[WarInEur] Fun with CWIE2

[sgminfo]

John Pace wrote:
> One of the things I liked with CWiE-1's Air Superiority option rule, 
> is that a side with Air Superiority, can still inflict significant 
> attrition damage on the weaker side, even if the weaker side refuses 
> to 'come-out-and-play'.  With allied 60 APs in the allied Air 
> Superiority box, the Allies (together with the Soviets in the Eastern 
> Front) can slowly attrition the Western and Southern front Luftwaffe 
> to more realistic levels.
>

The Air attrition rule 'seems' to makegood sense. But I feel it tends to 
fall down a little in the detailed execution.

Whereas it is an excellent deterrent to the 'easy out' of refusing to 
commit.
In practice it was never so easy.

The solved problem is, the defender who refuses to fight,
and refuses to defend anything,
has the indignity of getting shot up on the ground,
and incurring disruption and loss of aircraft.

But,
as in the battle of Britain,


The critical problem was pilots, not aircraft, at the time of the battle 
of Britain,
and so it was the case in 1943-44 over Germany.
The Luftwaffe was never overly short of replacement aircraft,
but was short of trained aircrew to fly the replacements..



Using the model the allied airforce simply applies leverage,
that results in losses to the enemy for no cost.

Thus it becomes a freebie...

So the balance of power tends to tilt more in favour of the agressor,
whereas the refusal to fight,
although disruptive,
was not a lose-lose equation in real life.
Hence the reason the Luftwffe often adopted it,
andthe allied forces strained their thoughts on ways to force the 
Luftwaffe to battle...


If you talk to pilots of the time,
they would all tell you...

If you come down from CAP to do low level attack and interdiction sorties,
they are one of the most dangerous mission profiles you can adopt,
playing the enemy's game.

Airfields are obvious targets,
so tend to bristle with flak,
and low level...thefighters have thrown away the advantages of height,
and if sorties areplanned with a ground attack profile,
losses to random ground fire are not insignificant.


I have pondered this on many occasions...
but each time it has seemed insuperable to have a way around this that 
models things any better.

But if you look at things from an off angle,
such as today,
then sometimes a possible solution pops its head up,
unbidden, and without warning.


So try this as an idea for an option,
based upon what we already do with air attrition,
but seriously modded.

At the same time I am proposing to use existing concepts
so cutting down of cutting completely new code.

The following points are the salient features of going after the enemy 
when they refuse to fight...

1.If the defender refuses to fight, he exposes all his ground 
organisation to disruption and interferance
2.If this happens you interfere with his ability to fight back ruining 
his efficiency.
3.If you go low level chasing after his assets, you pick up a 
significant amount of collateral damage to your own air force.

So this is a proposal for a mod for later inclusion...

We put in a button for low level interdiction...on the aircontrol screen
The equivalent to releasing the fighters to go low level post 'big week'

We use the existing attrition rule to calculate losses....

We take this base figure and divide it by two.
*           This number is the number of aircraft WE lose* committing in 
this dangerous environment.

So what is the penalty for the enemy?
             This same number is used and is the value we use to knock 
of the allowed CAP limit *for him*,
for the following cycle. So he then cannot fly so many aircraft at full 
demand.

i.e. The enemy does not suffer any direct losses. But we are beginning 
to degrade his ability to function effectively on the front,
by damaging his ground infrastructure.

If attrition is not maintained, then the cap jumps back to normal.
It does this because ground damage is very easy to repair rapidly.


So..

It results in loading the dice in our favour...the enemy cannot make so 
full a response...
The attacker does not get of scot free when indulging in this manoeuvre.



Thoughts anyone?

WE can dodge the numbers about a bit, but the essence is there...


-|steve|-
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