Strategic Bombing and railroads.

[WayneBGood]

In a game as the Allies, I've invested into tech for strategic bombers to hammer oil, coal and the cities of the Axis. I noticed with my invasion of Italy and the Balkans the Germans have not had any attrition on their rail roads after leveling their fuel resources. German units magically transport across a ruined landscape as fast as if they are using a transporter on Star Trek. Is there anyway to reduce the strength of rail and the ability to move units into contested areas? Air interdiction was a key element in reducing supplies and reinforcements for the axis. I just don't know how this is modeled in WP.

[Platoonist]

I believe as the game currently stands the only way rail lines receive damage is by partisan activity or scorched earth retreat. Airstrikes have a 33% chance of reducing the operation points of a target land unit (interdiction) but have no ability to degrade the railway net. Maybe a thing to request for War Plan 2.

[stjeand]

As of today...there is no way to interdict rail movement...The Germans can currently move 120 points if I remember.
It would be interesting to be able to hit a rail causing a "partisan" effect...

You can slow individual units and once the Allies have a massive air superiority it is crazy how much movement they can affect.

Honestly with lots of strategic attacks focusing on production always seemed strongest to me, Berlin (25) and the 15s which I forget their names...
I really wanted oil to be able to be hit but it takes at least 5 bombing runs against a 5 oil producer...whereas the same attacks could hit Berlin and possibly wiped out in nearly the same.
Always focus on the "bigger"...once a 25 is producing 2 it is easy to drop to 0 again...and has the longest effect as they only repair 2 per turn. So once you get it to 0...it does not fully recover for nearly half a year....

I used to try to hit Ploesti but it seemed hardly worth it overall...but again that is just me.

[WayneBGood]

I have Ploesti in a range of bombers in the Balkans and was able to hold on to Odesa and the Kerch Peninsula enabling my soviet bombers to bomb Ploesti. With the Allied bombing campaign out of England, I'm able to target synthetic and regular oil production, technically from what I can determine the Axis has no oil for operations.
Now I'm going after production centers and resources sites. Other than not affecting urban railroad hubs, I'm pretty impressed with the use of strategic bombers in this game.

[stjeand]

I have Ploesti in a range of bombers in the Balkans and was able to hold on to Odesa and the Kerch Peninsula enabling my soviet bombers to bomb Ploesti. With the Allied bombing campaign out of England, I'm able to target synthetic and regular oil production, technically from what I can determine the Axis has no oil for operations.
Now I'm going after production centers and resources sites. Other than not affecting urban railroad hubs, I'm pretty impressed with the use of strategic bombers in this game.

If you can hit Ploesti like that then it is worth it..
What I have noticed is..when I hit oil it does 1 or 2 damage...1 to the site and at best 1 to reserves.
When I hit production, I have seen 4 or 5 damage before...half to the location and half to the reserves...

So overally it normally works better to hit production.

BUT if you can hit Ploesti with the Russians you can surely decimate oil causing huge issues with air and armor.

[AlvaroSousa]

USAAF in 1943, or maybe it was 1944, blasted the German railways into oblivion in Italy. 90% were destroyed. Germans STILL got their stuff through in enough quantities for their needs.

[canuckgamer]

In our current game, the Axis have 6AA in every oil centre so add this to fighters protecting them, it gets very expensive in bomber losses.
I too would like to see some sort of strategic air interdiction of the rail network and suggested this in a post a few days ago.

[stjeand]

There was a game once that bombers could interdict a hex...so a unit moving through would spend and extra movement.
I kind of liked that. But might be to powerful...not 100 sure without testing it.

So basically a bomber attacks a hex and that hex now has +1 movement.
For Rail it could be like a partisan...though it would be a huge issue if it affected supply.