@Curtmungus your honor of being more famous than me is quite deserved. I salute you.
Realistic AAA and SBR
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The historic ratio I’ve learned about was 1/10 bombers shot down by AA. I agree - if you are going to reduce the AA hit odds, I would definitely reduce the damage a bomber can do.
Keep in mind that by reducing the risk of loss of both the bomber and the IPCs you will also be reducing some of the the suspense and excitement of bombing.
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10% of the total bomber force used was either damaged or shot down, not 10% shot down.
you need to account for damaged bombers that return back and don’t drop payload, as well as lost planes
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As a philistine who plays the game for fun (while also enjoying the presentation of WWII strategic challenges) my focus would be on keeping the game interesting and allowing worthwhile gameplay options, rather than on reflecting reality.
If we want the game to reflect reality I am sure we will come up with hundreds (thousands!) of changes.
In any case one SBR in A&A is not one bombing raid in reality. It is a whole time period of bomber raids. Some equate an A&A turn to a season of 3 months. In which case 1 SBR is 3 month’s worth of bombing raids and resulting aircraft losses and industrial damage. At a rate of 1 sortie per day the whole bomber fleet is shot down or damaged in 10 days (using the 10% above in this thread). I have a vague memory of an average 20 sorties or so before being shot down?
Perhaps trying to build that reality into the game demonstrates the futility of the exercise.
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Well you could tweak the die rolls. AA’s get a 1 die roll against each plane. For a D6 roll you get @1 plane destroyed. D6 roll of @2 damages plane, can’t drop payload but can return to friendly land or ship. SBR’s would be 2 die rolls of a D6.
For AA’s for D12, 1 roll per plane and a roll of @1 and 2 plane destroyed. A roll of @3 and 4 plane damaged and can’t drop payload, but can return to land and ship.
I would use the D12 die roll for AA’s in a game that plays with D6. That way your odds decrease for a hit. You are gonna have to test it.
Also you could make it a D12 roll but @1 only destroys plane and a roll of @2 damages plane and can’t drop payload. Then for SBR’s bombers get only 1 roll of a D6 for damage.
Got to play with it.
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I’m not one for total realism in the game myself. There would be one outcome with each game. Italy would be no fun at all. “I’m making 3 infantry. My 3 infantry in Libya surrender. I’m tranporting 3 infantry from Southern Italy to Libya. I’m now deciding with all these ICs where to place my 3 infantry.” Maybe not the best strategy, but that’s not the point. Total realism would wreck the game.
I’ve just never been a fan of the SBR since winning a game by having the US build nothing but bombers 25+ years ago. Being able to make enough bombers to completely end someone’s production is not fun either. I realize there have been rule tweeks since then. Thankfully so. It still places a lot on the luck element. In the end I think the less SBR the more strategy that must be used to secure victory.
Also I have crap luck. There’s nothing like knowing for a fact you are about to lose at least 2 of your 5 bombers which have a 1 in 6 chance of being shot down.
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Just try using the D12 die for AA’s and keep SBR’s to 1 D6 damage. Put a cap on buying so many bombers then.
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I agree that AAA had, at best, very mixed effectiveness in bringing down aircraft (especially at night), but it was far from useless and its effectiveness could sometimes be boosted. I read an account of the defense of Scapa Flow in WWII which mentioned the use of an interesting AAA technique whose name I can’t recall with certainty but which I think was called a box barrage. Rather than aiming at individual aircraft, the AAA batteries would fire in a fixed pattern (both in terms of their aiming points and of their firing frequency) designed to achieve a maximum density of shell explosions within a defined three-dimentional volume of airspace over the defended area. Enemy aircraft flying outside this box were ignored, because they weren’t flying over any important targets. Enemy aircraft flying inside this box operated in an airspace in which there was the highest-achievable probability that they would run into an AAA burst.
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@Private:
I have a vague memory of an average 20 sorties or so before being shot down?
The USAAF in Europe required bomber crews to fly 25 bombing missions before being released from bomber duty. Most never got that far. The first crew to achieve the 25-mission total, the crew of the Memphis Belle, became celebrities because of it (a wartime documentary was even made about them), which shows just how how hard it was to survive 25 missions.
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If you don’t like something that keeps happening in game, then you got no choice but to house rule it and play test it. :-D
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I’ve just never been a fan of the SBR since winning a game by having the US build nothing but bombers 25+ years ago. Being able to make enough bombers to completely end someone’s production is not fun either. I realize there have been rule tweeks since then. Thankfully so. It still places a lot on the luck element. In the end I think the less SBR the more strategy that must be used to secure victory.
Not sure whether you are playing 40G or 42.2, but sounds like the latter? In which case the optional interceptor rule may already give you the added challenges to any SBR that you are seeking?
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That would be included in changes that I posted.
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@SS:
If you don’t like something that keeps happening in game, then you got no choice but to house rule it and play test it. :-D
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