NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
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so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
NAM said:
so true!
and u should be able to add cas in any way to a div.
also if there is allready a brigade atackment...
mld0806 said:
You choose to ignore arguments to the contrary - that clealy shows air power (CAS/Tac at least) IS unhisticaly weak.
Your "TC" argument has one weak spot - but its HUGE
TC load of average air division is HIGHER than of average land dvision So if you make TC overload hurting more (i agree with the idea) - you will penalize air forces even more. 
Serus said:You choose to ignore arguments to the contrary - that clealy shows air power (CAS/Tac at least) IS unhisticaly weak.
Your "TC" argument has one weak spot - but its HUGE
CAS/Tac didn't do that much DAMAGE, they helped the side with them win battles. So they aren't weaker than history. And aircraft, especially CAS, are DEVESTATING against armor on the move.
Also, the contention that air is less efficient TC wise than ground forces is wrong. First, you can shut down some air TC use if needed, temporarily.
Second, compared to Armor, air is far more TC friendly. I use armor because that is the canned argument against air power, "But for those ICs I can make X more armor units and those units will take more actual ground!":
3 Arm TC use (early to semi-mod): 21.6/28.2/28.8/29.4/30
2 Tac/2 Esc (basic to adv): 16/16.6/18.4
2 CAS/2 Ftr (basic to adv): 15.8/16.8/17.4
IC build cost, air are more valuable, as well:
3 Arm: 11100/13320/14430/14985
2 Tac/2 Esc: 9900/11880/14220
2 CAS/ 2 Ftr: 6360/7920/8880
Third, if you increase the issues that TC causes to an enemy, air becomes MORE powerful in that it has the abiliity to lower enemy available TC and destroy enemy ESE, thereby making them signifigantly weaker, thereby increasing the value of each IC spent on air forces.
Finally, the investment in air power is matched by a decreased use of ground forces for the same job, and not on a 1:1 ratio. If you have signifigant air power, you can do the same job with fewer actual forces, freeing up some TC elsewhere to make up for the slightly higher TC use of the air forces as need be.
mld0806 said:
Bear in mind that air units, particularly CAS, Str and Esc, have big (and universal) production discounts from air doctrine after 1942. Armour is of course discounted as well on some land doctrine trees... but not as much.
mld0806 said:
Sorry Mld but you arent answering arguments of other people -just your own imaginative argument. I repeat for the sake of discussion:
1. NO ONE is suggesting here that aircrafts should deal more DAMAGE ! But you are still insisiting on answering a non-existant argument. Real propositions made by others are summarized in one of my previous posts (i wont revrite them - look by yourself)
2. Air divison VS panzer divison the TC load is smaller for aircrafts BUT there is no reason to compare air VS panzers only - its why i said "average" land divison. You could compare Air vs Land INFANTRY divison aswell.
3. You cant shut the TC completly - only the fuel part - but not supplies part. BTW what is the reason to build aircrafts IF you shut them down later?
4. WHY many of intelligent and experienced players are not using CAS/Tacs (or only for reason of historical accuracy) - especially in multiplayer ? Imo multiplayer is the best way to see the true usuefulness of air force - as far as i know few players (especially German/Soviet) use CAS/Tacs in large numbers (if at all).
Edit: There is one practical reason (for some countries) to build aircrafts (CAS/Tacs) instead of land forces - manpower.
Serus said:
I have been following this debate for a while now, and it interested me, so I decided to do my own test. I wanted to see if airpower was more useful to me than just pure ground forces. I started up a game as germany on VH and decided to build cas, ints, naval Bombers, and escorts from the second I got "basic". I managed to put together a "large" airforce" 12 cas (with 4 escorts), 8 ints, and 6 NBs (with 2 escorts) by the start of the war, plus the 10 tacs I started with (maybe a few came from austria, i don't remember. That was at the detriment of my land forces (which I managed to get up to only about 70/80 infantry, 6 panzers, 6 marines, and 4/5 HQs (only built half), with 27 infantry deployed to hold against the maginot line, and 9 sent to hold kiel (I ignored the low countries border, so I had about 40/50 divisions to deploy against Poland, they had 80)).
Let me tell you what happened:
WITH cas/tac helping I managed to only advance slowly into poland. To take just about any province I need to attack with superior numbers, regardless of the planes I had above the provinces on interdiction, launched 1 hr after combat start. Other wise I would lose the battle. Poland could attack my line with impunity and my planes couldn't force their org down. I decided that a large airforce (exc. NBs) was useless against anything other than "tough-nut-to-crack" provinces.
Maybe it would help if the following were implemented:
a)If you are attacking, and your planes begin bombing the enemy, every unit in your attacking stack should get the combined arms attack bonus (which should be raised, maybe, as I can raise 6 inf (on avg) for each panzer div)
b)It should count as another vector of attack/or give a mali (like flanking, but maybe not so harsh)
c)Air attack should maybe do more MORAL/ORG (NOT str) to help the attackers as well
d)varients of this if your airforce attacks a stack your defending from
Maybe if combat bonuses from air were considered and made more substantial, there would be a reason to build larger airforces.
Kikaider said:
Okay, three points that I've made elsewhere:
1) Aircraft testing in 1939 is not a good marker. Aircraft truly come into their own 1941 onward when all doctrines are researched.
2) VH throws game balance off. If you play at very hard, air becomes much less effective, even in comparisson to land forces. The big hit you take to combat kills you. All systems are benchmarked for normal level of play, and pumping it up to VH will throw off ANY of the systems. At VH, yeah, sure, it's all about numbers on land and tons of carriers at sea. At VH, you NEED major numerical superiority to win.
3) At the lower IC capacity of VH, the economics of a unit are thrown off. Aircraft are very expensive and do come at a massive cut to your land forces. In addition, the AI has a bonus, and therefore has a larger than normal force to oppose you.
I've said before, and I'll say again, I discuss for Normal/whatever aggressiveness you want, NOT VH. VH changes entire game dynamics because you have certain uphills you have to battle and you MUST game the system for every edge you can get to be successful.
This is self-defeating though, destroying infrastructure of provinces you wish to take will ensure a slower advance and hinder encirclements. It does work if you wish to advance on a long broad front, but not if you wish to make fast, narrow incisions to breakthrought the enemy line. The broad advance and "bulldozer" affect will allow the enemy to continually reform and then the war becomes one of attrition and manpower. Unless one destroys an enemy division, or takes a piece of territory, battle is worthless: a small strength loss for each side and the retreating unit reforms. Attacks should only be carried out as a means of destroying the enemy, or taking a vital province.mld0806 said:
Though this ignores the rebasing penalty and subsequent time spent waiting for air units to recover. If you need to constantly rebase aircraft, you're offensive is doomed to be a long slow slog of manpower v manpower.
Further, a similar arguement can be made in favour of armour. There's no need to stack tank divisions in every province, concentrated armour force with infantry support will turn a front into a succession of encirclements where each battle will destroy the enemy, not allow him to retreat.
Having said that, IMHO airpower is closer to reality than those saying it's useless. I agree with your points in other threads that air power is a force multiplier, not an offensive force of itself. A little tweaking would make it more important, but should not make it so powerful that it can inflict damage alone.
mld0806 said:
1) Later doctrines adds organisation and lowers costs mostly, they do not add much - so you are creating a myth of 1941 when aircraft becomes efficent, maybe a little but they are still cost-ineffective. Ground strike AND Logisitcal Strike are at full misison efficiency already in 39 - and this missions are used when you want to help ground troops.
Agreed about VH level.
Still ignoring my arguments...
Dinsdale said:
No one wants this (aircrafts inflicting too much damage alone). But airforce is ineffective as force-multipiler now. One of the main reasons is very difficult coordination air forces/land armies, as i said before the auto-tarrgeting system is not working very well, if it is improved (CAS/Tacs always attacking provinces when a battle is fought - even if ordered to attack a province BEFORE the battle had started, etc...) + some bonus in effectivness to grund troops if supported by arcirafts then aircrafts will be worth it.
And they wont be able to anihilate divisons - because they shouldnt.
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mld0806 said:
My reply
1) If aircrafts come into there own in 1941, then how historical can it be, The germans used airforce to GREAT, IIRC, effect in Poland, Norway, the low Countries and France, and the Battle of Britain (although entirely pointless in hindsight) was to give the germans the air superiority they needed to effectively preform sealion.
2 and 3) You right, I keep forgeting that. I keep expecting, (wrongly in my head), that the AI would be wiser, and the difficulty would stem from that, not malus against the player, so I willing retract those statements/arguements/points
Now let me add to make up for my prior foolishness:
For normal/normal, I've tried playing as the soviets as well (twice), (this German game is was just a test run to see if I should build air for my real game for Germany in VH, so ignore it). Back to russia: even with their numbers and IC allowing me to have a large army and airforce simultaneously (in 1941, with a good chunk of techs researched up to that point, I had a similar composition to my air force as I said above, except change the NBs for more CAS) I didn't really notice a significant improvement in my advances against the Axis powers all around, even when concentrating my air against them (Like Romania or Germany itself), than when I just built more infantry and artillary instead. Maybe a slight reduction in effectiveness, maybe not, all I remember is thinking "I can't see a difference in my battles due to air power".
Serus said:
1. Half the arguments here are that they're too weak, not historically damaging enough. Other propositions include province targeting (which I think is too narrow) or abstraction via brigades or other methods, which takes away strategic depth
2. Agreed, but many anti-air proponents (as I stated in that post) argue that "tanks are better". Certainly, you can infantry rush, but then, as you pointed out, you run into manpower issues. Manpower efficiency is one of the major advantages I point to in my FAQ.
3. You can modulate their use, thereby modulating your TC drain. Now, that's not such a big issue now, but it can help. The reason you would want to shut them down is if 1) they're not currently needed and 2) if you don't need all of your forces ATM, it's cheap to shut them down and leave them sitting so as to not reinforce them and take unnecessary casualties and 3) Modulate oil use. Shutting down extra tanks will still consume NEARLY as much oil as air units will active. Air forces are about economy, and allowing you to control it a little better.
4. You granted the VH argument. Would you also grant that most MP games are at H or VH instead of Normal (so as to not give too big an advantage to a German or USSR player rolling over minors and building a massive early war machine?).
Also, multiplayer, without pause, leads to building massive land forces and rapid deployment and operation without pause. This is difficult to do with air, and as such anything that slows down reaction time will be trimmed. I believe, however, if TC was changed, the dynamic would also change.
Multiplayer isn't the be all and end all of force balance. Forces in the game are balanced (at Normal), it's simply AI employment that is the major issue at the moment, ESPECIALLY with air forces because of poor force composition.
I also believe that, if one person successfully employs air in multiplayer and succeeded (I've never played multi, and I don't think I'd do so hot at it as I'm the slow, strategizing, economizing, pop-up-and-pause-to-every-message-I-want-to-react-to type player), you'd see the game shift to follow (as some have said they have seen).
The reason that air comes into it's own in '41 is that the entirety of the air superiority operation comes into it's own in '41. Certainly, the Germans used air to great effect in '39 and '40, however in '41 Port Strike, Runway Cratering, and Installation Strike come into 100% efficiency. With Runway Cratering and Installation Strike, you gain air superiority. If your efficiency there goes up, then your losses go down, and rolling into the next phase of operations, be it Logistical Strike and Interdiction/Ground Attack or Logistical Strike and Strategic Attack type operations, becomes easier and you have more strength to do it.
Dinsdale said:
Logistical Strike use should depend on your nation. As Germany, it's all about the speed, so I only use Logistical Strike to crack a tough nut.
Also, your focus is wrong. Attacks should only be carried out as a means of obtaining a strategic objective in defeating the opposing nation. You do not want to defeat the enemy in detail, you want to beat the enemy nation.
Plan your advances with strategic objectives in mind and concentrate on them. If you're concentrating on fighting the enemy, then you aren't concentrating on winning the war. Don't fight unnecessary battles (and encircled troops that can't muster the strength to break out are unnecessary battles, and unnecessary provinces to pay the occupation TC drain on).
Dinsdale said:
Certainly, excessive rebasing is an issue, and will degrade your efficiency. You need to plan your offensives, analyze what air infrastructure you have in place, and build up your infrastructure to support your air forces. I build MANY airfields as Germany, both to set up interceptor/night fighter bases and to build up front line airfields for planned wars. 12 along the Polish border (4 in each of 3 provinces) for my CAS are an example I can think of right off the top of my head. These airfields along with those existing in Germany and Prussia allow air forces to operate over the whole of the Polish offensive without need to rebase. You can rebase some CAS to Lodz to give them a bit further reach if you need it, but usually by the time you're overextending your CAS reach, it's all academic from there on out anyhow.
Dinsdale said:
Certainly, concentrated armor allows encirclement, but also takes time and is vulnerable. However, smaller armored forces concentrated with infantry support can achieve the same result, and be more successful with air power.
In addition, since air power can harrass and keep retreating troops disorganized, follow on battles and continued operation are easier. You can only advance so far before you have to stop and reorganize. If you can keep battles just that much shorter, this can add an extra province or even two to your advance before you have to consolodate. You're going to lose a lot more org in an extra hour or so of battle than you will in days of movement.
mld0806 said:
1. Ok maybe some arguments were about abstracting airforces (as last resort) - but we both know it wont happen in HOI2, smaller tweaks in existing engine are possible however.
Most people complaining about airpower "weakness" (like me
) dont want to make aircrafts more deadly (more damage vs strengh) - we want to be able to coordinate airpower with land forces better (via better implementation of auto-targeting system/feature - EXISTING already in HOI2) and a bonus to ground forces fighitng battles supported by CAS (to lesser extent Tacs).I repeat - i dont want aircrafts anihilating whole divisions.
2. I agree about manpower - but you didnt mentioned it in previous posts, and btw its unhistorically low IMHO a "division" of aricrafs should cost much more than 2 mp - but then all game balalance would be even more against alrady weak airplanes.
3. Still its wiser to build more infantry divisons - as long as you have manpower, 1 infantry division TC load is only 1/3 or 1/4 of Air divison.
4. Even if mp games are played in VH - all players are using this level, so all bonuses/maluses are equal to all sides, furthemore with LESS divisons - and smaller stacks Air power (CAS/Tacs) is more effective but its still not used.
However Naval Bombers ARE used in multiplayer widely (at least in AAR/posts i read) so airpower can be managed in multi.
Conclusion - i believe that what you prospose is not enough. What is needed for CAS/Tacs:
- better implementaion of auto-targetting (or targeting of provinces)
- a bonus (in effectivness - could be called "combined arms") to land units supported by CAS (possibly Tacs too - with lower bonus) in battle.
Pros: it wont make aircrafts to be Uber killing machines - anihilating divisons on its own. It will strenghten them - they need that imo.
Cons: ?
But what about Russia - vey few airbases there - CAS should be able to use very hastily prepared landings. Or make FIRST level of airbase (when you select to build in a province) very FAST to build (2 weeks to build level 1 then 3 months to level 2 then normal speed for levels 3+)
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