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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 16, 2019 13:49:16 GMT -6
Seeing as how we've ran the "multiple bombs" thread completely off track, I figure it's best we take this to it's own thread. As of writing, the official word on the topic is:
While it is somewhat unlikely that discussion of the matter at this point will lead to a major shift in the status of the initial release, I think there's quite a bit of value in discussing the topic for future updates. I do think that it would be best to start by making the distinction between the different reasons an aircraft may be used as a manned missile.
Dedicated Suicide Attack Units
Most commonly associated with the Japanese "Special Attack Units", or more commonly referred to as "Kamikazes", units of this type occasionally appeared in other nations. The Luftwaffe briefly utilized ramming techniques against Allied bombers through the "Sonderkommando Elbe". Italy utilized a fast motorboat loaded with explosives, intended to be steered onto a collision course with a hostile ship with the pilot ejecting just prior to impact.
How these types of units could be represented in RtW2 is a matter of some debate, however it has largely been agreed that if it is made possible, it should only be available when a nation is suffering a severe victory point deficit. The specifics, such as whether the possibility to order these attacks should be limited to certain nations or how those orders should be assigned has much less agreement. In my personal opinion, the following would make for a rather reasonable depiction of how such units could be represented.
•Suicide Attacks only become an option when under a major victory point deficit •Suicide Attacks only become an option when a nation has lost territory to an invasion ◘ OR after a war has passed a certain length
◘ OR has been under blockade for an extended period •Conditions being fulfilled to "unlock" Suicide Attacks gives access to a new page of the Doctrine Tab ◘This page contains a matrix similar to the "Ammunition Usage" page ○Each grouping of ships may be assigned "Forbidden", "Allowed" and "Encouraged"
○"Forbidden" is the default, suicide attacks will not take place. ○"Allowed" indicates that pilots are presented with the option in training, and may chose to perform such attacks upon the target. ○"Encouraged", pilots are told that suicide attacks should be made upon the targets as often as possible. I'm a bit uncertain about this approach, as I feel it could be a bit too complicated and might clash with different air group tasks.
•ALTERNATIVELY: Conditions being fulfilled to "unlock" Suicide Attacks gives access to a new class of air group, one dedicated to Suicide Attacks. •Every turn that Suicide Attacks are being utilized, the player suffers prestige loss. •If any conditions (VP gap, blockade) are "broken", Suicide Attacks are disabled, as the situation is considered to have stabilized.
The existence of Suicide Attack Units is a rather dicey subject, however. While I personally believe that their impact on the real world merits their inclusion within RtW2, I do understand why some may feel uncomfortable with including them within the game.
Incidental Ramming/Suicide Attacks The practice of ramming an enemy has followed the history of military aviation practically since it's inception. Sometimes as a weapon of desperation and sometimes entirely accidental, I feel that this method is something that most certainly should be included in RtW2. In my mind, it could be implemented like so:
•A plane on an attack run that is damaged has a chance of crashing into the subject of it's attack. •Damage to the ship would be resolved as a bomb hit, plus additional damage due to the aircraft's impact.
•The likelihood of this occurring must be very low to prevent it from occurring regularly.
Based on the screenshots we've seen, such an event would look something like this, assuming an player's American cruiser under attack by Japanese dive bombers.
1 enemy Aichi D3A dive bomb CL Atlanta
CL Atlanta fires 6 heavy AA at attacking aircraft!
HAA Hit chance: XX HAA: 1 aircraft damaged! Damaged Aichi D3A crashes into CL Atlanta! CL Atlanta Bomb hit! Fore/aft hull hit *
What I really like about this portrayal is that it leaves the reason for the impact ambiguous. The previous events could have been the result of a fanatical pilot, one who simply was making the best of a bad situation or perhaps was entirely accidental. As a result, a player may choose to interpret this in a manner they see fit. A particularly patriotic player may see this as a doomed pilot ensuring his final act serves his country well, while another may see it as a plane too badly damaged by enemy fire to pull out of the dive. This somewhat mirrors reality, as certain commanders might choose to portray the event in one way or the other for propaganda purposes.
Also, William, I took your comment to mean "drop the discussion within the thread about multiple bombs" rather than altogether. If that was intended to call for ceasing discussion of it entirely, that's my bad.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 16, 2019 16:34:06 GMT -6
In my opinion, suicide attacks and ramming’s occurred generally when one side, be it a nation or a force have reached a point where normal combat operations are not succeeding and the end is in sight. For Japanese, it was also a cultural aspect, they were conditioned to believe that their emperor was a living god and you must sacrifice yourself for him. The Japanese forces whether land, air or sea used these tactics all the time, when a combat situation was beyond hope, in their estimate.
For the German’s, it was desperation in the air war. They could not produce enough combat pilots quick enough and their losses were exceeding their gains.
As to the game, I would support the use of suicide or ramming attacks but only after the point spread in a war reached a certain point. It would be limited and with excessive losses, the game would turn off its usage.
I only support this, because of the need to be historically realistic. This type of strategy and tactics was used throughout history and to enable realism, the game should allow it.
Personally, such a strategy is just reprehensible to me, wasting lives that can never be retrieved, but that is just my view.
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Post by bluewasps on Feb 16, 2019 23:20:17 GMT -6
Speaking of accidental rammings here is a story about one such attack.
William D. Porter fell victim to a unique—though fatal—kamikaze attack. At 08:15 that morning, an obsolete Aichi D3A "Val" dive bomber dropped unheralded out of the clouds and made straight for the warship. The destroyer managed to evade the suicide plane, and it splashed down nearby her. Somehow, the explosive-laden plane ended up directly beneath Porter before it exploded. Suddenly, the warship was lifted out of the water and then dropped back again, due to the force of the underwater blast. She lost power and suffered broken steam lines. A number of fires also broke out.
Also this ship almost killed the president, Potential history has a great video about it.
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Post by vonfriedman on Feb 17, 2019 2:40:48 GMT -6
In my opinion, suicide attacks and ramming’s occurred generally when one side, be it a nation or a force have reached a point where normal combat operations are not succeeding and the end is in sight. For Japanese, it was also a cultural aspect, they were conditioned to believe that their emperor was a living god and you must sacrifice yourself for him. The Japanese forces whether land, air or sea used these tactics all the time, when a combat situation was beyond hope, in their estimate. For the German’s, it was desperation in the air war. They could not produce enough combat pilots quick enough and their losses were exceeding their gains. As to the game, I would support the use of suicide or ramming attacks but only after the point spread in a war reached a certain point. It would be limited and with excessive losses, the game would turn off its usage. I only support this, because of the need to be historically realistic. This type of strategy and tactics was used throughout history and to enable realism, the game should allow it. Personally, such a strategy is just reprehensible to me, wasting lives that can never be retrieved, but that is just my view. The development of radio-guided "kamikaze-like" airplanes such as the Mistel or the AR (Assalto Radioguidato) is not necessarily linked to situations of final state crises. It is presumable that the Germans, if they had had the time, would have managed to solve the problem of guiding their more advanced Mistel aircraft, such as the Arado E-377, on the target. |
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Post by rimbecano on Feb 17, 2019 5:28:08 GMT -6
I'll note that for German and Soviet aerial ramming attacks in the European theater, the attacks were not expected to be a guaranteed suicide mission: there was at least some chance of bailing out after, or shortly before, the collision. The Japanese are the only nation I know of that has used aircraft in deliberate collisions as a tactic on even two of the below three points, let alone all three:
1) As a matter of policy (the pilot takes off with orders to fly into something), as opposed to one-off attacks or a permissive attitude but no direct orders.
2) With no survival expected.
3) On a grand scale.
The Soviets allowed their pilots to ram, and it happened fairly often, before they were able to deploy competitive fighters, but I've not heard that they issued direct orders to ram during* the war, and survival was expected, as ramming was forbidden over enemy territory.
One little known instance of orders to ram is that the fighters scrambled to intercept Flight 93 had not had time to arm and had orders to ram, had the airliner not crashed.
*The Soviets did, however, send up fighters to bring down Gary Powers, with orders to ram if necessary, but they were not able to intercept him and he was brought down by SAMs.
EDIT: If full anti-ship/no survival kamikaze attacks are included in the game, the biggest thing I'd like to see is that the average crew quality for the player's aircraft squadrons must be low to enact a kamikaze policy, and that a kamikaze policy should peg aircrew quality to the lowest setting for all of the player's aircraft. I've seen an analysis that said basically that the kamikaze idea wasn't entirely bonkers: At that point in the war, any Japanese pilot deployed in combat was going to be extremely green, and would be facing opponents that were superior in numbers, experience, and aircraft performance, so that said pilot would almost certainly be lost, and was unlikely to do any damage by conventional means. So while kamikaze missions were guaranteed fatal, they expended fewer lives per ton sunk than would otherwise have been the case.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 17, 2019 11:47:38 GMT -6
In my opinion, suicide attacks and ramming’s occurred generally when one side, be it a nation or a force have reached a point where normal combat operations are not succeeding and the end is in sight. For Japanese, it was also a cultural aspect, they were conditioned to believe that their emperor was a living god and you must sacrifice yourself for him. The Japanese forces whether land, air or sea used these tactics all the time, when a combat situation was beyond hope, in their estimate. For the German’s, it was desperation in the air war. They could not produce enough combat pilots quick enough and their losses were exceeding their gains. As to the game, I would support the use of suicide or ramming attacks but only after the point spread in a war reached a certain point. It would be limited and with excessive losses, the game would turn off its usage. I only support this, because of the need to be historically realistic. This type of strategy and tactics was used throughout history and to enable realism, the game should allow it. Personally, such a strategy is just reprehensible to me, wasting lives that can never be retrieved, but that is just my view. The development of radio-guided "kamikaze-like" airplanes such as the Mistel or the AR (Assalto Radioguidato) is not necessarily linked to situations of final state crises. It is presumable that the Germans, if they had had the time, would have managed to solve the problem of guiding their more advanced Mistel aircraft, such as the Arado E-377, on the target. If you have the aircraft and well trained pilots, why would you waste your time with such inaccurate weapons.... you would not, you would simply produce the fighters both single engine and twin engine, with sufficient on-board firepower to destroy bombers using ground and airborne radar. The German's had neither so they tried to improvise. This development was triggered by the lack of the first two weapons. Radio guided weapons are more advantageous with missiles and rockets, not wasting a whole aircraft. Mistral was not a cost-effective weapon, simple an expedient because the bombers were available. Now, having said that, It is true that the US did use radio-controlled B-17's in Operation Aphrodite. They were old B-17's designated B!-7's with 12,000 of torpex. They were used on V-1 and V-2 missile-launching sites, submarine pens and deep underground facilities. They were not suicide weapons, just radio-controlled drones, which is a little different. Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was killed during one of these operations. His younger brother was President John Kennedy. . |
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Post by director on Feb 17, 2019 12:01:01 GMT -6
If kamikaze-style attacks are implemented, it should be a 'special quality' like Japanese surprise attacks, and it should exact a large penalty for the using player in victory points, national unrest and warship crew quality.
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Post by corsair on Feb 17, 2019 12:11:44 GMT -6
EDIT: If full anti-ship/no survival kamikaze attacks are included in the game, the biggest thing I'd like to see is that the average crew quality for the player's aircraft squadrons must be low to enact a kamikaze policy, and that a kamikaze policy should peg aircrew quality to the lowest setting for all of the player's aircraft.
That is an excellent suggestion.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 17, 2019 12:35:10 GMT -6
.... One little known instance of orders to ram is that the fighters scrambled to intercept Flight 93 had not had time to arm and had orders to ram, had the airliner not crashed. .... I would caution you on believing this story by the pilots. We have documented evidence that the plane was hit by a missile and Donald Rumsfeld actually slipped during an interview and said that it was shot down. The plane was still 20 minutes from Washington DC. which gave NORAD more than enough time to launch another group of interceptors which were probably on standby, armed and ready to go. I suspect she was hit either by another flight or by a ground to air heat-seeker. I am not saying these pilots are lying but they will be given specific instructions once they landed on how to respond to questions and they will have signed NDA's about it. I was in NORAD and I had to sign an NDA about incident's that we saw. Again, I am not saying she is lying, just following orders, which is normal. The documentary evidence is by witnesses but they are not always correct in what they thing they saw or heard. |
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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 17, 2019 17:28:40 GMT -6
EDIT: If full anti-ship/no survival kamikaze attacks are included in the game, the biggest thing I'd like to see is that the average crew quality for the player's aircraft squadrons must be low to enact a kamikaze policy, and that a kamikaze policy should peg aircrew quality to the lowest setting for all of the player's aircraft. I think it might depend on how prevalent it is assumed that the Kamikaze doctrine is. Is it assumed that all aircraft squadrons are performing these attacks, or only some? If kamikaze-style attacks are implemented, it should be a 'special quality' like Japanese surprise attacks, and it should exact a large penalty for the using player in victory points, national unrest and warship crew quality. Victory point penalties seem like it might be rather counter-intuitive. National unrest seems reasonable, but I'm not sure why warship crew quality would degrade. |
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Post by corsair on Feb 17, 2019 18:48:29 GMT -6
I would caution you on believing this story by the pilots. We have documented evidence that the plane was hit by a missile and Donald Rumsfeld actually slipped during an interview and said that it was shot down. The plane was still 20 minutes from Washington DC. which gave NORAD more than enough time to launch another group of interceptors which were probably on standby, armed and ready to go. I suspect she was hit either by another flight or by a ground to air heat-seeker. I am not saying these pilots are lying but they will be given specific instructions once they landed on how to respond to questions and they will have signed NDA's about it. I was in NORAD and I had to sign an NDA about incident's that we saw. Again, I am not saying she is lying, just following orders, which is normal. The documentary evidence is by witnesses but they are not always correct in what they thing they saw or heard. It makes no sense why United 93 being shot down would be covered up. Given the circumstances prevailing at the time, I cannot see anyone objecting to such an action being taken had it been deemed necessary. Was the NTSB and FBI ordered to cover up evidence of an anti-aircraft strike on the jet? What about the recorded calls from passengers onboard stating they were going to attempt to retake control of the aircraft? And the cockpit voice recording? Sometimes the simplest solution is correct: the hijacker pilot crashed the jet because he knew he was not going to make it to his assigned target. |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 17, 2019 19:05:59 GMT -6
I would caution you on believing this story by the pilots. We have documented evidence that the plane was hit by a missile and Donald Rumsfeld actually slipped during an interview and said that it was shot down. The plane was still 20 minutes from Washington DC. which gave NORAD more than enough time to launch another group of interceptors which were probably on standby, armed and ready to go. I suspect she was hit either by another flight or by a ground to air heat-seeker. I am not saying these pilots are lying but they will be given specific instructions once they landed on how to respond to questions and they will have signed NDA's about it. I was in NORAD and I had to sign an NDA about incident's that we saw. Again, I am not saying she is lying, just following orders, which is normal. The documentary evidence is by witnesses but they are not always correct in what they thing they saw or heard. It makes no sense why United 93 being shot down would be covered up. Given the circumstances prevailing at the time, I cannot see anyone objecting to such an action being taken had it been deemed necessary. Was the NTSB and FBI ordered to cover up evidence of an anti-aircraft strike on the jet? What about the recorded calls from passengers onboard stating they were going to attempt to retake control of the aircraft? And the cockpit voice recording? Sometimes the simplest solution is correct: the hijacker pilot crashed the jet because he knew he was not going to make it to his assigned target. We should get back to the original vein of the thread. |
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Post by williammiller on Feb 18, 2019 0:39:09 GMT -6
Let us move away from these 'conspiracy theories' and stick with the subject proper. Thanks.
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Post by alexbrunius on Feb 18, 2019 5:56:13 GMT -6
If kamikaze-style attacks are implemented, it should be a 'special quality' like Japanese surprise attacks, and it should exact a large penalty for the using player in victory points, national unrest and warship crew quality. I disagree. - Victory points should not track anything other than who is winning. If you manage to sink alot of expensive ships using Kamikaze you should gain corresponding amount of victory points same as if you sunk them using any other tool. However Kamikazes should only be possible to be used when your far below the enemy in terms of victory points so you can never use it to "win" a war, only to "not lose as badly as without it". - National unrest was not increased by Kamikaze, what increased national unrest in Japan was devastating strategic campaigns by submarines and bombers cutting of all imports and reducing the cities to ash. Despite this the population of Japan was able to tolerate much higher unrest than most other nations before contemplating surrender, due to their culture and mentality. - Your own warship crew quality shouldn't be impacted by your Aircrews doing Kamikaze. If Airplane crew quality is tracked separately however it make sense it would be impacted negatively. |
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Post by halseyincarnate on Feb 18, 2019 9:32:57 GMT -6
I'm in favor of one off random ramming attacks but I feel like dedicated suicide missions should be specific to certain nations/ideologies. To me it doesn't seem realistic that democratic nations like the USA or the UK would order kamikaze attacks. What i'd like to see is kamikaze attacks be dependent on ideology. Granted I don't know much about what the different ideologies will be and how they'll function. I feel like fascist nations and other governments with a dictator/monarch should be able to do them but democratic nations ordering kamikaze attacks feels unrealistic (even if Japan went democratic).
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