So just to be clear:
Q:
Can planes be sent as escort even if they don’t bomb? For instance, if I have 15 french strategic bombers in Paris, and I want to bomb the major factory in Western Germany, but Germany has 5 fighters there, may I send all 15 french strat bombers to take place in the air battle or to discourage one, but then after that only have 3 of those bombers actually bomb a facility and risk dying to AA fire, with all of the other bombers simply turning around and flying home on the non-com?Is the answer this?:
No, all French bombers in this instance must bomb a facility, and all must be subject to AA fire.
Your answer is correct. Once you bring the tac’s and commit them to the SBR of the air/sea base they are there for the long haul.
Hrm, interesting. You can retreat in land battles or sea battles after one round. In SBR’s, you can’t retreat after the dogfight. You’d think having the option to change your mind after the dogfight would make sense.
I guess the point of forcing the strats/tacs to bomb something is to allow the defender more chances to shoot them. This discourages you from sending strat bombers, effectively, only as escorts, which is probably for the best, since strat bombers are already horridly effective for only 2 IPCs more than fighters.
Keep in mind the retreat rule is after one round of combat. What you’re proposing would more like attacking a territory, losing 3 planes on the AA roll and then saying “Damn, I’m going to withdraw before the battle.”
If the tac’s could withdraw before the AA hits then essentially it would just be a way to skirt the “only fighters can be escorts” rule
This discourages you from sending strat bombers, effectively, only as escorts, which is probably for the best, since strat bombers are already horridly effective for only 2 IPCs more than fighters.
Actually tes - it does not merely discourage you - it stops you. As I read it all bombers or TBs must bomb. So not being sent as escorts at all, but as bombers that take part in the air battle and then take their chances with AA when bombing.
I meant more of a figurative thing.
You can still send extra bombers as an escort of sort, to discourage the enemy intercepting you with fighters, sure, but then you still have to have each of those bombers have a 1 rolled against them from AA fire. Very strong discouragement indeed.
You could, however, still do it if you wished. So it doesn’t “stop” you unless you’re taking the word “escort” super literally.
This is just to toss in a bit of historical perspective in case it’s of any interest. An escort, in very generic terms, is a secondary unit that accompanies a primary unit on a mission but which serves a different function than the primary unit. This different function is usually some kind of protective or support role. In terms of strategic bomber missions, the protective-escort role was generally carried out by fighters (preferably long-range ones). American WWII bomber doctrine did see bombers as protecting each other, in the sense that bombers like the B-17 were heavily armed and flew in formations designed to allow them to cover each other…but they weren’t regarded as “escorts” because each bomber still had the primary mission of bombing enemy targets. The British and American bomber commands in WWII did, however, stage decoy missions using multiple independent bomber formations. Typically, several formations (often widely separated) would be sent into the air, on courses which didn’t clearly indicate what specific target they were heading towards (they would eventually change course to head for their actual targets), with the Allies hoping that the Germans would send up their fighters to intercept the decoy force (which in some cases would turn back once it had drawn out the defencers) and thus end up out of position to attack the actual striking force. If the Germans guessed which force was real and which was fake, however, then the trick didn’t work. But at any rate, the only case I can recall of strategic bombers serving as pure escorts to other strategic bombers were the two A-bomb missions over Japan. In each case, one plane carried the bomb while the others carried observers and recording instruments.
Yeah. All that is true. Next time link us to some good URLs for more reading :p
But again, I was talking about functionality in the framework of A&A G40 about rolling 1’s in air battles.
Yeah. All that is true. Next time link us to some good URLs for more reading :p
The 1944 colour documentary “The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress” gives a pretty good impression of what an American daylight bombing mission over Germany was like. For a much more fictionalized depiction of a British nighttime bombing mission, there’s the classic 1941 British b&w film “Target for Tonight,” which is notorious from today’s perspective for the way it shows early-war RAF bombers hitting their targets (all, of course, strictly military ones) with pinpoint accuracy in the middle of the night. Both films are probably available somewhere on YouTube.
I’ve seen the first one. Watched in some class ten years ago. Now that you mention it, I might do it again. I love period films that aren’t period films because they were actually filmed in the period they’re portraying.
@Private:
- SBR –
a) When you are attacking more than one facility in the same territory, Triple A incorrectly fires AA at all bombers together, allowing the attacker to choose tactical bombers illegally, potentially. Each facility should fire AA at only the bombers attacking that facility. (is in Triple A notes)
c) Triple A does not allow SBR of a territory that you walked into on combat move (is in Triple A notes)Cheers
PP
Yea this would be nice if it worked correctly. TBs are used as extended escort until you KO w/e they’re bombing
