Suggestion: Close Air Support

[Ijuin]

I would like to propose a new mission for Air units: Close Air Support.

This mission would work the same as Air Superiority, attacking any enemy unit which tried to attack a tile within 1/2 of its operating radius (2 squares for Fighter, 3 for Jet fighter). The difference is that this mission is against LAND units.

What I mean by this is that, if any enemy land unit attacks a friendly unit, or pillages tile improvements within your territory, then any Air units assigned to Close Air Support will automatically perform a bombing run on the enemy unit, yeilding the same results as if you had actively chosen to use that Air unit to bomb the enemy. Both Fighter-type and Bomber-type units would be capable of Close Air Support missions.

I welcome comments/criticism on this idea.

[Carver]

I like the concept. But one thing is fighters are pitiful at bombing missions so I doubt they would have much of an effect. Bombers could be quite useful though.

[Optimizer]

Would there be any difference between close air support and bombing?

[Andrew_Jay]

I like the idea as well, I'm guessing it would be a lot like having artilery etc. fire an opening shot if their stack gets attacked? So if you have 3 fighters on close air support, bombing sorties will be flown against the first three attacks on your units within 2 squares. That the gist of your idea? Hopefully this might be a real possibility given the new airfields.

[zulu9812]

Really , what you want is auto-bomb and auto-bombard? Personally I don't like the concept. Too powerful.

[NeoStar]

Originally posted by zulu9812
Too powerful.

Not with planes mate, not with planes...

[Andrew_Jay]

Planes are hardly successful with their bombing missions as they are.
It's really no different than the defense bombard, but with a little extra mobility (which you could expect from an airplane) so the defending bombarder doesn't have to actually be in the tile getting attacked. At most an attacker might lose a hit point or two one in every three or four attacks (those numbers of course are completely made up)

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by Andrew_Jay
I like the idea as well, I'm guessing it would be a lot like having artilery etc. fire an opening shot if their stack gets attacked? So if you have 3 fighters on close air support, bombing sorties will be flown against the first three attacks on your units within 2 squares. That the gist of your idea? Hopefully this might be a real possibility given the new airfields.

Yes, that was exactly what I was thinking of. If a hostile unit attacks friendly units or tile improvements within its intercept rage, then any Air units on Close Air Support missions will bomb them just like artillery units bombard incoming hostiles.

[Panag]

hi ,

, intresting

, marines go in , the fighters from the nearby carrier go after ground units true a special button (mission , like control the sky) , in their bombing run they get a double attack rate against ground units , ....



have a nice day

[Bleyn]

Originally posted by Carver
I like the concept. But one thing is fighters are pitiful at bombing missions so I doubt they would have much of an effect. Bombers could be quite useful though.

To be true close air support, it has to be fighters. Bombers just aren't suitable for that mission as we learned from hard experience in WW2.

I believe it was the battle of St. Lo(?) in Normandy, the Allies tried to use Bombers in a CAS type role on two successive days. Both times, they ended up killing as many or more allied soldiers as they did Germans. The bombers were flying too high, coming from the wrong direction, and did not really have the training that would have enabled them to really place their ordanance in the right spot every time.

At the same time in the Pacific, the USMC was having fantastic success with CAS. There were a couple of main reasons for the difference. First, they were using dive bombers, which were really fighters in all but the name. Planes that in the hands of a reasonably skilled pilot could place their ordanance on the ground where they wanted time and again, with far greater accuracy than any bomber of the day. Second, their pilots were Marines first and aviators second. They had(and still get) far more training in being a groundpounder than any Air Force or Navy pilot ever wants to go near. Third, their Forward Air Controllers were Marine Aviators, men who could look at the ground in front of them and describe it in exactly the fashion needed to tell their airborne counterpart what he needed to do his job right. That integrated ground/air team proved so successful they use essentially that same model to this day.

[Palaiologos]

Good idea.I would also like to see fighter planes perfom escort missions for bombers, so when bombers are intercepted the interceptor would have to take on the fighter escort first.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Palaiologos
Good idea.I would also like to see fighter planes perfom escort missions for bombers, so when bombers are intercepted the interceptor would have to take on the fighter escort first.

hi ,

, actually is allready a bit in it , they could work on it , and we could have it

have a nice day