Shore bombardment

[Cybvep]

I've seen BBs or DDs causing OR suffering 1-2 step damage by/from performing shore bombardment many times. This is a bit ridiculous IMO. A corps have about 60k men, so if a group of BBs/DDs reduce its strength from 10 to 8, then it means that thousands of soldiers were killed. Also, every time the BBs/DDs suffer damage themselves I wonder how the hell could this have happened? I mean, what those GARs or INFs were using? Mortars? <rotfl> Obviously, I'm not talking about attacking units in cities or fortresses, where big coastal guns may available, but about units in open terrain.

Therefore, I think that shore bombardment should only cause (significant) efficiency drops UNLESS the ships are bombarding airbases, i.e. air units. The ships shouldn't suffer any step losses, either, unless they are attacking cities/fortresses/airbases. That way things will be more realistic IMO.

[metolius]

I see your 'damage' point -- I think that there would be more 'shock' than damage. Naval bombardment could make roads impassable (both during and after), wipe out airfields, smash depots and generally cause problems. Seems like this could be reflected in 'efficiency', rather than strength. Still, 1-2 points isn't that big a hit, and an argument could be made that it simply reflects damaged equipment, some causalities, etc.

[Cybvep]

There is no difference between step damage caused by SB and step damage caused by land units, so I conclude that it represents casualties. In some cases it can even wipe out heavily damaged units, e.g. if you attack a 3-step corps from three directions and each attack causes 1 step damage. Can you imagine BB fire causing 18k casualties? Me neither. That's why I think that they are too excessive. The risk for ships is too great, too. There is not much that infantry can do with their machineguns and even field artillery against heavily armoured BBs firing from a large distance. Fortresses and cities are a different story, as coastal guns were massive.