Bombing Missions

Theov

Theov

Deity
Joined
Feb 11, 2008
Messages
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Location
Taiwan
Sup.
I build me some lot of bombers and some fighters. The AI is wayyyy behind in tech. The worst thing they have is infantery *but a 3 tanks take 1 of those out btw... how does that happen*.
.
Anyway. is it normal that most of the bomber missions "fail"?
It annoys me.
 
Theov said:
Sup.
I build me some lot of bombers and some fighters. The AI is wayyyy behind in tech. The worst thing they have is infantery *but a 3 tanks take 1 of those out btw... how does that happen*.
.
Anyway. is it normal that most of the bomber missions "fail"?
It annoys me.
Click to expand...

I have beeen using bombers heavily in the War in the Pacific scenario that comes with the game, and have discovered that most bomber missions do fail, unless attacking ships. The interesting thing is that this pretty much is accordance with WW2 experience, in that attacks on cities and ground troops did much less damage than anticipated before the war, or claimed during the war. Before someone screams loudly as their flying ox is gored, this is based on several years of research at the National Archives in the background documents to the US Strategic Bombing Survey, a detailed study down immediately after the war on the effectives of airpower. In order to get an serious effects in both the game and real life, you need to mount a sustained bombing campaign, and put a lot of effort into it. Even by playing around with attack values boosting the Allies attack factor to reflect normally heavier payloads of bigger bombs, it still takes a lot of effort to do damage. Ship attacks, on the other hand, normally pay off, and feel about right to what I have determined was actually the case. The only exception to this rule of sustained effort for damage goes to the Fourteenth Air Force in China, Chennault's Merry Men, who did damage way out of proportion to the numbers of planes involved. Unfortunately, that is hard to reflect in the unit value system.
 
Bombers do sometimes fail. I think there's a 25% chance to fail, 25% chance to destroy city improvements, 25% chance to kill population, and 25% chance to hurt units. not sure though, probably wrong.

That's why I use artillery though, since it'll always go after units first.

Oh and BTW, i think the higher the "rate of fire" the higher the chance of hitting something.
 
Aabraxan said:
I don't think Rate of Fire affects the chances of hitting a target. IIUC, it is the number of hit points that can be taken off of a target in one shot.
Click to expand...

I will need to check that, Aabraxen. I have jacked up the bombard rate on the B-17 and the B-29, especially the B-29 to reflect the use of incendiaries by them, and at best, maybe 40% of the attacks are successful. I will need to go back and check the values that I gave them, as I did the mods a while back. My success rate against ships is considerably higher, I would estimate on the order of 75%. Overall, I have it to a point in that scenario where it pretty much approximates actual WW2 experience. Once I get the rates I have them set too, I will get back and post them here.
 
With enough bombers, the odds will still be in your favor. I'm reminded of an old game where I (Persia) had my continent and the Zulu had overrun their continent. I decided to do an old WWII style invasion. I had near a thousand troops in all when I laucnhed. This included a hefty carrier fleet (10 total carriers, each supported by at least 10 other warships) Another 250-300 Tanks, but the main element was Bombers. I had to have had at least 500. The bombers, even with their fail rates, did the majority of the work. The lethal bombardment makes for very easy conquering. Once I had a spearhead on their continent I airlifted all bomber over to there continent. They must have had at least 35-40 cities, close to 800 total troops (some outdated though). They didn't last more then 5 turns.

The moral I'm trying to get across is that Bombers, will tend to be ineffective when used in small amounts. A dozen here or there will not net very good results. A hundred bombers here or there though will. These are to be used en masse, not peicemeal. Only drawback is the insane amount of micromanagement. I wish I still had the save before I luanched that invasion though.....it was a sight to behold. :)
 
What government were you in? Surely unit support for 1000+ units must have killed your economy if you were in demo.
 
Unit support can be better in demo than in republic, if you have a lot of units. (though why build a lot of units if your not warring?)

But I'm sure he's talking about a huge map, and he has a large effective core.
 
timerover51 said:
The only exception to this rule of sustained effort for damage goes to the Fourteenth Air Force in China, Chennault's Merry Men, who did damage way out of proportion to the numbers of planes involved. Unfortunately, that is hard to reflect in the unit value system.
Click to expand...
617 squadron anyone?
 
brennan said:
617 squadron anyone?
Click to expand...

Greetings Brennan, I will concede the reminder about 617 Squadron, but I was focusing more on a higher level of effort than Squadron Level. After all, at Midway, the Yorktown dive bombers, totaling 18 aircraft took out 2 of the Japanese carriers, and you also have the Taranto strike by 21 Swordfish, and of course, the Bismarck Episode as well. While you do have some spectacular achievements by individual squadrons, I was focusing on effects over a large area as a result of a sustained offensive. Chennault's 14th AF did a tremendous amount of damage with not a lot of planes., including shutting down a large portion of the Chinese rail network.
 
timerover51 said:
Greetings Brennan, I will concede the reminder about 617 Squadron, but I was focusing more on a higher level of effort than Squadron Level. After all, at Midway, the Yorktown dive bombers, totaling 18 aircraft took out 2 of the Japanese carriers, and you also have the Taranto strike by 21 Swordfish, and of course, the Bismarck Episode as well. While you do have some spectacular achievements by individual squadrons, I was focusing on effects over a large area as a result of a sustained offensive. Chennault's 14th AF did a tremendous amount of damage with not a lot of planes., including shutting down a large portion of the Chinese rail network.
Click to expand...

Re: this and earlier comment: have to be careful about which kind of bombers you are talking about. Strategic bombers vs. ship was very disappointing during the war; they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, from altitude. But the mining campaign of Japanese (& Korean) home waters in '45 was extremely effective, especially for the numbers of sorties involved. Basically, Japanese sea transport was shut down, & Japan very close to starving to death by late '45.

kk
 
One time I bombed an enemy city to rubble, killing all the defenders. I failed to notice that I had no units that could get there in one turn so my allies walked into there and took it. :wallbash:
 
timerover51 said:
I will need to check that, Aabraxen. I have jacked up the bombard rate on the B-17 and the B-29, especially the B-29 to reflect the use of incendiaries by them, and at best, maybe 40% of the attacks are successful. I will need to go back and check the values that I gave them, as I did the mods a while back. My success rate against ships is considerably higher, I would estimate on the order of 75%. Overall, I have it to a point in that scenario where it pretty much approximates actual WW2 experience. Once I get the rates I have them set too, I will get back and post them here.
Click to expand...
Let us know what you find, timerover51. I'd rather be wrong than spread bad information. That said, I think the Bombard value is different from the Rate of Fire. I think Bombard affects the chance to hit, while RoF determines how many hit points can be taken off a defender in a single strike.

With all that said, I'd agree with DS_Legionary: Individually, bombers aren't that effective. Pile them high and deep, though, and they can be devastating. (Not that I've ever had anywhere near 500, mind you.) My usual tactic in that stage of the game goes something like this:
1) Send out a fighter or two for recon (or park a ship next door if the target is coastal);
2) Bombard with artillery (& ships if the target is coastal);
3) Send in the bombers.
4) Send in the ground troops.

Ideally, your arty and boats soften up the defenders, the bombers kill the defenders, and the ground troops walk in unopposed. Doesn't always work out that way, but it's always worth a shot.
 
To clarify a point - RoF DOES increase chance to hit, on units, at least. I don't know whether it increases chances on bombarding improvements or cities, but for units I know that it does.

This is because the RoF reflects how many chances the bombard power has to inflict damage. If the RoF is 3, that not only means that there is a maximum of 3 damage that can be inflicted, but also that the bombardment strength has 3 chances to inflict its damage. Thus, a unit with 4 RoF will be around twice as likely to inflict 2 damage as will a unit with 2 RoF, because the 2R will have to hit on 100% of it's chances, while the 4R will need only 50% success.

Like I said, I'm not sure if that applies to things other than units, though.

When it comes to strategy, artillery is USUALLY more efficient than bombers, as they hit the units rather than the city itself. Of course, Bombers enjoy greater tactical mobility (though some would also point out that artillery has greater strategic mobility, assuming a decent rail network), and if you have to move more than 2 tiles in before you can attack the city, bombers can give you one thing that artillery can't - speed. Using bombers, you can empty a city that artillery has softened up, or you can strike at cities behind the front line, enabling your fast attackers to make a deep thrust into enemy territory. If you're the defender, Bombers are superior to artillery due to their higher RoF and the fact that they can kill in addition to wound (though again, artillery enjoy greater strategic mobility).
 
To all those asking about unit support, Communism is one hell of a wartime govt. I had right around 100 cities. IIRC units support is 6 per city no matter the size. 100*6=600 unit support regular. Add in the fact that I was running zero science at this point and under commie, though my core loses some production, all the rest of my cities were now productive (excluding where I grouped them close together CxxC to help get unit support up). This was also a large map, so my military is gonna be larger then it would have been on a normal standard size map.....I really wish I had that save. For fans of modern warfare it would be a blast.
 
BTW that was on C3C 1.22. Communism is an oft looked over govt just because it comes so late in the game. It's a shame. You can still keep up with the science output (least I could) if you want....up till the mid Modern Age. Demos and Reps will be getting 4 turn tech while Commie govts are stuck at 6-7 turn techs (unless you're deficit spending). Plus you get the bonus of no longer being limited to your core production wise. Although being a bit slower in tech pace shouldn't hurt that bad. You're military is going to generally be bigger and you can go to war indefinately. If they are building the space-ship, just detroy it...MUAHAHAHAHA :)
 
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