air units rate of fire

[shadid1584]

what is rate of fire into air units characteristics?
thx

[Catt]

Your question probably belongs in the Genral Discussions forum, but Rate of Fire (RoF) is the number of "battles" a bombardment performs - a "battle" is a die roll to detrmine whether: (1) the targeted defender loses a Hit Point; or (2) the targeted improvement is destroyed. For example, a regular bomber has a RoF of 3 (IIRC) - so each bommbing run consists of three "battles" - it is possible to take 3 hit points off the targeted unit, or destroy up to 3 tile improvements from the same targeted tile. It is also possible of course to take less than 3 wins away from an engagement, including the not-so-remote possibility of doing no damage whatsoever.

[shadid1584]

thx catt

[WildFire]

Personally i think that any air units are a waste of time and money because i have yet to see any AI bombers, fighters, or helicopters. Fight your wars on the land and water. SAMs are also quite worthless since cruise missles are pathetic and firing nukes gets everyone in the game to attack you.

[cgannon64]

Air units are a waste of time? Yes, a nice artillery is twice as good as a bomber, but air units are, in my mind, a necessary part of every naval invasion force. Anyway, air units have a much better range than artillery, so they are effective for softening up enemy forces before you get in. Plus, when I start running low on units, and I have to put my invasion on hold to rebuild, constant bombing runs on large enemy cities are quite effective.

Just because the AI doesn't build it doesn't mean its bad, in fact its the opposite. The AI never uses artillery offensively, which is probably one of the most important things you can do in Industrial/Modern age.

Bombers---good for injuring units/destroying improvements, and all around demoralizing the enemy (Hey Germany almost got England to surrender without landing a single troop).
Fighters---not that great, I only build a few and use them for scouting, which can be quiet helpful sometimes. Only need like 3.
Helicopters---I guess they're good if you want to drop infantry behind enemy lines, but I'm not really a fan of that.
Cruise Missiles---Pathetic. Don't build them.
SAMs---Of course you should build them. Especially in MP, because humans like myself are a fan of air warfare. Another reason for building SAMs:
SDI---absolutely neccessary. If you play long enough in the Modern Age, a nuclear war WILL happen. And, when it does, when German ICBMs are raining on your city, you will be praying for this.

[DaDoo]

to me I use air units more than I use artillary. Simply put, they're easier to move, longer range, and if my offense stalled due to unforeseen massive lost of units, my bombers can still wreak havoc inside enemy territory. I agree on the part about helicopters are quite useless... and I don't think that is a necessary tech to get into the modern age? I seldom research it. Cruise missiles are nice actually. Keep a few in the front line cities to pick off injured enemy units that you have bombarded to red but ran out of units to attack with. Cruise missile has lethal bombardment ability.

[cgannon64]

Ah yes I forgot about lethal bombardment. I should use cruise missiles in that way, it is a good idea...

[gugalpm]

how do you turn on lethal bombardment?

[Bamspeedy]

In the editor under the 'units' tab, you need to go to each unit that you want to have lethal bombardment and go to the lower left where it lists the unit attributes and select lethel bombardment. NOTE: Make sure you hold the control key down while selecting it, otherwise the other attributes get unselected.

[thefrenchzulu]

In S3G1, I used Bombers for the first time. I used it to disconnect the Rubber in their territory from Carriers.

This strategy wat partly successful, but I lost many Bombers and they AI kept reconnecting them, until I parked my MA army on it a bit later.

(Deity game and the AI had SDI defense and many fighters!)

Just need to add that I use cruise missiles extensively. You run MA armies on large MI cities and you are going to lose many. I CM can soften them up before you strike. Good for ROP betrayals

For resources denial, h-copters can be useful. I built some, but had no more invantry!

[Free Enterprise]

I seriously suggest uping all bombard units bombard strength somewhat, possibly around 50%. This opens viable air power strategies and reflects the strength or artillery. In World War I, it is said that 70% of the casualities were inflicted by artillery.

Plus it helps the iffy naval unit situation.