Quote:
Originally Posted by Marek_Tucan
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoplitis
And while we are on the "blue on blue" airstrike issue, what about the reverse situation ie "blue on blue" antiair fire?
Was it common?
Should it be included in the game (if it was an issue in wwII)?
(Ok stop throwing eggs!  ) |
Depends. Mostly on skill and circumstances - for example on Pacific islands Japanese sometimes used US aircrafts as cover and fired machineguns when masked by noise of a/c engines, thus also starting up paranoia about US fighters strafing own troops, this in turn leading to wild fires against anything int he air...
As for CAS inaccuracy, I believe after bad experience from Normandy, one US inf. division declined any air support but observation planes. Though the worst incidents were I believe in the run-up to Cobra by heavy bombersw, but then there was this French town-that-I-cannot-recall-now where TacAir attacked what they thought to be a retreating German column and caused many US and civillian casaulties. |
By Normandy, British arty was firing "pink" missions 10,000 yds deep behind the front line or more. Everything on the far side of the pink smoke line was an air kill zone, anything seen there was considered fair game, no air strikes were allowed on our troops side. "Close" air support was therefore 10
clicks from the troops, and needed the arty batteries smoke marking to endure de-conflicting the fighters from friendly ground forces. The pilots found target discrimination exceedingly difficult to do, so marked kill zones was the way to go.
It was
rare for a danger close (ie within 10000 yards of friendlies!) to be called, and if it was, it was under the personal observation of an air-ground "tentacle" team equiped with air frequencies radios with "eyes on" the enemy tiger or whatever, and he would talk each plane in individually, with lots of air recognition sheets, coloured smoke firing, flares etc used to mark friendlies.
Aircraft too close to own forces were dangerous things then, and still are today.
In any case anti-armour etc missions were not what air power was about. Aircraft targets are road convoys (to include AFV as bonus items) - but mainly to smash trucks and trains etc to flaming wrecks. Their anti-armour effect was therefore indirect as the supplies of POL, ammo and food petered out the clockwork mice stopped working. But this game is tactical, and so cannot represent the interdiction capability of air power that is its true strength. You would need an operational game at the division-sized counter level to properly model that IMHO.
One
could model air superiority by an abstraction - but imagine the squeals from the German player when he was informed that due to the Allied air superiority (the USA guy bought a squillion P47 and assigned them to pre-game interdiction), half his shiny Tiger 2s will not be allowed to arrive on the battlefield since they are stuck in a traffic jam of pulverised scrap metal that used to be the supply trucks in Falaise and 3 were considered killed on the approach march. Plus everyone else has only half the ammo because of said supply trucks being toast, and D company has -1 on its morale due to the field kitchen failing to deliver a hot breakfast since the bread oven is now a .50 cal colander..
Cheers
Andy