Unkillable aircraft!!!

[Deputy]

Good grief. It gets even worse. I am playing a scenario with German assault guns are assaulting a US-held town. I was in a hex NEXT TO a bazooka team. WHAM Assault gun destroyed with one shot. Okaaaaay. Lucky shot. I move another assault gun in the exact same spot. WHAM One shot and one kill. Good grief. These are early bazookas. They were notorious for bouncing off tanks rather than killing them so easily. I may change this bazooka team to a sniper team with those kind of results!!! I dunno how they set up these specs, but they are WAY OFF.

[PatG]

Hey Deputy - like yer icon
Can you download the sample scenarios from my previous post and see what happens.

[Deputy]

PatG said:
Hey Deputy - like yer icon
Can you download the sample scenarios from my previous post and see what happens.

LOL...haven't figured out what to use for an icon yet so I grabbed the train one. I am also an O-Gauge train collector/operator.
I'll download those scenarios and give them a try. Thanks!!!
Otherwise, I enjoy the sima lot. I even ordered the CD version and the one for the modern SP.

Dep

[Deputy]

Well I tried Pat's scenario and knocked down one spotter aircraft and 1 P51 vs 1 Panther G disabled. I then made a scenario (I am new at this so couldn't do it as well as Pat did) with ALL Wirbelwinds. I had at least 15 of them in a 50x50 area in a central location. I had P-51s with FFAR rockets attack them. One P-51 went down in flames. Two Wirbelwinds were destroyed. A couple of P-51s were lightly damaged. I'm sure the damage factor of the planes is related to the weapons being used against it. The Wirbelwind is "only" a quad 20MM gun. Pat had 37MM guns in his scenario. I'm still not sure things are adjusted right with flak. I know flak isn't made to accurate like a direct fire round would be. But with that many bursts from that many guns, I would think the likelihood of more hits goes up. I am also surprised at the flak guns ineffectiveness against ground troops. The 40MM "Duster" flak gun Uncle Sam used in Nam was DEADLY with air bursts against ground units. It was a great way to break up a human wave attack. Yet in SPWW2 flak hardly fazes an infantry unit. The opposite is true in SPWAW. Flak wipes out infantry, depending on how high the realism is set in preferences.

As to the bazooka...if the game is going to be representative of real world performance, than the bazooka is WAY off. Read reports of it's performance in WW2. Heck, if you want to see what it really performed like, watch the end of Saving Private Ryan. They got it pretty realistic. You could be right on top of an armored vehicle and have it bounce off. It wasn't unusual to have to fire multiple hits to get a kill. I could maybe understand if the armored vehicle had it's tail to the bazooka. That would present it's weakest area. But I got killed with head-on shots.

[DRG]

For fun I set up a test game with 8 P-51's attacking a flat field full of StuG IV's. It was a very "target rich environment" with more than enough targets to test the theory . The Mustangs where a mix of B's and D's carrying rockets and bombs. After the attack, 1 P-51 retired from the game due to battle damage from the AAMG's fire of the StuG's and of the StuG IV's, one had 2 points of damage and another had 1 point of damage. None were destroyed. HARDLY "death rays attached to the bombs and destroy everything in sight" .

I then set up another test game with 3 companies of StuG IV's on a flat map being attacked by a dozen P-51's with good visibility ( 60 ), again a mix of rocket carrying D's and bomb carrying B's. The result was , once again, one P-51 retired from the game due to battle damage from the AAMG's fire of the StuG's . However, the P-51's did a little better this time around with one ( 1 ) destroyed StuG, and three with 2 points of damage and one with 6 points of damage but once again, not even close to "death rays attached to the bombs and destroy everything in sight"

I ran that second test a second time, The result this time was two P-51's retired due to AAMG damage, two StuG's received 2 points of damage and one StuG had 1 point of damage. None destroyed.

Ran the test AGAIN but this time with 8 German light flak guns added. 2 guns of each type available June 1944. Again with good visibility ( 63 )This time the aircraft were P-47's but if we are looking for "death rays attached to the bombs and destroy everything in sight" the P-47's will have them as well. This test ended up with 3 P-47's retired for battle damage and of the StuG's one was destroyed and 2 had minor battle damage. I hardly need point out , again, that none of these results in any way resembles "death rays attached to the bombs and destroy everything in sight" and in the last test 25% of the aircraft that attacked had to retire due to battle damage.

There is nothing wrong with the game.

As for the bazooka story, I've seen bazooka teams miss repeatedly. ( just did, in fact in a quick test game I set up ) and also hit and not penetrate but sometimes they get lucky ESPECIALLY when the target is in the adjacent hex. When you move armour adjacent to known AT teams without infantry support I'd say you got what you deserve.

Don

[Mobhack]

Just today, in my WW2 Soviet long campaign, I provided the AI with a beautiful target - 6 KV1 nose to tail along a road, with SMG sections mounted on each, and some T-34 nearby who had just dismounted, but all a tight-packed horde. Complacent. moi? !.

Anyway, I got attacked by around 6 ME-109. Mixed rocketeers and bombers. Results were 1 KV routed with its main gun shot off, and 2 stuck with busted tracks and a point of damage. About a company of SMG gunners running for home with severe headaches, and 3-6 points of damage for most of them. 3 M5 halftracks and 2 ZSU-37 trucks damaged one plane a few points.

later, the remaining planes strafed my guard mortar battery, and a pair of SP-37mm nearby damaged one, while they did a point or so of damage to a guard mortar MRL truck.

Air is not an uber weapon in WW2, nor is flack a sky-sweeper.

But I should have gone tactical with that KV column a move or so earlier..

If you expect air around, then the best way to deal with them is to spread out a min of a hex apart.

Cheers
Andy

[Deputy]

I think you're right Andy. As in WW2, spread out and hiding in trees. Although I'm not sure if trees actually provide "air cover" for armor.

I just received the CD full version of WinSPMBT today and after loading it in and installing the latest patches, I must say that I find the realism of aircraft ops as well as fire against ground troops much more realistic than the WW2 version. But I sure hate those Ruskie Frogfoot ground attack planes. The stuff they drop REALLY hurts

[Marek_Tucan]

My only qualms with the aircrafts are the AI usually bunches all its air on one single target
Anyway, air does so far most damage to me when attacking antitank guns and their soft-fleshed prime movers.

[Mobhack]

I do have some code built in so that the AI will use any air en masse, once in a while.

That is because air in driblets is merely irritating - but delivery in a single fire-blow is the most efficient use of airstrikes. (I often use 1 sacrificial air pass to locate target concentrations, whack the revealed flack with arty for a move or 3, then use the remaining 5 or so planes in one punch on a juicy looking area, especially against a defender.).

The recce value of planes is probably a major benefit in the game, so if you have been overflown then probably a quick move of any stuff you are hiding is a good idea to break LOS, on the off chance you have been spotted. Some of the units will have been, and will draw enemy arty, or your ambuscade avoided etc if the opponent is a human player.

Once you have battered down his flak with your arty, and the planes have free reign, then after the fireblow, a scheduling of a strafing pass per turn or so is great mainly for the recce effect. That is the advantage of SP-AAA as even the AI will move its motor AAA assets, making them more difficult to deal with by arty suppresion, and catching the planes with fire from the re-hidden hidden units later (hopefully).

WW2 air did not really have much KO effect on armour, the natural target for fighter-bombers is trucks or open-topped halftracks, especially ammo and POL carriers in the corps/division etc rear zone. Kill lots of tigers by cutting the jugular vein of the supply convoys.

cheers
Andy