Matrix Games Forums

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2. Airpower is too powerful. I won't go into any detail on this as it is covered in a separate post. But in my opinion the ability to mass air power needs to be restricted and the ability of air units to destroy strength points needs to be very much reduce. Air units should operate like artillery and naval bombardment to reduce unit morale and effectiveness, not destroy units. Some don't see this as a flaw. Their argument is that their are effective counters to this. But for me that is not the point. It is like saying that the counter to the Axis using napalm and tactical nukes is for the Allies to deploy their Surface-to-air missiles.

Well, in real life air power did destroy or incapacitate units, just think about the total destruction of the "Panzer Lehr" division by bombing at the beginning of "Operation Cobra". That bombing run was so intense that they were even 700 casualties on the allied side due to misplaced bombs.

The conversation here makes me think about the two occasions where Carpet Bombing was considered successful, Cobra and Goodwood. In both cases 2,000 - 3,000 fighter-bombers, medium bombers and heavy bombers were used. In both cases, one division was targeted and rendered ineffective by the bombing. Afterwards, the Allies deemed the results not worth the effort, and they did not employ such tactics again. You could argue that the overall Allied tactics and planning for these operations was flawed, but these were what they were at the time, and this should be reflected in any simulation.

My conclusion would seem to be that Air Units targeting Ground Units, in this game, should be less effective than they are in the stock campaign.

I should also mention that early in the war, Germany's air power was far more effective than what it should have been, given Poland's, France's and Russia's inadequate equipment and training for defense against air attacks. I believe this can be reflected in SC3 by those countries ground units having less AAA ability at start than comparable German units, which can be made up thru AAA upgrades later.

Biggest thing also is defenders terrain, especially urban or built up areas. i am thinking Caan or Casino.

large armored formations caught in the open, could be dealt a severe blow, but when the defender (non-armor) was in cities, the opposite was true, it actually made it helpful to the defender? I do not know of any instance were a corp/army was simply obliterated in full in a city and the attacker just paraded in?

I agree that the air power is probably too strong. Generally it works for the Axis early and the Allies later. The issue is the game is somewhere near parity now( some will say favors Axis others Allies but it is within reason with the new version) and dramatically lowering the air power will have to be replaced somewhere else in the game.

One solution might be allowing troops to go to lv 3 in AA.

ORIGINAL: Trump2016

Biggest thing also is defenders terrain, especially urban or built up areas. i am thinking Caan or Casino.

large armored formations caught in the open, could be dealt a severe blow, but when the defender (non-armor) was in cities, the opposite was true, it actually made it helpful to the defender? I do not know of any instance were a corp/army was simply obliterated in full in a city and the attacker just paraded in?

Yet in the game I have had an entire full strength army destroyed in a City by air power alone.

ORIGINAL: PvtBenjamin

One solution might be allowing troops to go to lv 3 in AA.

This would perhaps help the Axis, but not the Allies. Even assuming the Allies had the MPPs to invest in AA it would take until late 42 or 43 before they reached that level; and by then the War would already be lost if the Axis are maxing out on air power.

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

ORIGINAL: Trump2016

Biggest thing also is defenders terrain, especially urban or built up areas. i am thinking Caan or Casino.

large armored formations caught in the open, could be dealt a severe blow, but when the defender (non-armor) was in cities, the opposite was true, it actually made it helpful to the defender? I do not know of any instance were a corp/army was simply obliterated in full in a city and the attacker just paraded in?

Yet in the game I have had an entire full strength army destroyed in a City by air power alone.

Thats my point, I have also!

its the best way to invade, load up on air (either side), eliminate the defending unit and walk in. The AI does this also when playing as Allied, not just human players.

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

ORIGINAL: PvtBenjamin

One solution might be allowing troops to go to lv 3 in AA.

This would perhaps help the Axis, but not the Allies. Even assuming the Allies had the MPPs to invest in AA it would take until late 42 or 43 before they reached that level; and by then the War would already be lost if the Axis are maxing out on air power.

Absolutely incorrect. The Brits reach lev 3 AA late '40 early '41. Would make a large impact on any Axis/Brit encounters.

On the topic of airpower, in researching the battles in and around Sevastopol after recently watching a movie on the subject I came across this wiki entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of ... _Peninsula

On 8 May 1942, the Axis struck with great force in a major counteroffensive codenamed Trappenjagd which concluded by around 19 May 1942 with the liquidation of the Soviet defending forces. Manstein used a large concentration of airpower, heavily armed infantry divisions, concentrated artillery bombardments and amphibious assaults to break through the Soviet front in its southern portion in 210 minutes, swing north with the 22nd Panzer Division to encircle the Soviet 51st Army on 10 May and annihilate it on 11 May. The remnants of the 44th and 47th Armies were pursued to Kerch, where the last pockets of organized Soviet resistance were eradicated through German aerial and artillery firepower by 19 May.

The decisive element in the German victory was the campaign of airstrikes against the Crimean Front by Wolfram von Richthofen's 800 aircraft-strong VIII. Fliegerkorps, which flew an average of 1,500 sorties per day in support of Trappenjagd and constantly attacked Soviet field positions, armored units, troop columns, evacuation ships, airfields and supply lines.[13] German bombers used large quantities of SD-2 anti-personnel cluster munitions to kill masses of fleeing Soviet infantrymen.

I realize this is just one other example, but it does highlight the use of airpower, and decisively so, outside some of the more commonly known instances etc.

Hi Hubert!

I totally agree to your thesis, most of the Axis' early victories were relying heavily on concentrations of tac. bombers. With those several changes already made I feel the balancing much more satisfying than before, with one exception: the relation between tanks and bombers doesn't fit imho.

I'd gladly trade 3 tac. bombers for 3 tanks. In my current tourney game I couldn't use most of my airforce in NA due to bad weather in 80% of the turns, or at least not all of them. I lost a para trying to cut off the fleeing enemy on LS; allthough my fighters covered 3 different zones of weather. Ironically it was destroyed by tac. bombers, which shows the real downside of further downgrades: even the Allies would suffer heavily in that case.

At least the positioning of aircraft has become really challenging with those new supply rules. The differentiation between heavy- and med. tanks doesn't fit either; there never were corps or armies of heavy tanks historically, Germany has had 1 heavy tank battallion per tankcorps, consisting of 45 Tigers at max.

A trade of tac. bombers for med. tanks would therefore provide a more historical feeling and probably also satisfy those critics.

Hi Sugar,

Thanks for the feedback and what we've done for the next official update, currently available in the latest BETA, is to slightly lower the number of Tactical and Medium Bomber builds as follows:

- Tactical Bomber Build Limits reduced: USA, USSR and Germany 6 -> 5, Italy 3 -> 2.
- Medium Bomber Build Limited increased: USA, USSR and Germany 3 -> 4, Italy 1 -> 2.

While not as deep a change as you have listed above, it's a step in the direction of what you are suggesting and hopefully will provide a bit of what you are looking for. A more sweeping change would require more extensive testing, not many are testing the BETA releases at the moment, and this more incremental change will hoepfully paint a better picture if more changes are needed or not.

I also wish to clarify my comments, I am only concerned with how players (sometimes AI) use air power against cities.

Perhaps there is a counter to this strategy that I have not come across as yet.

I prefer tactical bombers over medium because I like Stukas. They are the iconic bomber image of WW2. And they are beautiful.