bad weather or so... ) so it´s not THAT
big issue for me.

otherwise if you fight against a guy who have 3 air
secs available you can get in deep trouble. esp
when playing germans with FLAK seems to be not
THAT good in the game. while US flak sometimes
even hit a plane [:)]

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: FNG

One interesting first-hand report from "The Guns of Victory", G. Blackburn, p.365:

"..an attack by bomb-carrying Spitfires - which were supposed to knock out a Jerry self-propelled gun... mistakenly knocked out six of our tanks instead..."

I can't see that a huge number of aircraft would have been called in to attack one SP gun, and I don't think that the author would overstate friendly-fire losses just to boost the figures for ground attack kills, so from this report, albeit isolated, one must surely concur that sometimes bombs vs. tanks got kills, and in this case, a substantial number.

Big difference between bombs and rockets. The report itself shows the inaccuracy involved, doesn't it? How many times did they aim for tanks with bombs and hit bushes for that matter?

[FNG]

I agree entirely with the 'what type of tank?' question; open-topped TDs would be way more vulnerable than heavy tanks... to be honest I have no particular view about the efficacy (or not) of air in SP:WaW.

That said, even if you were encased in plenty of armour plate and someone dropped a significant quantity of HE on/very near you, it would still spoil your day. While thick armour will protect you from shrapnel and some blast, the concussion effects of large ordnance would still get to you, potentially fatally.

Before anyone asks, I don't have any evidence to back this up [:)]

[FNG]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Big difference between bombs and rockets. The report itself shows the inaccuracy involved, doesn't it? How many times did they aim for tanks with bombs and hit bushes for that matter?

I think the report shows that accuracy was not the issue; accurate spotting of the target was. I appreciate I have thrown in a quote out of context, in context, I took it to mean that the Spits saw a target and nailed it, unfortunately it was the wrong one.

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: FNG

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Big difference between bombs and rockets. The report itself shows the inaccuracy involved, doesn't it? How many times did they aim for tanks with bombs and hit bushes for that matter?

I think the report shows that accuracy was not the issue; accurate spotting of the target was. I appreciate I have thrown in a quote out of context, in context, I took it to mean that the Spits saw a target and nailed it, unfortunately it was the wrong one.

So you wouldn't come back complaining, if in a game of SPWAW, your bomb carrying Spitfires would nail six of your tanks instead of one SP-gun of your opponent? [;)]

[FNG]

ORIGINAL: Keke
So you wouldn't come back complaining, if in a game of SPWAW, your bomb carrying Spitfires would nail six of your tanks instead of one SP-gun of your opponent? [;)]

Nope. Just this evening, I had a Stuka wander off target by about 1500m and nail a Pz-IIIj and a bunch of infantry, while supressing the hell out of several other armoured units. Fortunes of war [:)]

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: FNG

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Big difference between bombs and rockets. The report itself shows the inaccuracy involved, doesn't it? How many times did they aim for tanks with bombs and hit bushes for that matter?

I think the report shows that accuracy was not the issue; accurate spotting of the target was. I appreciate I have thrown in a quote out of context, in context, I took it to mean that the Spits saw a target and nailed it, unfortunately it was the wrong one.

You're missing another point, however, which entirely puts that quote into context, that is, nobody disputes the ability of a fairly sizeable BOMB to knock out a tank to some extent, but reputably it's always the rockets which people seem to think knocked out so many tanks. Also, the accuracy of a bomb-laden fighter is important because if there were any doubt as the accuracy of such methods that establishes some data. It calls into question just how liable a bomb dropped by a fighter is likely to hit it's target, such that one could surmise, that if they were aiming for tanks routinely, maybe they were missing them routinely too. I would suggest that the reason for the quote was more along the lines that such an event was extremly rare, rather than routine, elsewise why mention it, other than the fact of mentioning their inaccuracy. Is there more context to the quote?

Excuse me, now I think I get it. Here's the quote: "..an attack by bomb-carrying Spitfires - which were supposed to knock out a Jerry self-propelled gun... mistakenly knocked out six of our tanks instead..." Unless I'm mistaken, this quote is speaking about Spitfires either being so grossly inaccurate bombing or sighting their targets (at least in this incident) that they bombed "OUR TANKS" instead. IOW, the "our" is playing off the Jerry, suggesting that they didn't even hit Jerry tanks.

One last thing.....this example also is very poorly wrought, as surely there must be better example for your point, however, know this, that if those Spitfires were attacking their own tanks, then it's very likely they also met no opposition, which of course going against the enemy would likely prove otherwise.

[FNG]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Excuse me, now I think I get it. Here's the quote: "..an attack by bomb-carrying Spitfires - which were supposed to knock out a Jerry self-propelled gun... mistakenly knocked out six of our tanks instead..." Unless I'm mistaken, this quote is speaking about Spitfires either being so grossly inaccurate bombing or sighting their targets (at least in this incident) that they bombed "OUR TANKS" instead. IOW, the "our" is playing off the Jerry, suggesting that they didn't even hit Jerry tanks.

Give the man a prize! [:)] If you had understood my original post you would have seen that I pointed out that the observer was unlikely to be inflating the effectiveness of the air attack as the targets were friendlies. Hence the "friendly-fire" reference in the original [:)]

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: FNG

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Excuse me, now I think I get it. Here's the quote: "..an attack by bomb-carrying Spitfires - which were supposed to knock out a Jerry self-propelled gun... mistakenly knocked out six of our tanks instead..." Unless I'm mistaken, this quote is speaking about Spitfires either being so grossly inaccurate bombing or sighting their targets (at least in this incident) that they bombed "OUR TANKS" instead. IOW, the "our" is playing off the Jerry, suggesting that they didn't even hit Jerry tanks.

Give the man a prize! [:)] If you had understood my original post you would have seen that I pointed out that the observer was unlikely to be inflating the effectiveness of the air attack as the targets were friendlies. Hence the "friendly-fire" reference in the original [:)]

I was so convinced that you were using the quote to prove that the aerial attacks should be improved as they are that I at first didn't read it correctly. The quote proved what we already knew, that a bomb can knock out a tank, which previous versions would let them do, however the rest of the quote brings the things that were questionable, those things apart from bomb destructiveness, were more cause to knock their rankings down serveral pegs.

[Charles2222]

FNG: Might it be that the incident didn't really occur? I ask that because it may had been exaggerated. You think that they wouldn't do it reporting friendly losses? What if the report were trying to persuade High Command that the Spitfire was inadequate for ground support and they wanted Typhoons instead? It wouldn't be beyond the scope of deceit for somebody to do something of that nature to make sure they got the best ground support instead of what they were getting.

[Svennemir]

Ahh yes, air power in SPWAW.

Once as the Germans in a meeting engagement, I deployed my vehicles in the middle of trees, well shielded by hills. I would keep them stationary till need be, lest they should be the target of an air attack.

The US air attack was preplanned, and apparently they had no problem spotting or hitting my vehicles. IIRC the success rate was something similar to that which Voriax mentioned, which would seem somewhat strange because of the aforementioned countermeasures.

Lucky I relied heavily on infantry in that battle...

I don't think psychology would play a particularly great part in this. The main issue is that planes have NO problem spotting and hitting even "concealed" targets. You might as well put them in the open, and move back and forth a bit with lighted beacons on top, or maybe paint red/white circles on top of them.

[Svennemir]

The above statements apply to rocket planes.

[JJKettunen]

ORIGINAL: Svennemir

The above statements apply to rocket planes.

It's not just the rockets. I pretested my first draft of Prokhorovka scenario with late-version Stukas, which I then removed because everyone of them managed to kill a Soviet tank during their run despite the facts that it was a lousy weather, arty had created dust all over the place, and those tanks were cruising full speed ahead and were really close to German positions...

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Keke

ORIGINAL: FNG

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Big difference between bombs and rockets. The report itself shows the inaccuracy involved, doesn't it? How many times did they aim for tanks with bombs and hit bushes for that matter?

I think the report shows that accuracy was not the issue; accurate spotting of the target was. I appreciate I have thrown in a quote out of context, in context, I took it to mean that the Spits saw a target and nailed it, unfortunately it was the wrong one.

So you wouldn't come back complaining, if in a game of SPWAW, your bomb carrying Spitfires would nail six of your tanks instead of one SP-gun of your opponent? [;)]

Certainly I would. Then again, assuming there's any accuracy to the statement, and also noting the previous problems with the statement such as that it's easier to hit friendly troops, there's also the consideration that we have no idea what sort of tanks. Maybe they were Mk I's which was pretty much an armored car. You'll also note it doesn't speak to how many sorties they made with how many bombs of what type. One would assume they referred to one strike, but it also doesn't even mention how many planes were involved. If 100 sorties, in the game, attacked any of my tanks and I lost only 6 tanks I'd consider that the had the aircraft ratings dropped.

[FNG]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

FNG: Might it be that the incident didn't really occur? I ask that because it may had been exaggerated. You think that they wouldn't do it reporting friendly losses? What if the report were trying to persuade High Command that the Spitfire was inadequate for ground support and they wanted Typhoons instead? It wouldn't be beyond the scope of deceit for somebody to do something of that nature to make sure they got the best ground support instead of what they were getting.

I should have been clearer - this is not part of an official 'report'. It is from the first-hand account of a Canadian artillery officer on the Netherlands/German border in early 1945. From his account, covering July 1944 until the end of the war in Europe, it seems clear that, on the whole, Tiffies and Spits were generally available 'on demand', weather and major ops permitting, in his sector of operations (Cdn 2nd Div/Brit XXX Corps).

To try and restate my point with more clarity and to relate it in some small way to the game [:)], from a few first hand sources I have read (Blackburn, Guderian, von Luck, to name a few), it would seem that when air turned up and dropped stuff it was pretty damn severe both in terms of damage and suppression against hard and soft targets, regardless of whether it hit the right target.

I doubt we will ever be able to reconcile 100% battle damage assessments from after the event with the recollections of those who were on the ground or in the air as they unfolded, and I am certain there are justifiable errors in both sources. What the game must strive to do is capture the essence/flavour of this by distilling the two sometimes contradictory sources, to get a result that 'feels' right.

In the main, ground forces hated and feared air strikes. This must have been for a reason, so if the game models them as quite destructive, I guess I can live with that (or not as the case may be [:)]).

And I use far too many commas.

[hogg]

Are we trying to be too mathematical about this?[&:]

To my limited mind, once an aircraft fires/drops a munition at an armoured target, on of five things are going to happen....

1) Nothing, a flat miss
2) Paintwork and fender damage
3) The crew get a bit twitchy, and hide under cover, scratching their butts, wondering what to do (light to medium suppression)
4) The crew abandon the tank on the grounds that their tank will continue to attract airborne death (Heavy suppresion/abandonment/mission kill)
5) Large hole made in tank (hard kill)

Now the tanks opponent would love a 4) or a 5), but will live with a 3).

First hand accounts of actual airstrikes tend to be from 3)'s and 4)'s (unless witnessing someone else getting a g 5))

Bomb damage assesment after the event will only count evidence of 5)'s. They are not going to be able to count/assess 3)'s.


Surely, then, when we assess the results of an airstrike in spwaw, we need to blend bomb damage assesments with first hand accounts, to get the right proportion of 1) to 5)'s?