[WarInEur] air craft attrition

Sat Aug 30 23:34:07 EDT 2008

Nobody much noticed, but I sugggested a pair of attrition rules that accomplish what Steve is talking about. 

Atrrition at the battle front takes to forms: (1) planes have 'accidents' totally unrelated to aerial combat (2) Ground facilities are subjected to hostile activity and break down for reasons mostly related to climate. 

The DG living rules have provisions for (2) but nothing for (1) except when AP are used on Sea Superiority missions or the optional raise the combat odds form of Air ground support .  Otherwise AP are immortal, which is BullSh**t ; Flying training missions is dangerous stuff. > 
What I proposed was that the comoputer keep a running tally of How many AP are used on certain types of "no casualty" missions and then inflict casualties at the end of the weekly turn.  Air Ground and unopposed AIr superiority (i.e Excess AP on AIr superiority) are subject to losses at a somewhat high rate than Transfers and unassigned AP so that the more vigourous the Air war is pursued the more AP are lost to accidents.  

In addition to the accident rate, there should be ground units lost to opposing Air superiority missions. In the DG rules a certain number of enemy missions automatically destroys N aircraft while in my proposal the Casualty rate was more like N/4   

Better yet would be that the losses is a percentage of the total enemy AP deployed in the front.  That way a small Air Force would lose less total AP to opposition unopposed Air superiority missions than would a larger one. Which makes sense, since there are less Ground elements to defend and possibly lose so less AP would be made hors de combat.   

The idea was that if one side drove the other out of the skys both sides would continue taking casualties with the bigger AF losing more then the smaller one. If the larger AF wants to try to drive nails in the coffin of the oppositon, they must in engae in missions that have a higher than routine attrition rate and so the price for estroying enemy remnants is greater losses to ones own Air force. Steve provided reasons below why this should be how the attiction works

Bob in louisville >

 Message: 4> Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:01:02 +0100> From: sgminfo <sgminfo at aol.com>> Subject: Re: [WarInEur] Fun with CWIE2> To: john_pace_ca at yahoo.com> Cc: Warineur <warineur at mailman.halisp.net>> Message-ID: <48B960AE.6000307 at aol.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"> > 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|-> -------------- next part --------------> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...> URL: http://mailman.halisp.net/pipermail/warineur/attachments/20080830/ebb59dda/attachment-0001.html> > ------------------------------> > _______________________________________________> WarInEur mailing list> WarInEur at mailman.halisp.net> http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/warineur> > > End of WarInEur Digest, Vol 49, Issue 41> ****************************************
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