Matrix Games Forums

AWD is doing really great compare to WAW but still something I wonder if it shouldn't be developped which is CAP missions.

What I means is that your planes/ships can suffer opportunity fires by ennemy planes and nothing you can do about it unless you manage to get rid of those planes before they can do their opportunity fire.

Now there are extreme case like having one lone bomber in a region with let say a strong AA defense. Opposite side let say 3 units of fighters. Between the 2 a fleet want to move but it will get the opportunity fire from that bomber and nothing those fighters can do about.

If you want some historical example then you can see the dashing move made by the Scharnost and the Gneisenau (sorry for any mispelling) when they run from their Western France base back to Germany and all this through the Channel. The Luftwaffe was there all the way to screen them and only mines did some damage. Now in AWD ART would still be an issue but at least fighters should neutralize bombers.

At last I see a few issues besides programming this is that some players could use this to destroy bombers in defense easily as OF are not done by choice so maybe implementing just a rule saying that OF suffers -2 per CAP units in the concerned region and if therefore the OF is unsuccesfull it might simply mean the bombers didn't fly off. That way it's not a combat but would still make OF a bit less powerfull in certain less logical cases.

Another issue would be what about fighters that could cover the bomber doing OF so maybe simply for each fighter in the same region than the bomber you cancel a fighter doing CAP mission.

As CAGS are considered fighters this might also applies when moving carriers around. What possibly could a JAP Tactical do against 5 US carriers in 1944 but go down in flames if he ever takes off. Well in AWD he's still damn good at OF if lucky.

Well this might not look so simple but I found it strange to get my fleet moves made impossible because of one JAP bomber when my WA fighters could knock him off the skies easily but not by straffing him on the ground.

An interesting point............a guess the perfect example of this would be a German "channel dash" with surface fleets (as you mention above.)  All else being equal (which of course it is not, lol) it would indeed be "better" if you could screen sea zones from op-fire using air units (like putting a few Me-109s in the channel sea space before you move the surface naval forces through.)
Btw, has anyone ever wished the op-fire ("move anyway") prompt would give an estimate via the Combat Analyzer first?  I certainly have.....
And I have also seen some folks make truly suicidal moves (like moving a ship through a narrows protected by multiple enemy ARTs) which I doubt they would do if the number was shown: attacker losses; probability of success, etc.....
 
No biggie, just interesting ideas....

I agree Christian, would love to see some stats before pressing okay. I would also love the ability to redo as the computer seems to do on those naval missions. I mean move the transport it survives and then I realize I can't invade anyway but now the transport is out there on its lonesome. [:(] Either that or some right-click feature that would say amphib is possible on this zone.
 
What is the computer doing anyway when it sends all the pieces on a merry chase around the board? And why don't you ever see a message with Allied transport sunk during the AI's move turn?