[wallach79]

This is an old problem of CC. Historically, air strikes were a decisive factor in Allied victory. This is not well represented in the game. I'm not a follower of the solution with foward observers like in some mods. An improvement in W.a.R. is editing  campaign.txt.  I increased the number of air strikes at 10 per day (more seems impossible). The problem is that in games of 15 minutes AI use only occasionally air strikes. And it's not all related to weather. If you create a battle by putting the options clear weather and air support, you will be surprised to see that air support is not used by AI despite possible targets as tanks or infantry shooting in his troops. Do you have any IDEA how could be AI determined  to use all allocated air strikes ?  

[schrecken]

This game is close combat ... not air command or fighter escort or ILII stormovik


The modelling is covered in the game by reduced fpools mimicking losses through air/artillery etc.

The small amount of air and artillery support offered in the game is to give gameplay a greater breadth

[zcharles]

This is not il2, yes, but anyway i think that airstrikes are too weak; you're lucky if you destroy an enemy vehicle; true airstrikes make more than one passage; only modern airstrikes wants one passage because the jet drops all its load, but modern lights bombers (ie. a10) and quite all the 2WW dive bombers, tank unters, fighters made more than one passage until out of cannon-ammo or target destroied, and most of all, they NEVER attack only one at time, when there was a call or during the riconitions, fighters and bombers ALWAYS were in wings, and a strike many times was a multiple strike (2-5 planes).
Anyway the true power of air superiority is not the in-game strike: in order the avio tasks are:
1: get the air superiority: this in cc is irrilevant
2: reconition: this in cc is present with the allies spotting enemy formations in clear days
3: supply and movement interdiction: this in cc is absent: as first, all german formations should have their movement speed at minimum (germans could move without danger only in woods or at night), and secondly they should have non plenty ammo-fuel. You can get results making some mods.
4: only in fourth position there is the tactical strike, the in-game cc airstrike. Not so decisive in 2WW, but also non so weak like in game.
Hi!

[Tejszd]

[schrecken]

[Therion]

[schrecken]

You can characterize it how you like ... but you are stating the obvious... the is an operational level that is labelled "strategic." and has been there since the beginning od the games inception.


Remember though, you are not forced to play the Strat game.... all games in the CC series come with a plethora of single battles.

[Kojusoki]

Well
AFAIR you can set the level of a BG in txt files. Make Allies twice faster then Germans. The only question is how does it reflects the game? Does it mean that when a FASTER (i.e. recon) and v slow infantry unit moves in a neutral map, faster unit will it occupy and the result will be not meeeting engangemnt but slower unit attack? Rather no. And it would be a nice feature. On strat level you dont only have to move your BGs the way "strong attack weak" but also choose proper units to move forward.

Also what i would really like, to have an abaility to have 2 BGs at the same map -  i mean to have ability to "transit" them thru on of the maps. You can for example not use such a "transit" BG, but you can deploy guys somewhere else. Now you have huge traffic sometimes:)

[wallach79]

Frankly speaking, I do not play other games outside of Close Combat. I do not have enough time and Close Combat pretty much meet my expectations. With increasing number of air strikes in Campaign.txt file I believe that the game is pretty accurate historically. But my question was related to AI, about how AI could be determined to use all allocated air strikes. I have a hard time understanding why it not use air raids as effective as artillery, for example (I think AI is using very effective artillery in Wacht am Rhein). Maybe a programmer who worked on the project could give more information

[schrecken]

The Ai uses all Air strikes available to it... it doesn't hold any back.

[Tejszd]

Didn't one of the patches make the AI more likely to use its air strikes? Are you using the latest patch wallach79?

Remember if you do install the patch any ongoing campaigns and operations should be restarted to avoid errors.

[wallach79]

I use the latest patche and about AI who uses all Air strikes available to it:  well, I had a different experience. But I will say more after finishing the current campaign.

[papa_whisky]

In Normandy although the Allied ground attack aircraft had considerable psychological impact, the number of tank kills was very small. The chances of a typhoon engaging and killing an individual tank was incredibly small. The number of kills claimed was a small fraction of what was verified. Soft skinned vehicles were however vulnerable. So Shreken's point is well founded, the greatest casualty was supply as the Germans often restricted the movement of supply convoys to night further hindered by strategic bombing of railheads and partisan attacks of railways. It must have been incredibly demoralising for the Germans with almost total Allied air superiority.