Why build tactical bombers? An in-depth discussion of the problem from all angles.

[PanzerKampfwagen]

Well, now, that's a good question isn't it. Just why should you build tactical bombers? Actually, for the most part, you shouldn't. [:-]Tactical bombers aren't useful in 90% of the situations you'll ever encounter playing Gary Grigsby's WaW. Consider these facts for the spring of 1940:
( whenever the term "original setup" is used, it refers to game version 1.201 )

A Japanese heavy bomber and a Japanese tactical bomber are exactly the same in all respects, including time and production points needed to produce them, except that the heavy bomber has twice the range and is better at attacking ships. So, if it takes the same amount of effort to produce a Japanese tactical bomber as a heavy bomber, and the heavies are by far the better ones, then there is absolutely no logical point to building a Japanese tactical bomber.
A German tactical bomber is exactly the same as a heavy bomber except that the heavy bomber can fly further ( big advantage ) and the tactical bomber has slightly better air attack ( not much use ) and can be produced in 3 turns instead of 4 ( small production advantage ).

Also, remember that heavy bombers can carry supplies, infantry, and paratroopers whereas tactical bombers can't. They can also be researched to the point where they can carry atomic bombs, and tactical bombers can't do that either.
Since it is far more efficient to limit your research to just one type of bomber, it makes sense to build only heavy bombers in order to keep the research points necessary for unit improvement to a minimum.
I will admit that since the world averages for research are higher on tactical bombers, research is definitely a lot cheaper for them than for the heavies, but even with that it still doesn't pay to research tactical bombers. The heavies are just so much more useful, especially in terms of long range abilities.
In light of these facts, and in light of World War II history, I honestly think that the tactical bombers' unit attributes need to be renovated in order to make them relevant to gameplay in GG's WaW. They need to be modified to reflect the primary role they played: Close support for ground troops.


Here are my suggestions in regard to how the tactical bombers' attributes should be changed:

Germany:
The Junkers Ju 87 Stuka was the backbone of the Germans' tactical bomber air force and was excellent at both land attack and ship attack as well as being a great tank-killer. Since it was a single engine aircraft, it was easy and cheap to make compared to the Western Allies' twin engine models.
Conclusions for German tactical bombers:
Land attack should be increased to 6.
Ship attack should be increased to 4.
The time necessary to produce German tactical bombers should be reduced to 2 turns.

Japan:
The Japanese had good tactical bombers, including some decent dive bombers.
Conclusions for Japanese tactical bombers:
I do not have enough knowledge on the subject to recommend a good remedy. It seems that the original setup is pretty good in terms of historical accuracy, but the attributes are put together in a way that makes it totally illogical for any player to ever build a Japanese tactical bomber.

Soviet Union:
Where did the famous Russian IL-2 Sturmovik go? OK, so Russian aircraft were flown by some really bad pilots for the most part, but they at least had decent planes and the aircraft armor was good.
Conclusions for Russian tactical bombers:
They should have an armor attribute of 1 added to them.

China:
Everything China had in World War II was junk for the most part, especially when it came to aircraft. [8|]
Conclusions for Chinese tactical bombers:
Do nothing. The original configuration is historically accurate and works just fine.

Western Allies:
I think ( somebody correct me if I'm wrong )that the Western Allies had some decent tactical bomber ASW capability, even at the beginning of the war.
Conclusions for Western Allies tactical bombers:
Sub attack should be increased to 2.

In addition, tactical bomber world averages need to be modified in the following ways:
ASW needs to be increased to 2.
Land attack should be increased to 8.
Evasion must be increased to 7.


I hope that these recommendations will be put into effect in future game patches.
If anyone agrees or disagrees with me, I hope they'll post a reply so that these unit attribute numbers can be discussed in detail before anything is done. Other people may have a different view on this than I do, and I want to hear all sides of the problem. Also, if anyone has an historically accurate idea that will make it logical to produce a Japanese tactical bomber, I hope they'll speak up. And remember, the unit attributes we are dealing with are version 1.201 in the spring of 1940. [;)]

[christian brown]

Panzerkampfwagen,
You raise good points, thank you for sharing.  I agree with you about everything except for the following. Please allow me to put my 2 cents in here:
At the beginning of the Second World War (and in the case of the Germans, for the rest of the war, unless you count the ME 262 a tac bomber)  tac bombers were extremely vulnerable flying machines, underarmored, slow and undergunned.  Everyone knows what happened to the Stukas when fighter opposition appeared, I think the original evasion rating is actually too high.  The british tac bombers of the same era were even more apt to get shot down by fighters and ack-ack, take the case of the British effort to bomb the bridges over the Albert canal as the perfect example of this.  The pilots themselves knew these to be suicide missions.  (I can´t remember the name of their mainstay tac bomber in 1940 offhand.)  To be really honest about it, Germany did not even possess a heavy bomber until the Kondor was introduced in 1942, I don´t think anyone would consider the He-111 or Do-17 a heavy bomber, all they had were the Junkers 52 transport aircraft.  For my money, I´d rather see (in future game versions) a dedicated transport aircraft introduced.  The effect on the game would be like this:  replace the German Heavy Bombers in 1940 with transport aircraft.  The reality is this, cargo planes are not bombers and every time anyone used a bomber for transport saw the futile results for themselves, take the Stalingrad relief effort as the prime example.  As for the ASW capabilites you mention, I do not completely agree.  Yes, heavy bombers became extremely effective sub hunters over time, but not tac bombers, they just didn´t have the fuel reserves to endlessly stalk the waves looking for sub traces.
Thanks for your insights, many of which are right on the money - particularly in regard to the Russian tac bomber armor attribute.
This might be an inappropriate place to bring up the following but:  Why can´t unit armor attributes become researchable?  Why can´t militia, rail cap, factory, and resource unit attributes become researchable?  Some militias were highly effective on defense, rail cap could be increased with enough time and factories/mines/fuel centers could (and were) be camouflaged/relocated/dispersed/replaced by synthetics.
Thanks again for your comments,
Christian

[PanzerKampfwagen]

Thank you for writing in with your insights on this subject; they were indeed well thought out and worth a lot more than "two cents".

In regard to creating a dedicated transport aircraft, I completely agree with you.
Transports and heavy bombers should be two different units. In fact, I think that this would solve a great deal of the "Why produce tactical bombers" problem since the problem isn't so much a case of tactical bombers needing to be upgraded in a major way as heavy bombers needing to be downgraded by being split into two categories, namely bombers and transports. ( By the way, heavy bombers' transport abilities were changed somewhat by the 1.201 patch. Read my post
on the subject in the GG's WaW support forum. It is titled "Flying Railroads Shot Down". )
However, since the game doesn't make provision for separating transports from heavy bombers, I think that the tactical bombers should be altered somewhat towards the positive side to compensate.

At the beginning of the Second World War (and in the case of the Germans, for the rest of the war, unless you count the ME 262 a tac bomber) tac bombers were extremely vulnerable flying machines, underarmored, slow and undergunned. Everyone knows what happened to the Stukas when fighter opposition appeared.

I guess I would have to say that I don't think this is entirely accurate. While many tactical bombers were indeed just the way you describe them, the Germans at least had good tactical bombers up until the end of the war. Have you ever read the book "Stuka Pilot" by Hans Ulrich Rudel? It gives some information about the Germans' "tank killer Stuka" armed with twin 37mm cannon. This aircraft was very useful at the battle of Kursk, with many a T-34 ending up in flames when the Stuka's 37's punched through its much more thinly armored top. I have flown these planes a lot in the air combat simulation game "IL-2 Sturmovik" and they are excellent aircraft. This tank-killing plane was a superb machine, especially on the Russian Front where there wasn't much in the way of skilled opposition from Russian fighter pilots. Rudel said he almost never had any trouble with Russian aircraft of any type, but he turned tail and ran if he met any Western Allies fighters. In this case, I do agree with you in that German tactical bomber evasion wasn't very good.

Why can´t unit armor attributes become researchable? Why can´t militia, rail cap, factory, and resource unit attributes become researchable? Some militias were highly effective on defense, rail cap could be increased with enough time and factories/mines/fuel centers could (and were) be camouflaged/relocated/dispersed/replaced by synthetics.

Yes, I agree, it would be great to be able to research some of these things, and the game would not have to be radically altered in order to make some of them possible. Perhaps they'll put out a future patch that allows some of these things to be researched, at least the ones that don't require a total overhaul of the game. Maybe you should start a new thread on the subject sometime. If you state your case carefully and get enough people interested, the moderators might come to hear of it and Judge it to be worth putting in future game improvement. [:)]

Thank you again for you constructive criticism. It always helps to get new information as well as second opinions.
[;)]

[JanSorensen]

The difference in time to build and WS between German TAC and German STR makes building the former by far my prefered option in WaW.
The same applies to building WA bombers. With the Russians I build neither.
 
Infact, one of my all time favorite strategies involves build ~10 German Tac during the very first turn with the intend to invade England after these planes kill all opposition. In no way could the same be done using STR bombers.
 
So, I find that your entire premise is incorrect except possible concerning the Japanese.

[Lebatron]

1. German tac bombers are much better for Germany to build than strategic.
2. Japanese strategic bombers(I think they were called Betty's by Americans) are cost 3 I think because of Japan's low production capabilities. So the cost was probably dropped from 4 so that the Jap player could at least afford to build them. A few stats were modified, if you haven't noticed, to reflect the cheaper cost.
3. Agree on the Russian tac air. However in my mod Franco's Alliance, I choose to instead change the Dura from 3 to 4 rather than give them an armor point. Using this method, each increase in evasion would give the tac air 4 more defense points, which can go a long way to encourage a Russian player to invest research into his tac air and also biuld some more. An armor point gives an average of 3.5 more defense BTW.
 
I don't see a need to introduce another category of research that can improve armor when evasion does basically the same thing to improve a units defense.
I also don't see a need to add another air unit type that only functions as a transport plane. I can think of a few other things that would be higher on this list. 

[PanzerKampfwagen]

I have read through all the replies to my proposals so far, and based on them I have revised my conclusions as to how tactical bombers should be modified. I have narrowed my proposed changes down to these two:

Russian tactical bombers should have an armor attribute of 1 added.

The world average for tactical bomber land attack should be increased to 8. This will make it a lot cheaper in research points to attain a higher ground attack ability, thus making it more worthwhile for any nation, including the production-poor Japanese to produce tactical bombers.

Many thanks to Jan Sorensen and Christian Brown for taking the time to reply. [:)]
Does anyone have any further feedback on these two points? You can either praise them [:D] or criticize them, both are welcome.

[PanzerKampfwagen]

In reply to Lebatron, I can't see a good reason to introduce a new catagory of research for armor, either. However, I think that his choice to change durability instead of armor might have gone to far. I was thinking of increasing armor because it makes Russian tactical bombers harder to shoot down, but not by too much. Otherwise they might be overly difficult to shoot down. Still, he has an good point, and he may be right. Quite frankly though, I think that either idea would be great, just so long as the Russian tactical bombers are made harder to shoot down so as to reflect the way they actually were in World War II. 
And thanks for replying. [:)]
 

[mikwarleo]

Increased to 8?! That's crazy. I'd never build anything else. [;)] I feel they should be increased a touch... little at least for germany (then again the fact italy probably didn't have great dive bombers probably evens this out, I don't know about this) but definately not to 8. I also feel that TAC should have better ship attack than heavies. I feel it is to hard to knock out combat ships with airpower.

[PanzerKampfwagen]

In reply to mikwarleo, I must say that although I understand what you are saying, you are shooting at air since you are accusing me of saying something I never said.

I did not say that tactical bomber land attack should be increased to 8. I said that the world average for tactical bomber land attack should be increased to 8. There is a great deal of difference between these two terms. Try looking them up in the game manual if you don't know what they mean. And remember, have fun! [;)]

[christian brown]

Lebatron,
First of all, thanks for making Franco´s Alliance 2.4, it´s a great mod and all I play now, Kudos Lebatron! However, I cannot agree with you about the transport planes. Having them in quantity or not was critical in many important battles: the early paratroop/air landing/glider attacks by the Germans in Western Europe in 1940, the failure to resupply the 6th army in Stalingrad, the aerial supply link to China from India and the final landings in Normandy. As for things higher on the list of priorities, what could they be? Waffen SS units? Marines? Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces? Fortifications? Yes these things would make the game more interesting, but I think the issue of dedicated transport aircraft is more important. They were a radical innovation at the time, something never seen before in war (unlike forts and elite units) and made a huge impact on stategic thinking from then to the present.
Thank you for your time, (and your awesome Mod!)
Christian

[PanzerKampfwagen]

I'm thinking of switching to Franco's Alliance and playing only with that since I've heard so many people praise it so highly. I've read some of Lebatron's documentation on the mod, and it looks like it will be great [:D]. On the whole, it appears to be a lot more realistic than the original WaW setup.

However, since no two people are alike, everyone on this forum has a slightly different opinion of what "realism" constitutes [8|] .

In this respect, I must say that I agree with Christian Brown on his air transport ideas. If heavy bombers could be split from air transport in WaW, It would be one of the biggest jumps toward realism that could be done.

Also, I hope that Lebatron will fix the airlifting problem with supplies and infantry (See my post on the subject ) if he hasn't already done so.

I would rate these two ideas as one of the top 2 or 3 game modifications that should be done. In fact, at this moment in time, I really can't think of anything that would be higher on the list of possible game improvements both for Franco's Alliance or for the standard WaW configuration. Quick, efficient airlifting of supplies and even of infantry is just so vital to so many of my strategies that I really hated to loose it when I upgraded from version 1.04 to 1.201.

I understand that Lebatron probably doesn't want to totally rip the game apart in order to split the transports from the heavy bombers ( I'll admit it would be very difficult ) but he could at least mitigate the problem and make things a lot more realistic by fixing the airlifting problem with supplies and infantry. Franco's Alliance would be an ever better mod if he did so. [;)]

[Lebatron]

Guys, thanks for the compliments on my mod. Now regarding the airlifting problem, that is something I can't change. I don't have the programing skills to do that. My talents lie in design concepts not code. All features of Franco's Alliance were hand crafted working outside the executable, not inside. If you want this changed Joel is the man to beg. If you can convince him that the fix that changed the paratroopers and the other stuff be reworked so that only the paratrooper is effected, then he might put Keith or Jan on the task. It may be pretty hard to uncouple this strat move stuff from the code that changed the paratroopers so it may not be a reasonable request at the moment. So do what you have to and adapt by placing any units you may wish to move next to your HB.

[Lebatron]

Reguarding the debate on new units, what most veteran players see as the most important new addition would be a dedicated amphibious transport ship. If there was one, then the current transport fleet would just move supply and units and link to resources. All nations would start with very few of these amphib ships, except Japan, and would need to build more if they wish to increase their invasion potential. Then many of the gamey aspects that I discussed in my mods readme concerning this subject would be solved. If I had the means to work inside the executable I would have tried to create this new ship, but what I came up with as a compromise is what you see now in Franco 2.4

I would consider this new ship to be many times more important to the games design than the transport aircraft would be. That was what I was referring to as being much higher on the wish list. Now don't get your hopes up about seeing new units in WAW because such a major design change will never be placed in any future patches. That's something that would need to be planned from the beginning of game design. So maybe in several years 2by3 will start from scratch and make a new grand strategy WW2 game that will separate the transport ship from the invasion ship.

[christian brown]

Lebatron, Panzerkampfwagen,
That´exactly what´s happening now, WaWII is about to be beta tested. Something tells me 2x3 and Matrix are reading these posts.....
V/r

[PanzerKampfwagen]

In reply to Lebatron, I must say I really appreciate all the work you've done to create Franco's Alliance , but I also understand your problem with fixing the airlifting bug. I guess we shall just have to wait and see if Joel will decide to fix the problem. ( Although if they would just give us the WaW executable's source code, somebody around here might be able to fix the problem themselves. )

Of course, instead of waiting, we could just do what you suggested and start begging Joel for it right away, saying something like:
"Oh your most gracious majesty, King Joel the ( pick a nice, big number ) XXVIII ( The 28th, in case you didn't know ), the magnificent, of the royal house of Billings, may you live forever. We, your most humble subjects
[&o][&o][&o] are always at your service, and we would even ourselves if it would please you ( and if we start talking to him like this on a regular basis, I expect it will begin to please him ) but we ask this day that you would remember the miseries of your servants due to the unjust laws ( er, Gary Grigsby's WaW game rules ) that we are forced to live under, ..... etc. etc. " [8|]

Of course, this is only one of the many possible ways of begging Joel to fix the problem, and it may not be the best one, it's really hard to tell. [;)]

I see your point as to the amphibious vessel / transport idea that you were talking about, and I agree that this idea should be put into effect, but I think that the heavy bomber / air transport idea should also be considered right along with it since, while many WaW players prefer to use their navy ( including any amphibious vessels / transports ) for attacking and ferrying supplies, some other players, like me, also do a lot of airlifting as well.

However, whatever the outcome of that debate, you are right about the fact that none of these ideas will ever be put into WaW by any patch due to the total re-make of the game that would be required to do so. But, as you said, maybe sometime in the future... [;)]

[PanzerKampfwagen]

I know this isn't the usual forum in which to ask these questions, but does anyone know if it's possible to mod the executable in any way? It would be great if it were possible. It might even save Joel and his group some time ( a valuable commodity nowadays ) if the WaW players ( at least those that were programmers ) could fix a few of the simple bugs themselves. Maybe all of the bugs would be way too difficult to solve, and Joel's group would still have to fix them, but perhaps some of the players could at least make up some interesting mods. [:)]

[Lebatron]

I'm sure that Jan is willing to mod the executable on his own time since he loves WAW as much as I do. However he would have to get 2by3's permission to do so. If he did, then you might still have the problem that he may not agree with you on what should be changed.

[JanSorensen]

As Lebatron points out its not exactly legal to modify the executeable of a commercial product without the permission of the company owning the rights. Nor would it be easy to do so without the actual source to any worthwhile degree. Heck, its hard enough *with* the source I can tell you from personal experience.
 
The reason the source is not simply given to everyone that wants to make a mod is obviously that the world is one of competition. Giving an entire engine with a fully developed game as an example away might not be the best business decision. Thats my guess anyway - I teach math for a living so I am mostly guessing when it comes to things like these.
 
That said - some changes require only game logic to change (the airlift particulars for example) while adding a whole new type of unit (amph unit for example) requires graphics as well not to mention that it would invalidate the AI. The former are obviously much more likely to happen than the latter.

[PanzerKampfwagen]

I figured that I would probably get an answer like this, since I had a hunch that the executable was most likely copyright protected, but I understand the business problems that would result from giving the source code out to any and every person who wanted to alter it.

However, in the future, maybe they will put more of the game rules in a file that is read by the executable, versus in the executable itself, so that the rules could easily be modified without needing to fiddle with the actual source code. Maybe this idea wouldn't work, but it would be great if it did. [:D]

Also, I'm glad you brought up the point about new units invalidating the AI. I hadn't thought of that, and it would mean that any new units added to WaW could only be used in PBEM games. I pretty much only play PBEM, so these AI problems don't tend to occur to me.

On another note, do you think this airlifting problem is worth the trouble to fix? I don't know how the source code is structured, or how much commenting it has in it, so I realize that this problem could take literally forever to hunt down and fix if there aren't enough sign posts in the code to tell you where to look. I also realize that the code may tie the paratroopers to the infantry and supplies, thus making it difficult to separate the two in order to allow the supplies and infantry to be moved both strategically and by air in the same turn, but excluding the paratroopers from being able to do this. As I said, I understand that this may be too difficult to be worth the trouble, especially if there are more pressing bugs out there that need fixing, but I thought I'd just ask anyway, at least to hear what you thought on the subject.

[JanSorensen]

I can only refer to Joel's statement regarding changing airlift back to the way it was.

If Joel gives the go ahead to revert the decision and issue a new patch the coding isnt a problem.