[WarInEur] Air Range?

[sgminfo]

I would suggest that the committal of air points should be sufficient, 
to prevent extraordinary air-sea interdiction.

The rationale in real world terms.

Air range for extraordinary airsea interdiction implies control of the 
air. I.E. there is not a requirement for escorted operations. The type 
of long range ops , in turn, implies, long range recon or light bombers, 
i.e. stuff that does not do too well when faced with the problem of 
enemy interception, i.e. within the limit of enemy airpower, in our case 
ME110s and Ju88 heavy/destroyer fighter type of air cover.

This air interception threat does not have to be all that effective (i.e 
the token sacrificial offering) to make proposed ops insupportable, and 
thus off the daily orders list (unless you want to start making a 
reputation for yourself as  having medal fever (Stransky style out of 
Cross of Iron) with all the attendant collapse in crew morale.

Hence one can make a case for saying,  even if you put a token single AP 
up, and it gets smashed by 50 allied airpoints, none the less it has 
satisfied the requirement and extrordinary air sea does not happen. ITRW 
you HAVE to provide your vulnerable long range guys with escorts, and if 
you cannot, then you don't fly out their and put your crews at 
gratuitous risk. A prudent ops officer planning osorties must make 
provision for the safety of his crews if he wishes to have a force that 
will acept orders. CF the Nurnburg raid in March 1944, when the base 
commanders in the RAF were faced with an outbreak of near mutiny and 
insurrection, when the routings showed the bomber stream turning onto a 
heading that meant flying in a straight line directly over German 
nightfighter assembly beacons for more than 30mins. Had the raid been 
repeated, there would have been a breakdown in "command and control", 
wrecking the bomber force.

So, if you assign assign air points, that should be sufficient to 
scupper extraordinary airsea interdiction, whether it survives or not.

So if you have an air point, you have an airforce, and rules apply, no 
airpoints, no way of preventing it. 

On the follow up, if you have APs and they are not flying, the enemy can 
do what they like, but only within range of his own air cover. The fact 
that they are not committed does NOT imply that flying operations are 
not taking place, merely that the flying that is taking place is not 
happening anywhere that with result in the possibility of air combat 
breaking out.

If this were not so, then the effectiveness of your airforce would take 
a nosedive, and crews lose practical flying skills.


I would interpret the game rules in that light, not committing to air or 
ground support does not actually imply that no flying ops at all are 
taking place. So if your single AP gets smashed, that is happening over 
a week of ops, and the commander will not be able to assume that 
sticking his chin out on a limb with getting it hit hard.

The fact that you have the capability of messing up his operations, will 
make his planning of those ops only take place on the basis that you 
could, and would, intercept.

Its an awkward crack in the rules pavement, and can be argued either 
way, but I would go with the above for those reasons.

As an illustration, PQ convoys always sailed with heavy cover, with the 
mere threat of Tirpitz in the North, indeed convoys did not sail if 
cover could not be provided. PQ17 is a lesson in the threat of 
potentialities, rather than threats realised.

So no APs on a front, no need to take account of the enemy.
-|steve|-

Kent & Sue Haunschild wrote:
> A question has come up during programing for CWIE2 in regards to Air 
> Ranges.  Specifically,  if there are no AP either assigned to an Air 
> Front, or which survive the Air Combat phase, does the player still 
> project his theoretical air range on to the map?
>  
> The question came up in regard to Soviet Sea Movement in the Baltic 
> after Barbarossa.  The Soviet airforce is destroyed and no AP have 
> survived.  However, the Soviets are able to freely sail between Baltic 
> ports without being subjected to Extraordinary Air-Sea Interdiction.
>  
> So to repeat the question.  Does a player have to have at least one AP 
> on a Front in order to have a theoretical air range?
>  
> Kent
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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