Aircraft in CM

[Poor Old Spike]

JOHN OSBORNE QUOTE - Is there going to be other test done like aircraft use and effectiveness against targets?
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Hmm.. planes in CM have a mind of their own, only appearing during a game when they feel like it, and its therefore hard to pin them down in tests to get hard data..
Planes in CM are like Babe Ruth who said "When I hit, I hit big, and when I miss I miss big"..
In other words CM planes are very much a hit or miss affair.
Based on experience, I'd estimate that a plane has a roughly 50-50 chance of damaging the enemy in some way during a game by routing a bunch of infantry or damaging or killing a tank or two, nothing is guaranteed.
And sometimes he'll even hurt his own side.
"Congratulations, nice bomb run" an opponent once said to me after he'd just lost several tanks on a hilltop.
"Er.. I didn't buy any planes" I replied, "it was your own plane that bombed you".
Personally I rarely buy planes beause of their unreliabilty, give me an extra tank instead any time..
I do however nearly always buy a light flak gun in case the enemy has planes around, they never seem to shoot one down but I like to think they at least put the pilot off enough to mess up his accuracy..

[Redwolf]

The airplane target selection code in CM is a real shame.

It is not the base probability that friendly units are attacked that is the problem. Actually it seems to be OK. If both sides are distributed about the same way on the battlefield, then there seems to be a 20-25% chance of friendly fire. That's OK.

However, note the "if both sides are distributed about the same way".

If they are not the code in CM becomes outright dumb.

Most notoriously, when only one side is visible/advancing and the other side is hidden in the bushes then the moving side is subject to a whole lot more friendly fire than the hidden one, in fact in that case the probability of friendly fire seems to raise straight above 50%.

That is outright pathetic. Imagine a pilot. The pilot is stupid, blind and lazy and has no idea where he is. However, even a stupid blind and lazy pilot will be able to figure that if the ground forces he is supposed to support are Americans advancing north to south and that the German defense lines are in the south, that he will not attack random colums of vehicles that are advancing north to south and fire into a treeline facing north.

He might do even that in very rare occasions but at most a few percent. But instead of taking the probablity down from 20 to 5% in this situation CM takes it up to > 50%.

[Lurker]

The solution to aircraft stupidity is not to use them. They're to much like a hand of god. The problem is it's hard to tell which side he's on sometimes. :OHNO: They also have nothing to do with one's tactical skill.

[Nemesis Lead]

The other funny thing about planes is that they will always target SOMETHING. I have had all infantry forces hiding in trees and the planes always seem to "see" them and then strafe/bomb them.

[KGPanzerschrecK]

BE AWARE guys that there are a few airplane glitches in CMBB. Im not sure if its present in CMAK or not. If you have a plane with a bomb load out and you save the game after it makes its bomb run, on its next pass instead of a strafing run it will drop bombs again. This a cumulative affect. If you continue to save and it continues to make passess, it will continue to drop bombs without going on strafing runs. {Example - The continued saving of PBEM files after each turn} This can be extremely damaging when being on the receiving end of large bombs from certain German & Russian Dive bombers, or have the opposite effect when your looking for tank busting cannon rounds from a plane like say... an HE-129. There are i belive one or two more glitches but i cant remember them right off of the top of my head at this moment. Ill do some digging and see if i can find them.

[KGPanzerschrecK]

Ahhh, i remember another now. You can make planes appear in custom made scenarios at dawn, dusk, Lt. Snow, Rain ect.... All you have to do is design your scenario as a scenario in good weather, pick your forces and planes, save, go back into the editor and change the weather to your desired setting, save and Viola! You now have all weather WWII Planes!

[Lurker]

Good aircraft tips Kent, thanks! Now I'll have more to feed my argument against them in future games. :halo: :D

[KGPanzerschrecK]

Thanks. Those were all learned the hard way, lol.

[TacCovert4]

If I'm on the defense, and my troops for the most part can sit under cover and not move, I'll buy planes because, despite their randomness, they are very often cheaper than mortars or arty, and can fire on targets out of LOS, the targets the enemy is hiding from my arty spotters. If I'm offensive, or I have my army based around a small number of high quality, easily target units, like tanks and light tanks, then I don't buy planes, because when I want fire support, I want fire support, and I don't want it falling on my own heads. What I wish they'd do is create a mod that would allow you to, for an extra fee, buy an aircraft spotter unit. 6 guys, pistols and smgs for defense, with the ability to call in airstrikes. For realism, if they called one in, it would take 2-6 turns for the plane to come in on the run, and precision would be a wide target box at best, with a 15-20% chance of hitting a different target or a clean miss for bombs. Like the arty spotters, there would be the meter showing how long before rounds start incoming, but unlike arty, this meter would always be running, as if the planes are inbound whether you like it or not. If they don't recieve a call within 2 minutes of their arrival, they attack targets in the current fashion, with a 30% chance of hitting friendlies. If they do recieve a call, that chance goes down to 5%, because the first part of any airstrike call is to identify YOUR location.

In short, while Air arrivals would be random, you would know when that random would happen, and could direct it to some extent. Just like arty, once a target is transmitted, the attack on it would continue until a new target was given. Just like arty, this could take from 1 to 4 minutes, but because the aircraft are there, armed and airborne, the attack on the previous target would continue until the new target waiting period was over. So if your plane had 3 strafes, you get 1 target. 6 strafes, 1 w/ 4 and 1w/2. 12 strafes 3 w/ 4. The air spotters would be able to direct multiple airstrike groups as well, their direction would not be to a specific unit, but to any air unit inbound to the target.

[Palantir]

The problem with that "concept" is most of the games played are ME and therefore no FAC officers to call in strikes.

Why air-strikes are so random is- because the planes are supposed to have just "randomly" passed over the area and are looking for targets of opportunity. In this WW2 -CM game theres just no time to spot a target & somehow call in an airstrike. By the time that happened the battle would be over.

Unfortunately the same holds true for attack/defend missions as well. This should be the area where you can "adjust" the airstrikes somewhat since in most cases bothsides know something is going to happen "here."

[BRO Sapper]

The other issue with that is that very few of the army's during WWII had the ability to call for air support. And even in the few that did, it was very rare. While it was common in the Pacific for the Marines to call for both Naval and Air support, even in the American Army in Europe, it was by far the exception and not the norm. It was nearly unheard of in most of the other armies however except for special operations in which it was totally preplanned. Otherwise the call was made from a Division HQ for air support, hardly an effective spot to direct close in air support!