Do you play with the Optional Rules from the FAQ document?

i’ve always found that the truth about statistics can be found in,
“95% of all statistics are made up on the spot.”

Stats don’t mean much of anything, just a pretty bit of perfume into the air to attempt to cover up the massive digestive gases release that occurred.

the hit from bombers can be felt by the axis not in that they lose 3.5 ipcs per round or something, but from the fact (in germany/italy’s case) that they can lose it twice in the same round, plus loose money on rebuilding their production, plus put out less fighting units while being surrounded by 3 enemies who are constantly pressing them. the added fact that 2 of these enemies can for sometime attack this without putting their own ground units into harms way only helps them further Any diminished capacity to meet these threats will be felt quickly by the Axis.

an air-only option is not a good plan for the allies, but the integration of the air-war into the overall strategy is a solid component to victory.

realistically the sizes of the straits and geography would have to help determine the ability to close a strait.

sizes at closest points:

–dardanelles–1.6 km wide
–gibraltar-- 22km from gibraltar to africa, although only 12.8 from spain.  good reason to get spain into the war.
–english channel–49.8 km
–danish straits–several-oresound at 4km, great belt at 16km, & little belt at 800 meters wide.
–suez canal–60 meters

i would say it more likely to close dardanelles and danish straits than gibraltar or english channel.  if spain were involved, it would be easier to close the med.

When contemplating strategies over thousands and thousands of games, it’s usually best to use statistics.

The average bomber will do 3.5 IPC in damage on each SBR run.
The average bomber will be shot down every six rounds (12 IPC for the bomber divided by 6 Rounds is 2 IPC a round.)

This means you should expect a 1.5 IPC return per round.  Or (5 * 3.5 IPC) - 12 IPC (5 Rounds of not getting shot down, times the average amount of damage done minus the cost of the bomber.)  You should do 5.5 IPC more damage to the enemy than you sustain.

It’s the same as figuring out if you should attack your opponent now, or later.  You run the numbers and find out the statistics.

Now, if your opponent gets Radar, those numbers shift dramatically.

Bombers will be shot down every 3 rounds on average and still do 3.5 IPC each round not shot down.  So you should expect to lose 5 IPC per bomber running straight SBR campaigns.

Now yes, it is true you can diffuse your costs over multiple nations.  Nation A and Nation B can both have bombers running, but that does not change the numbers.

@LuckyDay:

i’ve got a stat…
contemplating strategies over thousands and thousands of games?  you are no where near even 1000 games in AA50…    you’ve only played 10 of -42

Use frood.net.  It will calculate 10,000 battles with the exact same number and types of units.

It’s pretty simple really, no need to get into a big argument over it.

If you think SBR is a good game mechanic, don’t include the escorts rule in your games.

If you think it’s either too powerful, or bad for the game (or both), then you can reduce it’s effectiveness by playing with the escorts rule.

DY

you’ve summed it up well, really a testing thing, some may not find a problem, some may, and that’s probably why Larry listed more as an optional rule than even suggested or expected.

looking at the after action reports, the first 50 games list in -41 were 28-17 to the Axis (5 draws), and the last 50 were at 8-5 to the axis(2draws).  from just the numbers the optional rule of closing the Dardanelles may be good to help balance, but that could lead to the need of the interceptors to help rebalance what could be a big swing back to the allies from the dardanelles closing.

Just because Frood doesn’t have a specific function to calculate SBR damage does not mean you cannot use it to determine the results.

Or you can use basic math.

Bomber can do: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 damage to a complex.  The average of those numbers is 1+2+3+4+5+6 all divided by 6 or 3.5 so you should expect to average out to 3.5 damage if you compute lots and lots of SBR runs.

An AA Gun hits on a 1 out of 6 possible results.  That means every 6 rounds you should expect the AA Gun to have hit a bomber after you compute lots and lots of SBR runs.  Cost of the Bomber is 12 IPC so 12 IPC lost every six rounds is 2 IPC a round.

An AA Gun with Radar hits on a 1 or 2 out of 6 possible results.  That means every 3 rounds you should expect the AA Gun to have hit a bomber after you compute lots and lots of SBR runs.  Cost of the Bomber is 12 IPC so 12 IPC lost every 3 rounds is 4 IPC a round.

It’s pretty to see, even with the most elementary math, that SBR runs are already barely cost effective and once a technology is gained, becomes cost ineffective even if you couldn’t figure out how to run Frood to do SBR calculations.

Welcome to Loch Thread, population this  :roll:

Thread fixed.  :-D