[WarInEur] Fun with CWIE2

Sun Aug 31 00:38:48 EDT 2008

One of my objections to the Air Superiority Option as I wrote earlier is that it allows the stronger air force to continue to beatup on the weaker.  This is true on the East Front where the Axis tends to beatup on the Soviets until 43 and on the West Front where the Allies beat up in the Axis after 43.  This last is especially critical when the Axis to withdrawn significant numbers of AP for use as interceptors. Once this happens the remaining German AP suffer significant losses to attrition with the air auperiority option.  In reality, the Germans could easily withdraw out of Allied fighter range and only fly interceptors.

So the basic assumption (that is the aircraft could be destroyed on the ground if they didn't come up to fly) for the Air Superiority option is flawed.  In reality they would just take off and fly deeper into German or disperse so widely that the Allies couldn't find them.

When I was on active duty I was stationed at Conn Barracks just outside Schwienfurt.  It was a fighter base during WWII and there were some pictures posted in a display case.  The runways were completely camoflaged from the air and its existence wasn't even known until late in the war.  They had fake cows, sections of corn fields on rollers that covered the runways when not in use.  The aircraft were stored underground in bomb proof tunnels.  When I was there we broke into one of the ventilator shafts and rapelled down into the hangars.  They still had aircraft sitting in them in about two foot of water.  When the Allies came in they just bulldozed the tunnel entrances closed and left everything the way it was.  There was even an underground railroad from Wurtzburg to Schwienfurt a distance of about 50 miles.  I guess what I am saying is that the Germans could have dispersed their aircraft to the point that Allied air field raids would have been largely ineffective.

About 16 months ago we were talking about attrition for the airforces and realized that it was not the weaker air force that suffered the most attrition but the air force that flew the most.  What we proposed then was that we apply a 1% attrition rate against every AP that flew Air Superiority Combat and survived.  For every AP that flew a Air Sea mission but didn't attack a port or convoy would suffer 2% attrition (minor mistakes are more fatal when over water) and every AP that flew a air interdiction mission would suffer 3% attrition (more flak at ground level).  We never were able to get this coded, in part because we always planned to code a completely new airwar module after we had the game to market.

However, we also realized that there were two other factors that influenced whether one side or the other flew.  First the combat was two bloody.  Loss rate of 3% are considered unsustainable and we were looking at 16.66%.  The other thing was that no airforce could be equally strong everywhere and it was always possible for the weaker force to achieve local air superiority, but that this was denied them in the game.

Our solution was to provide some air war options so we could experiment with the current game before designing a new one.  You can access these options by clicking on the game info button in eidt mode and then clicking on the Limits button.

There are three sections in the Limits popup that affect the Air War.  In the Upper right hand corner is a box labeled air war and two fields one labeled Combat Odds and the other ratio.  The default numbers are 6 and 2.  However, replacing the 6 with a 10 changes the odds to 1:10 so we can make the combat significantly less bloody on a turn for turn basis.  Changing the 2 to a 3 means that the larger air force would need a 3 to 1 superiority and then could only destroy 1 AP for every 3 AP in excess of the 3 to 1 ratio.  So if the the Axis had 30 AP on the East Front committed to Air Superiority and the Soviets  had 10 committed to air Superiority and 5 to air ground missions the Axis would need to  destroy every single one of the Soviet AP on air superiority before they could kill a single extra AP.

What we have done iwith these two options is given the weaker player a reason to fly.  If there is a benefit to flying, the players will both fly.  If they fly both sides will suffer proportional losses and the numbers of AP present in the game will more closely approximate those envisoned be the game designers (at least if the setup instructions are any indications).  I have played a couple of test games and found that both sides can fly every turn during the Invasions of Poland and France without either side being driven from the air.  I am even thinking of changing the combat odds to 20 and requireing (as a house rule) that all AP be assigned to a mission every turn to see what happens.

The other part of the limits popup that affects the air war is the numbers of AP that can be assigned to air superiority.  There are nine boxes, one for each front and for each player.  These can be set separately form each other rather than the KC 120/60/30 for all players.  For example the East Front might be 30 Soviets, 20 Axis, and 10 Allies.  Lowering the Axis to 20 is a better approximation of what would be avialable given the original limit of 26 AP in total. Lowering the Allied Limit to 10 reduces the gamy gambit where by the Allies invade Norway take Narvik or one hex in from Iran and proceed to fly air cover over the entire East Front.

So we have some options to explore with CWIE2 and some additional features to consider- operational attrition etc.  All of which I think will do a better job of addressing the defects in the air war system until such time as we can design a better air war module.
.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: sgminfo 
  To: Jeffery K. McGonagill 
  Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 2:24 PM
  Subject: Re: [WarInEur] Fun with CWIE2

  Indeed it should...
  :-)

  -|steve|-

  Jeffery K. McGonagill wrote: 
    Shouldn't this arguement also be applied to units performing interdiction?

    ~Jeffery~
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: sgminfo 
      To: john_pace_ca at yahoo.com 
      Cc: Warineur 
      Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 8:01 AM
      Subject: Re: [WarInEur] Fun with CWIE2

      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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