Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Are airstrikes ever worth the points? It seems any A-10 worthog or A6E Intruders, either with AP clusters cannot hit the broadside of a barn. Even if they overfly 8-10 tanks in the path, and survive countless SAMs/AAgun/AAmgs they rarely kill or damage anything. In the old SP-II, atleast AP cluster bombs did kill something per flight. Comments? Are there better air missions to purchase. I am playing US 1990 era campaign versus china.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

First question: how do you plan your strikes?

Better choose an entry path with good visibility, no friendly units along the way, no obstacles... so your aircrafts will have no parasitic signals and spot the targets without worries.
Pilot experience plays a big part though.

Admittedly cluster weapons often seem to be quite useless, though you can have some really good (or tough) surprises, and you cannot turn them into miracle weapons either.

Guided weapons work well against armor, but tend to eat up much loadout and strike time. In your game context you should find some good F15E with GBUs all over.
Against infantry, napalm/FAE is a must.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I have noticed this also ...the cluster munitions are not as effective as in the last version. I also noticed that the aircraft guns are not nearly as effective as they should be. Aircraft guns in the game do not seem to do much damage to either soft or hard targets. The gatling guns on most jets are quite capable of destroy most armored vehicles but in the game the usually don't even immobilize the vehicles. And all to many times I have called in an airstrike against infantry targets and have the aircraft fire at least 3 times at an infantry target and only pin the infantry unit. It seems that the AA and SAM units in the game have gotten a lot deadlier also

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Consider the size of the target in a hex and the targetting abilities of your aircrafts.
An aircraft can very well shower a 2000m² circle with slugs without getting any close from the ten pinheads spread on it.

Cannons are a very, very secondary weapon on an aircraft; the only exception being the A-10 and its (rare) likes.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

For me, the only real use of aircrafts are in anti-personnel and anti light targets, with CBUs and such area weapons. Direct hits with Mavericks and similar are simply not worth the cost, too many errors.
Instead i prefer using the flight spot for an UAV, or even better an attack helo.

One thing i found REALLY good, and a total surprise to me, was the power of level bombers armed with heavy bombs like the 2000 lbs of the B52.
One thing i found out with the heavier bomb loads is that they do damage also in adjacent hexs, covering in fact a 3 hexes path of death and destruction.
They can really obliterate entire companies of enemies, it's such an insane pleasure to see an enemy attack route turned into a bloody grave http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I never considered cluster munitions sufficiently effective in SPMBT. So I increased their effectiveness using mobhack. I increased the AP kill and penetration alot and the HE some. I also always thought that AA weapons were too effective, especially guns. Nothing I could do about that.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

A-10 is always useful and I agree with Level Bombers also.

Most other aircraft I use to scout since UAV's don't survive.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Getting hit by anything larger than a pebble in an aircraft doing 400 mph is always going to give you a bad day. On the other hand considering the AIs truly vapid execution of attack runs I'd like to have control of the aircraft back. There is no way that an aircraft on a run would engage the T-80 MBT that it was asked to engage when a ZSU http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif is a 100 meters away and firing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I'd like to also add the inaccuracy of "smart bombs" like JDAM...they get close but more often than not don't get a direct hit. IMHO, a B-2 capable of firing 4 1000lb JDAMs at a stationary target, like an AA emplacement in the clear, should score one direct hit most of the time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

in the german scenario (shandeloh?) i added A-10s to the tornados already in place and flew repeated strikes (i.e. testing) against a fairly bunched up column of t-72s and some APCs. despite repeated tries, and what visually looked like a perfect spread by both the BLU and CB (a-10s and tornados)i hardly scored any kills (usually 1 or none). give that they were really bunched up (say 10-20 vehicles in IPA) and in open ground i don't get it, i should have scored many more hits as well as kills.

also, the warthog's cannon seems to be next to useless. on the same tests the warthog never scored more then 1 kill, and that was the exception rather than the rule (t72MV i believe). forget multipule engagmements.

given that 2 A-10s supposedly wiped out an entire IRG tank bn in 1991/92 i think something might not be quite right.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Generally, I find that strike aircraft, COIN and SEAD aren't worth the investment. My favourite is actually the UAV armed with a hellfire. It pickles off its missle as soon as it appears on the map, (i.e. before anything can shoot it down) and is usually pretty accurate. Scouts well on its way past too.

Level bombers can be devestating, but are often inaccurate too. I recall a B1 unloading its entire load of 2000 pound bombs in the ocean, before hitting the beach.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I never purchase strike COIN or SEAD for all the reasons mentioned. Too expensive, ordinance too limited (and cannot be replenished) and they don't do much.

Helis on the other hand are floating platforms of death ...

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

From the list of changes in the patch

58] Artillery and aircraft bomb collateral blast damage has been adjusted. Artillery cluster munitions have a minimum blast radius of 1 now and air-dropped cluster bombs have a radius of 2 hexes (speed and height of delivery, larger footprint). Previous versions of the executable had blast damage into surrounding hexes as well but we discovered a bit of code that was reducing this after it had been applied. That bit of code has been commented out and now you will find aircraft weapons and large calibre arty gives blast effects out to , in the case of 2000 lb bombs, a potentially lethal area of 200 yards around the point of impact. As well, there is a new game function that allows you to see the potential blast radius while the artillery barrage or airstrike is going on. Pressing the "R" key while in the bombardment or "Z" key menu will turn on or off the blast radius markers. There are white circles that show the maximum blast radius and there are yellow circles that show when known enemy units that are within the main blast radius are damaged by the blast effects. It is important to remember that even though the blast effect for some weapons like 2000 pound bombs may be quite large this does **NOT** mean that every hex and unit within the blast effect area is affected by the blast. This addition allows players who are interested to see just how the blast area works in the game. Blast effects are reduced by the distance from the impact hex, and the usual effects of dug-in status, being in cover etc. Cluster munitions are more evenly distributed over the blast area than an HE round, so range effect is reduced for them. Armoured vehicles more than 1 hex from the impact will tend to be supressed by blast rather than be destroyed by fragments, except with cluster munitions.

So the bottom line here is airstrikes will be more deadly once the patch is released

Don

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Can't wait for the intensified cries of the blue on blue kill after this patch is released! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Whiner speaking "I called down an airstrike with cluster munitions only 100m from my front line which was covered in smoke and the stupid aircraft obliterated my position!"

ROTFLMAO!

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Yep. I see you've been reading our mail <g>

We've been testing aircraft and aircraft weapons and found that yes, there were more misses than we intended and have made adjustments that should make more people a bit happier with the air routines. The code wasn't processing the weapons accuracy quite as well as it should of

Don

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I think that people sometimes take SPMBT (and wargaming) too seriously...it's probably your (you SPCAMO) fault, you make such fine games that people get carried a bit too much...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Airpower is very useful... it's just not as useful if you accidentally use it against itself or an empty area of map...

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

I had some weirdness in airstrikes an attached save is included. First of all what does COIN stand for??? If it means something like Clueless Operator Intelligence Negated I could understand. Two COIN airstrikes in this save are shifting about 1 km toward friendly lines and hitting friendlies. Other airstrikes in this save are targetted in the same general area and are working just fine.

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Have a look at

www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=375755&page=0 &view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

- Thread title "COIN strikes way off target" - it is still on page 1 so should be easy to find, it is only 30 or so threads below this one. A browse through this existing thread should answer your questions.

(If the link does not work - try entering COIN in the search utility found at the top of the page )


Cheers
Andy

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

Ahhhhh tyvm Andy. Ummm what does COIN stand for?

Re: Is airpower useful in WinSPMBT?
 

a specialized form of close air support developed for counter-insurgency operations.

COIN is an acronym for COunter INsurgency and in game terms it means it doesn't concentrate on "things" like tanks so much

Don