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I asked Gemini to receive some historical insight:
Q: "I'm playing a game named Gary Grigsby War in the West. It is December 1944. An allied force of 24 B-24 J Liberator makes an air raid to a German air base in snowfall weather. They cause 437 German casualties. Do you think the game adequately simulates real life conditions in terms of amount of losses?"
A: "Gary Grigsby titles are legendary for their granular, spreadsheet-level detail and historical authenticity. However, a result of 437 casualties from a raid of 24 B-24J Liberators hitting an airbase in a snowstorm seems highly exaggerated compared to historical reality.
Here is a breakdown of why this specific outcome leans more toward a statistical anomaly or a game engine quirk rather than a realistic historical simulation:
1. The Weather and Bombing Accuracy
In December 1944, the European winter notoriously grounded Allied air fleets (most famously during the onset of the Battle of the Bulge). Bombing during active snowfall meant crews could not use the Norden bombsight for visual targeting.
Instead, they would rely on H2X ground-scanning radar for "blind bombing." The Circular Error Probable (CEP) for radar bombing in late 1944 was measured in miles. In these conditions, it is highly probable that a large portion of the payload from 24 bombers would completely miss the airbase perimeter.
2. Payload Density vs. Target Size
A formation of 24 B-24s is relatively small—essentially a single squadron. Assuming a typical European theater bomb load, the group would drop roughly 60 to 70 tons of high explosives. While devastating if perfectly concentrated, dropping this tonnage "blind" over a sprawling target means the density of the explosions would be too sparse to cause mass casualties.
3. German Airbase Defenses
By late 1944, the Luftwaffe was well-adapted to surviving constant Allied air raids. Airbases were no longer the densely packed targets they were earlier in the war.
Aircraft were widely dispersed into surrounding woods or camouflaged revetments. Ground crews, pilots, and flak operators had standard operating procedures to immediately retreat to deep, reinforced bunkers and slit trenches the moment an air raid siren sounded.
4. The Scale of the Casualties
Inflicting 437 casualties (killed and wounded) on a prepared military installation with a 24-plane raid is a staggering figure. To put it in perspective, 437 personnel represents a massive portion of the entire ground staff for a Luftwaffe Gruppe. Mass casualties of that scale from a relatively small payload typically only occurred in dense urban areas (where collapsing civilian structures drove up the death toll) or if a uniquely lucky strike directly hit an unreinforced barracks or a major munitions dump while personnel were fully exposed.
The Verdict
In reality, a raid of 24 Liberators in a December snowstorm might crater a runway, destroy a handful of parked aircraft, and cause a dozen or so casualties at most."
Q: "I forgot to add they are bombing at altitude 9000 feat. would that make a difference?"
A: "Yes, dropping the bombing altitude to 9,000 feet makes a massive difference, both in how the game engine calculates the results and in how the historical scenario would play out.
However, even at that altitude, 437 casualties is still an extreme outlier. Here is how that altitude change alters the equation:
1. The Altitude Anomaly
Heavy bombers like the B-24 Liberator typically operated between 20,000 and 25,000 feet to stay above the lethal range of German light and medium anti-aircraft guns. Flying at 9,000 feet puts these massive, sluggish aircraft uncomfortably low—well within the domain of medium bombers (like the B-26 Marauder).
2. Tighter Spread and the Cloud Deck
Dropping bombs from 9,000 feet instead of 20,000 feet drastically reduces the time the bombs spend in the air, meaning less wind drift and a much tighter grouping when they hit the ground.
The Cloud Factor: If the cloud ceiling during this snowstorm was, for example, 10,000 feet, your bombers flying at 9,000 feet were below the cloud deck. This means they suddenly had visual targeting instead of relying on inaccurate blind radar.
A tight cluster of 60 to 70 tons of high explosives dropped visually is devastating.
3. The "Tragic Strike" Scenario
Because the bombs were tightly clustered and potentially aimed visually, it moves the 437-casualty figure from "mathematically impossible" to "a freak, catastrophic event." To achieve those numbers in real life, the bombs would have had to hit a highly concentrated, unreinforced soft target by pure chance. For example, the bombs might have perfectly bracketed a packed mess hall during mealtime, a wooden barracks in the middle of a shift change, or a troop train that had just pulled onto the base siding.
4. The Flak Trade-off (The Missing Metric)
While 9,000 feet drastically improves accuracy, it should have been a suicide mission for the Liberators. At 9,000 feet, not only are the heavy 88mm flak guns going to have an incredibly easy time tracking the bombers, but the deadly German 20mm and 37mm light flak networks surrounding the airbase would tear them to pieces. In reality, a squadron of 24 heavy bombers attacking a late-war Luftwaffe base at 9,000 feet would likely suffer catastrophic aircraft losses."
Well that was some reading
Any thoughts?*https://forums.matrixgames.com/viewtopic.php?t=407525
