Still like the changes?

[RTHolmes]

... and during post-BoB cross channel missions by the RAF. buffs werent developed as bait but they were certainly used as bait throughout the war.

[Oldman731]

Wrong.  As respectfully as is possible, the above is just wrong.  Once the fighters had the range, why take the bombers along?  Why did the RAF go to night raiding?
******
But, no, bombers were not developed as bait for the enemy.

Not wrong at all.  Freeman is one of the many authors who make this point (in "The Mighty Eighth" in Freeman's instance).  Bombers weren't originally developed to be bait, to be sure, and the quote you address says only that "the bombers were bait in the end."  The Luftwaffe did not have to risk its pilots to oppose fighter sweeps, and after the summer of 1943 rarely did so.  It did have to oppose the bomber raids.  You only need to study the number of missions from mid-1944 on to see that the bombers were frequently sent out over very marginal weather coverage, often having to bomb alternate targets or through the clouds, to appreciate that the goal wasn't to obliterate ground targets, but instead to draw up the Luftwaffe and kill its pilots.

After the disastrous March, 1944 raid on Nuremberg the RAF stopped sending its bombers on deep penetration raids into Germany until quite near the end of the war.

- oldman

[fudgums]

"The bombers will always get through"

[Soulyss]

I think both parties are correct in this particular case, the two points being argued aren't mutually exclusive.  In order for the bombers to reach their targets with acceptable loses the Luftwaffe needed to be destroyed, but w/out the bombers there to lure the interceptors into the air it wasn't going to get done. 

I believe it's generally accepted that terror bombing of population centers in order to deny industry it's labor base and destroy the will of the target population to fight has largely been discredited since the end of World War 2.  Likewise direct bombing of German factories also did not achieve the desired result, they were able to de-centralize their production lines and maintain production numbers (or in some cases increase them).  I believe the strategic campaign really had an effect when they switched from directly attacking Germany's manufacturing centers and instead went after the oil and fuel supply.

[Yeager]

the terror bombing was something that came out of the hearts of men who felt they had been grievously wronged.  The terror bombing attributed to RAF was pure retribution guised beneath sound military tactics.  I believe similar things can be said about the USAAC, USAAF.  It is a human thing.

When OPEN war is initiated one must understand the dogs of war and remember always what happens once they are loosed.  Man kills man.  Men kill men.  Populations destroy one another.

[Flayed]

 I would like to make clear for the record that I really don't oppose the lowered dar though I might think it's a bit drastic I'm not asking for that to be changed back as I'm not one of the NOE guys.

 The only part I have a problem with is the expanded dar rings that take almost all mystery and hunt out of the game.    As things are now I may as well get on 200 and say "Hey Snailman I'm flying a flight of B-24's at 20K in sector 10,7,9 heading due north crossing into the next sector in 2 min. Come kill me please."  I may as well invite him to the DA to come shoot at my bombers and save the 2 hour flight time.

 The feeling of "Oh I hope I can get these buffs far enough into enemy territory before someone picks up on my big red dar bar and swarms me."  Or in Snailman's case "Mwaaaa ha ha ha, I see a dar bar deep behind our lines trying to sneak back to our factory. I shall up my mighty 262 and hunt down my prey. "     For him I would say with the expanded rings and knowing right where the lone flight of bombers is at all times, he may as well go plug in the old style Nintendo and play duck hunt. The duck flies up, you can see right where it is at all times and you shoot at it trying to waste as little ammo as possible.

  For the people that say "Adapt" I say the only way to adapt to the new settings that I can see is to fly as high as we can (The 91'st already does this to improve survivability because of the HUGE RED DAR BAR they put up even when flying between rings) get as many #s as you can (horde) and fly the most direct and fast path to target as we can.....  WOW does that sound like fun? 

  Like I said I wouldn't mind so much if the time settings were tweaked on the dar a bit so I could use my Tactical bombers to hit the base dar giving an opening for people like the 91st guys to run to the Strategic factory targets without having the base dar pop right back up before the B-17's get to alt.    I don't even mind if the hardness on the base dar was bumped up a bit to require more than just a suicide porker to kill it if the down time was bumped up a few min.

  Anyway this is my position on this and I hope HT will take note of it.   Like lusche I'm done, point made. <S> all.

[RufusLeaking]

First, pardon the thread hijack.
Second, thanks for reading my post for its content and not as a flame.
Third, brace for a wall of text.

Not wrong at all.  Freeman is one of the many authors who make this point (in "The Mighty Eighth" in Freeman's instance).  

I’m not familiar with Freeman’s work.  I should be embarrassed as I was actually in the 8th AF.

You only need to study the number of missions from mid-1944 on to see that the bombers were frequently sent out over very marginal weather coverage, often having to bomb alternate targets or through the clouds, to appreciate that the goal wasn't to obliterate ground targets, but instead to draw up the Luftwaffe and kill its pilots.

Launching into potentially bad weather is nothing more than being in the “go” mode.  The culture in the Air Force, and all branches probably, discouraged canceling missions.

I do believe that the destruction of the German Air Force was a primary mission of all Allied Air Forces.  It still makes sense today.  Air forces and air defenses are first day targets, assigned to the best, stealthiest assets.  

My reaction was to the thought that the bombers were auxiliaries in the background of the glamorous fighter pilots.  Bombers were more expensive to build, support and man than fighters.  If strategic planners were to make strictly economic decisions, heavy bombers would not be produced.  How did that work out for Germany?

After the disastrous March, 1944 raid on Nuremberg the RAF stopped sending its bombers on deep penetration raids into Germany until quite near the end of the war.
 

March 1944 seems late.

The question of why bomb at night is to refute the bombers as bait premise.  If the RAF wanted to bait German pilots into the air, they would have continued daylight raids.

Actually in the 1st quarter of 1944 to the end of the war, the AAF was tasked with destroying the luftwaffe and the objective was to eliminate it as a cohesive fighting force.  

All the Best...

    Jay

Fits into the air supremacy for the D-Day landings.  

So, once the German Air Force was rendered impotent, what were the Allies to do?  Put on air shows?  

I am going from memory, but the Allies had something like 30:1 sorties compared the Germans on June 6, 1944.   I’ll bet Goering complained about hordes.

I'm tired of doing the old BBS battle.

Snailman out.

Snailman a.k.a. Lusche

Bummer.  Your posts are usually reasoned and civil.  Your graphs are legendary.

[Oldman731]

The question of why bomb at night is to refute the bombers as bait premise.  If the RAF wanted to bait German pilots into the air, they would have continued daylight raids.

Heh.  With a bow to our British Empire brothers, it wasn't the RAF that destroyed the Luftwaffe.  The 8th AF deep penetration raids did that (with some help from the Bolsheviks, too).  Spitfires lacked the range to carry the war to the enemy the way the 8th did, particularly during the period between Bigweek and the end of May, 1944.

The switch from bomber-as-independent-war-winner to bomber-as-bait was a good example of adapting to changed circumstances (note:  the thread therefore has not been completely hijacked!).  US doctrine of large-formation, self-defending four-engine bombers penetrating to the heart of the enemy country was, by October, 1943, demonstrated to be unworkable.  So we waited for the P-47 drop tanks and then sent the bombers after targets the Luftwaffe had to defend.  Worked great, but who would have thought of it in 1941?

- oldman

[Soulyss]

My reaction was to the thought that the bombers were auxiliaries in the background of the glamorous fighter pilots.  Bombers were more expensive to build, support and man than fighters.  If strategic planners were to make strictly economic decisions, heavy bombers would not be produced.  How did that work out for Germany?
March 1944 seems late.

The question of why bomb at night is to refute the bombers as bait premise.  If the RAF wanted to bait German pilots into the air, they would have continued daylight raids.

Sorry to continue the hijack here folks but I'm enjoying this part of the discussion.

To speak to a couple points that you brought up Ruf, I think that bombers played a very significant role in pre-war planning and doctrine.  Bombers were/are offensive weapons and economy most certainly were a large factor in bomber design prior to the war.  Heavy bombers are both complicated and expensive to design and build requiring a large industrial base to build.  Geography and doctrine play a role as well, two engine medium bombers fit nicely into the war Germany was planning, they also probably learned some wrong lessons from the Spanish Civil War, in the late 30's bomber development was outpacing the advances in fighter design.   It made sense for the U.S. to develop the B-17 because of it's geographic isolation, even then I believe the only way it got through congressional appropriations was that it was marketed as a coastal defense/ship killer, something it largely failed at.  

Britain was more forced into night attacks rather than it being a deliberate choice, daytime losses to German interceptors were unacceptable and Britain did not have a long range escort solution at the time.  USAF losses probably could not have been sustained either w/out either more P-38 units or the arrival of the P-51.  I believe the RAF was also probably over estimating the strategic impact of night time area/terror raids.  I believe the RAF did return to making some daylight raids towards the end of the war because the LW had ceased to be as large of a threat (I seem to recall reading it somewhere but for the life of me I can't remember where).

[RTHolmes]

Worked great, but who would have thought of it in 1941?

err ... the RAF did. google "circus raid."


edit: I'll save you the trouble, 10th Jan 1941 6 blenheims attack supply dumps near Calais, escorted by 9 spit squadrons and 6 hurri squadrons.

[Volron]

When I first saw that they changed it to 65ft, my reaction was, "WTF?  Not even Modern radar is this good...I don't think.  Either way, do damn low. ".  100ft would do the trick. It's high enough that fighters won't smack the ground or trees dealing with hills, but low enough that it would be EXTREMELY difficult for bombers to do it, if at all.  As for the dar ranges, I agree and disagree with them.  I can see the new dar range fitting with the large airfield, but not the small one.

So how about this?  The Small Airfield will use the old dar range, Medium Airfield will have a range in the middle of what the small field and large field have, and the Large Airfield use the current range?  The V-bases will use the Small Airfield range and the Ports will use the Medium Airfield range?  The port dar might be problematic as on some maps, the ports are actually airfields.  Small ones at that...Hmm...

[hijack]
There could be a customized field made for these type of ports.  It's a small airfield with some changes: 1) 1 BH and 2 FH's, 2) The docks are part of the airfield layout, 3) It has more troops barracks and there would be 4-6 ords bunkers, 4) The VH will have a more centralized location and 5) There is no town to take down for these ports.  The Map Room would be in the heart of the base.  You have the combination of the small fields ack and the ports ack, so there will be PLENTY of ack you'd need to take out before you can take the base.  Mind you, this only applies to those maps that use Port Airfields.  Though this setup could work if they ever implement "Dry Docks" for the fleets.  http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,281901.0.html for a basic about the dry dock idea...
[/hijack]

With dar ranges varying due to base type/size, that would bring back some of those gaps.  Not sure how the coding will go though... 

[groundfeeder]

Since i have posted this thread there have been alot of good points made.

If i repeat what someone else has stated ....my bad.

One note in particular was that the "mystery" aspect of the game has sort of gone away, and it has, of this I feel there is no doubt. Another point in particular is about the bombers needing escorts. The person who logs on may not have time to join a group of people who all want to go to the same target,or may just want to fly solo...ya know, be at peace in our little cartoon war. That particular aspect of the game is almost gone. This may not sound like much to anyone ,but here are the consciences, if you only have ...lets say a half hour...you wanna fly and not furball, and want to bomb a little, well good luck,your reasonable expectation for survival stinks now.....so screw it, i wont log on. Keep that up and multiply it....less people in the arenas. moving the bases further apart wont work,just from the general standpoint that people aren't going to fly forever to get to a mass horde of cat yack, to get killed in a minute. Lets see how many log in then.

Bombers and escort argument might have worked in WWII because they were TOLD to go...no choice ...go here! YEAH try that in here.

For the reasons stated by HTC maybe something needed to be done, and as some have pointed out, it seems like a bit of a kneejerk reaction.

All we can hope to do is state our opinion and hope it carries enough weight. Something needs to give..and htc THE GAME HAS LOST SOMETHING! Can you PLEASE come up with  something a little less drastic?????

[groundfeeder]

What volron said

[lulu]

As to me.
then main reason of luft raid failure over GB was that fighters were constrained to
fly at the same speed and alt of bombers by orders that came from Hermann Göring
and not from a good HQ. If german force would have others commanders: first, WWII  not started;
second, if it started then german very probably have won. (I know some mistakes with verbs!); third,
fortunately wars start cause of mad people.

 

[RTHolmes]

verbs arent the only problem there, I suspect that would be tosh in your own language too ...