Did someone say bombing?

[dimaparaxod]

I got interested in the effectiveness of bombing in World War II and found an interesting thing, a quote from a topic called ''Impact on German Industry'':

''Since the beginning of 1944, aircraft factories have become the main target of air raids. In February 1944, 50% of aircraft factories were attacked over several days, and many of them were almost completely destroyed. But each time it was possible to restore production or move factory equipment to another location.''

In the game, as we know, bombing directly affects the decrease in production efficiency, but it only starts from the last factory in the last production window, that is, they constantly affect some civilian trains, armored vehicles, and the like. The factories allocated for aviation are in the very top windows and have no vulnerability. Now I will show you the ideal possible potencial window that is already in the game and is ideal for prioritizing bombing factories for equipment. This window is taken from the intelligence data of the state and shows how many factories are used by different areas of the military industry.

Using something like this we could determine which factories to bomb and where exactly to disrupt the efficiency of production in aviation, tank construction or basic equipment.

 

[BeauNiddle]

''But each time it was possible to restore production or move factory equipment to another location.''

Your own quote explains why it is, the way it is. Bombing caused damage but the target side could always rearrange factories so the least important stuff was impacted.

Hence bombing damage accumulates at the bottom of the factory allocation list.

 

[PK_AZ]

I was thinking about exactly this problem for some time, and my conclusions are as follows:
1. Strategic bombing is way, way worse than useless - it is uninteresting
2. Reason is that target country industry is treated as one singular blob of factories,while it is paramount for interesting air warfare model to allow precise targeting of concrete production line.
3. Obvious answer is to bind each production line to one state on the map. This is obvious can of worms.

 

[FindFloppies]

The biggest effect that the bombing campaign had *on Germany* was that it forced them to put planes and pilots into stemming the flood, and led to more or less the destruction of the Luftwaffe over time.

Now, Japan was a different matter.

 

[dimaparaxod]

Your own quote explains why it is, the way it is. Bombing caused damage but the target side could always rearrange factories so the least important stuff was impacted.

Hence bombing damage accumulates at the bottom of the factory allocation list.

It's hard to disagree with you, although my proposal is simply to find more interactivity, variety and expansion of interaction with the bombing gameplay.

The biggest effect that the bombing campaign had *on Germany* was that it forced them to put planes and pilots into stemming the flood, and led to more or less the destruction of the Luftwaffe over time.

Now, Japan was a different matter.

To be honest, I got interested in this topic of bombing because in the game, bombing airfields can be very effective, but I have never heard of such cases. In the game, an airfield of 2000 places can be temporarily disorganized into 600 places, which seems quite significant for the fight for air superiority. Do you know of any examples from history of such bombing?

 

[FindFloppies]

To be honest, I got interested in this topic of bombing because in the game, bombing airfields can be very effective, but I have never heard of such cases. In the game, an airfield of 2000 places can be temporarily disorganized into 600 places, which seems quite significant for the fight for air superiority. Do you know of any examples from history of such bombing?

With WWII bombing tech, bombing an airfield with strategic bombers really wasn't a great play, too many bombs would land outside the airfield as a percentage. That was mostly done with mediums and fighter-bombers (I guess you could classify a P-47 with bombs as CAS, right?) in the run up to D-Day.

The US did that kind of thing with the 9th Air Force, while the 8th Air Force was the 4-engine bombers. Different missions, different emphasis.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Sticking to the original post's criticism of the game it is very clear that the game behaviour is a significant issue for the simple reason that the defender chooses your target and there is absolutely nothing the attacker can do about it. THis could lead to an interesting discussion about what would be effective since the USSBS post war analysis did identify some ways that the strategic bombing campaign could have been a lot more effective. That raises the problem that we should just allow the attacker to choose targets as that also leads to an unreasonable game. However, no simple solution comes to mind. What this actually needs is a simple way that the attacker can influence what production gets harmed but any analysis of how this might work rapidly descends into massive complexity which is going to be far too much effort for the limited pay off.

I don't say a way forward with this that doesn't involve substantial additional complexity in the game.

 

[L-Histidine]

It wouldn't make the game more interactive as such, but if strategic bombing damaged random lines (with production efficiency losses as if the owner had removed and readded a factory to that particular line) the effects of the bombing wouldn't be absorbed by the least useful stuff at least.

 

[GeneralGustavo]

To be honest, I got interested in this topic of bombing because in the game, bombing airfields can be very effective, but I have never heard of such cases. In the game, an airfield of 2000 places can be temporarily disorganized into 600 places, which seems quite significant for the fight for air superiority. Do you know of any examples from history of such bombing?

As the other user mentioned, this was mostly done by medium bombers and ground attack aircraft, and a historical example would be the beginning of the Battle of Britain, before they shifted targets from airfields to cities.

 

[William9113]

The biggest effect that the bombing campaign had *on Germany* was that it forced them to put planes and pilots into stemming the flood, and led to more or less the destruction of the Luftwaffe over time.

Now, Japan was a different matter.

I believe this is oversimplified. I cannot for the life of me find it, but I have seen a very insightful and thought provoking post on this forum where somebody explained that the German air defense campaign was actually a massive commitment of manpower and strategic effort. Over 1 million military age men were sat in Germany/German administered areas just to man the Flak to repel bombers over half of a continent. For comparison, thats over twice as many men as the Germans committed to the Italian campaign.

 

[Nephandus]

I believe this is oversimplified. I cannot for the life of me find it, but I have seen a very insightful and thought provoking post on this forum where somebody explained that the German air defense campaign was actually a massive commitment of manpower and strategic effort. Over 1 million military age men were sat in Germany/German administered areas just to man the Flak to repel bombers over half of a continent. For comparison, thats over twice as many men as the Germans committed to the Italian campaign.

This is only partially accurate. By 1939, the Luftwaffe nearly 1 Million Luftwaffe soldiers were deployed in Flak units. By that time this was app. 2/3rd of all Luftwaffe personel. This number increased to app. 1.25 Million by the end of the war, app. half of all Luftwaffe personel. However one must also be aware of that these Flak units did not only include the "Heimat-Flak", which was actually founded in 1942 but also nearly all frontline Flak-units. This is also the reason why the Luftwaffe actually had ground troops.

As for the Heimat-Flak units: these units did not have many regular soldiers later on since these were deployed to the front divisions. They had "temporarily drafted soldiers" which were also called "Flak-Wehrmänner", who were basically also still working their civilian jobs, often in the factories they were protecting. Also there were the Flak-Helfer, basically teenagers.

 

[Kanitatlan]

More to the point was the number of expensive high velocity artillery barrels deployed for Flak defences rather than to the armed forces. Given the expense involved it seems odd that in game Flak defence is civilian factories rather than military factories - but that is probably one of the very much lesser issues with the game.

 

[LordWahu]

Your own quote explains why it is, the way it is. Bombing caused damage but the target side could always rearrange factories so the least important stuff was impacted.

Hence bombing damage accumulates at the bottom of the factory allocation list.

Factories tooled to make engines can't just shift to making guns. IRL factories can't just be hot swapped in that way. They need different tools, different training, different processes, different logistics, etc. etc. etc.

I would say the easy solution is to make damaged factories be randomly assigned to different lines. You can move them out of the affected lines to the bottom of the queue, but that gives you the corresponding hit to production efficiency

 

[dimaparaxod]

To be honest, I got interested in this topic of bombing because in the game, bombing airfields can be very effective, but I have never heard of such cases. In the game, an airfield of 2000 places can be temporarily disorganized into 600 places, which seems quite significant for the fight for air superiority. Do you know of any examples from history of such bombing?

I also found a couple of excerpts (if anyone is interested):

''On the night of June 22, 1941, Heinkels bombed border airfields, cities, and fortifications of the USSR."

"On the night of June 22, 1944, aircraft bombed the Poltava airfield, where American bombers landed after a "shuttle" raid. Up to 200 He-111Hs from KG 53 and KG 55 took part in the raid, guided to the target by He-111H-16/R3 target designator aircraft from III/KG 4. As a result of the strike, 44 B-17 bombers and 5 other aircraft were destroyed, another 28 B-17s and 28 other aircraft were damaged. It was also possible to destroy significant stocks of aviation gasoline."

I think the game means by temporary disorganization of airfields some damage/destruction of aircraft and disruption of fuel consumption for aviation.

 

[Kanitatlan]

One of the disappointments of the air missions is the inability to destroy aircraft on the ground and the inability to use fighter types to do so. Airfield bombing ought to be available as ground attack as well as strategic bombing and the game should allow the logistics mission weapon scores at least for destroying aircraft on the ground.

 

[KubiG37]

One of the disappointments of the air missions is the inability to destroy aircraft on the ground and the inability to use fighter types to do so. Airfield bombing ought to be available as ground attack as well as strategic bombing and the game should allow the logistics mission weapon scores at least for destroying aircraft on the ground.

I think the air game is too abstract for anything like this to work reasonably. There are no planes 'on the ground' and 'in the air'. How would you target them?

The only way I can think of is adding an ability (or some % damage as part of something else) to damage planes not engaged in any mission (which almost never happens).
Currently the planes at airbase are completely invulnerable to anything if not on a mission - you can't bomb them, you can't capture them, you can even drop a nuclear bomb on the airfield and nothing happens to them.

 

[PK_AZ]

With WWII bombing tech, bombing an airfield with strategic bombers really wasn't a great play, too many bombs would land outside the airfield as a percentage. That was mostly done with mediums and fighter-bombers (I guess you could classify a P-47 with bombs as CAS, right?) in the run up to D-Day.

The US did that kind of thing with the 9th Air Force, while the 8th Air Force was the 4-engine bombers. Different missions, different emphasis.

As the other user mentioned, this was mostly done by medium bombers and ground attack aircraft, and a historical example would be the beginning of the Battle of Britain, before they shifted targets from airfields to cities.

Interesting. Let me ask, would you agree with statement like that:
1. Strategic bombing (against industry) and operational bombing (against military buildings, these being fortifications, ports, air bases, radars and supply depots) should be seen as two different missions
2. Light bombers (that means, warplanes with light airframe and bomb locks or small bomb bay) should be allowed to participate in operational bombing

 

[Happy Trigger]

Interesting. Let me ask, would you agree with statement like that:
1. Strategic bombing (against industry) and operational bombing (against military buildings, these being fortifications, ports, air bases, radars and supply depots) should be seen as two different missions
2. Light bombers (that means, warplanes with light airframe and bomb locks or small bomb bay) should be allowed to participate in operational bombing

I agree 100%, but I would add state AA and fuel silos as a target of Operational Bombing, and I'd like to see damage to stockpiles of weapons and aircrafts in airfields. This damage could occur in small amounts, like 1-3% of total available of weapons and 5-10% of aircrafts in the airfield bombed.

 

[GeneralGustavo]

Interesting. Let me ask, would you agree with statement like that:
1. Strategic bombing (against industry) and operational bombing (against military buildings, these being fortifications, ports, air bases, radars and supply depots) should be seen as two different missions
2. Light bombers (that means, warplanes with light airframe and bomb locks or small bomb bay) should be allowed to participate in operational bombing

I agree with both of your points, but I’d like to make a note on the first one — that both strategic bombers and TACs should be able to perform both missions, but with different efficiencies. I’m not sure whether it's worth implementing a separation like light/heavy bombing damage or target acquisition value, but they should both be allowed to run both missions. After all, even if strategic bombers aren't 'ideal' for tactical targets, if I send 5,000 of them, they're going to cause some damage one way or another.

 

[apcio]

I agree 100%, but I would add state AA and fuel silos as a target of Operational Bombing, and I'd like to see damage to stockpiles of weapons and aircrafts in airfields. This damage could occur in small amounts, like 1-3% of total available of weapons and 5-10% of aircrafts in the airfield bombed.

I think that the good and easy way of applying not only AA guns consumption but also equipment loses from state AA might be just making them into an actual unit, similar to Railway guns for example, where these units can't really be moved or have limited movement and work only on victory point/city tiles. But that's just an idea that I think could work quiet well.