Question for debate - offensive player sub-squadron raids

Eagle Day to Bombing of the Reich is a improved and enhanced edition of Talonsoft's older Battle of Britain and Bombing the Reich. This updated version represents the best simulation of the air war over Britain and the strategic bombing campaign over Europe that has ever been made.

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DBS
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Question for debate - offensive player sub-squadron raids

Post by DBS »

Here is a question for debate - leaving aside issues of whether it would be remotely practicable to make this change in coding terms.

"Should the offensive player (ie German in BoB and Allies in BTR) be able to plot section - say two ship or four ship - sized raids or sweeps, especially for day fighters?"

Let me put the case as I see it for both sides of the argument.

Con:
1) The game is complex enough, with just the major raids incorporated. And if the 200 raid limit cannot be increased, the AI in particular could never cope with sensible planning.
2) Yes, the defending player is able to dispatch three-ships, but that is necessary to allow him to maintain semi-economic standing patrols and chase recces. The use of singleton NIs is irrelevant to the argument, since the night environment and tactics are completely different.
3) The game is strategic; most of the squadrons that engaged in this type of operations, such as TacR, should be excluded from the game because their activities (and targets) cannot be properly incorporated. So if you exclude the practitioners, no need to include such an option.

Pro:
1) Historically, there was an awful lot of such activity, especially by RAF aircraft. There is the argument (really a whole separate question for discussion) as to whether, say, TacR should be in the game. Note that JCL's latter OBs largely removed them. But all the defending fighters are included in the game, despite the fact that they had to fly against both "strategic" and "tactical" threats.
2) The small, often low-level, sweeps were a distraction for the defender that could not always be ignored. They were particularly dangerous for trains (ok abstracted in the games to railyards only) and airfields - a section of Mustangs sweeping in at nought feet with no warning is never going to shut down the field but might leave a few aircraft strafed badly.
3) They were actually rather expensive for the Allies - if a four-ship TacR got bounced it often came off a bit the worst compared to the Germans. And that is not even considering flak losses. Particularly vs AI, it is all too easy for the Allies in BTR to get away with far lighter losses than the Germans, sometimes verging on 1:2, as opposed to 2:1 which would be closer for most of the BTR period.

Anyway, thoughts?

David
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von Shagmeister
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RE: Question for debate - offensive player sub-squadron raids

Post by von Shagmeister »


Hi DBS,

My own preference would be to enable such sorties. I know that most of the TacR assets have at present been removed which is fair enough for the sqns engaged in Lagoons and Jim Crow sorties but many of the TacR sqns were assigned to 2TAF which with the exception of TacR is fully represented.

TacR a/c (Mustang I/Ia) routinely carried out Rhubarb and Rover sorties, often beating up a/fs. Infact this brings up the point that small formations could often get to an a/f undetected, strafe it and escape before the flak had a chance to effectively react. Where as large formations strafing an a/f even if undetected getting to the target would suffer losses because by the time the last a/c in the formation attacked the flak was alerted. At present put enough flak on an a/f and it's practically suicide to strafe it. It would be nice to try and sneak in a little two ship, shoot up a couple of Bf110s and get away before the defenses were even aware what was happening.

von Shagmeister
Per Speculationem Impellor ad Intelligendum

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DBS
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RE: Question for debate - offensive player sub-squadron raids

Post by DBS »

VS

Exactly my thinking. I understood wholly JCL's concerns at the time, not least about reducing the numbers of pilots, given the limitations he was working under, but given the opportunity to re-examine this, I think it would be worth careful consideration. Especially if raid size is an issue in terms of detection and flak routines.

David
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otisabuser2
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RE: Question for debate - offensive player sub-squadron raids

Post by otisabuser2 »

Just a minor side issue, which hopefully can be addressed....

When attacking planes near defending airfields, their alert status goes up. This inflicts fatigue on pilots at the defending stations, and others nearby.

We need to ensure that defending pilots are not inflicted with fatigue points from raids that they are not aware about, ie the 3 Mustangs touring Germany under the radar.

regards Otisabuser

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