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The assumptions in the game seem taken directly from gulf war planning. It was estimated that in the desert a single sortie kills 30 infantry. The assumptions in the game track the gulf war planning well. In reality Iraq surrendered so it didn't matter.

However, realistically, in a real war against a modern opponent that doesn't work. For one thing it's not 1 infantry = 1 bomb. The FAC is probably dead, or suppressed. And doesn't even see the enemy. Aircraft don't visually see their targets, they just drop them on a gps coordinate like artillery. Hence the effectiveness is much less. Anything within visual range means rifle fire and can't be done.

It's said nato killed seven tanks in Serbia. Basically, the airpower in the game is overrated, in reality it takes multiple bombs for one infantry not the other way around. Realistically out of the nato inventory of several thousand bombs you might kill a few infantry companies over months, in the game it takes no time.

Not really complaining just pointing out the inaccuracy. Also Belgrano was a 1920s torpedo, and postwar torpedoes are ineffective as their warhead is aluminum and TMETN. Nice game nonetheless. But an entire naval war happened, in Ukraine, and there were no significant airstrikes or ships sunk. This shows how ineffective modern air/naval units are compared to infantry.

Feel free to post research backing up your arguments.

However, it is worth remembering that CMO isn't a full land combat simulation (yet anyway). Things like cover, prone positions, spacings, formations etc aren't currently modeled as far as I'm aware.

I can't speak for the developers on what historical or military reports they used but there's always going to be those who disagree with their implementation. From what I've seen in real life, with smaller weapons (AGMs for instance), good spacings and cover will reduce the effectiveness of a strike, especially if an incorrect fusing is used. However, larger weapons (1000lb + bombs for example) will mess up most people's day, unless they're well protected. In my experience, most Western weapons at least, been tested on various ranges and have damage / lethality estimates, including collateral damage estimates, against various targets. These can include personnel in the open, prone, in body armour, protected by a wall etc. However, these are usually classified and I highly doubt the devs would be able to use such figures in CMO even if they had access to them.
Regarding your point on FACs - certainly in the battles against ISIS, it wasn't uncommon to JTACs to be able to see Coalition RPAS feeds which certainly aided in the kill chain process. I believe that targeting pods like Litening on manned aircraft can also push video feeds to ground forces.

The 1991 Iraq War was arguably the last time that NATO forces fought large engagements against a clear enemy that didn't try to hide among civilians. Most conflicts since then have involved asymmetric warfare and therefore a bias towards weapon systems that are less likely to cause collateral damage is clear. Hellfire variants, Brimstones, SDBs, Paveway IVs etc deliberately have smaller warheads to enable their use against enemy combatants in civilian environments.
Without trying to turn this into a information war thread, it seems universally accepted that Ukrainian airpower has conducted strikes on, or been decoys against, Russian naval units and armour. How effective those have been in reality may take years to discover due to propaganda on both sides.

Tagging along.

Not tagging along. I don't think one post Willy has looked into things that much.

Mike

TempestII wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 2:06 pm Feel free to post research backing up your arguments.

However, it is worth remembering that CMO isn't a full land combat simulation (yet anyway). Things like cover, prone positions, spacings, formations etc aren't currently modeled as far as I'm aware.

I can't speak for the developers on what historical or military reports they used but there's always going to be those who disagree with their implementation. From what I've seen in real life, with smaller weapons (AGMs for instance), good spacings and cover will reduce the effectiveness of a strike, especially if an incorrect fusing is used. However, larger weapons (1000lb + bombs for example) will mess up most people's day, unless they're well protected. In my experience, most Western weapons at least, been tested on various ranges and have damage / lethality estimates, including collateral damage estimates, against various targets. These can include personnel in the open, prone, in body armour, protected by a wall etc. However, these are usually classified and I highly doubt the devs would be able to use such figures in CMO even if they had access to them.
Regarding your point on FACs - certainly in the battles against ISIS, it wasn't uncommon to JTACs to be able to see Coalition RPAS feeds which certainly aided in the kill chain process. I believe that targeting pods like Litening on manned aircraft can also push video feeds to ground forces.

The 1991 Iraq War was arguably the last time that NATO forces fought large engagements against a clear enemy that didn't try to hide among civilians. Most conflicts since then have involved asymmetric warfare and therefore a bias towards weapon systems that are less likely to cause collateral damage is clear. Hellfire variants, Brimstones, SDBs, Paveway IVs etc deliberately have smaller warheads to enable their use against enemy combatants in civilian environments.
Without trying to turn this into a information war thread, it seems universally accepted that Ukrainian airpower has conducted strikes on, or been decoys against, Russian naval units and armour. How effective those have been in reality may take years to discover due to propaganda on both sides.

I would love to post research.

Allied strategic bombing in Ww2: under a million casualties for 2 million bombs dropped. Ideal conditions, flammable cities, still less than 1 casualty per bomb.

Vietnam war: millions of bombs dropped, the entire adult male population of north Vietnam in 1960 was about a million. The million casualties are implausible. More likely NVA and ARVN took similar casualties which is several tons of bombs per casualty. Admittedly a poor use of airpower and much jungle was bombed.

Gulf war: Warthogs were restricted to 25mi of the border, did not get much done. There actually is a study on the Iraqi casualties.



If there were, say, 100,000 bombs dropped, 10,000 of them precision weapons, that's about ten bombs per casualty.

You mention Afghanistan, which is probably the best example of large scale bombing against infantry. In the gulf war they were bombing tanks and abandoned equipment primarily. In Afghanistan 3-7,000 bombs were dropped per year or about 50,000 bombs total. Taliban casualties are a similar number and most were killed by ANA. So again multiple bombs per kill, not multiple kills per bomb.

Even if the JTAC is completely accurate and is able to see the enemy, and the precision weapons are also accurate, there's still situations where the bomb hits a tree or the target is obstructed in some way. Even in open desert the troops can simply hide behind destroyed equipment and use it as shelter. Therefore any thinking enemy can stop even a perfectly accurate bomb.

Furthermore precision weapons are a minority of weapons employed in most conflicts. The number of precision weapons employed in, say, Ww2 like the fritz, Bat, and the Vb-3 which entered service days before the end was actually comparable to the gulf war. The precision weapons haven't become more numerous, they only increased in percentage.

Consider that theres a million Kg of silver produced per year. Missiles use a lot of silver, it's known the tomahawk has 50oz of silver. Let's say a maverick or pave way has a kg. Thousands of bombs is a large share of the 9n, electronics grade silver in the world. It's simply not possible to mass produce these weapons.

A single alpha strike fully loaded with precision weapons wipes out the global silver supply for a year. Thus even if these precise weapons actually cause 30 casualties per sortie you can only do that once. Majority of time will be dumb bombs with 300ft CEP and 50ft blast radius. This means about 100 bombs per hit on target and is far less effective. Warthogs strafe in Afghanistan because they don't have bombs at all.

One more thing I forgot to mention is air defenses can shoot the bomb down, which I don't think is modeled.

"One more thing I forgot to mention is air defenses can shoot the bomb down, which I don't think is modeled"

It is.

thewood1 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 6:48 pm "One more thing I forgot to mention is air defenses can shoot the bomb down, which I don't think is modeled"

It is.

I could do some benchmarking in the game but I don't see any obvious evidence that air defenses affect the bomb casualties that much (both reducing the accuracy and shooting down the bomb itself). From what I've seen defended targets are around 3x harder to kill not 10-100x more like I'd expect from the combination of ways they stop the bomb.

There is of course a missile defense value but no bomb defense value in the manual.

It has been discussed at length in the past. A number of players disputed that even a modern SAM could shoot down a bomb. I have seen it. Its a low probability and has to be the right system.

PGM can be targeted in-game, iron bombs cannot be. Though I doubt most SHORAD networks would target iron bombs anyway even if capable; it's not really a good use of scarce resources.

There's a lot to comment on here, but I'll make one observation about strategic bombing in Vietnam and World War II and the air campaign in the First Gulf War. At no point was the goal of bomber forces in those conflicts to mass-murder the civilian population (though that such casualties would occur was certainly accepted). The goal was primarily to destroy strategic and manufacturing infrastructure (such as factories) in WW2 to degrade the capability and will the enemy to continue to fight. In Vietnam more minor logistics targets were often struck (in part because the Johnson administration wanted to avoid escalation). In the Gulf War targets included both Iraqi strategic infrastructure, C3I capabilities, and long range weapons systems as while as tactical targets. Consequently, the metric of "casualties per bomb dropped" as a measure for the effectiveness of air power in these conflicts is an exceptionally poor one.

Lets clarify that a GBU is a bomb with a laser seeker and new tail unit. Its basically a bomb.

stww2 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:46 pm PGM can be targeted in-game, iron bombs cannot be. Though I doubt most SHORAD networks would target iron bombs anyway even if capable; it's not really a good use of scarce resources.

There's a lot to comment on here, but I'll make one observation about strategic bombing in Vietnam and World War II and the air campaign in the First Gulf War. At no point was the goal of bomber forces in those conflicts to mass-murder the civilian population (though that such casualties would occur was certainly accepted). The goal was primarily to destroy strategic and manufacturing infrastructure (such as factories) in WW2 to degrade the capability and will the enemy to continue to fight. In Vietnam more minor logistics targets were often struck (in part because the Johnson administration wanted to avoid escalation). In the Gulf War targets included both Iraqi strategic infrastructure, C3I capabilities, and long range weapons systems as while as tactical targets. Consequently, the metric of "casualties per bomb dropped" as a measure for the effectiveness of air power in these conflicts is an exceptionally poor one.

That's sort of my point, Afghanistan is the best example where it was basically all infantry targets, with a lot of PGMs, and it was bombs per casualty not casualties per bomb.

Even looking only at Hellfire drone strikes note these are only intended to kill one or two people, and the only time large casualties occur is against non military targets.

Incidentally, I believe they ran out of explosives and are now using the kinetics of the missile to achieve a kill.

Just wanted to say that using casualties as a measure of bombing effectiveness isn't very good. A lot of the time both in-game and in real life, the target is a building or a vehicle, not personnel.

A good example of this is the Highway of Death from the Gulf War. Estimates for the number of casualties caused are pretty low for the destruction caused, only around a few hundred to a thousand. Yet, the Iraqi convoy was halted and the vehicles in the convoy were largely destroyed and the rest of the Iraqi personnel fled on foot. Even though the casualties were low, the Iraqi army lost a lot of equipment and the retreating men were effectively taken out of the fight. Therefore, the attack was very effective.

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:13 pm Just wanted to say that using casualties as a measure of bombing effectiveness isn't very good. A lot of the time both in-game and in real life, the target is a building or a vehicle, not personnel.

A good example of this is the Highway of Death from the Gulf War. Estimates for the number of casualties caused are pretty low for the destruction caused, only around a few hundred to a thousand. Yet, the Iraqi convoy was halted and the vehicles in the convoy were largely destroyed and the rest of the Iraqi personnel fled on foot. Even though the casualties were low, the Iraqi army lost a lot of equipment and the retreating men were effectively taken out of the fight.

Here is a study.



Because they were all civilian vehicles it was easy, if they had a bit of armor it would be impossible.

There were exactly zero warthog sorties anywhere in Kuwait, at any time because it was civilians.

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/28/worl ... ected.html

For instance, NATO's Supreme Commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, said last week that the alliance had destroyed 110 of the roughly 300 tanks the Yugoslav Army had poured into Kosovo. But that number was smaller than the 150 tanks NATO believed that it had destroyed in the waning days of the war, a senior NATO official said.

mustang191 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:18 pm

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:13 pm Just wanted to say that using casualties as a measure of bombing effectiveness isn't very good. A lot of the time both in-game and in real life, the target is a building or a vehicle, not personnel.

A good example of this is the Highway of Death from the Gulf War. Estimates for the number of casualties caused are pretty low for the destruction caused, only around a few hundred to a thousand. Yet, the Iraqi convoy was halted and the vehicles in the convoy were largely destroyed and the rest of the Iraqi personnel fled on foot. Even though the casualties were low, the Iraqi army lost a lot of equipment and the retreating men were effectively taken out of the fight.

Here is a study.

That proves what I just said. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

The strike was effective in that the Iraqi vehicles were destroyed and the formation broken up. Given that the game measures equipment losses and not casualties, I'm not sure what's your issue with the current model.

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:22 pm

mustang191 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:18 pm

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:13 pm Just wanted to say that using casualties as a measure of bombing effectiveness isn't very good. A lot of the time both in-game and in real life, the target is a building or a vehicle, not personnel.

A good example of this is the Highway of Death from the Gulf War. Estimates for the number of casualties caused are pretty low for the destruction caused, only around a few hundred to a thousand. Yet, the Iraqi convoy was halted and the vehicles in the convoy were largely destroyed and the rest of the Iraqi personnel fled on foot. Even though the casualties were low, the Iraqi army lost a lot of equipment and the retreating men were effectively taken out of the fight.

Here is a study.

That proves what I just said. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

The strike was effective in that the Iraqi vehicles were destroyed and the formation broken up. Given that the game measures equipment losses and not casualties, I'm not sure what's your issue with the current model.

I'm only talking about infantry casualties, the vehicle losses in the game are ok, ignoring decoys and the other means to reduce them.

In terms of infantry casualties I would be surprised if any strike sortie against a prepared position caused 30 casualties like it does in the game. The specific examples I gave like drone strikes caused one or two casualties.

Casualties aren't measured in-game. I don't know where you are getting 30 casualties per airstrike.

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:29 pm Casualties aren't measured in-game. I don't know where you are getting 30 casualties per airstrike.

I don't have access to the game right now but it appears 1-2 stories will kill a infantry platoon.

mustang191 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:31 pm

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:29 pm Casualties aren't measured in-game. I don't know where you are getting 30 casualties per airstrike.

I don't have access to the game right now but it appears 1-2 stories will kill a infantry platoon.

Ah, I think I understand the problem. Not 100% sure, but I recall it being discussed on the forum that currently ground units that are made up of multiple parts but treated as one unit in the sim (such as platoons or SAMs) are modeled as having all their subunits bunched up. That may be the issue. I believe the devs are working on modeling unit spacing for these types of units.

P.S. If I'm wrong about this and someone else knows better, please feel free to correct me.

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:38 pm

mustang191 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:31 pm

BobTank63 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:29 pm Casualties aren't measured in-game. I don't know where you are getting 30 casualties per airstrike.

I don't have access to the game right now but it appears 1-2 stories will kill a infantry platoon.

Ah, I think I understand the problem. I believe that currently ground units that are made up of multiple parts but treated as one unit in the sim (such as platoons or SAMs) are modeled as having all their subunits bunched up. That may be the issue. I believe the devs are working on modeling unit spacing for these types of units.

P.S. If I'm wrong about this and someone else knows better, please feel free to correct me.

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. When a hellfire hits a school and kills ten children that's newsworthy. Not talking about morality or whatever just saying the effectiveness of these weapons is low, a bunched target of unprepared troops might be the only way one bomb causes ten casualties.

stww2 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 7:46 pm There's a lot to comment on here, but I'll make one observation about strategic bombing in Vietnam and World War II and the air campaign in the First Gulf War. At no point was the goal of bomber forces in those conflicts to mass-murder the civilian population (though that such casualties would occur was certainly accepted). The goal was primarily to destroy strategic and manufacturing infrastructure (such as factories) in WW2 to degrade the capability and will the enemy to continue to fight.

Regarding World War II that is a little incorrect. Japan conducted long range air raids against Chinese cities (most famously Chongqing) with the express purpose of killing civilians and breaking their enemy’s will to fight.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have military targets near them but the bombs themselves were dropped directly over the cities, and the purpose was intended to be psychological rather than destroying some military target (although the military target justification was given in the press releases of the time). Nuclear weapons were so experimental though that it could be argued that those attacks didn’t constitute strategic bombing.

In regards to the OP’s comments, I think he is missing the point. This is not a simulation, it is a game. While having the ability to conduct bearing only launches with dumb bombs and having individual infantrymen/tank/APC etc. units would make the effectiveness of ground attacks more realistic, it is not feasible because of limitations to the number of units one can have in a scenario and not fry their computer, and problems with managing so many units for the AI side and the player.