Matrix Games Forums

Hi all,

The UV (and WitP) should be naval power games in first place and strategic
bombing should not have as much influence as it has right now.

It was USN (ships and aircraft) that effectively won the war and not the USAAF
(excluding the A-bomb).


Please note that, in later stages of war, B-29 raids on Japan (and we are
talking about B-29's and not B-17's) showed that they can't hit almost
anything "small". It was found out that pinpoint strikes against factories
were not producing good results and this is why the B-29 were switched to
massive raids against towns themselves using incendiaries.

That was the only way the B-29's were able to be used effectively...


So... where does this leads us in current UV (and WitP)?


IMHO, the biggest problem of bombers is simply overlooked in UV (and WitP).

This problem is their inability to find proper targets and bomb them.

The bombers in WWII didn't have GPS and yet in UV we have them fly many many
HEXes away (i.e. 20 x 30nm = 600nm for B-17/B-24 and 30 x 30nm = 900nm for
Betty) and pinpointly attacking designated target (even at night)...

This is completely unrealistic.

In Europe (yes I know it's different theatre but still) the bomber crew
results were appalling and apart from specialized squadrons (i.e. pathfinders
equipped with H2S ground mapping radar in later stages of war) they were all,
most of the time, hopelessly inept...


This, at the same time, shows why the naval air power was much more effective
- it's simply because they operated at shorter ranges and thus margin for
error was much lesser.



Suggestions for UV (and WitP)

#1
Create "Can Not Find the Target" penalty for LBA (Land Based Aircraft) level
bombers when bombarding "Port" / "Airfield" / "Ground Unit" and docked ships
in "Naval attack" depending on the range of target.

The further away target is the more percentage of crews should simply miss
their target and never have opportunity to bomb it.

The experience of air crews involved should play role here but even 99 EXP
crew should have difficulty finding and bombing target that is 600nm (B-17/B-
24) or 900 nm (Betty) away.

Also the weather over target can be used for this as well (we already have
report of how weather is like over target).


#2
For night operations add to #1 above x2 modifier (i.e. even more crews that
can't find target).


#3
Lessen the effect of LBA level bombers when attacking ships that are docked
(please note that I used term "docked" and not "anchored").

Since CV's can still launch 50% aircraft when docked (assuming that they will
undock and sail in time to have 50% status in air operations) why not giving
this same opportunity to all ships that are docked?

Right now it seems that, when attacked with LBA level bombers, docked ships
are treated almost the same as anchored ones (i.e. to many hits scored).



NOTE:
Please note that for LBA level bombers attacking ships on open sea something
already exists in UV (and WitP I presume). It's the fact that they will almost
never attack ships on open sea if they are more than 10 HEXes away from base
where bombers are (i.e. 10 x 30nm = 300 nm). This was confirmed from
Matrix/2By3.



What do you say gentleman?

Can Matrix/2By2 please comment on this?



Leo "Apollo11"

Perfect!!!!

Originally posted by Apollo11




Right now it seems that, when attacked with LBA level bombers, docked ships
are treated almost the same as anchored ones (i.e. to many hits scored).

No it is fine as it is.........docked and anchored ships cannot simply sail off.....they have to raise the anchor, fire the boilers up etc etc. and this all takes time.

Hi all,

Originally posted by Raverdave
No it is fine as it is.........docked and anchored ships cannot simply sail off.....they have to raise the anchor, fire the boilers up etc etc. and this all takes time.

The UV differes the "docked" and "anchored" status.

It's not fine when you look at CVs. They need to steem into
wind to launch aircraft and yet they operate at 50% when docked
in base HEX (i.e. near land).

Why should docked CV differ from, let's say, DD?


Leo "Apollo11"

I agree that finding targets in the SOPac was very difficult, however having too many "cant find target" msgs popping up would only cause massive player frustration.

What i would favor instead, is reducing the JDAM like quality of bombing the bases themselves......gives the best of both worlds. Air units may know the general location of both bases and ground target hexes (enemy inf units) but just because they are bombing the right 30 mile "hex" doesn't mean that some or in the worst cases "any" of their bombs will hit on target.

Biggest problem of LBA is that the game engine treats base hexes as virtual area so small that when compared to their bomb loads they cant really "miss"

Thus you end up with larger raids 50-100+ bombers that can saturate targets completely, something like

Airbase hits 5
Airbase supply hits 2
Airfield hits 40
Port hits 4
Port Supply hits 1

Ship A 1 bomb hit
Ship B 2 bomb hits

(pretty impressive huh? talk about hex saturation!)

Often during the war, many a bomb raid did nothing but kill alot of monkeys and trees. and most of the time it did not degrade units such as AA. Rabaul for example only got stronger as a AA base as time went on eventually becoming a hornet's nest (and forcing higher alt raids)

Same goes for Shore bombardment. Docked ships, while they should be easier to strike than moving targets, also remain too easy to hit......(the biggest source of the 6-9 bomber string complaints voiced recently)

To summerize......expand the "virtual area" that represents harbors and bases......and make it harder for bombardment and air raids to pulverize them (tie it to base size and fort level)

Quarter ground casaulties....scale it to terrain type, base size and FORT LEVEL IN PARTICULAR!

Allow intrinsic airfield runway repair (even without engineers) You dont need a degree to shovel dirt. But to prevent totally uber-bases (the opposite problem we have now), increase damage/destruction component of grounded air assets...... THATS what really shuts down bases....attrition of air units not flying, and by attrtion it doesn't have to be destroyed, but damaged.

A common sight on captured Japanese airfields was large #'s of damaged and grounded planes lacking for spare parts and maintenance.....much of it caused by attacks while they were on the ground

"Plane raids" later in the war by USN carrier TF's was how airbases were disabled historically, not by "airfield damage" which is very temporary in nature. Replacing the planes in time to counter offensives was the issue and the tactic worked brilliantly

Good post Nikademus

Thanks denisonh

I forgot to add one more thing....which particularily peeves me (especially when coupled with the air transport rules)

the trapping of air units at badly damaged bases should be eliminated. Ends up creating totally unrealistic setups. By all means increase op-loss/damaged planes on transfering, the chance preportional to pilot skill and runway damage, but players (and the AI) should be able to evacuate air units that find themselves based at a forward airfield that the enemy has made untendable via continuous and punishing raids.

The idea of being able to evacuate aircraft from a severly damaged airbase is very good. I have had CV aircraft divert into a non-functional airfield. If they can land, they can take off again with no ordanance. It is easier to take off from a damaged air strip than to land on it.

I like some ideas written here.

Lower the human losses by bombing, that are far too big.

Reduce the AA losses. In BTR for example you can bomb a target to 100% damage and you will only destroy only some guns if any.

Repairing an airfield could be done by every unit (but more quickly by engineers) while airfield services need ENG units to be restored.
Planes should be able to take off of damaged runways at least on transfert (ie without bombs).

The two rules above will give a more realistic handle of air units and airfields. Planes will not be grounded by holes in the runways but by lack of maintenance and of proper services between missions. Exactly what happens in reality.

Some raids should miss their targets.

About ships in port, I understand that a TF is ready to sail when a disbanded ship in port will react more slowly. I understand that the first one should be treated as a moving target (not at full speed, maybe) while the second would be unable to move because of shut down diesel and so on.
When an air raid was approaching, any ship able to move did so to reduce the danger, for example off Guadalcanal. The effect of this was to increase the time spent on refueling or unloading.

I say Ditto on A-Laurents post.

Good idea's indeed!

Later,

Lrfss

I agree with Nikademus' post. Air base raids should damage more aircraft (maybe destroy more, not sure about that) and do less of the runway cratering that shuts down a base even if it has 30K troops at it. Airfield service damage seems good mostly.

Also, the forced transferring of homeless carrier air to airbases that have closed runways doesn't make sense. This is very annoying, mostly for the Japanese since they are the ones who are having their bases closed down and then having carrier air units transfer to them.