Air supply in attack?

[Lokioftheaesir]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

I've never agreed to this theory in the past and I'm not stopping now. No amount of futuristic thinking or cooperating commanders could have allowed the Germans to operate a full strength panzer corps indefinitely behind enemy lines. It was a logisticial impossibility, IMHO, proven by the fact it never historically happened, and was never even talked about, never given credibility. Cooperating commanders would have made a big difference in several places, but not here.

Ok, I'm off the soapbox now. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[ October 20, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]

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Ed

Exactly. Are we the few who understand this or is there some sort of 'dumb' factor built into wargamers.

Nick

[PMCN]

Even though the germans did use medium bombers (and stukas) to resupply Veliki Luki and I guess other places they were never very effective. Medium bombers are not designed to carry cargo...there is no cargo space! So you must package the supplies in a container that you can load into the bomb bay and bomb drop system and so I think that in game terms airsupply via bombers should have their load factor significantly reduced (factor of 5 at least).

There was a reason everyone used dedicated supply planes and not their bomber fleet for air supply tasks.

As far as the Inf in the Pz Korp goes Ed, sorry but I got sick and tired of them being put back in again I left them there just to prevent the inevitable. They will leave when I get the indepenent Pz Bn in 42. Besides I notice the infantry has a lower readiness than the rest so I suspect they are not adding much to the last attacks anyway.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Paul McNeely:
Even though the germans did use medium bombers (and stukas) to resupply Veliki Luki and I guess other places they were never very effective. Medium bombers are not designed to carry cargo...there is no cargo space! So you must package the supplies in a container that you can load into the bomb bay and bomb drop system and so I think that in game terms airsupply via bombers should have their load factor significantly reduced (factor of 5 at least).

There was a reason everyone used dedicated supply planes and not their bomber fleet for air supply tasks.

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That's a good point, bombers wouldn't be ideal for transport. Why a factor of 5 though? Something special about 5?

Unfortunately, the game does consider them to be great supply movers, hence our problem about units surviving behind enemy lines.

As far as the Inf in the Pz Korp goes Ed, sorry but I got sick and tired of them being put back in again I left them there just to prevent the inevitable. They will leave when I get the indepenent Pz Bn in 42. Besides I notice the infantry has a lower readiness than the rest so I suspect they are not adding much to the last attacks anyway.

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Oh, I was just joking, play the game however you want to. I don't want another of those "debates" to get started again, I'm still shell-shocked from the last one. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[PMCN]

Ed writes...
That's a good point, bombers wouldn't be ideal for transport. Why a factor of 5 though? Something special about 5?

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I was tossing out a number at more or less random. The question would be what is the effective transport capacity compared to bomb capacity...given the supplies would be rather less dense than a bomb. Some hard numbers would probably help but it is difficult to believe that you could significantly increase the transport capabilities by using bombers. From the game notes of Veliki Luki it was fairly clear this was used only to supplement the existing stockpile but it was sucessful at that.
To make an accurate choice of modifier would require knowing more about the mods required to use a bomber to paradrop supplies and some accurate examples of actual uses compared to say what could be carried in a Ju-52. But I suspect a value of between 20-33% effectiveness is probably close.

Oh, I was just joking, play the game however you want to. I don't want another of those "debates" to get started again, I'm still shell-shocked from the last one.

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Not a problem. I tried initially to keep them out but the computer was adament about putting them in so I have just given up and reorganised so I have one and only one. It was just amusing how hard the habit was to break.

But WIR is on hold till I hear that the replacement bug is squashed...this may explain why I was shattering all those russian units.