[WarInEur] RE: WarInEur Digest, Vol 39, Issue 35

[SGMINFO at aol.com]

The question of the max out syndrome with the airforce has been examined  
before, and my conclusion on this problem eventually boiled down to this.
 
The airforces don't fly enough. (As Kent also theorises).
 
The reason they don't fly is fear...fear that with the somewhat capricious  
air war, once you have, lost parity, you cannot stay in the air without  
suffering insupportable losses.
 
People are simply too good at doing the maths, and the potential for  
destruction is greater than any potential benefits gained elsewhere either in  ground 
support or interdiction. So people don't fly, and losses stay well within  
acceptable production  limits, and the airforces max out.
 
My own solution, yet to be tested by wider application is to move from the  
six sided, to the ten sided dice. That is, to reduce lethality.
 
Next, 
 
an innovation, 
 
is to reduce the penalty for the weaker side, by increasing the threshold  
for penalties to the weaker flying side's ground support options. Now the lesser 
 player is less deterred and can see greater reason to fly in adverse  
circumstances. 
 
 This will show up better during the Battle of Britain, when the point  of 
flying to maintain interdiction deterrence in the face of a threatened  sealion, 
trying to delay and postpone until winter
 
In the same way in Normandy in 1944, the Germans have the possibility of  
operating an airforce even though the the overall force structure is not even  
handed.
 
 
Thus by encouraging more flying, the overall loss rates may well be  
significantly greater, overall, as the potential production cost of the added  utlity 
is made more bearable.
 
I might propose that instead of the 2-1 trigger point for the additional  
penalties to ground support, we raise this experimentally to 3-1 bfore knocking  
down aircraft on G/S.
 
This may have benefit on the eastern front. Where the Soviet player in  
Winter cannot frighten off the German from getting into the air on key  missions.
 
 
 
 
The second, and major , innovation would be to create 'defensive air'  
abilities. 
 
At present, it is a well ingrained fact of life that  air  
supremacy/intervention has no direct defensive effect in the ground fighting, in  reality it had 
quite a direct effect.
 
The innovation here is to apply GS by the defending player, onto hexes.  
Applied like standard GS.
 
Effect...
 
The defending GS on a hex/stack is to mask any APs deployed, i.e. Cancel  
their effect, or if no attacking air support is deployed, subtract one from the  
die roll.
 
Of course you allocate before knowing which is the threatened sector/hex,  
but that is part and parcel of the defensive effort. You place you defensive GS  
on your own hexes on your turn.
 
Other rules are left completely undisturbed...
 
This might be equally be workable in the board game as in  the  computer game.
 
 
 
-|steve|-



   
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