Aircraft are not very useful items for close support - they never have been. The WW2 myth of tank-busting Typoons was just that - it was the trucks they destroyed, and so starved the tanks of fuel and ammo. Operations research post-war showed tiny actual percentages of kills by air on armoured targets. Any vehicle with a tin roof was actually rather immune to air attack. The Balkans ops were the same result, as were the Gulf War - even though that was in an open desert. The real tank killing was when the MBT turned up. Planes are better used for interdiction missions against the enemy supply lines than trying to plink tanks on the battlefield. CAS is really only a make-work mission for an Air Force that has surplus planes after that main effort.
SP does
not model the operational and strategic levels - so you cannot go for his fuel convoys, arty batteries and ammo dumps in his operational depth.
CAS aircraft are really
only worth the bother if you have complete air supremacy, to include having beaten down all AAA assets by a campaign of attrition. That can be modelled in a
scenario, by not buying the enemy any air defence or only a few etc.
The only other reason for using CAS fixed wing air is to support land forces that are
outside artillery support range. Other than a scenario situation, SP battles are automatically in artillery range of each other (long range C/B being about the only range issue).
Apart from some armies that historically have no AAA (e.g. Iraqi SAMS are unavailable at certain points, or the AI pick list simply ignores them), any AI-bought force will buy a healthy dose of AAA assets, and is more likely to buy more if it does not have air assets itself.
So - you could decide to play the long game and suppress the AAA assets before trying for the land forces (use of SEAD, artillery to counter any detected launch sites etc). But that is not going to contribute to the land battle, except perhaps to make it easier for any rotary wing air support. Enemy ADA assets generally are not much cop against the normal land forces after all, bar say ADATS.
Therefore unless it is a scenario which allows for the peculiarities of fixed wing CAS (it is a
scenario with a lost patrol who only can get air CAS, or the Air Force has been presumed to blat all ADA assets over several weeks campaigning) then I really would not much bother with it past about say the 1973/5 period (Yom Kippur and Vietnam). Up till then and in WW2 the planes have a chance of surviving against air defences, but when radar directed AAA and useful SAMS get commonplace then, scenario use only IMHO.
Apart from that in generated games, I would tend to only use rotary wing assets, RPV etc. Attack helos can be reloaded, after all, and can use the ground contours as cover.
Since the armies are in arty support range, I would use the points on arty instead. Recce by scout helo or RPV used intelligently.
In WW2 and the 45-75 period, when attacking then I will buy strike fixed wing air once I have bought enough tube arty to support the attack. I programme them for reconnaissance strikes on my planned approach. If they survive, then that is gravy but the info about where tanks are placed in the defence is the main thing they are there to determine.
Of course - you can get an opponent in PBEM who forgets to buy ADA assets. That happened to me once, and my Hunters ruled the battlefield especially since once I realised his error, I could plan my passes from the rear of his side of the board to attack the tanks in the bum with 30mm ADEN fires
!:
This quote is in the Military Quotations section of the GG and is perfectly true:
"The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.", Winston Churchill: The Gathering storm, 1948
Cheers
Andy
Re: is aircraft worth it?
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