Funny turn

[Wdll]

Watching replay from a PBEM campaign game.
Enemy sends a couple of UAVs. Something like 15 missiles later, none were destroyed or damaged. They were the special kind of UAVs with moon rockets up their...exhaust pipes and ECM from the 22nd century.

My "super" British GR 9 Harriers loaded with Brimstones and few CM bombs were sent to attack the incoming mass attack of the German army. From M113s up to Leo2s and few other in between, there was no lack of targets. The weather while it had snowed earlier, was fine day with good visibility.
One of the plane fired its missiles on a manpad (without killing it) although there were plenty of actual vehicles nearby and the other fired its missiles on an empty hex, no where near any enemy position, both were destroyed by enemy AA fire, IIRC none of which had a double digit success rate while firing at them.

Well done, awesome.

[Greyfell]

Stories like this (and my own painful experience) are why I don't trust air strikes in this game. I've had much better luck using an equivalent point value of good artillery then aircraft, 85% of the time.

I've seen everything from expensive, effective SAM batteries (Patriot versus eurofighter) missing 5 out of 5 shots, to an enemy MIG with no ecm whatsoever flying through a flak wall from 8+ 40mm AAA batteries. Yet when I try to do it, I lose every unit with wings I own

[Suhiir]

** PERSONAL OPINION **

I regularly play the US Marines, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF)is their fundamental TO&E. They rely on their own private air force to make up for a lack of artillery (compared to military organizations) and armor. Given the airstrike AI in WinSPMBT its' a real "challenge".

The AI regularly purchases about a battalions worth of AA per company.

The priority target for aircraft is opponent AA assets, regardless of weapons load. So you can expect your expensive and rare guided bombs/missiles, your bomb laden "counter-battery" aircraft, or your cluster bomb loaded "anti-personnel" aircraft to all unload on the first MANPAD or AAMG they see.

Guided bombs/missiles regularly "bounce" off armored (even lightly armored) vehicles, and occasionally destroy other vehicles in nearby hexes.

So yeah, given the high point value of aircraft in WinSPMBT they are very, very rarely worth the cost.
Think of them as more a scenario design feature then a worthwhile combat unit.

[Wdll]

I agree up to a point. If you can only field a very small number of them. When the number of aircraft approaches or of course, surpasses double digit, then they are a very nice asset to have.

I don't use them a lot since I rarely have a decent amount of them available (PBEM campaigns at least), but when I do they are usually (unless it's one of "those" days) a real pain in the *** for the opponent.

I am talking about modern era.