Slitherine

Air power was a decisive factor in wwii. One of the revolutionary aspects of the blitzkrieg was the use of tactical air power to rapidly and easily get rid of obstacles that otherwise would cost too much time or too many casualties. Especially the Stuka had a devastating effect (material + psychological) on the enemy formations. In the late war the allies stopped all german major counteroffensives cold in their tracks by the use of their tactical and level bombers which decimated german formations. In PC air power has similar effects as artillery and furthermore it is rendered ineffective by bad weather and the presence of AA guns. I think air power would be better represented if the tactical bombers shared the same suppression properties with artillery (suppression of the enemy till the next ground assault) and maybe level bombers should follow the old suppression rules from PG1 (suppression for the duration of the whole turn). At the moment I believe most players use large artillery formations (5 or 6 artillery pieces) and air force is of secondary importance ( 2 or 3 tactical bombers and 1 mabe none level bombers). Of course changes like these would require extensive rebalancing of the units attributes and costs.

I don't want this post to be misunderstood as a complaint, it's just some thoughts about a game very nicely done which brought back many of the good memories of the original 5 star series.

Give me a couple of Level Bombers and I'll give your army alot of suppressed or out of ammo units. GAURANTEED!!!

Level Bombers are one of the most effective units in the game but are overlooked by soo many because they don't understand there effect in the game and are too busy buying a Hoarde of Artillery, and overlook the fact 1 or 2 bombers could have done the job more effective and faster. I might also add if a enemy is using AA on you the fly a level bomber to it and bomb it surpress it that round and it become in effective proteting close by ground units, Level Bombers don't take as much damage bombing AA and alot of times you may take 0 damage and surpress or kill some strength on the AA.

Nooo!

Let me elaborate, the Stuka is THE weapon for the 39/40/41 DLCs already.


You already get what you describe, combined arms. Stukas alone don't do it. Artillery alone doesn't do it.
But destroying a lot T-34 strength points with a Stuka, shooting artillery at it and stomping it with a Panzer III, YES, that does it.

The Stuka is already very potent as it is right now. Recently the AD values of many units got lowered and they do very good damage.

jokerrr88 wrote:Give me a couple of Level Bombers and I'll give your army alot of suppressed or out of ammo units. GAURANTEED!!!

Level Bombers are one of the most effective units in the game but are overlooked by soo many because they don't understand there effect in the game and are too busy buying a Hoarde of Artillery, and overlook the fact 1 or 2 bombers could have done the job more effective and faster. I might also add if a enemy is using AA on you the fly a level bomber to it and bomb it surpress it that round and it become in effective proteting close by ground units, Level Bombers don't take as much damage bombing AA and alot of times you may take 0 damage and surpress or kill some strength on the AA.

True I am aware of these facts and also that level bombers are the most effective anti-naval unit in the game. I tend to use many level bombers in my core force but I think their effect should be more pronounced. I can't figure out the logic behind a unit carpet bombed by a group of levels and fully reorganized after the next ground attack.

Just out of curiosity, have you played DLC 39 and especially DLC 40? Stukas are very, very powerful there.

I do agree in the original campaign, due to the static nature of most maps, artillery was king, and tactical bombers not too useful.

Longasc wrote:Nooo!

Let me elaborate, the Stuka is THE weapon for the 39/40/41 DLCs already.


You already get what you describe, combined arms. Stukas alone don't do it. Artillery alone doesn't do it.
But destroying a lot T-34 strength points with a Stuka, shooting artillery at it and stomping it with a Panzer III, YES, that does it.

The Stuka is already very potent as it is right now. Recently the AD values of many units got lowered and they do very good damage.

Stukas kill t-34s and other hard targets in clear terrain and weather rather effectively , but IMHO their effect on more difficult targets such as entrenched infantry is not so accurately depicted. That's why I think a more permanent suppression value would be appropriate.

deducter wrote:Just out of curiosity, have you played DLC 39 and especially DLC 40? Stukas are very, very powerful there.

I do agree in the original campaign, due to the static nature of most maps, artillery was king, and tactical bombers not too useful.

Yes I've played them, they fare better than the original campaign, that's not my point. I just think that air force should be clearly superior to artillery which I think it isn't. Even playing on the Guderian level where you have to be fast there is no major need to have a greater air force than artillery. Overstrengthed sturmpanzers do the job better than stukas in many occasions, because the suppression they induce to the enemy lasts till the next attack.

slb79 wrote:Stukas kill t-34s and other hard targets in clear terrain and weather rather effectively , but IMHO their effect on more difficult targets such as entrenched infantry is not so accurately depicted. That's why I think a more permanent suppression value would be appropriate.

Maybe the unit trait for long term supression can be made working, so we could implement such changes in a mod and see them in action, and Slitherine could later decide if they want to give units the trait or not. I'm not sure how much work it'd be implementing the trait - only Rudankort can tell, I guess.

I DO agree Tacs are much more useful in the DLCs. It's a combination of several facts. Rebalancing could play a role, but much of it is also scenario design. In the original campaign, the AI got a lot of prestige and many cities started with AA anyway, so it wasn't unusual that you could do nothing but let your JU's sit around for another turn or fly straight into massive flak fire.
In the DLC, the AI seems to get less prestige to waste on units, and many cities - even objectives - start without air defense.
Then there's the fact that there's quite some armor around - early war armor, agains which the Stukas are very effective.
I liked the Tac's in the DLCs and used two in the '39 one.
_____
rezaf

rezaf wrote: Maybe the unit trait for long term supression can be made working, so we could implement such changes in a mod and see them in action, and Slitherine could later decide if they want to give units the trait or not. I'm not sure how much work it'd be implementing the trait - only Rudankort can tell, I guess.

I DO agree Tacs are much more useful in the DLCs. It's a combination of several facts. Rebalancing could play a role, but much of it is also scenario design. In the original campaign, the AI got a lot of prestige and many cities started with AA anyway, so it wasn't unusual that you could do nothing but let your JU's sit around for another turn or fly straight into massive flak fire.
In the DLC, the AI seems to get less prestige to waste on units, and many cities - even objectives - start without air defense.
Then there's the fact that there's quite some armor around - early war armor, agains which the Stukas are very effective.
I liked the Tac's in the DLCs and used two in the '39 one.
_____
rezaf

And how much artillery do you use at the same time rezaf?

slb79 wrote:
And how much artillery do you use at the same time rezaf?

In '39 DLC I used 3 Stukas, 6 towed Artillery.
The problem with Stukas is that you have a limited number of hexes.
On a assault, I usually begin with a Stuka attack on the target followed by 1 to 3 artillery barrages.

The 3 artillery units can fire at the target from different hexes. The Stuka must be above the target.

Thus without re-working the way Strategic and Tactical bombers work (they'd need recon movement or something)
it's unwise to use more Stukas (even if they did inflict more damage/suppression/whatnot).

slb79 wrote:Stukas kill t-34s and other hard targets in clear terrain and weather rather effectively , but IMHO their effect on more difficult targets such as entrenched infantry is not so accurately depicted. That's why I think a more permanent suppression value would be appropriate.

So what kind of effect can a dive bomber have on entrenched infantry? It was powerful and precise, but not for bombing individual men on the field. Level bombers (or artillery) were better in this role. This is exactly what we tried to model in the game. Besides, this also gives units more specialization, which is good gameplay-wise. If tacs are good against everything, it will be boring. They are already effective against a lot of targets, both armored and soft ones (like guns and trucks).

Rudankort wrote:

slb79 wrote:Stukas kill t-34s and other hard targets in clear terrain and weather rather effectively , but IMHO their effect on more difficult targets such as entrenched infantry is not so accurately depicted. That's why I think a more permanent suppression value would be appropriate.

So what kind of effect can a dive bomber have on entrenched infantry? It was powerful and precise, but not for bombing individual men on the field. Level bombers (or artillery) were better in this role. This is exactly what we tried to model in the game. Besides, this also gives units more specialization, which is good gameplay-wise. If tacs are good against everything, it will be boring. They are already effective against a lot of targets, both armored and soft ones (like guns and trucks).

Well I think tac bombers should have the same "kind" of effect as artillery I didn't say it should be as effective against fortified positions. So if artillery suppresses x strength points until the upcoming attack why shouldn't tac bombers suppress less strength points but for the same duration?

I remember this argument being made in the original Panzer General.

The same argument was not only made about strengthening the tactical bombers because they should be more effective, but even the fighters and strategic bombers.

The counter-argument at the time, which probably still applies here, was that strengthening all of the air units too much would turn Panzer Corps into Luftwaffe Corps.

Food for thought.

slb79 wrote:And how much artillery do you use at the same time rezaf?

I currently have three towed artillery and two tac bombers.

For the record I liked tacs more in PG than I like them in PzC - mostly this boils down to the reduced effect of XP, I think.
Also, flaks are too widespread and too powerful, imo. There was a reason why, in PG, there were two different classes - one had more powerful AA guns, that could only defend, and the other had offensive AA guns that could attack on their own, but were much weaker (and iirc also more expensive). Plus they could only attack units on their own hex, iirc.
In PzC, you always have to be very wary, because strong AA guns can and will be used offensively against you if you move anywhere within a few hexes radius. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of bombers, especially tacs, because they are far more vulnerable to AA fire.
_____
rezaf

macattack wrote:The counter-argument at the time, which probably still applies here, was that strengthening all of the air units too much would turn Panzer Corps into Luftwaffe Corps.

Exactly my thoughts too.

This isn't just about keeping the might Panzer as King of the Battlefield.

It's also about how land combat is much more detailed and defined in this game than air combat. The "layer" of air units is much simpler than the "layer" of ground units - focusing too much on air reduces the game in ways that is unfortunate.

Compare to naval combat - that layer is rudimentary. You could create scenarios that have only ships, but why would you? There are much better programs/games if you want to focus on naval battles.

The same applies to air combat: it simply isn't a good focus given the strengths of this particular game. Luftwaffe Corps simply isn't as good a game as Panzer Corps, unless you change the game into something completely different.

I wonder though, now that I think about it, all airplanes with recon movement could be interesting.
Obviously fuel and range would have to be tweaked... But it could turn into something similar to People's Generals air missions.

First Off I think you need to think more in that time frame rather then today and what I mean is today we have soldiers on the ground calling for a airstrike or CAS on a target, happens pretty effective but not 100% but compared to 1939's - 1940's it is WORLDSSSSSSSSSSSS apart.

What we think of today of CAS is not as then, becasue CAS in that era was a Wing flying to a location and circling area looking for a possible target while having CAP above for safety OR the units had a predetermined target or task to perform and it had it synced to an exact time for a offensive to take place. Carpet Bombing was the same and was by far less effective and most bombs fell wildly off course and on many occasions would fall on friendly forces. I just think some of you are not looking at the level of technology and how far it has came and how much effective ground communications talking to CAS have advanced.


Many Many Many books have been written about "air liaison's" and other forms of CAS communications and how it has advanced over the years but as of WW2 CAS was in its infancy and far less effective then you might think.

I might suggest these 2 FREE games if your looking for a Luft General:

http://www.hotud.org/component/content/ ... tion/19708

http://www.hotud.org/component/content/ ... tion/20489

Modern Equipment (Jets) basically of those Games:


http://www.hotud.org/component/content/ ... _jfeedback

(Great Source for Mods for FC2) = http://home.comcast.net/~hagler11/fc2/

macattack wrote:I remember this argument being made in the original Panzer General.

The same argument was not only made about strengthening the tactical bombers because they should be more effective, but even the fighters and strategic bombers.

The counter-argument at the time, which probably still applies here, was that strengthening all of the air units too much would turn Panzer Corps into Luftwaffe Corps.

Food for thought.

I don't think that handling suppression in the same manner for tac bombers and artillery or expanding suppression duration of level bombers to what it was on the original PG would make them uberunits or transform the game in Luftwaffe Corps. Of course the panzers are the main protagonists of the game (these are the units that conquer and hold territories or smash the enemy defences and that doesn't change. It is not my impression that level bombers were considered overpowered in the 5 star series (many players didn't even use them).

Actually, I wish they would bring back the all turn suppression for Level bombers.

Razz1 wrote:Actually, I wish they would bring back the all turn suppression for Level bombers.

NO!!!!

I think the attacker gets way too many bonuses as is, and all turn suppression would be overkill and make everything undefendable.