Historical Realism of TAC/Medium Bombers being lackluster

[sekelsenmat]

I like to Roleplay while playing, so as Germany I started going for those twin engined medium bombers they were famous for, which in the game means TACs. Since I play in veteran difficulty, I can't totally ignore IC efficiency and my attempts to use TACs show it is only useful as a long ranged "air support" bonus giver. It's ground bombing stat is so weak that it doesn't do significant direct damage, but it fills the width to give the bonus. As a long ranged NAV it seems to trade badly against convoys and doesn't help in naval battles enough. It also can't strat bomb because it's stat is so low it barely does anything and it trades very badly Vs light fighters. Strat bombers not only do much more damage, they also trade well vs light fighters.

But is it really realistic that they should be so useless?

What I found is that:

1> Against ships in the Mediterranean Swordfish (NAV), Blenheim (Hvy F), Ju 87 (CAS) and Ju 88 (TAC) were all used and I don't see much difference in their performance. Medium bombers could carry torpedoes, so the main advantage of NAV would be similar performance for a lower price and fuel. B17 were also used against ships but in all occasions I read it was pointless. Bombing from high altitude didn't have enough precision to hit anything.

2> Radar equipped Wellington TACs were the standard British "patrol" in ithe Mediterranean. Patrol fleets like hoi4 propose didn't exist. The British used TACs and Ultra intelligence.

3> The main purpose of TACs was not a long ranged CAS, but they could do this: >>>A report from the Soviet 23rd Tank Division of the 12th Armoured Corps described a low-level attack by Ju 88s on 22 June, resulting in the loss of 40 tanks. However, the Ju 88s were to suffer steady attritional losses. At 0415 on 22 June 1941, III./KG 51 attacked the airfield at Kurovitsa. Despite destroying 34 Polikarpov I-153s, the Ju 88s were intercepted by 66 ShAP I-153s. Six Ju 88s were shot down before the German fighter escort dealt with the threat.[38] By the end of the first day of the campaign, Ju 88 losses amounted to 23 destroyed.[39]<<<

4> A main reason to build TACs was "air superiority" in game terms which means logistical bombing, so it should have a higher value here not the same as fighter and CAS, maybe 1.5? >>>>Ju88...helped claim between 233 and 248 Allied aircraft on the ground between 10–13 May 1940.[29] The Ju 88 was particularly effective at dive-bombing. Between 13–24 May, I. and II./KG 54 flew 174 attack against rail systems, paralysing French logistics and mobility.<<<

5> The UK built 11400 Wellington TACs, Germans built 15000 Ju88 and the USA 10000 B25 TACs. All stupid building a useless lackluster aircraft?

Any thoughts on how to make TAcs great again or if it is realistic that they were a stupid choice and Hitler would have won if he only had 4 engine bombers instead? (A ridiculous proposition)

I think the medium designer could be improved a lot, like +20% strategy bombing, +10% ground attack. The variant effects could be better too. And increase its air superiority stat. Maybe strat bomber main stat should be decreased. I am already doing significant damage Vs UK with 100 of them, wonder if I had 1k what it would be...

 

[Zauberelefant]

I would wait for a plane designer along the lines of the ship designer.
If we just look at the Ju 88 and similar planes, those were used as Dive bombers, AT gun ground support, reequipped for night fighting (radar, "schräge music" ("angled music", a upwards firing device of large calibre) ), or as Torpedo bombers (especially in the Arctic against convoys).

So we have plenty of options in exchanging the modules, upgrading planes, doing research and employing them.

The fw 190 and me 109 in ground attack configuration would make a case for ground support missions for later fighters.
Or giving the Mustang the fuel capacity it needs to reach Berlin...

But I say: give us a designer tool!

 

[Balesir]

While I agree that a plane designer would be very neat (especially if done well - the trade-offs and possibilities of aircraft design are manifold), what I would really like to see is more range and nuance in setting up air missions. Tactical or fast bombers were used in a multiplicity of ways; such things as parachute-retarded bombs were developed to allow very low level strikes that minimised the chances of losses to local AA, bomb sights were developed for (relatively) accurate high-level bombing, airborne interception radar was developed for night-fighter effectiveness while air-to-surface radar allowed target identification at night both at sea and on land, and all of this allowed something like a "bombing" mission to be done in a myriad of ways. Things like altitude options for air missions and special equipment (low altitude bombs, radar...) that makes missions with particular parameters of load out* and altitude more or less effective would be amazing.

*: Load outs would allow lighter loads for increased range, torpedoes or bombs, "bunker buster" bombs for use against fortified targets, guided weapons in the later years, ultra-low level parachute bombs and maybe more.

 

[DukofDeth]

The system for setting up offensives should be used everywhere, to simulate the time and effort needed to husband the resources [including spare parts for repairs] such that without a prepared offensive, you're limited to what you can commit to any attack, regardless of where it is - or to defending against attacks. This would serve to slow the AI down, and better model how small countries were just not capable of massive sustained offensives. And it could be toggled on or off in the game rules during set-up.

Here, spy networks would be more useful. Just having a network in enemy territory would give advance warning of an offensive being prepared, and allow for attacks to disrupt the build up or to perhaps cull some of the designated assault forces [a local envelopment, then retreat before becoming too extended]. Maybe even an option to build up for a better organized defense, which would cause much more casualties than a regular dug-in defense [a limited-time fort level bonus]. Such offensives would vary in time and scope depending on the targets/objectives as well as how many formations are being committed.

Say you want to bomb enemy factories - you would need to prepare for, plan and then launch an air offensive against a specific target region/state - not just the whole air zone - and then either allow the mission to run its course, or if casualties/losses get too high, cancel it. While some bombers might get shot down, some will return having been disrupted, and are too damaged to repair [so contribute to the abstracted parts pool, maybe a small bonus to readying for the next offensive, or maintaining the current one]. No more switching from one air zone to another; you can cancel, or suffer through the losses.

I've noticed that the AI doesn't assign a/c to divisions, and a/c assigned to divisions tend to operate wherever the AI thinks it needs to be [such as maintaining air superiority over Western Poland when I'm already assaulting Moscow]. With a more specific strategic target, air assets assigned to a theater for defense would then react to enemy attacks, some of which may be just meant to lure air assets away from the real effort [I used German strat bombers to draw away hundreds of RAF fighters to other parts of Britain, then getting air superiority over the channel for a paradrop mission].

I don't feel that we'd be doing anything more than bogging down our CPUs by adding more things for the game to count - food, bullets, bandages, toothbrushes, little sugar cube tongs for British generals to use during their tea time - and instead would be better off using the system introduced for the SCW everywhere - everywhere is small scale attritional fighting that will last for months and years, unless an offensive is built up. But the offensive should be attached to a formation or that formations progress toward a specific objective, rather than to just a single state or even a group of states [as those latter cases might run out too soon, or allow forces not specificed for the offensive to benefit]. In a way, an assault corridor would be specified, so actions to open up the penetration, secure & strengthen the flanks, and to keep making forward progress, all would be supported, but running off to snatch an unguarded target of opportunity would not be supported [once units were outside the corridor]. Decisions to extend the offensive should come at the sot of weakening the army elsewhere. Again, spy networks can become useful for more than just the few bonuses they offer, as now you'd know which areas are more likely to experience an enemy counter-offensive, and can be certain to not weaken those areas.

Ultimately, CIC and MIC would be the determiner for how long an offensive could be sustained before completely drawing down stockpiles. Depending on compliance, ammunition made in occupied nations could be less reliable, or produced more slowly as too much would be failing inspection. Rather than modeling resistance through garrison casualties, model it through the disruptions they caused to the Axis efforts at sustaining their side of the war.

Really, we've got most of the tools in place now. Its just a matter of figuring out how to apply it all, and better. And to remember to offer toggles to shut things off as there will always be those who won't want to use all of that [or can't due to CPU load restrictions].

 

[Hoi Neuling]

We all will get a new Airforce- and Army-Fight, R & D as well as Buildup-System.

The R & D System (Airforce / Army-Designer and Parts) will be very interessting. I don´t like the old system too where you have only the 4 Choises of Improvements. Such a Designer was first for the Navy a MUST HAVE!

Now the Devs work paralley on the Airforce- and Army-Designers for such a system. The only thing we can do atm is to keep our Feets and Hands still. To make the Airforce and Army better then they are now are a big concern from the Devs too.

The first Infos about it and what more will be refited we will know in the Dev Dirays after Summer Vication. But I think that the Devs work too in the Summer Vication, because you can´t fly away etc. not to get the deadly Corona-Virus. They only don´t say something to us about the Vication-Policy.

 

[sekelsenmat]

We all will get a new Airforce- and Army-Fight, R & D as well as Buildup-System.

The R & D System (Airforce / Army-Designer and Parts) will be very interessting. I don´t like the old system too where you have only the 4 Choises of Improvements. Such a Designer was first for the Navy a MUST HAVE!

Now the Devs work paralley on the Airforce- and Army-Designers for such a system. The only thing we can do atm is to keep our Feets and Hands still. To make the Airforce and Army better then they are now are a big concern from the Devs too.

The first Infos about it and what more will be refited we will know in the Dev Dirays after Summer Vication. But I think that the Devs work too in the Summer Vication, because you can´t fly away etc. not to get the deadly Corona-Virus. They only don´t say something to us about the Vication-Policy.

How do you know that there will be a plane designer and all other stuff you mention? I didn't see anything on Dev diaries.

I think that the current system has some things going for it. Right now we have a rock-scissors-paper in terms of Light Fighter beats Heavy Fighter beats Strat Bomber beats Light Fighter, which might be realistic. If we could "patrol" with planes and TACs were more useful and strats less OP I'd be happy.

Air doctrines also could use some improvements. Battlefield support has a 20% CAS agility which is useless. I rolled the numbers and it makes like a 1% difference in combat or something, while missing in the indispensable 10% agility for fighters.

 

[Louella]

historically, on the UK side, the Mosquito was capable of delivering more ordnance, faster, more accurately, using less avgas, aluminium, and aircrew, than the 4-engine heavy bombers.
Anything the Stirlings and Halifaxes could do, the Mosquito could do cheaper.

Only the Lancaster could do something that the Mosquito could not - carry the Grand Slam and Tallboy bombs. But those were a tiny minority of Lancaster missions.

Tactical bombers such as the Mosquito, were good at attacking: Airfields, railway depots, radar installations, fortifications.

Strike aircraft like the Beaufighter, and Mosquito FB models, were very good at anti-shipping roles.


Strategic bombers main contribution, really, was that they compelled the enemy to spend a great deal of effort on defence rather than offence. The amount of 88mm guns that were built to defend Germany was considerable, the amount of technical resources dedicated to night fighters and airborne radar sets took away from other projects. And when the USAAF entered the battle, the amount of day fighters that had to be committed to defence rather than offence was considerable.

 

[STABBY5]

I would wait for a plane designer along the lines of the ship designer.

They would have to rework air. Right now planes have very few stats you can change.

 

[Emren]

TAC needs slightly better stats, and HFT needs to be able to do Naval Bombing mission. And then we need a remake of the Air Doctrines (see sig.). If they develop an air design feature, that could work well, but I don’t think the current system is that bad.

 

[Harin]

How do you know that there will be a plane designer and all other stuff you mention? I didn't see anything on Dev diaries.

I think that the current system has some things going for it. Right now we have a rock-scissors-paper in terms of Light Fighter beats Heavy Fighter beats Strat Bomber beats Light Fighter, which might be realistic. If we could "patrol" with planes and TACs were more useful and strats less OP I'd be happy.

Air doctrines also could use some improvements. Battlefield support has a 20% CAS agility which is useless. I rolled the numbers and it makes like a 1% difference in combat or something, while missing in the indispensable 10% agility for fighters.

I know the developers have at least thought of making a tank designer. I suspect that making a plane designer could not be far from their minds. It is possible that the ship designer was not a lark, but possibly the beginning of a thought process that lets the players tinker with what we are building. Of course, there are no guarantees that anything specific will make it in the game, but you did seem to want to know if the designers have discussed any such ideas.

Some good points in this thread! I've been thinking about how to best do a tank designer ever since we did the naval designer, so it's very interesting to see what people think about it. I didn't even know there were experiments with autoloaders in tanks during the war, I thought they were all during the Cold War. Thanks for pointing that out!



I think there is a lot to be said about the entire field of crew ergonomics that goes way beyond good/bad optics. I'm not sure how best to handle it, because I feel like it could become a "do you want your tank to be bad yes/no" instead of being a deliberate choice to design a tank a certain way.



This is actually something I've thought about a lot. Do people really think it would be fun to be forced to make an APC, if that's the primary use of half-tracks? It feels to me like it would be just unnecessary clicking. there doesn't seem to be any real decision-making involved, and we don't want the player to be forced to go through the same steps every game just to get the basic functionality they have right now (research mechanized, get mechanized equipment).

 

[Hoi Neuling]

I know that because the intersted Hoi 4 Gamers read everything about it incl. the small To-Do-List the Devs have shown and hear to that what the Devs mention in PDXCon, the Vids etc.

And in the last DD they announced that they are working on 2 Patches and DLC´s parallely. The first one is about the Pacific (Ship / AIR!!!!!!) and the second is East-Europe (GROUND-FORCES!!!!).

They announced that they are not happy with the existing Airforce- / Armyvehicle-Research, the Airfight- / Groundfight-Engine as well as the Production- / Upgrade-System. So they will change it.

Not to forget the Supply-System for all Forces.

 

[Harin]

historically, on the UK side, the Mosquito was capable of delivering more ordnance, faster, more accurately, using less avgas, aluminium, and aircrew, than the 4-engine heavy bombers.
Anything the Stirlings and Halifaxes could do, the Mosquito could do cheaper.

Only the Lancaster could do something that the Mosquito could not - carry the Grand Slam and Tallboy bombs. But those were a tiny minority of Lancaster missions.

Tactical bombers such as the Mosquito, were good at attacking: Airfields, railway depots, radar installations, fortifications.

Strike aircraft like the Beaufighter, and Mosquito FB models, were very good at anti-shipping roles.


Strategic bombers main contribution, really, was that they compelled the enemy to spend a great deal of effort on defence rather than offence. The amount of 88mm guns that were built to defend Germany was considerable, the amount of technical resources dedicated to night fighters and airborne radar sets took away from other projects. And when the USAAF entered the battle, the amount of day fighters that had to be committed to defence rather than offence was considerable.

Such good points. Like most of us here, I was a WW2 buff when I was younger and the Mosquito was famous. More than a few books written about its exploits.

During WW2, fighter bombers and tactical bombers were busy doing a very important job blowing stuff up that do not exist on our maps in HOI4. The Americans especially went after the rear areas of the enemy, attacking anything moving on rails, roads, or open country. No battle required to get them to engage, like in game. This makes it especially hard to model realistic use of TACs in the game with the current system, imho.

 

[sekelsenmat]

During WW2, fighter bombers and tactical bombers were busy doing a very important job blowing stuff up that do not exist on our maps in HOI4. The Americans especially went after the rear areas of the enemy, attacking anything moving on rails, roads, or open country. No battle required to get them to engage, like in game. This makes it especially hard to model realistic use of TACs in the game with the current system, imho.

There is a mechanic for this in the game, it's called "Air superiority" and it causes a penalty in speed for enemy units. (or so someone said in a recent thread)

The wiki has some info on it, but it looks hopelessly outdated: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_warfare#Air_superiority

It says "Air superiority" give the "Air Support" combat modifier, but in recent threads people say that CAS/TAC filling the width is what gives "Air Support" bonus, it can't be both, can it?

 

[Anaraxes]

Ground Support directly damages enemy units. It's not a bonus to all other unit's stats. The Air Support bonus comes from having air superiority in the air zone over the actual battle site. Aircraft other than fighters contribute to the air superiority total, though fighters are good at it. So you can have AS even if you have no fighters around -- usually when the enemy is focused exclusively on trying to win in some other air zone. So, pure unopposed CAS might get you both AS and damage in combat.

Air superiority is also good for protecting your bombers and disrupting the enemy's, not to mention killing them, so air superiority does have that benefit to combat damage, even though that's not directly shown as a modifier in the battle details popup.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Ground Support directly damages enemy units. It's not a bonus to all other unit's stats. The Air Support bonus comes from having air superiority in the air zone over the actual battle site. Aircraft other than fighters contribute to the air superiority total, though fighters are good at it. So you can have AS even if you have no fighters around -- usually when the enemy is focused exclusively on trying to win in some other air zone. So, pure unopposed CAS might get you both AS and damage in combat.

Air superiority is also good for protecting your bombers and disrupting the enemy's, not to mention killing them, so air superiority does have that benefit to combat damage, even though that's not directly shown as a modifier in the battle details popup.

Ok, maybe I mixed things.

But anyway, what I meant is that the "Air superiority" stat should be changed to give TAC a much higher value than light fighters to represent their better bombing of logistics.

 

[walt526]

But anyway, what I meant is that the "Air superiority" stat should be changed to give TAC a much higher value than light fighters to represent their better bombing of logistics.

I'm not sure that that makes much sense to give TAC the same air superiority bonus as HFTR or whatever. They just defend themselves from attack during air-to-ground missions rather than seek out air-to-air engagements. They already contribute 100x air superiority that STR provide, which seems reasonable.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Ground Support directly damages enemy units. It's not a bonus to all other unit's stats. The Air Support bonus comes from having air superiority in the air zone over the actual battle site. Aircraft other than fighters contribute to the air superiority total, though fighters are good at it.

This thread says that "Air Support bonus" doesnt have anything to do with "Air Supperiority" and that fighters cannot provide it:

How is Air Support bonus modifier calculated?

How is Air Support bonus modifier from having CAS in the strategic area calculated? (The wiki has the formula for CAS damage but not support bonus.)

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[sekelsenmat]

Ground Support directly damages enemy units. It's not a bonus to all other unit's stats. The Air Support bonus comes from having air superiority in the air zone over the actual battle site. Aircraft other than fighters contribute to the air superiority total, though fighters are good at it.

This thread says that "Air Support bonus" doesnt have anything to do with "Air Supperiority" and that fighters cannot provide it:

How is Air Support bonus modifier calculated?

How is Air Support bonus modifier from having CAS in the strategic area calculated? (The wiki has the formula for CAS damage but not support bonus.)

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[Secret Master]

I think the medium designer could be improved a lot

We did this on our MP mod, although it was more to help out the ailing heavy fighter.

I want to point something out about TACs in the game, though:

Part of the weirdness with TACs in HOI4 is that some of the examples you specify aren't really tactical bombers in the sense we have them in the game. Some of them end up being closer to NAVs, but with much longer ranges than land-based NAVs have in vanilla. There are also no RADAR techs for planes, so night fighters or planes capable of dropping RADAR guided bombs are simply not a thing. You don't need those bigger air frames for those technologies or roles.

So, what we end up with is a TAC that is essentially a long-ranged CAS that can sometimes strategically bomb. In SP, there's not much call for that.

There are plenty of MP groups where TACs end up being one of the most important planes, though. This is in part due to banning STRs, but also due to the sheer number of planes and needing the extra range TAC provide.

The irony is that we might get more use out of medium air frame aircraft in HOI4 if we had more types of planes or more tech to shove in them. You wouldn't necessarily have more TACs, but you'd have plenty of Wellingtons kitted out for Mediteranean patrol duty or Ju88s set up to run specific kinds of bombing missions.

As an aside, you mentioned something in your post:

Any thoughts on how to make TAcs great again or if it is realistic that they were a stupid choice and Hitler would have won if he only had 4 engine bombers instead? (A ridiculous proposition)

I wish I could find the quotation again, but at one point Goering was unhappy with aircraft development of larger planes. He cursed those who told him that a two engine bomber could do everything (ground attack, strategic bombing, and so on) well.

 

[Spelaren]

I agree, tacs are pretty useless unless you are in China.