Please not this is the second Squad Ops in a row where a CiC did not bring up what they were thought issues before the actually frame. Please note that all CiCs need to bring up issues when they get the orders.
With all respect,
there were no issues to bring up here. The Allied CiC saw that he had no way of stopping the enemy's armored thrust, so he committed his units to air power. The Axis CiC should have realized, as Mr. Fork so elegantly put it:
"You could up your entire force in tanks and AAA but you would be sitting ducks to air attack".
It looks like the CM was perfectly clear on what the CiC's options were.
The strat choice here was simple: The Allies could not match 11 Tigers; But the Axis couldn't supply air cover for 11 Tigers, and they got pounded.
There's no problem with commanders' decisions here. The Axis decision to commit 11 potential pilots to tanks was a not a wise decision, but you can't blame the CO; squadops is a learning experience. Likewise, you can't blame a CiC for not noticing fundamental flaws in a scenario design. Scenario design is the CM's territory.
Hopefully, future leaders who experienced Sunday's frame have taken from it a valuable lesson that's remained the same from Afrika Corps to the present: commit to GVs the absolute minimum number of pilots necessary to achieve the objective. If the orders require "a squad" to be in GVs -- pick the smallest squad on the roster; if the rules require a minimum of one GV to achieve an objective, pick one GV; if the rules are open, select no GVs whatsoever.
There are two reasons for this:
First, every GV you put out there takes away from an aircraft you can field. Aircraft have higher survivability, higher speed, higher K/D, and higher ground lethality than ground vehicles.
Second, nobody wants to play GVs in a scenario. I'm sorry if this sounds inflammatory, but it's like I said above: some people may enjoy tank battles, but in a scenario, all it takes is a handful of planes to ruin your day. In squadops, most of the people are going to be in planes, and the size of squadops battles means that the tanks aren't going to escape notice.
so if you put people in GVs, you're likely to get a lower turnout, and those who do show up won't have much fun.
Yeah, yesterday the Tiger drivers might have had more fun if they had russians in panzers to blow up. And how much fun would that have been for the russians?
Don't blame this one on the CiC. The CM's statements were unambiguous. If the CM said "You must designate at least 6 targets to be blown up in panzers",
then the CiC should have contacted the CM with serious problems.
