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Actually the cost of them is already changed from 30 to 40 PP for 4 planes. That means that each plane cost around 10PP (or 5000 production points). Hopefully this will mean that they are more balanced.
 
But they are by no means invicible. Take a taskforce of 12-15 fighters. Put them on intercept and see what happens.
 
I do think that strategic bombers where there in the mid eighties. Also you have to take into account the amount of time. The US never conducted a full on 6 month long bombing campaign in Iraq. If they had i dont think there would be much left of the country. You cant compare a limited "humanitarian" campaign such as in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. If anything it should be compared to WWII or the Vietnam war. Sure, it will never be completly realistic. Buth thats just something you have to swallow in a game.

ORIGINAL: Grymme
Actually the cost of them is already changed from 30 to 40 PP for 4 planes. That means that each plane cost around 10PP (or 5000 production points). Hopefully this will mean that they are more balanced.

That is in the right direction, but since there are only 22 B2's delivered after which further orders was cancelled due to too high costs, they should be even more expensive.

ORIGINAL: Grymme
But they are by no means invicible. Take a taskforce of 12-15 fighters. Put them on intercept and see what happens.

Well, that means giving up on any air superiority in Europe, or reducing reinforcements and new units to an absolute minimum. Also, how many interceptor task forces would you need to counter the stealth threat? Two to cover Western Europe. Two for the Moscow to Afghanistan border and two in the eastern USSR? This would only provide a partial protection as predicting where these bomb fleets show up is close to impossible. Producing 80 Fighters is not a small task, and you'd still need an additional 20 to cover other needs taking the need to 100! That approach would most likely force the USSR and PDRC player to give up on any offensive ambitions for at least 8-12 months.

It's not that they are tough to kill I'm arguing against, it's the ability to take out supply and bridges across such huge areas as the USSR and China to the extent it will either force these countries to convert their war production into 80% Anti Stealth Bomber stuff like fighters and flak, and in all honesty, flak should not be at all effective against a B2 either, or will see their ability to move and/or produce anything so limited it will force them into a defence only mode

ORIGINAL: Grymme
I do think that strategic bombers where there in the mid eighties. Also you have to take into account the amount of time. The US never conducted a full on 6 month long bombing campaign in Iraq. If they had i dont think there would be much left of the country. You cant compare a limited "humanitarian" campaign such as in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. If anything it should be compared to WWII or the Vietnam war. Sure, it will never be completly realistic. Buth thats just something you have to swallow in a game.

Strategic bombers, yes, but to call a stealth bomber a strategic bomber, you mean it's the B2, and the number of B2's in the mid eighties was extremely limited. I would also question the ability of a B2 to perform bomb runs into the heartland of the USSR and China under war conditions, at least with a devastating impact on production and logistics such as wiping out all bridges in China. Such a strategic bombing campaign needs the B-52 fleet from the US, and that's a completely different animal compared to the B2.

Also, to compare, the total bomb load "delivered" to the whole European theatre by the Allies during WWII was 2,770,540 tons. The number for Vietnam was 6,727,084 tons and the (91) Gulf War was a mere 60,624 tons. However, looking at the average tonnage per month dropped, WWII was at about 48,000, Vietnam at about 44,000 and the 91 Gulf War at 40,000. The most successful, from a "taking out infrastructure" perspective, was the 91 Iraq Desert Storm. It made use of two (2) B2 bombers and almost 30 times more B52's. Again, the B2 is useful as a long range, precision bomber, not as a strategic bomber asset in the perspective of WWII, the Vietnam war or even Operation Desert Storm. If you want to model the B2 properly, make it very useful against HQ's for example. Then make it even more expensive and increase the amount of (immobile) flak in all locations of mainland Germany, France, UK, USSR, USA, China and Japan. Any deep penetration bomb run in the mid 80's would have been something of a suicide mission. Make the player choose wisely where he deploys the strategic bombers (B-52's). As it is now, the B2's fly all over the place dealing destruction of complete cities and locations on a scale comparable to the WWII bombing of Germany.

Well, this was a lengthy response, but I hope the discussion is useful in the scope of our playtesting going on. I mean, this is only a detail in a great and enjoyable scenario, so I hope you take my comments as constructive critique.

ORIGINAL: Widell
....

ORIGINAL: Grymme
But they are by no means invicible. Take a taskforce of 12-15 fighters. Put them on intercept and see what happens.

Well, that means giving up on any air superiority in Europe, or reducing reinforcements and new units to an absolute minimum. Also, how many interceptor task forces would you need to counter the stealth threat? Two to cover Western Europe. Two for the Moscow to Afghanistan border and two in the eastern USSR? This would only provide a partial protection as predicting where these bomb fleets show up is close to impossible. Producing 80 Fighters is not a small task, and you'd still need an additional 20 to cover other needs taking the need to 100! That approach would most likely force the USSR and PDRC player to give up on any offensive ambitions for at least 8-12 months.

It's not that they are tough to kill I'm arguing against, it's the ability to take out supply and bridges across such huge areas as the USSR and China to the extent it will either force these countries to convert their war production into 80% Anti Stealth Bomber stuff like fighters and flak, and in all honesty, flak should not be at all effective against a B2 either, or will see their ability to move and/or produce anything so limited it will force them into a defence only mode....

This is exactly why I spent ALL of my initial PP on these bombers. I was trying out old "Bomber" Harris's plan to bring the enemy to his knees by bombing his infrastructure into the stone age. By how annoyed Russian and PRC are becoming it seems to be working! [:D]

But on the other hand I have almost no offensive capability. I've put all my eggs in one basket as it were.

Even with all of my bombing Russia has completely overrun Germany and most of Turkey. It seems from this side of teh fence that my bobming campaign is not that effective or you would not have gotten that far...

Anyway, with teh increase in the cost of these planes and the reduction of the starting PP's I don't think my plan is at all doable any more...[:(]

Fun game so far but I don't see Russia and PRC losing....

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Turn 10 complete and sent to NATO.

More bombings in Soviet far east.

Afgan freedom fighters maul another Soviet unit.

US forces directly attack Russian forces in Germany and Greece. US Madly trying to build up forces in Europe.

US Paratroops retake most of Burma.

[:D] Well, I can only see it from the receiving end of the stealth bomber campaign..... Even so, I think a Bomber Harris campaign against the USSR and China would have been useless at best. You also have to consider this war has been on for less than one year, and the Allied outlook in late 1941 was not very bright either, so it's questionable if a Bomber Harris campaign against half the land area of the world would be decisive in ten months.

Even the Harris campaign can be argued was not decisive in WWII, but mainly shortened the time to an inevitable (once the USSR and the US got involved) victory.

The main thing, is that until the issue of allies having to declare war on each other to launch joint attacks, the USSR is hard to stop in Europe(?) with or without the details around the B2 capabilities.

ORIGINAL: Widell

...
Even the Harris campaign can be argued was not decisive in WWII, but mainly shortened the time to an inevitable (once the USSR and the US got involved) victory.
...

Oh I'm quite sure that his plan was less than he'd hoped. I just wanted to see if I could make it work better! [:D] 60 years of hindsight might help me....[8|][:D]

Widell et al.
 
Well im probably not going to beat you in a discussion on whether the weapon is realistic or not. I concede that.
 
Other than the fact that i changed the cost from 30 to 40 points i also downed all starting powers PPs from 200 to 100. These changes i think will make a "Barthheart"-like bombing campaign more unlikely in the future. I am not a plane nut, so if you call it B22 B2 or what it is, i do not know.
 
On the whole though i do think that strategic bombing has recieved less attention in the game than it had in reality.

ORIGINAL: Grymme
Other than the fact that i changed the cost from 30 to 40 points i also downed all starting powers PPs from 200 to 100. These changes i think will make a "Barthheart"-like bombing campaign more unlikely in the future. I am not a plane nut, so if you call it B22 B2 or what it is, i do not know.

[:D] Bomber Bartheart..... Sounds good, but as a final remark on the stealth, they managed to do what Lyndon Johnson et.al failed with. They took Vietnam literally out of the war in less than 6 months...

ORIGINAL: Grymme
On the whole though i do think that strategic bombing has recieved less attention in the game than it had in reality.

Fully agree! Can't remember if I mentioned Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy which is about roughly this scenario. There's a lot of action around Iceland in that book, and one must remember that IRL, the WP would have been able to attack Iceland by air from the Murmansk area...

turn to USA

Turn 11 complete and sent to NATO.

Not a good turn for US forces.... only gains are in Burma.

More bombings in China and Russia.

NATO turn 12 done and send.
 
WP tried to get into North Sea. Three groups of subs have been spotted. Seven of eleven subs were sunk by NATO subs and air.
 
In Norway WP launched a successful attack supported by heavy bombardment by sea and air.  Russian units managed to break through. Norway will not be able to survive more than two turns, I guess.
 
Hamburg has fallen. WP is preparing to invade Denmark.
 
NATO units in central Europe are getting weaker and weaker. Paris is in danger of being captured.
 
Italien units still keep WP out of Italy. Turkish units launched an attack against a Russian corps and destroyed it. But WP units around Istambul are superiour. So sooner or later Istambul will fall. But it costs WP a lot.

Turn 12 to China. Hard fighting in Turkey as well as on the French, Belgian and Danish border. Feels like there is a decisive moment ahead of us in the game in the next few turns. WWIII is now one year old.... will it last as long as WWI and/or WWII?

t12 to USA
Burma is still Red, but US paras close in on the capital
The Chinese navy starts to flex its muscles and bombards those dreaded Stealth Bombers in Japan

Turn 12 done and sent to NATO.

Russia Far East bombed.

Bad fight in Burma....

US 1st Army invades Bulgaria and destroys a complete Soviet unit.

US forces in Belgium hanging on.....

Soviet subs in Med and South Pacfic sunk.

Vietman invaded.

China invaded.

NATO turn 13 done and send.
 
When WP attacks, Turkey and Denmark will fall. A turn later Norway will have to surrender.
 
Great Britain tries to keep WP fleets out of the North Sea and is doing air raids against WP troops on the continent. Remaining NATO units try to keep WP from moving further into France and Italy, but enemy strength is growing and it will become harder and harder too hold the defence positions.

Will have a look at the turn either later tonight or tomorrow after work. A little busy with RL today [;)]

Turn 13 to China...

t13 to USA

Turn 13 done and sent to NATO.

Heavy fighting in Belgium, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Afgans advance in China.

Vietnam shelled.

Russian Far East bombed. Soviet subs spotted in North Atlantic.

Operation Burma in trouble...

Israel preparing to help out NATO.

I think we are on turn 14 already Anyways, turn sent to PDRC. It's crunch time in Europe and Turkey!

Any news on where the turn is?