Strategic Bombing Overpowered?

[Harrybanana]

Pavel,

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug. But there was protection in the form of fighter intercept by 9 MIGs. Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage. It was in the saved game I sent you. Here is the bombing attack which preceded it (4 of 5) which increased the damage to 59%.

[Harrybanana]

And here is the attack 5 of 5 by 7 Rumanian Potez's, intercepted by 9 MIGs, that increased the damage to 71%. 71-59=12.

By the way, as you can see my intercepting fighter airbase is only 3 hexes away not 4. So just how close does it need to be anyway?

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

did you find the battle where the 7 Rumanian bombers intercepted by the MIGs caused 12 points of factory damage? If so is that WAD?

No, I haven't seen it. I never was able to produce significant damage to the factories once protecting them.

Please let me know how to reproduce it. Thanks.

Pavel, I know you are very busy and, despite my tone, I do appreciate your taking the time to look at this and explain things to me. But could you please answer my questions about the PVO AA regiments, in particular:

1. Was it a bug that was causing them to not change equipment from the 76mm AA gun to the 85mm AA gun?
2. Has this bug been fixed in the latest patch (1.06.22) so that they will now change equipment and build up to strength in a reasonable period of time (3 to 5 turns)?
3. If not what can I do to "protect" my industry?

[morvael]

From what I have seen in my game 1) Yes and 2) Yes.

[Helpless]

Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage.

Me too, just give exact steps to reproduce it. I don't see it to happen. I was not even close to reproduce it in the save you provided.

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug.

You could still build them and they were not useless.

By the way, as you can see my intercepting fighter airbase is only 3 hexes away not 4. So just how close does it need to be anyway?

There are many factors, range is among them. The close it is the better chance them to intercept.

1. Was it a bug that was causing them to not change equipment from the 76mm AA gun to the 85mm AA gun?

Yes, there was a bug for support unit upgrade. Especially those attached to the cities.

2. Has this bug been fixed in the latest patch (1.06.22) so that they will now change equipment and build up to strength in a reasonable period of time (3 to 5 turns)?

Yes, it should be fixed.

3. If not what can I do to "protect" my industry?

Nothing new. Build AA in the cities. AA is very powerful in WITE (I'd say even too powerful). Station your PVO air bases nearby. Even if LB could reach your rear cities, they are most probably will be unescorted

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Well I'm glad to hear Ploesti has been made much tougher.

Pavel, what you're asking here is for Soviet players to play a game of whack a mole in autumn of 41 spending precious APs and armaments to put flak in cities hundreds of miles in the rear that simply were not being bombed at this time in the first place to avoid opportunistic Axis factory bombing. Ultimately, they'll wind up railing all this stuff to the map edge and saying the hell with it. (Stalingrad probably should be evacuated anyways during the winter, regardless of factory bombing. I have always done so. But now it looks like we can add Gorky to that list.)

This in my estimation isn't adding anything to the game in terms of realism. It's just introducing a whole new level of micromanagement in order to deal with some very dubious bombing missions.

In most of my games the SHC does rail them to Urals and I have done the same not knowing why until this thread.

Seems like the smart thing to do for an extra mouse click or 2

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: morvael

From what I have seen in my game 1) Yes and 2) Yes.

Thanks Morvael. I updated to 1.06.22 a turn ago and still no change. But it will probably take some time.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

too

Who started this trend?

We need a big hug smiley asap

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Regardless I just don't think that 7 mediumn bombers (Rumaniian at that) should be able to inflict double digit damage.

Me too, just give exact steps to reproduce it. I don't see it to happen. I was not even close to reproduce it in the save you provided.

Well I don't know how to reproduce it either as I am playing the Russians not the Germans. You'll have to talk to Saper to find out how he did it. But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

Not sure what you mean by "protected" as I admit I never had a PVO AA regiment in Stalingrad because of the bug.

You could still build them and they were not useless.

Well if I had built 4 PVO AA Regiments in Stalingrad as you suggested and after 10 turns they only had a combined 8 76mm AA guns (instead of the 80 they are suppose to have) they might not have been entirely useless, but I don't think they would have been too useful either. In any event I am glad to hear the bug has been fixed. I will be better prepared next game.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

...But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

...

Pavel or Gary need to be able to reproduce most problems to fix them in the code. If they can reproduce it then they can see it happen in debug mode. They are not going to search through over 100K lines of code to find a problem otherwise.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

...But don't the screen shots I posted above prove that the 7 bombers did inflict 12 points of damage? Or am I missing something here?

...

Pavel or Gary need to be able to reproduce most problems to fix them in the code. If they can reproduce it then they can see it happen in debug mode. They are not going to search through over 100K lines of code to find a problem otherwise.

That is understandable; but can I at least get an acknowledgement that there is a problem in that I have proven that those 7 Potez 63's did cause 12 points of damage and that if so that is a bug? If so then I will put in the time to start a new game as the Germans in order to reproduce the "bug" which I can then send to Pavel.

I have already put in some time examining all of the last several turns of my game with Saper and it would appear to me that the Potez 63 is the problem. For example below is a screen shot from Turn 15 (ie the turn before the save I sent to Pavel) showing that prior to the Potez's bombing run there was 35% damage caused to the T34 factories in Stalingrad. As an aside I want to point out again that the 11 LAGG-3's that did intercept were ineffective.

[Harrybanana]

Now 7 Potez 63's intercepted by 12 useless MIGGs increase the damage by 10% to 45%. So over the course of two turns 7 Potez's caused 22% damage to the T34 factories in Stalingrad bombing at night even though they were intercepted by a superior number of fighters both times. Not bad for a "tactical bomber" with only a 663 lb bomb load. Again, let me know if you at 2by3 believe this is a bug and I will put in the time to track it down for you.

[morvael]

I have quickly checked the details of Potez and it's weapons and they look comparable to other planes in the same class (Tactical Bomber).

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: morvael

I have quickly checked the details of Potez and it's weapons and they look comparable to other planes in the same class (Tactical Bomber).

Do you mean you checked what it says on the aircraft display in the game, or did you check the actual code for this aircraft?

[morvael]

In game data, for a moment I thought there may be a "spelling" error which for example gives it 10x the power of bombs or something like that. But I didn't find anything unusual. Maybe only that it's a tactical bomber but with quite long range.

[Helpless]

I was not getting more than 1-2% with them in the save provided. In general Tactical Bombers get higher accuracy when attacking land targets. I could take another look, but it is better to be moved to the tech section.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

I was not getting more than 1-2% with them in the save provided. In general Tactical Bombers get higher accuracy when attacking land targets. I could take another look, but it is better to be moved to the tech section.

Ok, thanks Pavel for looking at this. I'll run some of my own tests. But I am right aren't I? The screen shots I have posted do show 7 of them doing 10% and 12% damage on consecutive turns, or am I reading something wrong? If they did do that kind of damage I suppose it could just be a coincidence; but it seems like an awfully unlikely one.

[elmo3]

Moved to Tech Support. This is a duplicate of another thread here but I'll leave it open as long as it stays constructive and polite.

[jwduquette1]

I've tried the Ploesti Bombing campaign in several PBEMs. In one particular game that actually went on beyond the Russian 1941 uber-winter offensive, I committed huge numbers of Red medium and hvy bombers to the effort in both 1942 and 1943. I'd guess I committed 2/3 of the Red Air Force bomber forces to this effort. This was against an opponent whom I managed to push pretty far south during my 1941 uber-winter offensives. I Was doing my bombing offensives while being within 10-hexes or less of the Romanian Border. Bombed the poop out of PLoesti via night missions before my opponent finally figured out what I was doing. I actually got production down to 0% for two months(+) during the winter and spring of 42-43. It took a couple months to get production down to zero. Although at a very high cost to the Red Air Force. I mainted zero production for several months of continued bombing. I eventually had to stop the bombing campaign due to air losses. But I never saw any sort of effect on the Germans from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production. When I asked my opponent about the effects of loosing oil production from Ploesti for several months, he said he didn't even notice it was out of action.

From my experience, I have the complete opposite reaction as to the effectiveness of strategic bombing in this game. Moreover my opponent saw zero effects from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production in our game. Which I suppose goes back to what effect does oil and fuel really have upon this game? I'm convinced it's window dressing -- ala Soviet Heavy Industry and [:D] strategic bombing.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: jwduquette1

From my experience, I have the complete opposite reaction as to the effectiveness of strategic bombing in this game. Moreover my opponent saw zero effects from the complete loss of the Ploesti oil production in our game. Which I suppose goes back to what effect does oil and fuel really have upon this game? I'm convinced it's window dressing -- ala Soviet Heavy Industry and [:D] strategic bombing.

Bombing German oil production may have zero effect on the game, but I'm not so sure about bombing important factories like the T34 factories in Gorky and Stalingrad. Along with Kharkov these are the only T34 factories early in the game. Since the Kharkov factories need to be moved, by bombing the other factories the Germans can effectivley stop all T34 production for several turns in the crucial early part of the game. I suspect this may have dire consequences for me in 1942.