Experience with bombers in CBT

[Henning]

Hi there,

Just to share the recent experience of my group whem playing CBT with fighter/bomber support:

The last couple of games we incorporated fighters and bombers into our TO&E for the games and had the experience that bombing runs break the game.

For example: one player had 40 conventional bombers and had the full load of bombs. This wrecked the Mechs in the ground totally and couldn't be prevented. BV- wise it was balanced...but i think the game was some room for improvement.

Any experience to share or some thoughts or alternative rules to prevent super cheap bombers to break the game?

[Mendrugo]

The side without bombers should use combined arms, putting either aerospace fighters or conventional fighters overhead as interceptors.  Use the radar map to track the approach of the conventional bombers towards the ground battle, and fight a separate aerobattle as the fighters try to knock out as many of the bombers as possible before they reach the target zone.

[BATTLEMASTER]

Bring AA next time in the form of ACs with flak ammo, LBX with cluster rounds, and pulse lasers.  Artillery tubes can also act as AA.

[dgorsman]

Was this BMM, or TW full aerospace rules (directly on playing area or using low altitude map?)?

Which aircraft, specifically, and what were they armed with?  What ground units?

[Henning]

This was TW rules set on a low altitude map...

One player brought 40 light strike fighters, each with 2 HE bombs.
He also had 4-5 mechs. On the other side there were 2 sholagar, 2 other medium aerospace fighters, also with the max amount of bombs plus 4-5 mechs in the ground.

As this was more or less a test game, both players tried to do some air-2-air, but the 40 light strike fighters had 80 bombs with them, which deal 10 points of damage each. As there are no stacking rules imho he could have dealt a max of 800 points of damage to the ground units and nothing could have prevented this.

Yes,  this is some very extreme situation, but i think dive bombing in battletech is a very powerful tool for very low BV cost.

That's why our group is looking for something to "nerf" this a bit as we all love aerospace combat in Battletech.

[Weirdo]

Advice 1: Incorporate DBaJ into your games. DBaJ is Don't Be a Jerk, and means that players need to remember that they're not fighting an actual war, they're playing a game where both sides are meant to have fun. All-aero forces, Savannah Master swarms, or landing a DropShip directly on top of the enemy's mech force will get the job done, but is no fun to fight against, and if I'm not actually having fun, I've no motivation to play against you in future games. And if everybody decides that and you can't find anyone to play against, you've definitely lost the game.

While I don't recommend banning Aeros from your games, try talking with the other members of your group, and setting some boundaries. As an example, in my group we've agreed that no player will bring more than four artillery tubes in a single force. Maybe come to a similar agreement, where players agree not to bring more than X% of their BV in aero units and ordnance?

Advice 2: Within the above, remember this: A force that is not prepared to deal with at least some aero, deserves all the aero that happens to it.

[Shin Ji]

I've been doing a LOT of Mechs vs air stuff in MegaMek lately, and its been my experience that there's very little that can be done to stop bombers, even with hardcore anti-air mechs on your side. FOr example, I've got at least one Rifleman, which has a quirk hat gives a -2 to hit vs air, with 3 ER Large lasers and 1 AC/2 with flak ammo. Elite pilot with special abilities too. This utter anti-air monster can (and does) kill one conventional fighter per turn, most of the time.

Yeah. One conventional fighter. THose ones with the paper-thin armor. Sure, I can cause them to roll for control pretty often, but that only leads to a crash maybe 25% of the time. And by then, the bombs have already been dropped.

So, if there's a good way to defend against bombers, I have yet to find it.

[Henning]

Thanks for the advice.
The example was quite an extreme and thank god there are no jerks in the group here in Munich.
We discussed something like max. 2-4 fighters or dropping a max of 1-2 bombs per turn and fighter. I was generally interested how this is handled elsewhere.

[Weirdo]

My personal solution is to bring no more than 2-4 fighters to a fight. It I'm not running ultra-cheap LSFs or BJBs, the BV of that many planes plus their ordnance tends to be a very large chunk of my force anyway.

[Insaniac99]

I agree with the Radar map suggestion.  You can only really stop bombers *after* they get off their attack unless you have a field spread out because IRL if you have AA you place it in advance of the stuff you want to protect as a screening force.

Weirdo's Suggestion 1 is such a great one that I've never seen said with such elegance.

[Weirdo]

Would you call it..."Sheer elegance in its simplicity"? :D

[Daryk]

My experience so far has been limited to a couple of games where I was handed a pair of aerospace fighters with bomb loads.  In both games, I dropped all the bombs as early as possible (to maximum effect), then did strikes until the GM told me I was bingo fuel.  The fighters were able to FUBAR two 'mechs (basically put them into forced withdrawal) in the second game, and the first... well, that was why I was told I was bingo fuel after a few turns in the second...

[RifleMech]

40 bombers?  :o Against 5 Mechs? :o That's a lot of bombers to be sending after 5 mechs. Were they all AA Mechs?

[Cannonshop]

This was TW rules set on a low altitude map...

One player brought 40 light strike fighters, each with 2 HE bombs.
He also had 4-5 mechs. On the other side there were 2 sholagar, 2 other medium aerospace fighters, also with the max amount of bombs plus 4-5 mechs in the ground.

As this was more or less a test game, both players tried to do some air-2-air, but the 40 light strike fighters had 80 bombs with them, which deal 10 points of damage each. As there are no stacking rules imho he could have dealt a max of 800 points of damage to the ground units and nothing could have prevented this.

Yes,  this is some very extreme situation, but i think dive bombing in battletech is a very powerful tool for very low BV cost.

That's why our group is looking for something to "nerf" this a bit as we all love aerospace combat in Battletech.

Ehm...How big were those 'mechs?  (BV wise) because to me, it looks like someone screwed up their BV calculations.  I could see 40-5 odds with INFANTRY, but it's a pretty big difference between a stand of riflemen and a light strike fighter.

[Insaniac99]

Ehm...How big were those 'mechs?  (BV wise) because to me, it looks like someone screwed up their BV calculations.  I could see 40-5 odds with INFANTRY, but it's a pretty big difference between a stand of riflemen and a light strike fighter.

(I do not know that it was this bomber being used)

The Boeing Jump Bomber only costs 64BV.  The Bombs cost BV, but still not enough to get less than a 10 to 1 numerical superiority against almost anything that can fight.  Sure, they only have 16 total armor.  But they fly 9/14 and with simultaneous turn resolution, it's relatively easy to drop and fly off and Why would they bother shooting at a bomber that is now useless when there are other things on the field.

The Raubvogel Aerobomber at 368bv, or the Torrent Heavy Bomber at 327bv are also good choices.

[CapricornNoble]

Advice 1: Incorporate DBaJ into your games. DBaJ is Don't Be a Jerk, and means that players need to remember that they're not fighting an actual war, they're playing a game where both sides are meant to have fun. All-aero forces, Savannah Master swarms, or landing a DropShip directly on top of the enemy's mech force will get the job done, but is no fun to fight against, and if I'm not actually having fun, I've no motivation to play against you in future games. And if everybody decides that and you can't find anyone to play against, you've definitely lost the game.

While I don't recommend banning Aeros from your games, try talking with the other members of your group, and setting some boundaries. As an example, in my group we've agreed that no player will bring more than four artillery tubes in a single force. Maybe come to a similar agreement, where players agree not to bring more than X% of their BV in aero units and ordnance?

Advice 2: Within the above, remember this: A force that is not prepared to deal with at least some aero, deserves all the aero that happens to it.

*shudders* I think this is why I'm content to play solo games of MegaMek. I would never want to take to a table that isn't tactically creative, adaptive, and punishes complacency. Somebody tries to land a Dropship on your troops? Your fault for too high of a troop density. Adjust your maneuver tactics and increase the dispersion between your units. Design and deploy drone-controlled conventional fighters to kamikaze the Dropship as it tries to land. Bet they won't try Dropship shenanigans again.

Somebody spams Savannah Masters? Maybe counter with Sniper's shooting FASCAM (to restrict their movement avenues) and HE. Of course you'll need more than 4 tubes (that's less than a single modern arty battery....compare/contrast with the Russians who use arty almost at a 1:1 ratio with their maneuver units), partly because the arty scatter radius is insane.

Somebody shows up with an entire wing of conventional bombers? Where's your Combat Air Patrol? Several fighters should be pure air-to-air loadouts with AA or (Light AA) Arrow IVs.


Maybe I'm just an outlier.....I also wouldn't play BV-based games (where "one trick pony/glass cannon" archetypes reveal the limits of the BV system), or stand-alone (aka not-part-of-a-campaign) battles where people can get away with these sorts of shenanigans because there are no long-term consequences of them being countered HARD and the catastrophic losses having second- and third-order effects to punish the abuser in follow-in games.

[Weirdo]

For me, it's the opposite. I stay the hell away from campaigns, that fall apart as soon as one player's schedule keeps him away from a couple games, or the GM wants to play something else once and we never go back, or entire game sessions are taken up by accounting(or trying to convince someone to actually do said accounting), or one or two bad games means the rest of the campaign is nothing but sticking your fingers in a crumbling dam instead of anything actually enjoyable. Gimme BV-balanced pick-up games every time.

But, different strokes for different folks.

[CapricornNoble]

But, different strokes for different folks.

Yeah, to BT's credit, there being more than one way to skin the cat is one of its strengths.

[Daryk]

Personally, I LIKE the accounting... for me, it's a feature, not a bug.

[Weirdo]

Personally, I LIKE the accounting... for me, it's a feature, not a bug.

But, different strokes for different folks.

[Daryk]

Just filling out the set of different strokes...  :)

[Wolf72]

Why did one side have complete air superiority? If not complete, there were enough numbers to lay waste to anything in their path.

I mean, if you were just trying to see what would happen, then yeah you made a point.  Just read OP a bit closer ...

Sure, your bombers have some good points.  But who's going to have 40 light strike fighters?  And who else is going show up with out some serious ASF throw of their own if they have any inkling of what's going on?

[GreekFire]

I don’t find aero to be that game breaking, but swarms can and will straight-up ruin a game.

This doesn’t even just apply to Aero, but also ProtoMechs, light vehicles, and certain types of infantry. There even used to be a force-size BV modifier rule in the game to account for the “Savannah Master swarms”, but it was awful and has been, thankfully enough, thoroughly scrubbed from the game. Still, I’d recommend fielding a max of 150% of the number of units your opponent has for a pick-up game.

[SCC]

OK, I've run some numbers, and these are liekly out of date, but here goes: Boeing Jump Bomber with two HE Bombs, total BV(2):88, Atlas BM: 1,897, Ratio: 21:1, so 10:1 is easily possible.

[Cannonshop]

OK, I've run some numbers, and these are liekly out of date, but here goes: Boeing Jump Bomber with two HE Bombs, total BV(2):88, Atlas BM: 1,897, Ratio: 21:1, so 10:1 is easily possible.

I stand corrected.  did you include pilot skill in that?

[SCC]

No adjustments where made for pilot skill.

[Cannonshop]

No adjustments where made for pilot skill.

very nice.

still, there is some reasonable concern where it comes to dealing with swarms.  The problem being, HOW to deal with them?  FSM doesn't really 'deal with them' so much as "Force duelling as the only practical approach-using the highest single bV unit you can afford by itself".  Which is why it wound up being removed.

After a certain point, adjusting Initiative won't do anything either.  even with front-loaded initiative, a swarm of 40-some-odd planes vs a lance of 4 'mechs winds up being one-sided in the extreme.

I really don't know what to do about this.  The impact of the pre-Total Warfare "Savannahswarm" (massed use of Savannahmasters) was dealt with by changing the movement rules for Hovercraft, but that really won't work here.  Single-ton bomb loads are already ridiculously underpowered compared to quarter ton artillery shells, so dropping the power/versatility of bombs isn't going to address this either.

at least, not adequately.

Possibly the only real hard-counter, is to field a diverse force of your own, with integral units capable of ADA fire (conventional autocannons with flak, or LBX autocannons, or HAG for you Clanners out there) and possibly, if Aero is a possibility, bringing some of your own.  but that's really where the do-able solutions end up falling into play.

[Weirdo]

FSM solves nothing, because it hasn't existed for years now. Weren't you at the celebration?

[Daryk]

I'm still in the "BV solves nothing" camp, even though BV2 exists...

You really have to know something about the players, not just the units, and nothing will ever account for that...

[Cannonshop]

FSM solves nothing, because it hasn't existed for years now. Weren't you at the celebration?

the celebration happened while I was on hiatus-I went through a period where my personal life got to the edge of an abyss and damn near tipped into it, upon which time, I took a hiatus from Battletech, the community, and pretty much everything I'd enjoyed and it lasted a few years while I got my feet back under me.