Is it worth bombing units ?

[Tzar007]

Well, lots of interesting points of view and info. I think I can summarize the consensus like this:

A) Ground air attacks do not result in significant casualties
B) Ground air attacks can, however, inflict disruption effects. This disruption will be converted into fatigue before the next combat, and we know CV is reduced by 1/3 the fatigue level of a unit.
C) Consequently, this added disruption inflicted by a ground air attack may, in situations with very tight odds, make the difference between victory and defeat during the following land attack.
D) So, if you have very tight odds on a critical battle, and you can spare a couple of air wings, you should go ahead and do a bombing run before attacking with ground units to increase your chances.

[Scook_99]

ORIGINAL: Tzar007

Well, lots of interesting points of view and info. I think I can summarize the consensus like this:

A) Ground air attacks do not result in significant casualties
B) Ground air attacks can, however, inflict disruption effects. This disruption will be converted into fatigue before the next combat, and we know CV is reduced by 1/3 the fatigue level of a unit.
C) Consequently, this added disruption inflicted by a ground air attack may, in situations with very tight odds, make the difference between victory and defeat during the following land attack.
D) So, if you have very tight odds on a critical battle, and you can spare a couple of air wings, you should go ahead and do a bombing run before attacking with ground units to increase your chances.

Perfect!

The kills come from interdiction when units are in mobile formation, not battle formation.

[kirkgregerson]

After turn #1 for axis, bombing is worthless. You'll lose more than you'll gain in the long run, unless your opponent is complete noob (which we all are in the beginning). Is this historical IMO. Nope. But, this aspect as well as air combat in general for WitE was not the games focus. So please please please people keep in mind that WitE focused on ground and not air (or naval) so are there many short comings to air in WitE, sure.

Having a true AF raid would have to take into account the surprise aspect. This formula could be something simple or complicated...sure people could find faults with either.

My guess is when WitW is worked on, these short comings will have to be addressed, as air power played and even more important role in the west (or lack of air power if you're the axis).

Personally, I think it's unfortunate that air mechanics in WitE got such low priority of development. Although the Soviet Union is so vast, air power did play a very significant roll.

[mmarquo]

"After turn #1 for axis, bombing is worthless"
 
Would you please offer some concrete evidence to support this rather rigid statement? In fact, I think ground attacks may be rather redundant on turn 1, and yet grow in importance thereafter for the reasons already stated.
 
And I, too, beleive that there is room for significant improvement in this aspect of the game. Let me cite an example. During Operations Star and Gallop the Luftwaffe had superiority in the air over a battlefield for the last time in Russia. As the Axis retreated towards Kharkov and during the Backhand Blow, there are many accounts of the Luftwaffe effectively covering large gaps in the Axis lines from the air which prevented Soviet armor from penetrating. Also, the Third Tank Army was effectively decimated by aerial attacks. So yes, this aspect of the game can be tuned, but OTOH, the pendulum should not swing too much in the opposite direction just because of a few well-known events; the exceptions should not define the general rules.
 
Marquo
Marquo

[jomni]

I usually bomb HQ's.
I have killed several German generals this way.

[kirkgregerson]

I was very wrong. My Sov opponent in a 42 just hammered my front line AF by attacking each one like 20 times. I lost 600 air frames in one turn to his 500. Not good at all. So I'm going to have to protect my AF better and pull back with some other strategy with my AFs.

Any other thoughts on how to protect AFs? Flak seems very ineffective vs air now. I have almost 90 88 AA guns defending in attacks and only shot down on avg 2 Sov planes when almost 200 attacking. Think that the 88 AA gun was more effective historically then that, but maybe other factors contributed to them being almost inept.

[:(]

[arras]

Reports of WWII kills in air attacks are exaggerated. Both aerial kills and ground kills. Highly exaggerated. Not just in WWII, look at recent example:

Bombing of Kosovo by NATO. NATO claimed:
120 Serbian tanks destroyed. Recent reports shows it was 14!
220 APC reported, real looses probably 18!
450 artillery pieces destroyed, real looses were 20!

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/newsweek-exclusive-suppressed-air-force-report-on-kosovo-bombing-shows-little-damage-done-to-milosevics-forces-contrary-to-early-nato-and-pentagon-claims-73040377.html

And those are results of several months of non stop bombing with laser guided munitions, spy satellites, unnamed reckon planes, radar surveillance and modern digital communication and control by dozen of most powerful airfleets on Earth against enemy possessing few AA cannons and couple of second gen SAMs.

Now try to think about such results in terms of game turns and attacks and you see they are not too off the reality.

And here is something for all you Hans Rudel lowers (without trying to diminish him as a soldier and pilot):

"In fact total Soviet tank losses in operation Citadel amounted to 1 614 tanks totally destroyed, the vast majority to German tanks and assault guns. Further detailed research has shown air power only accounted for 2-5% of Soviet tanks destroyed in the battle of Kursk.(24) This equates to at most around 80 tanks." ...That is pitiful. Entire gigantic Kursk battle with 5000 Soviet tanks on battlefield and 2000 German planes and one month fighting.

That is something like 0.001 destroyed tank per aircraft per one day! Or 1 destroyed tank per day per effort of 800 German planes! (I know those include not just bombers but still...)

Wasn't checking but that might be number Rudel claimed alone.

And that is not just case with Germans:

"During the German counterattack at Mortain (7th to 10th August) the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed to have destroyed 140 and 112 tanks, respectively."

"It turns out that only 177 German tanks and assault guns participated in the attack, which is 75 less tanks than claimed as destroyed! Of these 177 tanks, 46 were lost and only 9 were lost to aircraft attack. This is again around 4% of those claimed."

"When the results of the various Normandy operations are compiled, it turns out that no more than 100 German tanks were lost in the entire campaign from hits by aircraft launched ordnance."

"Perhaps the most extraordinary claim by the VVS’s IL-2s, is that over a period of 4 hours they destroyed 240 tanks and in the process virtually wiped out the 17th Panzer Division.
On 1st July the 17th Panzer Division had only one tank battalion (the II./Pz Rgt 39) with a grand total of only 67 tanks."

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/myth-combat-aircraft-destroying-tanks-27496.html

Now compare that (instead of heroic stories) to your WITE air to ground combat results and you can continue gaming happily because in terms of "kills" WITE probably got it right this time

Aircraft in ground support role was basically very mobile artillery. Also relatively inefficient in terms of weight and number of projectiles delivered during given time (3-4 sorties per day at best). Its largest effect on its target was shock. If that is represented well in game is of course altogether different question.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: kirkgregerson

I was very wrong. My Sov opponent in a 42 just hammered my front line AF by attacking each one like 20 times. I lost 600 air frames in one turn to his 500. Not good at all. So I'm going to have to protect my AF better and pull back with some other strategy with my AFs.

Any other thoughts on how to protect AFs? Flak seems very ineffective vs air now. I have almost 90 88 AA guns defending in attacks and only shot down on avg 2 Sov planes when almost 200 attacking. Think that the 88 AA gun was more effective historically then that, but maybe other factors contributed to them being almost inept.

[:(]

NOW someone's getting it!

Flak kills a fair few and damages more but you defend your airfields by bombing his. You keep up the T1 effort against the Russian airforce all through the campaign until you can't anymore. If you don't and your opponent realises how powerful the Russian airforce is, there will be 'consequences'. May 1942-

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: arras

Reports of WWII kills in air attacks are exaggerated. Both aerial kills and ground kills. Highly exaggerated. Not just in WWII... [snip]

Good post Arras!

[Great_Ajax]

Overclaiming of kills was absolutely an issue in air strikes but let's make sure we don't marginalize the effectiveness of air strikes based on tank total losses alone. Those numbers of tank losses investigated include total writeoffs. How many more tanks were damaged and recovered thus preventing them from participating in the main battle? How many more were the result of direct penetration hits that killed/incapacitated the crew but the tanks were recovered, repaired, and later re-issued? The tank losses may have been low but soft skinned vehicles and horses were particuliarly vunerable to air attacks. Air attacks also were effective in desynchronizing attacks and counterattacks and playing a huge role in the general morale of the ground fighter. Ground units with air support/supremacy almost always fight better than those without.

Trey

ORIGINAL: arras

Reports of WWII kills in air attacks are exaggerated. Both aerial kills and ground kills. Highly exaggerated. Not just in WWII, look at recent example:

Bombing of Kosovo by NATO. NATO claimed:
120 Serbian tanks destroyed. Recent reports shows it was 14!
220 APC reported, real looses probably 18!
450 artillery pieces destroyed, real looses were 20!

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/newsweek-exclusive-suppressed-air-force-report-on-kosovo-bombing-shows-little-damage-done-to-milosevics-forces-contrary-to-early-nato-and-pentagon-claims-73040377.html

And those are results of several months of non stop bombing with laser guided munitions, spy satellites, unnamed reckon planes, radar surveillance and modern digital communication and control by dozen of most powerful airfleets on Earth against enemy possessing few AA cannons and couple of second gen SAMs.

Now try to think about such results in terms of game turns and attacks and you see they are not too off the reality.

And here is something for all you Hans Rudel lowers (without trying to diminish him as a soldier and pilot):

"In fact total Soviet tank losses in operation Citadel amounted to 1 614 tanks totally destroyed, the vast majority to German tanks and assault guns. Further detailed research has shown air power only accounted for 2-5% of Soviet tanks destroyed in the battle of Kursk.(24) This equates to at most around 80 tanks." ...That is pitiful. Entire gigantic Kursk battle with 5000 Soviet tanks on battlefield and 2000 German planes and one month fighting.

That is something like 0.001 destroyed tank per aircraft per one day! Or 1 destroyed tank per day per effort of 800 German planes! (I know those include not just bombers but still...)

Wasn't checking but that might be number Rudel claimed alone.

And that is not just case with Germans:

"During the German counterattack at Mortain (7th to 10th August) the 2nd Tactical Air Force and 9th USAAF claimed to have destroyed 140 and 112 tanks, respectively."

"It turns out that only 177 German tanks and assault guns participated in the attack, which is 75 less tanks than claimed as destroyed! Of these 177 tanks, 46 were lost and only 9 were lost to aircraft attack. This is again around 4% of those claimed."

"When the results of the various Normandy operations are compiled, it turns out that no more than 100 German tanks were lost in the entire campaign from hits by aircraft launched ordnance."

"Perhaps the most extraordinary claim by the VVS’s IL-2s, is that over a period of 4 hours they destroyed 240 tanks and in the process virtually wiped out the 17th Panzer Division.
On 1st July the 17th Panzer Division had only one tank battalion (the II./Pz Rgt 39) with a grand total of only 67 tanks."

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/myth-combat-aircraft-destroying-tanks-27496.html

Now compare that (instead of heroic stories) to your WITE air to ground combat results and you can continue gaming happily because in terms of "kills" WITE probably got it right this time

Aircraft in ground support role was basically very mobile artillery. Also relatively inefficient in terms of weight and number of projectiles delivered during given time (3-4 sorties per day at best). Its largest effect on its target was shock. If that is represented well in game is of course altogether different question.

[Reconvet]

ORIGINAL: arras
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/newsweek-exclusive-suppressed-air-force-report-on-kosovo-bombing-shows-little-damage-done-to-milosevics-forces-contrary-to-early-nato-and-pentagon-claims-73040377.html

Anybody out there willing to qualify this source? Never seen such claims in any serious international news report, and I've never seen this organisation quoted by any major player in the news sector. "prnewswire" smells like an anti-west cyber-propaganda-warfare organisation in my book.

Why would Milosevic & consorts have backed off the way they did if the NATO bombardments had been this ineffective? Tens of thousands of sorties and only 52 pieces of military hardware destroyed while using smart ammunitions? Not a credible report for me. Don't you think US congress would have raised hell if taxpayer's money had been wasted this ineffectively?

This is the major challenge internet presents to all of us: Which sources are credible, which ones should better be confirmed via multiple independent sources? Don't believe everything you read on internet...

[hfarrish]

PR Newswire is simply a press release aggregator - one would have to find the original Newsweek story, depending on whether you believe Newsweek is credible.

[arras]

ORIGINAL: Reconvet

Anybody out there willing to qualify this source? Never seen such claims in any serious international news report, and I've never seen this organisation quoted by any major player in the news sector. "prnewswire" smells like an anti-west cyber-propaganda-warfare organisation in my book.

Is BBC credible enough?: Moral Combat - NATO at War

ORIGINAL: Reconvet

Why would Milosevic & consorts have backed off the way they did if the NATO bombardments had been this ineffective?

Thanks to Russian influence on Serb leaders. Thanks to Russians giving NATO helping hand. Russians arranged for ceasefire using influence they had on Serbs. Watch the BBC document above.

ORIGINAL: Reconvet

Tens of thousands of sorties and only 52 pieces of military hardware destroyed while using smart ammunitions? Not a credible report for me. Don't you think US congress would have raised hell if taxpayer's money had been wasted this ineffectively?

Very good question NATO countries citizens should ask their leaders. Ever wondered why is Gaddafi still in power after all those months of bombing? Because all those fancy hi-tech gadgets along with all those huge military organizations you pay out of your taxes are useless the way politicians used them in Kosovo and are using in Libya.

And US congress is not there to watch taxpayers money. You misunderstand completely function of congress. Congress is there to ensure that taxpayers money flow the right way. That is from you to big military hardware producers, suppliers, banks and oil industry. And that is exactly what is happening in Libya and what happened in Kosovo.

[Reconvet]

Found the newsweek report. Where there's smoke...?

Newsweek; May 15, 2000; by John Barry and Evan Thomas:

http://www.newsweek.com/2000/05/14/the-kosovo-cover-up.html


I'd bet true figures will be somewhere between the extreme figures. Maybe MEAT was not really willing to risk a lot in a postwar region to get solid evidence? But maybe results really were too embarassing to be followed up.

[Mynok]

And US congress is not there to watch taxpayers money. You misunderstand completely function of congress. Congress is there to ensure that taxpayers money flow the right way. That is from you to big military hardware producers, suppliers, banks and oil industry. And that is exactly what is happening in Libya and what happened in Kosovo.

Well, it's more than that. Congress is the long arm of the corporate hegemony and is there to provide a semblance of legitimacy to their complete control over government function. And it isn't just in the US. It's worldwide.

[Reconvet]

And US congress is not there to watch taxpayers money. You misunderstand completely function of congress. Congress is there to ensure that taxpayers money flow the right way.

With all the hassling going on in congress where to cut the budget and congress ability to deny budget approval - potentially resulting in shutdown of whole administration branches - I'd say congress HAS the power to watch taxpayers money. Imagine a blocking majority demanding that pentagon has to cut 5 billion bucks because of flawed smart ammunition programs, before the rest of the budget is approved? But we're going kind of off topic here. Let's just agree politicians too often don't do the job they really ought to...

[arras]

Apart from absolutely biased political info it gave about background of that war, with all the usual clichés this document gives you some overview about NATO air intervention over Kosovo and its effectiveness (or rather ineffectiveness):

Lessons of Kosovo

[arras]

To Rebuild the Air Force

In Kosovo, the USAF provided about 340 out of a NATO total of 720 combat aircraft intended to bomb President Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs into submission within two days. After 78 days, the strategic bombardment ended, not because the Serbs capitulated to the bombing, but because the Russians intervened and NATO offered terms better than the ones Serbia had proposed (and we had rejected) before the bombing started. Under Air Force leadership, the NATO bombers attacked the same old “strategic” targets: bridges, factories, power plants, telecommunications, missile batteries, so-called high value targets, etc.

Many targeting blunders (including bombing the Chinese embassy) and 38,000 sorties later, Serbian officials on the ground found that, despite Air Force claims of crippling damage, we had shut down only 3 out of 80 missile batteries, destroyed 14 armored vehicles (against claims of 120 tanks), and inflicted 387 military casualties (versus 5,000 to 10,000 claimed.)

[Reconvet]

ORIGINAL: arras

Apart from absolutely biased political info it gave about background of that war, with all the usual clichés this document gives you some overview about NATO air intervention over Kosovo and its effectiveness (or rather ineffectiveness):

Lessons of Kosovo

Undisclosed source mixing news clip cuts with interview parts (notably taken out of context) with scenes from a movie (Top Gun), wow...

And what you may consider biased political info could be open to debate, but definitly not here (game forum, no propaganda outlet), ok? Politics are the quickest way to get thread lockdowns here.

[arras]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

Well, it's more than that. Congress is the long arm of the corporate hegemony and is there to provide a semblance of legitimacy to their complete control over government function. And it isn't just in the US. It's worldwide.

Very much so. But that is bit outside of the scope of this forum

ORIGINAL: Reconvet

With all the hassling going on in congress where to cut the budget and congress ability to deny budget approval - potentially resulting in shutdown of whole administration branches - I'd say congress HAS the power to watch taxpayers money.

There is no question about that. It has the power. I would say it also have obligation, at last in theory to use that power. But it doesn't. And I am afraid it is more than the case of politicians do not doing their job properly. It is more case of what those politicians want and can do. In other words, it is problem of the system, not just people in it.