Aircraft seem too vulnerable

[Alastair at Work]

I think this had been stated before in earlier posts, but I thought I'd add my two penneth....

The decision to make aircraft far more inaccurate seems fine by me. If in reality it took 5 sorties per armoured kill, then so be it and we all have to live with low hit percentages for our aircraft. Without spotter planes he recon value of a fly over on its own is worth a great deal anyway - to hit and destroy a tank is a bonus I am happy to wait several pass overs to see.

However I have found that aircraft are VERY easily shot down. A couple of AA guns seems enough to shoot a plane down with little difficulty and if a player has several such weapons a pilot is very lucky to get back to base after firing off his ammo.

Would it be possible to make planes less vulnerable?? It seems to me that enhancing the effects of suppression would be a good thing - defend a target with a number of AA guns and there should come a point where the pilot pulls up, but it should surely be a rarity to see a plane shot down. Planes are now expensive - good thing. Planes hit less easily - good thing. But if they remain as vulnerable as present I cant see myself wanting to buy any. chances of survival are small and your opponent gets a nice easy kill and points to his name!!

Great game -great, great game. Love it. Just a thought...

Cheers
Al

[Larry Holt]

I also saw the 1 kill in five sorties post but I just read that the German's moved an armored unit 150 KM near the D-Day beaches and lost 5 tanks, 85 other armored vehicles and over 100 soft vehicles. It didn't say how many sorties were flown but it shows that aircraft could be decisive. Paul Vebber pointed out that this decisiveness is at the operational level while SPWAW is a tactical game and this kind of airpower is outside the scope of the game. Its kind of like the US not having A-bombs in an Olympia (hypothetical invasaion of Japan) scenario.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.

[Pack Rat]

I think I'm getting better than the 5/1 ratio, not always but most times. I'm guessing alot of it depends on country training or setting, aircraft choice (armament), can the pilot see the target/arty spotter, any AA fire, and attack angle on the target. They do seem to be more vulnerable than neccsary. The question is can AA fire be reduced without making the planes unhittable again and AA fire against ground targets still good as well.

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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

[Fred]

The other way round, Pack Rat

Instead of reducing the power of AA, just make the planes harder to hit/longer to survive.
This way they stay as a threat for ground targets.

Fred

[Paul Vebber]

Try experimenting with increasing the armor value of aircraft! Let me know...

[Pack Rat]

Yep you saw the obvious. What about the speed. Is that a possible solution or is it going to give the aircraft a more difficult shot at ground targets? Perhaps a slight increase in both? Well anyway maybe time to learn the editor.

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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

[Wild Bill]

If you want aircraft or artillery or any unit to be more lethal, it can be done in the editor by increasing their morale and their experience.

For example, any aircraft with experience over 100 is going to be pretty effective.

Same token, anti-aircraft fire at over 100 will most likely knock him out of the sky.

In computerese, battles are numbers. Get the numbers right and the battle will be right.

The Kunel

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Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

[Charles22]

Wild Bill's absolutely right. In playing PZIVC's with the same 75L24 so common to the early PZIV series, I recall in SP3 that my 75L24 PZIV's seemed more lethal. My first battle in campaign against the Poles, found the 75L24 HE fire almost useless against infantry, but the next battle, after they had the experience of the first battle, showed they had improved quite dramatically in the same role. That's why it's so important to always have a certain part of your force which starts out as top-notch, so that they more quickly become dependable. If you start out with nothing but virtually halftracks, in order to buy more units altogether, then know that it'll be quite a while before the majority of your force is dependable, simple because so much of it is going through an upgrade.

[Pack Rat]

Wild Bill and Charles22, you are very right in what you say. What I'm looking at however may be alittle different than what you are reminding me about. I also think that the obvious can't be said enough as it will help someone who isn't as expiereanced with the SP series and most importantly W@W. It's kind of like an Army manual it has to be written so every one can understand it. My endevor is to stay completly out of the editor in the future. What I'm trying to say is to a degree everyone's version of W@W should be the same if we are to have successful PBEM games. What I would like to set up on my puter is a test both for AA fire and aircraft effectiveness. To do this I think I need to set everything to a common setting by useing the editor. A pause button would come in handy here. I hope to play test and record the over all effect of AA fire to see if it's to leathel and if air power is effective enough. Ok any comments please....

Todays our wedding anniversary so I gotta be good and do some other things, going to try and get to it soon though.
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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

[This message has been edited by Pack Rat (edited 05-24-2000).]

[Wild Bill]

I understand, Pack Rat. You are saying it should be "fixed" so you don't have to modify it. You should not have to use an editor.

Now that can be easier said than done. There are default settings for each country in certain time periods. Here is an example.

German troops early in the war are hard to beat. They have higher experience and morale than their enemies. This lowers through the years until the roles are reversed.

The same is true with the Japanese. The poor Italians never get too much power (G).

Now this means that if the German AA fires on a Russian airplane in 1941, it should bring it down with a much higher percentage of kills than in, say, 1944.

How to standardize all of this to satisfy everyone is hard to do.

It is like the old arguments around this game. One player says artillery is weak; another says it is too powerful. Who is right? I guess both are, for their perception of things. Or they are both wrong. Its a toss-up.

THAT is why I prefer and always will, human designed scenarios (done correctly) to computer generated ones...in any game!

A good designer can overcome these problems and CUSTOMIZE the scenario to the situation.

Did history show the enemy AA fire to be deadly in this battle. The designer will show that.

Were the Russian tanks weak against an elite Panzer Division. It will be included in the scenario by the designer.

To be candid, designing a "Good" scenario in SPWAW is a challenge. There are so many nuances and tricks (waypoints, reaction turns, objectives, reinforcements, special forces, weather, visibility, morale and experience, equipment, etc.) that it is daunting. Not that it can't be done, but it requires a LOT of fine tuning that other SP games do not.

Did I settle this? Are you kidding? It will never be settled to everyone's satisfaction.

When you see the name of a scenario/campaign designer you trust, whose work is proven, get all his scenarios. They, hopefully, will show the battles as you think they should be (unless you lose of course )

Wild Bill

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Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games