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

[Kent & Sue Haunschild]

Had another idea after rereading these emails this morning.  What would the effect be if everyones Air Superiority was capped at 30 for all fronts?

Now all three sides have the ability to fly without fear their ground combat AP will be lost to no effect.  The losses to the 2:1 ratio rule is why I don't fly when I get outnumbered, And, I assume others feel the same.

But, if we cap the number of AP to thirty then all players should be encouraged to fly more often.  30 AP per side will produce an average of 5 AP losses per battle.  While this is approximately the attritional number needed per cycle it is still two lethal for sustained flying.

To correct this I'd go with Steve's idea and reduce Air Combat losses by going to a ten sided die. This would reduce the chance of a loss from 17% to 10%. This would give the sustainability that is currently lacking and give all the players the ability use their AP to influence the ground war.



From: SGMINFO at aol.com 
  To: warineur at mailman.halisp.net 
  Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2007 2:36 AM
  Subject: Re: [WarInEur] RE: WarInEur Digest, Vol 39, Issue 35


  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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