Matrix Games Forums

I just had a JU-88A-4 make a fantastic bombing run. There were 28 Somua S-35 tanks on one set of the AI's objective hexes. I decided that this was too juicy to pass up. I sent in the JU and his bombs killed 3 tanks outright and damaged two others. The nice thing was that 10 infantry squads were also wiped out in the same bombing run. Two turns later, three of the surviving Somua tanks retreated off the board. That makes 16 units destroyed and three damaged from a single bombing run!

I am not sure why the AI parked 28 of his Somua tanks on a single set of objective hexes. There were 28 tanks spread out on four victory hexes.

I didn't know that the infantry units were there also. These were damaged squads that were fleeing from my main line of advance.

BA Evans

I made a post once regarding how a single Ju88-A4 made a very dramatic run such as that, but the situation was one where my defense was starting to receive VERY close danger to losing the hill it was holding. It had to have wiped out at least 10 units, but there was no ammor in the hexes it hit (I'd wiped out all the armor before that, but my defense of that area had been considerably weakened).

I would be curious to know whether those who have used any of the tank-buster German aircraft have found them as effective as the JU88-A4 (the Ju88 may be even exceed in AT ability as well, though that wouldn't be right).

I am using 37mm Stukas against SU152s in a PBEM game. Eight attacks have so far resulted in only 1 damaged "turret" despite many hits and no flak opposition...

DO -217 and that JU-88 with 50mm pak attached

skukko: So how effective were they, particularly if the tops were hit on the enemy tanks? I say 'tops' because most other places if hit on tanks, have sufficient armor to not cause any damage, particularly to the 37mm gun. BTW, in my Rudel book at home, whom was known as a Stuka pilot (37mm gun), they have a photo of him having torched an IS2! I don't recall if they mentioned it was a top hit or not.

The lovely encyclopedia nowadays has a max penetration value for every unit listed (it displays unit's first slot weapon's stats).

The 37mm BK 3.7 can penetrate 40mm of top armor, assuming of course that the plane is less than 50 meters and on a vertical dive to it's target .

But because all planes in SPWAW probably attack at a constant angle less than 45 degrees to the ground, turret sides and rear could be easier to penetrate at low angles than the top at high angles.

A 250kg bomb has a penetration value of 115mm. Of course, High Explosives modeling against armored targets in SPWAW is done as subsidiary to AP modeling and is not nearly as detailed. IRL a bomb doesn't have to penetrate anything, it's shockwave will just twist the metal into deformed shapes killing everything inside (kind of like hitting a medieval knight with a steel mace). And a 250kg bomb dropped anywhere near a tank will leave just a few wheel sprockets hanging from faraway trees.

But I wouldn't complain... I shudder to think how it was in SPWW2 2.x: 100kg bombs continously dropped on Panther roofs, BOOM, plink, BOOM, plink etc. At least in SPWAW if you get a bomb hit, it will kill the target. In fact, I did a test some time ago and got about 27 kills out of 30 bomb hits.

And I think there is some sort of abstraction in SPWAW where you don't have to hit the tank to cause damage, because I remember getting other than top hits with bombs. Though I don't think I've seen a kill by a side hull hit for example.

[This message has been edited by Kharan (edited December 19, 2000).]

Originally posted by Kharan:
But I wouldn't complain... I shudder to think how it was in SPWW2 2.x: 100kg bombs dropped on Panther roofs, BOOM, plink, BOOM, plink etc. At least in SPWAW if you get a bomb hit, it will kill the target. In fact, I did a test some time ago and got about 27 kills out of 30 bomb hits.

I've just seen KV-1 been hit with 250kg bomb. Result: plink. But I don't know where it hit him.

DO-217 kills if it comes to target because of bombs. It drops them in two hexes. Bad thing in plane is that it comes only once. In effectivenes and cost comparison it's better than Stuka with 37B.K. Stuka comes multiple times and Sovjets have had troble with it. I've used stukas mostly, they have some sort of 'fear' value ( ? ) added, so after it's attack tanks are both buttoned and pinned. Ju88 with that 50pak is accurate to take in every flyby one tank away of battlefield. It can handle more AA-fire than stuka and comes at your pre-assingned artillery hexes in a row as long as it has ammo. Stukas make their moves of the circuit so they often get sort of delays and are not available whole time. I've used also He-111aginst armor, and it is effective in that too. As are all planes which has 250 and over bombs under their wings. He-111 is my favorite in missions that lots of infantry is involved. It has 7.62 or something machineguns and is good to get inf. pinned. Besides it takes much AA to get it down. I use also those Uhu:s and some odd planes from Messerschmith occassionally, but they are too expensive compared to effective that they are capable.It is commonly too rare to get to play with Luftwaffe so when ever possible I choose something of them. In my long WW2 campaign He-111 and stukas have saved my troops many times from overflooding enemy infantry and tank hordes. Wish I could use AC:s more in western front, but there everything that moves with engine has so good AA -defence that it's impossible dream and waste of money

mosh

Interesting posts. I'm rather of the thinking that AT airpower is greatly lacking in effectiveness, particularly when compared to the huge anti-personnel affect.

On skukko's point about the West, particularly the US, yes, I agree airpower against such an en masse extent of units having AA guns, especially the 50 cal., is all but useless.

Yes, the AT effect of an air raid is pretty poor. But unless airborne cannon and large HE weapons get different codes versus armor, what can be done about it? Sure, I was bemused watching a 250kg bomb inflict a suspension hit on a Char B1-bis (which didn't even cripple it; just slowed it down). And I have never seen an airplane hit the engine deck to cripple/kill the tank, although it is the largest part of the vehicle when viewed from the air.

But can bombs and heavy gunfire be coded to smite armor it missed or simply didn't penetrate without opening the possibility of HE kills inflicted by 82mm mortar near misses on a Panther? Sure, I'd like to see frontal kills on a Tiger from a non-penetrating SU-152 shot, but not at the cost of watching heavy tanks being picked off by medium mortars or howitzers...

Igor: It appears you're talking about the practicality of airborne ATGs being mixed in as artillery, and for what it's worth I believe that's the system that's being employed, and that's why airborne ATGs are suffering, which is precisely why I brought up that point. I believe the airborne ATGs should be treated as good or better than the ground-based ones in penetration BUT, in most cases, with perhaps the exception of the Stuka, should be less accurate. OTOH I don't consider airborne rockets in the same class for accuracy or penetration as ATGs, but they don't seem to fit the 'artillery' mode either, because they can be aimed to some extent.

One thing that strikes me as curious for it's being missing in this game, is the absence of the German radio-controlled mines (mines on wheels). I don't know if any other nation had these, nor if they were used enough to justify their inclusion in the game, but it would certainly be an interesting unit to mess with. It would allow the placing of mines behind enemy lines, and when you think of such things, then surely there were mines that were dropped from aircraft for just such a reason.
Of course placing mines behind enemy lines could somewhat be implemented if you allowed airborne or commando units to place mines like the engineers. Just an idea....

Actually, I wasn't as much concerned with airborne ATGs as bombs and rockets (and to a lesser extent, large bore shells). Near misses and glancing hits that should reduce the crew to strawberry jam (if not actually relocate the tank to another hex) are laughed off; and it can be annoying.

The airborne cannon should probably have their own penetration and damage routine (especially the autocannons). Many, if not most, hits should be engine damaged/ destroyed; it's an easy target, and the engine deck is almost designed to catch shells rather than deflect them...but that's (IMHO) a lesser gripe.

As for the mines; it would be interesting. It would also be amusing to model the German ATGMs. Both of these weapons, though, would belong exclusively to the Panzerjaeger formations that aren't really present in this game; which makes them more of a scenario specific special weapon than a commonly available one. That makes their inclusion a bit hard to justify if there can only be 255 weapons in the game.

Igor: So let's see if I got this straight. you agree with me that the airborne ATGs should destroy more, but also that airborne bombs/rockets should destroy more tanks, right?

To me, I haven't seen enough rocket activity to make comment, but I don't think bombs should be all that effective, at least in terms of accuracy, that is, from where I generally consider bombs falling from (level bombers). In my mind, "perhaps" air, particularly dive-bombers, should be more effective in AT roles but that they should be VERY expensive, and should be able to attack more than just one tank per appearance (two or three perhaps), and given the length of a good deal of the battles and the time it would take to get the plane back to attack again, maybe limited to only one pass per 15 or 20 turns. There's nothing I hate more than the feeling that those planes I keep seeing in droves are the same ones over and over, and that they srike within 2 or 3 turns of their last strike.

The amount of airstrikes get's so ridiculous sometimes that it's easy to see that you basically need to buy half of your army as AA units in order to come out with any kind of playable game. In that respect, artillery comes off the same way, though it seems there's little you can do about en masse artillery, so that the units (air/artillery) which are most subject to being way off the scale from reality, are the ones that can make this game wholly other than as people probably envision it when they started to play it.

In my mind, there should be a hard limit to artillery, or, more particularly, air units, to the total amount of your force (example one airstrike per 1,000 points [which of course would vary according to mission - a nation on an assault mission might have 2 airstrikes per 1000 pts.]), completely independant of pricing, though priced at a high rate nonetheless.

Just a few thoughts, I really do get sick of those missions where at least an hour of the total playing time of a battle is taken up by artillery or airstrikes, which, as I said in the case on non-stop air, makes you alter your force in a silly manner to deal with them.

The aircraft bombs are effective and they should be so. I have played a lot of Germans and the Soviets cant really do anything to my king tigers from the front with their tanks but there is nothing I hate as much as sturmoviks as they are real tiger killers. It is not nice to lose 3 elite king tigers in one turn but on the other hand AI also lost 16 planes on that turn to my 16 flakzwillings. The threath of airstrike is bad as it should be for those slow moving big tanks but many of the plnes can be shot down with good AA defence. But when AI sends 26 planes at you on one round they are gonna do some damage. On the other hand that was away from the ground troops which were not so numerous then.

Also the 37mm gun in sturmovik has killed some tigers and panthers from me.

16 flakverlings in forces as small as this game, and he still can't shoot down all the planes? As mundane as going through the air strikes can be at times, and 26 planes definitely fits that bill, then why not have opfire from AA player controlled as well? Actually, it's sort of an absurd question, and I'm not all that interested in it, but if you have that many planes in the game, possibly more planes going against you, than you have tanks, then why trivialize what becomes a dominant aspect of the game by having AA fire done automatically? If the real 'spirit of the game' was to have planes overwhelm a battlefield, then why give it's combat secondary controls? Needless to say, I would hate to see such a scenario "never" happen (en masse aircraft), but perhaps in a future game, options could be added to "limit" unit picks by the opposition, such as no more than 10 aircraft per battle, if desired (which of course would apply to both sides)? For those who get annoyed at overpowering air emphasis in the game as I do (and no way to retaliate with interceptors), if you play scenarios it may be easy to deal with, but if you play the AI in campaign and it picks huge air routinely, it's another matter.

Tell me, when people tell these horror stories of huge airpower, are they always talking of user-made scenarios, or AI picked forces as well? Thanks.

I'm talking about both games. But I don't have problem to drop flyers down. 20mmFlakvirgls and 88:s and at close halftracks with Mg:s, also Flakpanzers work well.

There is an option for limiting aircraft for the opponent to a certain number of units (if I don't remember all wrong).

Fredde: I've been playing SPWAW since it's inception, and I've never heard of such a thing. The closest we've had to that is people making gentleman's agreements (but then the AI isn't a gentleman).

skukko: What do you mean by both games? Do you mean that you've seen that many planes against AI chosen forces (not scenarios) as well?

My point was that you bought that many flakvierlings and still couldn't shoot down ALL of the planes, but even more elementary than that, was why would anyone want to play a game when so much of it is being taken up with shooting a bunch of planes (and if you fail, losing so much of your ground stuff to humongous airstrikes)? Surely, when you say 26 planes, you have to be exaggerating, surely you mean 26 'airstrikes' instead (some of the same planes, over and over - which is bad enough).

Charles22: Both. I mean AI have choosen planes to it's own use, max number at east was 8 plane in one medium meeting engagement. In a pbem game where we did let AI choose our troops AI bought same number of planes to russians. I was in trouble at the beginning in that game, I wasn't waiting AI to buy any planes, so I had only one section AA-panzers In usermade scenarios there is more planes, take a look at the North of Psel for instance, Germans have plenty AC:s on the air. These are from eastern front. At western front there has been more planes. In both case. I don't know if AI takes AC-points from preference screen. I have there 5 ACpoint for quick battles against AI. Does that effect? I'll have to test it.

mosh

skukko: To my knowledge there are no limits for AC or artillery in the preferences menu, and it seems noone else has seen them either (I'm not at home so I can't look).

Okay, 8 planes, that's not too awful (but 26 airstrikes is), especially if you don't have huge forces. I was well aware of user designed scenarios/campaigns, and/or human opponents being unscrupulous with the AC, but it's just the AI that I was uncertain of.

[This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited December 22, 2000).]