Do you raid?

[knp7765]

I don’t run SBRs much either.  Like Xandax and JimmyHat said, I usually end up needing them for something else.  Sometimes if USA can get bombers over to England, and there are no German interceptors, I will pound the IC at Western Germany just to frustrate the Germans by making them keep repairing the factory.
Also, if the Allies, particularly USA, have Japan surrounded and are trying to build an invasion force, we will SBR Japan to try and keep them from building up too huge a defense stack.

[jeffdestroyer]

Japan bombing India can be devastating.  It can nearly stop them from producing for several rounds.  UK usually does not have enough interceptors to counter Japan during the first rounds of war if Japan positions itself.  I have even brought some TACS to hit the AB and NB.

If India is at -20 on its factory, it is usually best to hold the $$$ for one round to avoid being hit again and again.  I have seen this a few times.  It limits the responses that UK Pacific can do and the India Infantry stack will not grow during this time.

Need to build at least one or two Japan Bombers during peacetime in order to be ready for this attack.

[Young Grasshopper]

I really hope that if there is an Alfa+3, this rule gets corrected. I am personally upset that I am playing a world war 2 board game without the possibility of an air battle over Britain.

[MacNaughton]

I think that SBRing can be excellent if you pair it with a strong convoy disruption strategy.

I also think that SBRing with escorts is an good way to knock out defending fighters once a nation has decided to turtle. Look at it this way: Russia has a stack of 60 infantry backed by 3 fighters and a handful of tanks in Moscow. With normal attacks, it will take serveral turns to knock out those fighters’ big guns. But if you SBR, Russia has to either let you have access to his facilities (of course if you get past the AA guns), or risk his precious defensive giants. Russia doesn’t really have the money for either if he’s turtled.

[i rock]

i start bomb alot with america its really the only thing i get them to do in europe buy a Bomber and Fighter per turn starting round 4 can cripple germany. in a couple of turns against a germeny going hard russia all there factories in france + w. germany + italy are disabled.

[Jennifer]

@Young:

I am courious to know if anyone is purchasing strategic bombers and conducting bombing raids to damage facilities. I am thinking about buying a bomber or two as Germany and bombing Russia’s southern minor ICs (if there are no interceptors). Anybody have experience or results bombing in Alfa+2 or is it truly futile.

Yes, I have conducted Strategic Bombing Raids in Alpha 2.  Primarily, I have attacked the London complex when England has too few or no aircover to prevent it.  I would not recommend dedicating large numbers of fighters to escort the raids, if you need more than 1 or 2, then perhaps you should look to other targets, but SBRs are a valid alternative to Sea Lion. (Valid does not imply better or worse, only possible.)

[Young Grasshopper]

If you were to plan such a strategy instead of sea lion, how many bombers do you purchase and deploy over the course of a game (roughly)?

[docfav7]

SBR is really an Allies Tactic.  Not so useful for the Germans.  The Germans bombed the UK (Battle of Britain) but everything I see and read on it was they bombed the cities (political purposes) or the hit the wrong airfields, hit shipping ports and bombed shipping targets.

Only the UK and US really used SBR to it’s fullest.  They went right to the heart of German production.  Killing it’s ability to produce anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

[Razor]

In a lot of games I see the Allies bombing Axis Airbases. The first Ally bomb the Airbase so he cant scramble fighters when the next Ally attack his fleet, man. Of course you need to go two Allies in a row for this to work, or else he just repair the Airbase between the attacks-

[Jennifer]

Yes.  Isnt it great that in Alpha 2 all the allies (except Russia) go back to back?

[JimmyHat]

@docfav7:

Only the UK and US really used SBR to it’s fullest.  They went right to the heart of German production.  Killing it’s ability to produce anything.

Yeah, I hear Germ had a tough time producing babies out of Dresden after that city got hit.

All nations in WW2 hit civilians.  Carpet bombing was pretty much a strategy of hitting towns with factories in the hopes that you hit the factory.  SBR’s should be equally worthless to the axis and allies war effort.  Had the US built transport planes rather than bombers and bombs, the war would have been over by Christmas of 44.

Just because it was a tactic used in WW2 doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be in this game, it was a very wasteful tactic and…pssst…didn’t really help the allied cause like it gets trumped into in those WW2 magazines.

[Young Grasshopper]

@JimmyHat:

@docfav7:

Only the UK and US really used SBR to it’s fullest.  They went right to the heart of German production.  Killing it’s ability to produce anything.

Yeah, I hear Germ had a tough time producing babies out of Dresden after that city got hit.

All nations in WW2 hit civilians.  Carpet bombing was pretty much a strategy of hitting towns with factories in the hopes that you hit the factory.  SBR’s should be equally worthless to the axis and allies war effort.  Had the US built transport planes rather than bombers and bombs, the war would have been over by Christmas of 44.

Just because it was a tactic used in WW2 doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be in this game, it was a very wasteful tactic and…pssst…didn’t really help the allied cause like it gets trumped into in those WW2 magazines.

I wouldn’t call the inhalation of entire towns a “wasteful tactic”

[ozimek1]

Actually according to most sorces on the subject you are not quite right.
@docfav7:

… The Germans bombed the UK (Battle of Britain) but everything I see and read on it was they bombed the cities (political purposes) or the hit the wrong airfields, hit shipping ports and bombed shipping targets.

The Germans started targetting RAF airfields and aircraft production facilities (and later radar stations when they discovered their importance). This nearly crippled the RAF (fighter command), and the Germans were very close to getting the upper hand, but then they suddenly changed strategy and startet carpet bombing cities because they thought that would make the UK submit. On the contrary it gave the RAF breathing room to rebuild and start giving the Germans unbearable losses again.

The Luftwaffe was designed for blitzkrieg ground support (and of course air superiority), and didn’t have the heavy bombers needed to conduct a carpet bombing campaign. Add to that, that the range of fighters like the Bf109 was rather limited giving them very little combat flying time over Brittain per mission.

@docfav7:

Only the UK and US really used SBR to it’s fullest.  They went right to the heart of German production.  Killing it’s ability to produce anything.

Actually they went for the civilian population mainly. They made the same strategic mistake as the Germans in the early war. The effectivenes of carpet bombing civilians was greatly overrated by both sides. (until the A-bomb obviously)

:evil: :evil: :evil:
Or maybe the western allies knew this but kept focusing on the bombing campaign to put up an effort that seemed devastating while the dictatorships wore each other down on the eastern front.
:evil: :evil: :evil:

[edfactor]

@Young:

I wouldn’t call the inhalation of entire towns a “wasteful tactic”

I think you mean immolation of entire towns.

Actually SBR’s most useful result was the devastation and total chaos imposed on the German rail network.

[soldaatvanoranje]

Before the new rules they were standard part of my allied strategy -> day and night bombing Germany’s IC’s  :evil:

With the interceptors in play, it seems futile to me to invest in such a disadvantageous position, with marginal(possible) gains…

Also, with the new board, by the time USA is in place to conduct strategic bombing, it can only bomb those IC’s which are most of the time no longer producing units, as my adversaries (and myself as axis) always build IC’s near the front.

It’s a shame though. I always loved it when Germany was crying that “It ist nich fair” when they have to surrender their production to the constant flow of B-24’s and Lancasters. Which was a major part of the US and UK war effort until D-Day btw.

[soldaatvanoranje]

Actually they went for the civilian population mainly. They made the same strategic mistake as the Germans in the early war. The effectivenes of carpet bombing civilians was greatly overrated by both sides. (until the A-bomb obviously)

:evil: :evil: :evil:
Or maybe the western allies knew this but kept focusing on the bombing campaign to put up an effort that seemed devastating while the dictatorships wore each other down on the eastern front.
:evil: :evil: :evil:

The Brittish did this extensively on Dresden, in pre-war days Germany’s medieval gem, were almost no industry was present. They called it sex-appeal bombing. The idea was to show the Germans that their propaganda of supremacy and invincebility (“the motherland will be untouched”) was false, in the hope to break their spirit…

[knp7765]

@ozimek1:

The Germans started targetting RAF airfields and aircraft production facilities (and later radar stations when they discovered their importance). This nearly crippled the RAF (fighter command), and the Germans were very close to getting the upper hand, but then they suddenly changed strategy and startet carpet bombing cities because they thought that would make the UK submit. On the contrary it gave the RAF breathing room to rebuild and start giving the Germans unbearable losses again.

The Luftwaffe was designed for blitzkrieg ground support (and of course air superiority), and didn’t have the heavy bombers needed to conduct a carpet bombing campaign. Add to that, that the range of fighters like the Bf109 was rather limited giving them very little combat flying time over Brittain per mission.

The reason Germany went from attacking RAF airfields, aircraft production facilities and radar stations to “city busting” was due to a simple navigational error.  Originally, the Luftwaffe was attacking during the day.  Since the Me109s had such limited flying time over Britain, they couldn’t provide enough escort protection and Germany was losing a lot of bombers, so they switched to night attacks  Of course, flying at night is harder to see your targets and on one mission a German bomber mistook some landmark, flew off course and dropped it’s bombs on London.  The British got pissed off and flew a bombing mission over Berlin, which enraged Hitler.  Thus, the tactic of “city busting” began.  It took a terrible toll on the British citizenry but gave the RAF a much needed break.  In the end, it was a fatal mistake by Germany.  If not for that one simple error, Sealion might have gone through and WW2 might have ended very differently.

[Lord Claremorris]

The Historical Strategic Bombing Campaign was the US and UK’s way of showing the Russians (and themselves?) that they were doing SOMETHING against Germany, because before 1944 the Russians were tangoing with pretty much the entire German Army and Luftwaffe. So naturally Western writers would prefer to pretend their SBR was decisive instead of admitting that “The US and UK bombed Germany to little affect while the Russians did all the actual fighting at the time.” Albert Speer thoroughly debunked that in his memoirs, Germany’s production actually INCREASED during the bombing campaign, instead of decreasing. Pretty pathetic performance in my opinion, complete waste. It was a total political tool to satisfy the Russians.

EDIT: Bear in mind this is in relation to the war against Germany only. I’m well aware that the British wrecked the Italians and the Vichy French, and fought hard in Greece, Norway, France etc, and were also engaged in heavy fighting in Burma. I’m also well aware that the Americans primarily defeated Japan, and helped defeat Italy and eventually Germany. The Russians bore most of the brunt against Germany, but did hardly anything to Japan or Italy, so no need to inform me of what the Americans and British were doing (which was much more than nothing), as I’m perfectly aware.

[JimmyHat]

I am a bit jaded when it comes to the allied air effort against Germany.  Lots of lives lost for very little gain.  You could claim their ineffective bombing forced the Germans to disperse their production capacity into bomb proof locations, either through a cottage industry type system with manufacture in the homes or underground factories.  Almost all instances of successful bombing was done by tactical air strikes, not carpet bombing.  The only exception I can think of is the allied attack on Polesti.

The largest contributing factor achieved by the allies in the air was through a campaign of attrition, where they were able to whittle German air defenses down to nothing by the time of D-Day.  This is also largely due to Hitlers interference in all parts of the war, as he wanted bombers for offense instead of ftrs for defense.

My main beef however is that the major winners in this example are actually the guys making the 1000’s of bombs that are dropped at 30,000 ft in the hopes one gets close to something valuable. (the sweet spots gotta be down there somewhere right!)  Now I’m going to bring a bit of the politics into this, but guess who was supplying the US army with bombs and had a strong lobby in DC?  The Prescott family, scions of the Bush family we have today.  When we were finally able to talk them into stopping sale of arms to Germany(early 1941) the Prescott’s needed a new source of revenue.  So they built tons of bombs and had them dropped on farms in Germany.  That way they could sell more.  All the while trumping up the press back home with ‘victories’ in Europe before the main landings.

Now to bring you back from the world of conspiracy theories, with a message as to what the US military /should/ have been doing with the millions spent on large bombers and wayyyyyy too many bombs.  Had they built up a large supply fleet of aircraft, they could have supplied the Allied beachhead from airfields on Normandy.  Now the storm that wreaked a Mulberry harbor was insignificant, and the Allies pressed on early.

Perhaps they are stalled, but eventually Patton swings the right hook and the race for Paris is on.  As the Rhine approaches, in real life the Allied drive stalls due to lack of supplies.  But ta-daa!!  Supply planes from Britain fly directly to the front, all the while covered by the Allied air supremacy.

But lets say even the natural features stall the allies along the Rhine, in real life Monty comes up with a ‘brilliant’ plan to attack along a narrow front at many points…but due to lack of SUPPLY AIRCRAFT the units are dropped in piece meal and the precious timetable is disrupted.  We all see where this is going.

Lastly, establishing a beachhead across the Rhine would have been easier if the advancing army in Germany could be supplied by air, most German airfields being hard surfaced and easily repaired.

Jeez what happened!  I get peeved at mention of the awesomeness of the allied air offensive and I end up with a rant…I apologize in advance!:)

[Gargantua]

SBR wasn’t about bombing prodcution during the war.

What it was really about - well for the allies atleast, was killing planes. For later air supremacy.

I think there are some unexplored strategies when it comes to SBR, for this very purpose.  Since Fighters now don’t face AA guns.

It could work well for a g3 sealion, send in your planes, at the british planes on G2 - see if they bite, if they don’t, you bomb the factory, if you do, it’s plane on plane - attacker at lower odds, but no aa faced.

To answer the thread.  No, I don’t SBR at all, and have yet to see it in over 30 games played - ever.