Ok, so how DO you stop Heavy Bombers?

[solops]

The best way to counter heavy bombers is to kill them on the ground. Works every time for me.

[Graymane]

I think the best policy is to wait and see with some more realistic games (advanced supply, attacks on allied shipping and not waiting for eternity for the US to enter the war and just sit back and research and also to see if the allies actually win before fall '46 on a consistant basis) before going overboard with all these suggested changes.

[5cats]

IMHO Allied bombers were NOT that tough, they should not have an armour rating. Early German AAA ripped them to shreds, forcing the British to fly only at night. The B-29 was never used against Germany partly for that reason, the 128-mm AAA had no troubles hitting high altitude bombers.
>>>Either remover the armour OR lower the WS by 1.<<<
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The idea of CAP for fighters is good, allowing a Move 2-3 fighter to defend its' and adjacent provinces against Heavy Bombers. Not against Tac or other Fighters alone though. Make you think twice about your bombing plans
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Another idea is to give a Bonus +1 to fighters VS Heavy Bombers. I can't recall if this has been suggested yet...

[Uncle_Joe]

Killing tech'ed up heavy bombers on the ground does not work. They seem to have the same defense there as they do in the air. Unless you have completely cranked up Ground Attack on your own aircraft, you will do little harm to them with the lesser numbers of dice you get to roll.

Besides, is it really desirable that the Germans have to come in and bomb and strafe England in 43 or 44 to inflict casualties on Allied bombers? Not in my opinion.

Greymane:

At this point, I think a problem HAS been identified...focused research is far more effective than trying to get multiple units tech'ed up. So whether you have a lot of research from whacked out 'delay the war' strats or a tight budget from fighting a tooth and nail struggle across all fronts, you are still better off researching up Tanks for land warfare than anything else. The payoff is far bigger for far less cost.

For the Air war, trying to co-develop multiple units is also a waste of effort. Why research Tac Air AND Heavy Air when one unit can do both jobs and save the resources/effort. Same applies to defense...currently, it still seems to be pay bigger dividends to specialize in either Flak or Fighters if your enemy is researching up his bombers. Trying to do both runs the risk of neither being able to stop the oppponent.

[Delphinium]

ORIGINAL: dobeln

"When the tech goes up, the cost to build the unit doesn't seem to go up. Designing the wonder tank is one thing. Mass producing them to make them major battlefield units is another."

True, but to some extent this is reflected in the cost of research increasing as the number of units on the board / in production goes up.

There could be arguments that increasing a tech should be easier if you have more of a type. As tech must include tactics and doctrine, you get some of that by having the units.
I know from a gaming issue why they made it harder to research tech for troop types you have a lot of as it would mean more tham now you would have single type uber troops.

Tech is the one part of this game I don't particularly like. It feels all wrong, intuitively and is too gamey.

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: GordianKnot

One strategy I used as the Germans was to counterattack the bombers. I built up my fighters to range of 3 and launched massive air raids with fighters and my own heavy bombers against England's airfields. This cut down massively on their ability to launch attacks against me. Don't just sit back and take it on the chin, hit 'em back hard!

Meanwhile my subs were slowly but surely isolating England. That meant their factories were so tied up replacing damaged units that they couldn't build new ones and still crank out supplies.

Slowly but surely, I overwhelmed them to the point where they simply could no longer produce bombers. Then I took Scotland! [:D]

Against the AI, this works, since the AI is not building that many bombers. But if you manage to keep the number of bombers equal to the number of axis fighters, the fighters will have no effect. Then, on their turn, the bombers will raid your airfields, killing your fighters.

I just started a pbem game against a friend, where we have done the following alterations:
Bombers durability reduced to 3 (armor still at 1)
Armor WS and starting evasion reduced by 1
Flak WS and starting air attack reduced by 1
Flak WS and starting durability increased by 2.
Battleship flak reduced by 1, both WS and starting

I play the allies. So far this works fairly well. Survivability of flak has increased significantly (from 15 defence to 21 defence, just 3 less than infantry), we may want to bring this down to a base of 6. At higher tech, though, infantry will be much more resilient (due to 4 durability)

I dont expect to see large stacks of armor, since they will now die too easily against strong stacks of artillery. Instead I expect to see a mixed land force, with armor used primarily in a flanking role. Russia is planning on a militia, artillery, flak centre stack, about 4:3:1 in numbers (mostly meant as a deterrant), with a combination of infantry and armor fighting the flanks. I still dont know if he will upgrade land attack of his bombers. If he does, he may force me into one big lump until i can get some upgraded fighters into the field.

I still havent decided what kind of air force to go for. I may go for a mix (upgrading land attack and durability of tac bombers, to kill anti air and ground units), while upgrading range, torpede attack and a little ground attack for the heavies, and use them for fleet raiding and infrastructure killers in areas with little flak. Or I may focus on one of the classes.

[aletoledo]

I play the allies. So far this works fairly well. Survivability of flak has increased significantly (from 15 defence to 21 defence, just 3 less than infantry), we may want to bring this down to a base of 6. At higher tech, though, infantry will be much more resilient (due to 4 durability)

I think raising the durability of flak is a mistake. As germany, using flak in groups of 4-5, along with a large group miltia brings down a lot of attacks. making them even more durable will unbalance them IMO. its very easy to raise starting flaks evasion, so spend a little money instead of looking for everything for free.

besides I think the best defense for flak is a lot of mitlia along side them.

[Uncle_Joe]

I cant say I've seen a need to raise the defense of Flak. You can already research it up once for relatively cheap. Flak is also much more survivable than Fighters because they cant be specifically targeted. If Flak was increased much in effectiveness and/or survivability, I could see wanting to use them INSTEAD of Fighters on the defense and be more effective.

Ideally, they should compliment each other. As it is in the base game, the defense of Heavy Bombers can be increased to a point where only top of the line AA or Fighters can have a chance of hitting them. So, it doesnt make sense to try and get both up to speed.

What I'd like to see IS a reason to want both. And to me, the way to achieve that is to prevent (or make exceedingly costly) the chances of Heavy Bombers increasing their defense such that mid-level research on Flak/Fighters are obsoloted.

[metto_x]

Ok, I don't own WaW so my comments are just based on history.

Tank corpses were composed of motorized and tank divisions. In WW2 tanks were rather weak, just imagine russians lining up 10 76mm AT-guns against 4 panzer IV's. The AT-guns would kill the tanks, and 10 AT-guns cost much less than 4 tanks. Against organized defense, it was preferred to use infantry divisions to break the line, and afterwards send tank divisions through the gap to exploit it. Von Manstein says in his memoirs, that the biggest trouble Germans had in Kursk, was that they didn't have enough infantry and artillery to break the enemy line.

The biggest advantage tank divisions have over infantry divisions is speed. They can cut off retreating enemy units, go around strong defenses and avoid being overrun by a superior force.

So, in WaW terms I suggest that armour should have rather weak attack(about half of infantry's), but if used in a succesful attack, armour units would cause much more of the retreating enemies to be destroyed or damaged. Thus, a Barbarossa with pure armour would be bloody, with pure infantry much of the enemy would just retreat and you could'nt advance far. With a good mix of both, you would get through, kill much of enemy and be able to advance further.

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: aletoledo

I play the allies. So far this works fairly well. Survivability of flak has increased significantly (from 15 defence to 21 defence, just 3 less than infantry), we may want to bring this down to a base of 6. At higher tech, though, infantry will be much more resilient (due to 4 durability)

I think raising the durability of flak is a mistake. As germany, using flak in groups of 4-5, along with a large group miltia brings down a lot of attacks. making them even more durable will unbalance them IMO. its very easy to raise starting flaks evasion, so spend a little money instead of looking for everything for free.

besides I think the best defense for flak is a lot of mitlia along side them.

The reason that evasion for flak was increaed, was as compensation for reducing their air attack (I wanted to keep them balanced). With 5 as WS air attack, they are now less efficient than fighters in an air defence role. Since actually hitting their target make them safe from airstrikes in the standard rules, I felt that they needed some more evasion when i was reducing their attack. To also compensate for the actual loss of efficiency in shooting down aircraft, i increased evasion by 2 instead of 1.

The weakness of flak in the standard rules, is that they die very easily if they participate in ground combats. Increasing their defence to a WS of 21, give them the capability to survive some hits from artillery and infantry and most hits from miltia, (Tanks will still usually kill them when fireing at them). I hope to see their role being changed from a purely western france defence unit to a unit you will want to have 1 to 3 of in every stack. Note that if you are able to maintain air supremacy, flak is more or less useless. Fighters are then much better, as they are more or less immune to attacks from ground units, and they shoot down enemy bombers (with my mod) at a significantly higher rate, and because their range can be upgraded, so they can join in strikes more than 1 area away.

All in all, my general feeling is that the usefullness of flak is about unchanged for germany, while it is slightly increased for the russians (until they can research their fighters enough to compete with the germans). The effect for the russians, is amplified by the decreased strength of armor, and the need to build (and to protect) artillery. As the russians really dont have the resources to develop competitive fighters (and replace losses) in the the early war, they need to base flak with their artillery to at least give the germans second thoughts about ground striking them. Also, the russian flak are likely to participate in more ground battles, and should not always be the most vulnerable unit in these battles. Note that even if russian infantry start with low evasion (4, meaning they have less defence than starting russian flak), russian flak has lower ground attack, balancing it up in the early game.

[aletoledo]

The weakness of flak in the standard rules, is that they die very easily if they participate in ground combats. Increasing their defence to a WS of 21, give them the capability to survive some hits from artillery and infantry and most hits from miltia, (Tanks will still usually kill them when fireing at them).

so you were trying to make flak into an offensive spearhead kind of weapon. seems like flak IMO should be more defensive in nature. If perhaps you were thinking german 88s, I believe that concept was included more in the artillery unit rather than the flak unit.

[Dalwin]

ORIGINAL: aletoledo

The weakness of flak in the standard rules, is that they die very easily if they participate in ground combats. Increasing their defence to a WS of 21, give them the capability to survive some hits from artillery and infantry and most hits from miltia, (Tanks will still usually kill them when fireing at them).

so you were trying to make flak into an offensive spearhead kind of weapon. seems like flak IMO should be more defensive in nature. If perhaps you were thinking german 88s, I believe that concept was included more in the artillery unit rather than the flak unit.

I disagree with this last statement. I am pretty sure that it was to give the historical flavor of the 88s that explains why the ground attack value for German flak starts 2 higher than everyone else.

[hakon]

ORIGINAL: Dalwin

ORIGINAL: aletoledo

The weakness of flak in the standard rules, is that they die very easily if they participate in ground combats. Increasing their defence to a WS of 21, give them the capability to survive some hits from artillery and infantry and most hits from miltia, (Tanks will still usually kill them when fireing at them).

so you were trying to make flak into an offensive spearhead kind of weapon. seems like flak IMO should be more defensive in nature. If perhaps you were thinking german 88s, I believe that concept was included more in the artillery unit rather than the flak unit.

I disagree with this last statement. I am pretty sure that it was to give the historical flavor of the 88s that explains why the ground attack value for German flak starts 2 higher than everyone else.

This was my thought exactly, when i saw that stat. Still, in W@W, the art unit is a much better AT gun than the flak will be with its lower attack value and lack of double attacks.

Increasing the evasion is not intended to make flak lethal vs ground units. Even if you do research it up, infantry is still a better AT weapon than flak will be with my changes. What increasing evasion _does_ do, is to make flak able to have average survival rate in a ground battle _and_ make it pretty hard to take it out with bombs. This way, you can have a stack of, say, 10 inf and 3 flak that can form a flank defence without being bombed into oblivion by a few tactical bombers.

I _would_ like to stress again, though, that the _main_ reason for increasing the evasion of flak, is to give something back after reducing their anti-air attack.

[kverdon]

My thoughts on this thread follow a historical perspective. I belive that Bomber evasion should Cap out somewhere between 5-7 MAX. Lets look at why?. Let's say B-17's, B-24's represent the base evaison level for WA. Upgrades to those models to the G and J versions respectively would only bring them up to prehaps +1 in evaision. B-29's were certainly better but still would not have survived well in the unescorted roll so lets give them represent a +2 over base. Though better protected, their major advantage over their predecessors was in range and payload. Developing fighters attack to the 9 range would represent the Me-262 and to 10 probably F-86/Mig-15 level. Look at what happened to B-29's in Korea. They were shredded by Mig-15's to the point that daylight bombing was not feasible. What I"m trying to point out is that fighter anti-air should alway cap out higher than Bomber evasion and that if Fighters are taken to the max or close to the max, then they should be deadly against bombers. This forces the player to deploy large numbers of escorts to ensure the bombers get thru. This is the way it worked in the real world.

Kevin

[Uncle_Joe]

In the current system, what is 'screwing it up' is the armor point that Heavy bombers enjoy and the 4 Durability.

Within the lower numbers, the Bombers are quite vulnerable. Once they get to 7, Fighters need to be at 8 (1 higher than even) to have chance to compete. Even there the chance for a Fighter to kill is only about 25%. You have to get to 9(!) attack on your Fighters to have a 50/50 chance of a kill. That just isnt likely to happen all that often so in essence, Bombers get a free ride when they historically took huge casualties.

Note also that Flak has the same problems that Fighters do when it comes to hitting. Trying to research BOTH up to that level is nigh impossible. So, it behooves you to rely on one and not both for defense. And at this point, I'd go with Flak. Fighters can be 'soaked off' by opposing Fighters (even markedly inferior ones...). Flak will still shoot at random enemy aircraft and are far less vulnerable to being taken out.

[James Ward]

I like the idea of setting caps on certain things. Have Heavy Bomber evasion max out at 7 or 8. I mean how maneuverable could they be made? Same with some other things, range for example.

[kverdon]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of attribute caps. Bomber evasion is good example, Ground unit (non Flak)/ Naval Unit AA would be another etc. Historically though these attibutes certainly increased during the course of the war and after, in no case for example were naval units, for example immune to air attack due to thier AA. There was not way to make Bombers invulnerable to Air intercept etc. This could be global or set in an ini file so users could customise it.

Kevin

[Uncle_Joe]

Realistically, setting the World Standards differently can accomplish the same thing. Yes, its possible to overcome it, but its not practical above certain levels.

Try changing the World Standard of Armor Evasion to 7 and changing Heavy Bomber Evasion WS to one less too. That should really help prevent the 'super units' while allowing people to explore options.

I'd also advise lowering Battleship starting AA to 3 or else change the WS to 3. Without that, its too easy to get Battleship that no longer need air cover.

[James Ward]

Even if you change the world standard you can still research any area you want to as high a level as you want. It just costs you more but you can still get 11 or 12 ratings in certain areas. I like caps and even better I would like caps that were different for each nation.

[Uncle_Joe]

It depends on what you are looking to simulate. Do you want to force people down their historical paths or let them experiment with various options?

Sure, Germany historically went with smaller bombers and heavier tanks, but it didnt have to be that way. The same goes for navy. Germany COULD have built more or better ships, but felt the resources were better off going to the other arms.

The Allies COULD have gone for super heavy tanks or jet aircraft earlier, but chose to focus on production rather than research. There is nothing that prevented them from doing otherwise.

IMO, there is no reason to cap the levels. If people want to break the mold, let them, just as long as the COST for doing so is appropriate. That is the current problem IMO. The benefit vs cost for teching up above the 'normal' levels is way too high. Change that ratio and the incentive to stay reasonably historical is there, without forcing people down the same path every game.