I’m not sure why the title of this thread is Strategic Bombing for G40 and 1942.2 – so far I haven’t seen anything here about 1942.2. In 1942.2, there are no tactical bombers or minor factories, and the interceptor rules are very rarely used.
That said, I am interested in figuring out an alternate set of strategic bombing rules for 1942.2, because I’m not especially satisfied with them – the fact that all the factories automatically come with their own built-in anti-air defenses means that (a) it is extremely difficult to turn a profit on strategic bombing, and it also means that (b) if an attacker does manage to build up a successful strategic bombing campaign, there’s nothing at all that the defender can do about it. If Germany and Japan team up to bomb Moscow, or if the UK and USA team up to bomb Tokyo, the victim is just at the mercy of the dice – other than hoping to roll a “1”, there’s nothing the bombing victim can do to resist. The OOB 1942.2 interceptor rules aren’t useful because, as Black Elk pointed out, Germany is usually quite happy to trade German bombers for Russian fighters!
My personal view of the history of strategic bombing is that strategic bombing was only successful when the attacker was able to provide enough of a fighter escort to match any defending aircraft, i.e., when the attacker had air superiority or at least air parity. When bombers had to worry about being attacked by enemy fighters while they were on a bombing mission, few if any of the bombs would hit their targets. It’s true that a single fighter wouldn’t have much luck attacking an entire squadron of ‘flying fortresses,’ but a squadron of 1942-era fighters could easily shoot down a squadron of unescorted 1942-era bombers, a squadron of 1943-era fighters could easily shoot down a squadron of unescorted 1943-era bombers, and so on.
I think statistics about the casualty rate for any given mission is interesting as a matter of history, but not a good guide for how to shape the mechanics of a house rule – in 1942.2, a given game turn could represent anywhere from one month to six months, and the same bomber squadron might go on dozens of raiding missions in that time frame, so even if the casualty rate for one mission was only 7%, the cumulative casualty rate for all the missions that happened over three months might be 50%, or even well over 100%, with literally all of the bombers in the squadron being shot down and replaced by newly manufactured bombers and newly trained pilots at some point during the season.
My suggestion for a mechanic for 1942.2 is to allow interceptions by defending fighters, which would score a hit on rolls of 3 or less, and to allow escorting fighters to score a hit on rolls of 2 or less and attacking bombers to score a hit on rolls of 1 or less. I would say that surviving bombers then all roll 1d6+2 damage each, and that 1942.2 factories have no built in anti-aircraft mechanism, but that each AAA gun in the territory can roll 1d6 vs. each of up to 3 attacking bombers, and that these rolls reduce the total bombing damage, as Baron Munchhausen suggested.
For example, suppose Germany attacks Moscow with 4 strategic bombers and 2 escorting fighters, and Moscow is defended by 3 Russian fighters and 1 AAA gun. The Russians roll 3 dice that hit a German plane on rolls of 3 or less (9 pips total), and the Germans roll 4 dice that hit a Russian plane on rolls of 1 or less, plus 2 dice that hit a Russian plane on rolls of 2 or less (8 pips total). The Russians have a slight advantage in the air combat, which is fitting, because they have more fighters. Assume both sides score one hit; the Germans will lose 1 fighter and the Russians will lose 1 fighter.
Then, the Germans will make 4 rolls, each roll at 1d6+2, to determine their maximum potential damage. If they roll [2, 4, 5, 5] then they would have maximum potential damage of 4 + 6 + 7 + 7 = 24 damage. Finally, the Russians make 3 rolls for their AAA gun to try to reduce that damage with flak. If the Russians roll [1, 3, 6] then the damage is reduced by 1 + 3 + 6 = 10. So the total damage would be 24 - 10 = 14 damage. Moscow can generate 8 units/turn when healthy, so it can absorb up to a maximum of 16 damage, so if the factory was healthy at the start of the turn, now it takes 14 damage, and will cost $14 to repair to full strength next turn.
This example represents a ‘balanced’ bombing raid where all sides prepared appropriately. If Germany had not brought the escorting fighters, it probably would have lost a bomber without shooting down any Russian fighters, so it might have dealt less damage (e.g., $10) than the value of the bomber it lost ($12). This gives Germany an incentive to stack fighters within 2 spaces of Moscow, which requires (a) holding those territories and (b) diverting those territories from the Battle of the Atlantic. This is strategically interesting. Likewise, if Germany had only brought 2 bombers into the attack, then it could not have overwhelmed Russia’s AAA gun – it would be rolling 2d6 + 4 in damage against 2d6 in damage reduction, and so the expected damage would be very small and hardly worth the risk of interception. This gives Germany an incentive to make a massive bombing raid against one territory, instead of just bombing haphazardly whenever Germany has an idle bomber. This is also strategically interesting.
Conversely, if Russia had not had the AAA gun in place, it would not have been able to use flak to reduce its damage, and it would have taken the full $16 in bombing damage instead of only $14. This gives Russia an incentive to either hold AAA guns near its factories instead of reflexively advancing the AAAs into West Russia and Ukraine, or to build additional AAA guns, which is strategically interesting. Similarly, if Russia had only had one fighter defending Moscow, then an interception attempt would not have been profitable for Russia, since it would have only had 3 pips of interception defense against 9 pips of German airplanes – which makes sense, given Germany’s air superiority. This gives Russia an incentive to keep fighters near its factories, instead of always deploying fighters as far forward as possible. This is also strategically interesting.