I have two concerns with this discussion thread…
Strategic bombing is not cost effective. Every time you go in (assuming no fighter cover either that would make it even worse) you have 1/6 chance of loss to anti-aircraft fire and should average 3 damage per bomber. So average 3 damage and 2 loss (1/6 of 12 ipc cost) - sorry that’s too easily swayed by bad dice. One often finds themselves out a few bombers for doing little damage. I’d rather use strats in combat and wipe out significant units.
Proposing 20 IPC for a unit that you want to have a 1 or 2 attack/defense value? Why would anyone ever buy one? I can buy 2 fighters for the same and roll with 3’s and 4’s.
Just my thoughts.
Let’s do some math.
Based on 6 strategic bombers, AA gun has a one in 6 chance in hitting a bomber. Therefore, one bomber on average will be destroyed. That means there will be a loss of 12 IPC units.
With one bomber out of action on average, five bombers remain to take part in the strategic bombing raid. The average value will be 3.5 - the value can be calculated as follows;
6 plus 5 plus 4 plus 3 plus 2 plus 1 equals 21. 21 divided by 6 equals 3.5. 3.5 multiplied by 5 remaining bombers comes to 17.5 IPCs worth of damage. Now, with 6 bombers conducting a strategic bombing raid gives on average a net result of inflicting 5.5 IPCs worth of damage. That’s not a bad result for the strategic bombing raid that everyone seems to hate doing. That’s just doing a simple example strategic bombing raid. The new rules state you need to add an additional 2 to the roll which equates to an average of 5.5 per bomber. If we plug this into our example of 6 strategic bombers, one will be shot down with 5 bombers continuing on to deliver on average damage of 27.5 IPCs with a loss of 12 IPCs. Who out there doesn’t use strategic bombs for strategic bombing raids?
Again, with the introduction of a tactical bomber into the game, it will cost you 11 IPCs and give you a military unit with an attack value of 4 (when accompanied with a fighter, which you normally accompany with a strategic bomber anyway). This unit is a replacement to a strategic bomber. I would prefer to buy a strategic bomber for a strategic bombing raid and buy a cheaper tactical bomber to attack a military unit instead of buying and using a more expensive strategic bomber.
I’ll soon go through an example of rolling 100 rounds of a strategic bombing raid as per the standard rules and compare them to a strategic bomber with a hit value of 2 with a unit cost of 20 to see what the results will produce and have any validity.
I have two concerns with this discussion thread…
Strategic bombing is not cost effective. Every time you go in (assuming no fighter cover either that would make it even worse) you have 1/6 chance of loss to anti-aircraft fire and should average 3 damage per bomber. So average 3 damage and 2 loss (1/6 of 12 ipc cost) - sorry that’s too easily swayed by bad dice. One often finds themselves out a few bombers for doing little damage. I’d rather use strats in combat and wipe out significant units.
Proposing 20 IPC for a unit that you want to have a 1 or 2 attack/defense value? Why would anyone ever buy one? I can buy 2 fighters for the same and roll with 3’s and 4’s.
Just my thoughts.
I agree with this. bombers still should attack at 4
Why?
for that price and how much damage they wouldnt do, i would never buy them. the cost of your potential losses far exceed the damage you can bring to the enemy :|
Agreed. Strategic bombing runs only knock out a couple IPCs from the German mega war machine anyway. I think thay added it mainly for historical purposes. Also if your playing total victory and you have Japan stuck on it’s tiny island then its your only shot of killing its economy.
OK, I’m a little confused with your replies and I think this is because I’ve added a couple of additional arguments associated with the strategic bomber to my original argument.
Arguments raised thus far;
1. Strategic bomber’s attack strength of 4 should be reduced to a lower value due to the introduction of a tactical bomber in A&A and that historically strategic bombers were used mainly as a weapon to destroy strategic targets, not military targets.
2. Strategic bombers should have a hit value of 2 due to their historic ability to take quite a substantial amount of damage by enemy fighters before being destroyed. To price this added advantage, the cost value of a strategic bomber should be increased to better match its increased hit value.
At this point in time, it seems that the second argument is not looking all that sound and I should drop this argument from this thread and simply concentrate on my original argument. I may raise this argument at a later date as a separate thread.
So, back to my original argument. I believe that tactical bombers have (both historically and within A&A) taken the role of being the primary unit in a nation’s airforce to be used to destroy an enemy’s military fighting units. With this being the case, strategic bombers have I believe (both historically and within A&A) taken the role of being the primary unit in a nations airforce to destroy an enemy’s military strategic targets. The game rules have changed for a strategic bomber that conducts a strategic bombing raid by adding an additional 2 IPCs to a bomber’s roll, which has increased it on average from 3.5 to 5.5! this on average will give a player who conducts a strategic bombing raid involving 6 strategic bombers a net result of 15.5 IPCs worth of damage to an opponent. Historically, strategic bombers were used for this purpose - to conduct strategic bombing raids and tactical bombers were used for destroying military fighting units because strategic bombers weren’t very good at destroying them. Hence I believe not only should a strategic bombers attack value be reduced to something more appropriate, but also the rules associated with it conducting battle during the combat phase be altered as well as discussed in previous posts that I’ve added along this thread.
I hope that has cleared a few things up.
Oh yeah jet fighters! I forgot about them. Withem you don’t even need tacs :-D
Look, I agree with some of your points, but the fact is if strategic bombers were to be made realistically it would have no point. Only the UK and USA developed strategic bombers (unless you want to include Germany’s long range sea/recon bomber the Condor), so to make them entirely realistic would only allow two nations to buy and use them.
If you want to, think of it this way…
Fighters: Single engined air superiority fighters such as Spitfire, Mustang, Messerschmidt, Zero, etc. Used in A&A primarily for defense and mobility
Tactical Bombers: Single engined fighter/bombers such as Stuka’s, Val’s, SBD Dauntless, etc. Used in A&A primarily to attack in combined arms with fighters and tanks and for mobility
Strategic Bombers: Any heavy bomber, both strategic and tactical, 2 or 4 engine. Everything from a B-17 to a Heinkel. Used in A&A for mobility and all around attack.
Your proposition, while historically accurate, would weaken the strategic bomber and render it useless. The unit as it is in A&A represents far more than simply a strategic bomber, consider it a misnomer, it is both a strategic and tactical bomber whereas tactical bombers are really fighter/destroyers or fighter/bombers.
Yes when in doubt look at what the peices are. I find them interesting the infantry escpecially. Americans use M1 Garands, British use Enfields, Russians use PPshs, Germans use Kar98ks and the Japanese use Ar… you know I’m not gonna try to pronounce that.
I agree with your thinking on the role of stratigic bombers. the tac bomber has somewhat replaced this piece on the battlefield. I am thinking more along the lines of SBs to make initail preemptive attack in opening of land combat, first round only causilties removed immeadiately. SBs can be left in enemy TT to reduce mobility on opponets turn, sort of like SBs are taking out roads and RR systems, reducing tanks and mechs to 1 move. maybe infantry cant move out of TT in this situation. also, i really like the idea of 3 or more SBs is considered carpet bombing and enemy units defence is reduced by 1. But i do think SBs attack value should be kept at 4.
Haha now that I think about it I never use bombers except the ones I start out with. After that IF I buy air units I get fighters.
I agree with specializing the Strat Bombers a bit more. But like most of you, I agree that SBR attacks usually result in expensive bomber losses for little result. How about this:
Attack: 1 or 2 (not sure which)
Defend: 1
SBR: 2 dice damage
2 hits (1 hit causing return to base as suggested above)
Cost: 15 - 16
Thoughts on this? I would like to encourage more purchases and SBRs as it was a major factor in WW2…
Maybe they could get a single premtive attack in land combat like a sub (AA gun preventable of course). This simulates bombing before an operation. However I think that adding completely new rules for air units would be interesting.
