[WarInEur] Air Game

Sat Jan 24 18:01:59 EST 2009

Sorry but I feel we MUST do something about the air war in this game.   It 
with its political system are the two largest deterrents to getting a mass  
audience to this game.  

The air war lacks any realism at all.  This may not be the ultimate  idea but 
we need to do something.  Other games, that even  have challenging AI, have 
Bombers, Fighters and tactical bombers.   Some even have specific aircraft 
while this game remains in the 70's.  

This game made one advance from the older version and that is  attrition.  It 
took a few steps backward in some other areas.  

My preferrence would be to add different aircraft to the game and place  them 
on the map or in area boxes.  But that is complicated at this points  and 
probably not even doable.  

I keep hoping we can in some ways move this game forward to the 21st  Century 
so we can attract more then the dieing die hards we presently  have.  I am 
still hoping for a useable editor so we can make this game all  it can be.

In a message dated 1/24/2009 2:25:16 PM Pacific Standard Time, SGMINFO  
writes:

I didn't  either...

But I went through a long period  with similar views  resulting in a slow 
conversion to my current impression of it...

At the  early stage I was pretty  much of your minds...

Because of  this 'conversion' of how I see the interaction, I am inclined to 
say 'caution'  and flip it over in your minds for some time before jumping to  
it.

Looking for reasons to justify this 'after' the event  (rather than using any 
of this as part of the factors in my change of  heart...

There were no occasions during 1944 when airpower alone  could degrade 
defensive formations out of contact with the enemy to the point  at which it 
resulted in decisively affecting the ground fighting.

This  was the great leap forward in airpower doctrine in  the gulf. It was a  
promise (unfulfilled) in 1944 and 1945.

Defensive ground support is not  represented in the game, but is effectively 
factored into the low crts of 1944  and 1945 for the Germans in the West....

In the east the defensive  ground support is again incorporated into the 
crt..but the pernicious effects  of having to use defensive close air support in 
the east (backfiring as  it did so badly on the luftwaffe) is not portrayed, 
and the simulation does  not illustrate this.

The actual effects on Soviet attacks are not so  slearly definable, neither 
the tank and rail busting specialist quadrons of  late 1943 nor the medium 
bomber efforts...

Indeed by how much they  affected the ground fighting is difficult to 
evaluate in the light of the lack  of comparative experimental data.

i.e. they may have retarded the  soviet onslought's timetables, but there is 
little empirical data on how  successful this was. That there was an 
effect...yes...but this is as far as we  can say...

I think....

Remember how Bittrich's Panzer  reserve could refit around Arnhem...
...and 352 Infantry division sat  behind Omaha, undetected and un written 
down as of 6th June.

Panzer  Lehr suffered significant losses as they progressed to the front in 
June 1944,  but again, although we have the absolute numbers...we do not see 
the carnage  such that was witnessed at Trun. Again there it required FOO 
intervention with  ground controllers, to channel airpower onto the enemy 
effectively, such that  it made a tactical difference in the battle.

The general perception  seemed to be, damage suffered enroute was more of a 
resulting nightmare for  maintenance....most stuff was fixable and resulted 
mainly in delays to it  getting into action.

The Germans showed great initiative and great  flair in concealment in 1944, 
making winkling out individual units in their  static positions very very 
difficult using the visual flight  techniques  available from the air alone, 
available at the  time...

(radar/radio/infrared methods of the time being too primitive  to strip the 
protection of visual camouflage techniques.

I am NOT  saying it should not be done...merely that we should proceed with 
caution. We  are  in danger at this point in allowing the thought of 
overwhelming  allied air power to take flight as an independent tactical weapon, which, 
at  the time, it most assuredly, was not.

It is the tactical face of the SB  war...a situation that Don and I are 
having a hard time grappling with  experimentally...it is uncomfortably close to 
going the other way in the SB  war, it should be 'nearly', but not quite. We 
think that is what we have, but  having achieved a production collapse, I can see 
the possibilities inherent in  Harris' rhetoric, and postponing Normandy 
until Speer's Empire is destroyed by  bombing alone...and the ground forces land 
merely to do a bit of 'mopping  up'.

-\steve\-

_Storeforest2 at aol.com_ (mailto:Storeforest2 at aol.com)  wrote:  

In a message dated 1/24/2009 1:06:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
_kentsue at cox.net_ (mailto:kentsue at cox.net)  writes:

Steve-  I don't see this as a difficult thing to  program.  I'd like to see 
this given priority for a post production  add on.

Kent

I second that emotion.

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