Matrix Games Forums

Slowly getting to grips with the airwar side of the game and its bugging me that I have no real options other than follow a set piece strategic bombing campaign. If I don't bomb oil/fuel/resources/manpower/HI sites I suffer a big penalty in terms of negative VPs from other sources which really can only be countered with strategic bombing results leaving me with no viable option to try other bombing tactics such as wiping aircraft production of the face of the map, or hitting AFV production (all the oil/fuel in the world is no good if you don't have anything that uses the stuff).

While I'm sure that someone will come up with a very finely tuned air campaign that allows for bombing of required locations and leaving a reasonable amount of LBs for other targets, it does seem to be fee-for-all on ground forces but pretty much a scripted strategic bombing side of the game.

E.g. I can choose to land whatever forces I want in Italy and France when I want within reason (there are 2 conditions I think about having to have units in certain parts by a certain times) but I have to hit in increasing volume oil/fuel/resources/manpower/HI sites at all times.

This is interesting topic. The hindsight issue is very big factor in modelling strategic bombing campaigns. WITW tries to answer with set of political targets. I agree that such targets are a bit static and could be more variable. Not necessary under the human player control. It could be a system which is generating "political air bombing directives" which player have to accomplish within particular period of time. It may leave more room to deviate (trade) your air assets for other type of tasks (as mentioned AFV).

In any case, WITW air system is still "young and growing". Our current goal is to make sure it is balanced even in its current restrictive state.

Btw, in coming patch day light bombing accuracy and inflicted damage is reduced. We also plan to reduce requirements for the strategic bombing VPs.

I was under the impression that other than U-boat & V-weapons targets the rest of the air war was pretty much left to military commanders to pick targets/strategy. Don't get me wrong I am enjoying the game and learning the newer aspects as compared to WITE, I was just hoping to have the same sort of freedom to conduct the war as I wanted.

The airwar side I do think is great and a huge improvement, although I may just play ignoring the VP side of it and see if I can reach berlin before the Russians

I'm afraid we have no choice without making such restrictions. Otherwise it can get very unbalanced.

One easy change which could be done in the future is to allow to modify strategic bombing VP in campaign game in editor.

The airwar side I do think is great and a huge improvement, although I may just play ignoring the VP side of it and see if I can reach berlin before the Russians

That would be interesting test.

Keep in mind at the time the Air Force as we now know it was not a separate independent service, but under the Army. Strategic bombing was a new and untested theory and the memories of Billy Mitchel was fresh in the mind of the military and the public.

In theory air power could be used in many ways, but in practice you had strong minded men who were out to prove strategic bombing and others who saw differently. Eisehower demanded from Marshall and Roosevelt that he be given direct command of the Army Air Corp prior to Overloard so he could use them as he saw fit as opposed to the Air Corp going off on its own direction.

When the war ended in what was described as an ugly divorce the Army Air Corp became the USAF and the Army lost most of its airpower and congress put restriction on what the Army could possess in terms of airpower.

Realistically the game probably should have restrictions on how the strategic air command operates.

In scenarios you can have the strategic air command concentrate on ground targets and in ways the Air Corp high command would have never sanctioned.

I could be wrong, but I think that bombing (for example) AFV factories was not very effective in WW2 (they quickly resumed production). But on the contrary, bombing ball-bearing factories almost crippled German production (but the Allies did not know that and transferred the bombing to other targets just before production collapsed). So with 100% hindsight, I suppose that one could pinpoint certain German targets for maximum effect, but would that be realistic or even fun?

I'm reading "The Road to Big Week: The Struggle for Daylight Air Supremacy Over Western Europe, July 1942-February 1944" and it states that the Allies came up with the following 7 priority targets:

1. Aircraft plants
2. U-Boat Yards
3. Transportation Network
4. Power Grid
5. Oil Production and Refinement
6. Aluminum Production
7. Rubber Production

I'm generally following this above list as much as I can. I'm also a firm believer that Bomber Harris was wrong and Spaatz was right and targeting Oil is more effective than terror bombing.

[:D] Down the rabbit hole of when is a wargame a game or a recreation of actual events i.e. a video you sit back and watch.

IIRC some if not a lot of German production was moved underground to avoid allied bombing (but how the hell you model that I don't know), my enjoyment out of wargames isn't so much following actual history but to see if my 'megalomaniac rule the world' plan would've worked with the same tools and capabilities, yes key production like ball bearings and rubber could've brought Axis war production to a grinding halt but switching targets meant the effects were not lasting long enough to be felt.

Would a campaign of bombing aircraft factories and airfields reduced the Luftwaffe to a token force sooner allowing total air supremacy earlier than when it actually achieved worked?, would bombing AFV production into the ground resulted in no 'battle of the bulge' and a quicker advance by the Russians & allies with the axis having very small numbers of armour, we will never truly know other than to try the strategy in games such as WTIW.

In real life it was as much a question as to whether the American daylight bombing campaign could sustain losses suffered during un-escorted daylight raids. Another poster mentioned the effectiveness of bombing ball bearing factories. Question is could the AAF sustain 2 to 4 more Schweinfurt like raids to completely knock out all or most of the ball bearing capacity at a time when planes like the P-51 were not available.

On paper maybe, but the aircrews could very well have refused to fly the missions in the face of such high losses.

I don't know if focusing on air superiority first will result in better results, but im sure someone will try it out and see. Also would make a difference in game if you're playing with fog of war turned on.

Actualy, I wouldn't mind a situation where the strategic portion of the bombing campaign was basicaly handled by the AI, maybe even abstracted, and the player was basicaly handling the TAC and CAP portions of the air war. I guess there is probably a way to do this with automatic air directives. I'm brand new to this series so very much a beginner and not familiar with what I'm doing yet. I'm approaching the game (playing against the AI) by basicaly ignoring VP's and just doing what I think would make sense, anyway. After all when you are playing solo, who really cares what the end game screen says about winning? Or am I going to suffer some kind of functional penalty (i.e. getting fewer units, etc) by following this approach?

In BTR you have the same political targets, with the caveat,if you hit them early, it delays the time you have to hit them later. Also, targets are taken out of the game once they are over 50% damaged. But they slowly rebuild themselves so eventually you have to hit them again. Just like it happened.

@Dereck what do you mean when you say Harris was wrong? Do you mean terror bombing or night bombing or both?

ORIGINAL: warshipbuilder

@Dereck what do you mean when you say Harris was wrong? Do you mean terror bombing or night bombing or both?

There was a legitimate reason for night bombing. It was the carpet bombing Bomber Command did specifically targeting civilians to "break morale". Late in the war Spaatz had the 8th US Air Force focus on oil and within weeks had the Germans hurting.

The British didn't just give up when the Germans bombed England during the Blitz so why did Harris think the Germans would be any different?

ORIGINAL: dereck

The British didn't just give up when the Germans bombed England during the Blitz so why did Harris think the Germans would be any different?

There was a belief that German morale was weaker than British morale (based on no real evidence), and the ability to build a much larger and more capable bomber force to try it with.

ORIGINAL: henri51

I could be wrong, but I think that bombing (for example) AFV factories was not very effective in WW2 (they quickly resumed production). But on the contrary, bombing ball-bearing factories almost crippled German production (but the Allies did not know that and transferred the bombing to other targets just before production collapsed). So with 100% hindsight, I suppose that one could pinpoint certain German targets for maximum effect, but would that be realistic or even fun?

Germany imported ball bearings from Sweden. Even if Schweinfurt would have been hit harder and more often it would not have been THE reason for collapse. Sweden could produce more ball bearings. Germany would have imported more in advance.

No panacea target.

You have to remember that there was s certain amount of bloody mindedness about Harris. "They have sowed the wind and now they shall reap the whirlwind." This in reference to the bombings of Warsaw, Rotterdam and London. In an interview in 1977 he said he "would have destroyed Dresden again." So obviously this guy was not about to play nice. He also had the full backing of Churchill. You also have to remember the RAF tried daylight bombing early in the war and got a bloody nose for their efforts. So since until recently there was no such thing as night precision bombing there was no other viable option. Yes agreed not the best strategy, but given the circumstances,........

ORIGINAL: wosung

ORIGINAL: henri51

I could be wrong, but I think that bombing (for example) AFV factories was not very effective in WW2 (they quickly resumed production). But on the contrary, bombing ball-bearing factories almost crippled German production (but the Allies did not know that and transferred the bombing to other targets just before production collapsed). So with 100% hindsight, I suppose that one could pinpoint certain German targets for maximum effect, but would that be realistic or even fun?

Germany imported ball bearings from Sweden. Even if Schweinfurt would have been hit harder and more often it would not have been THE reason for collapse. Sweden could produce more ball bearings. Germany would have imported more in advance.

No panacea target.

Maybe so, but IIRC it was Speer in his book that said that German production would have collapsed if the bombing of ballbearing factories had continued- and he was the Minister of Industry.But of course he could have been wrong - as he was in other things.

A good book to read that covers the politics of the strategic bombing of German is Air War. If cover the entire history of air power from WWI to modern day but it has quite a bit about this topic.