There are some fortifications at the beaches in Denmark. Not sure if they count as pillboxes, but so far I’ve had no luck doing more than scratching their paint a bit with unguided bombs and Mavericks…
Does anyone ever engage them ? Successfully?
And is it worth the ammo?
I would also love to know this. I might try it today with the Intruder and see what happens. But that’s basically only in Denmark.
There’s probably some on Moresby too - Coastal Artillery, I believe. Yea, tough AF, but probably reasonable for thick steel, concrete fortification. I’ve taken them out with a couple 1000-lbers; pretty sure it needs the pair, either dropped together with accuracy or dropped singly in a couple passes. I don’t think a single bomb has ever worked by itself, but haven’t tested extensively, so other bombs or combinations of bombs will likely work too… We now have AP, SAP bombs modelled for quite a few aircraft, so a direct hit with one of those might do the trick in one bomb - I was talking of standard WW2 US/UK MC 1000-lbers as used on Catalina, Hellcat, which have an HE-frag effect.
As with anything difficult to destroy the rewards are pathetic…
Glad you mention bridges. I don’t think bridges have ever been listed as game targets (maybe in AB/+?) but I have seen points being given for destroying bridges - but that might have been Operations, not EC.
Can anyone remember Falcon 2 on the Atari/Amiga back in the late 80s? IIRC the scenario there was an enemy factory deep in enemy territory churning out tanks, which were loaded onto trains, and the rail line passed over bridges before unloading the tanks, which then came to attack your airfield. Essentially the campaign was to work back up the supply line: first destroy the tanks advancing on the airfield; then get the next train before it unloaded; bomb the bridge to stop further trains etc, all the way to destroy the factory.
That kind of scheme could easily be included in EC, as we have many of the elements already; they just aren’t ‘joined up’ very well. We have bases, but they have no significance other than being worth points. Convoys do generate front line battles, so there is some logic there, but spoiled by convoys currently being death zones to would-be attackers.
Not sure if explicitly as targets counting towards the tickets (but I believe yes), but the ancient Korea air map had several bridges that could be bombed (and yes, even torpedoed!)
I attacked those a lot when WT was very young, and I flew low tier attackers and bombers…
And another idea from the past, but not so far back as Falcon 2: War Birds from the 90s and onwards. Every destroyable item (which were mostly located on airfields - AA defences, hangars, radar) would repair/rebuild/respawn in 15 minutes. This is a realistic general principle: that targets aren’t destroyed ‘forever.’ As they found in WW2 targets had to be bombed, and bombed again… and then again. The enemy has an annoying habit of repairing and replacing bomb damage - who’d have thought it?
The buildings not on airfields in War Birds were at the ‘city’. Each country had a city consisting of 15 medium to big industrial type buildings clustered together. The base rebuild time (15 mins, as I said) for airfield objects was increased by 2 mins for every destroyed ‘factory’ at that side’s city. So, if you carried out a strategic strike, flattening the enemy city, before you went after an enemy airfield (the game ‘war’ was based on capturing airfields - no ground forces involved in original game) you would have 45 minutes from hitting the first target on the airfield in which to close (destroy all objects) and capture the airfield (drop/land paras to capture the control tower, which was not otherwise destroyable).
Strategic bombing therefore had quite an impact. While an organised group of just 2-3 could close and capture a small airfield easily within 15 minutes, the average dozen or more clowns could often spend all evening trying to capture an airfield where something or other was rebuilding every couple minutes (8 objects, destroyed randomly, each respawning after 15 mins, roughly = 1 every couple mins).
The mechanics there are really very simple, but still created a realistic game world where some thought and planning could really pay off, and where strategic bombing had a sensible and graduated impact on the game: slowing down the delivery of replacements to the front, but never totally stopping repair/replacement.
I mentioned each airfield had a radar. While active a radar site would detect all aircraft within 20 miles, unless they were below 300 ft agl. While you were in the hangar you could see all the radar returns on the map and even act as GCI, although lack of height info was a problem. Bombing radars at a suitable selection of airfield could blind the enemy team over a portion of the map, leaving unaware players to think nothing is going on.
On the bigger WT maps we could have industrial areas - possibly a collection of bases, each looking like a factory, warehouse, refinery etc. - deep in enemy territory, so it wouldn’t be impossible to defend against a quick attack. The bases would respawn in-situ and not at random other locations; they would also be well defended. Destruction of these bases could affect rebuild of airfield modules, just as in WB… but first we’d need airfield modules to repair as they’re supposed to currently…
Airfield modules… now there’s another subject for a long post…
yes port moresby, dover. with 2000 pounds it worked. but the bomb with exactly on top of the bunker.
I feel exactly like you. my head is full of ideas and wishes for Sim EC. unfortunately Gaijin won’t let us program anything. :D
you know, I do the following: I go to the DCS editor and build everything I want for Sim EC myself. but my camel heart is still attached to Sim EC. EC Sim has too much potential to give up.
But seriously, your post is proof that we need programmers who also play Sim and who, like all of us here, want a better Sim! we sim players think a lot more and have a lot more innovations in our heads than the developers
Yea, I guess those Falcon 2 and WB programmers must have had access to advanced technology from some lost civilisation (or aliens). Technology way beyond that available to the snail…. Or, maybe, like the greatly-missed LGA, they simply knew their ass from their elbow?
I played European Air War around the year 2000 by MicroProse. the AI was more than 20 years ahead of the snail AI.
but snails are slow, so it takes time.
The need for Proper SEAD (And possibly ARM at long last) would be really fun in SB
I very nearly mentioned Microprose in my last post. Yea, they were proper pros who really researched everything to do with any of their products, not just the basic hardware appearance and specs. “Pirates” arrrrgh, best game ever.
We don’t need F-22s for this but apparently it cannot be done without the AIM-9X
Everything in that post is a great suggestion, but the surveillance planes’ function is what I like most.
I’m new to jet SB (only been playing for 3 days) and I noticed that 7.0-10.0 lobbies are incredibly boring. Few fighter players want to fly a br where the maps are huge and you have no radar capable of detecting enemies at a distance - leading to flying around for 20 minutes and seeing nothing.
There’s the people flying bombers but it’s difficult to intercept them, since they dont engage and don’t want to be seen.
If surveillance planes would forward a one-time broadcast of location and direction when an enemy plane passed within a grid square or two, jet gameplay would be greatly more interesting.
Heavy bombers… Maybe
But high tier “bombers” like the Tornado and Buc, please no. They can be hard to enough to play, evading enemy radars, etc without having to also deal with the entire enemy team knowing exactly where you are.
I do like the idea of making Objectives more dynamic/impactful, but they really need to be carefully balanced to not destroy the game
Sure.
My idea is primarily so that fighters can find each other precisely when not assisted by radar. On a huge map with no radar or RWR information, finding enemy planes is incredibly frustrating.
Once the fighters start tangling the bombers have less attention paid to them.
Also, the surveillance plane can be destroyed, so it’s not an AWACs situation where your position is constantly known to the enemy, for all time.
I think if the Recon planes actually did something useful for each team would actually make them somewhat interesting.
Alternate ways to “destroy convoys” such as taking out bridges they’ll need to cross would be nice.
Other targets, like trains, bridges and factories.
I think heavy bombers should get an air spawn since even the largest maps are unrealistically close to their targets.
A way for a team to do something to repair airfields when they’re damaged. For instance maybe if a player lands and taxis over to the damaged area it could activate a timer similar to base capturing which would then repair the module.