Panzer Battles 2 - The Official Teaser Thread

[Strela]

By the way David, if you're allowed to reveal it: is there one Allied interdiction value like in Kursk or is it scenario/time specific and what is the interdiction value, 4%-5% or the like?

Just wondering as night time movement will be more important in Normandy, but from time to time you will have to move during the day and all those small gun units need to move around one by one.

Well this will probably be a contentious post!!!

Here are the Air parameter values for Kursk and Normandy side by side;




What you will notice is that the difference in values are pretty significant.

Here is the rationale for each.

Air availability is less in Normandy (30% vs 50%). This is the chance of an airstrike unit being available after being used. Personally, I think Kursk is too high on reflection and it could be argued that 30% is even an optimistic number. This means that there is a 30% chance an air unit will be available in a subsequent turn. This is modified by visibility if the low visibility alternate rule is in use. This is currently a default in game. That said the availability value is very dependent on the number of air units actually in a scenario. A value of 50% with two air units would average out to one unit available per turn, while a value of 30% with three air units yields the same result. This value needs to be considered with the number of aircraft actually included in game.

Allied air interdiction is 15% (!!!). That means there is approx a 1 in 6 chance of being struck for every hex moved into in travel or rail mode. This does not impact units moving normally. Essentially you can expect to get hit by air interdiction if you try to move too far in travel mode as the German player. There are modifiers;

• The probability is based on the total number of units in Travel or Rail Mode in the hex being moved into.
  
• The probability is modified by any terrain modifier of the hex being moved into.
  
• The probability is half during Dawn and Dusk turns.
  

This value is obviously much higher than the Kursk value and is to reflect the fact that Allies had fighter bombers roving around the air space. One thing I will check is whether Low Visibility impacts this value - I don't believe that is the case other than the aforementioned dawn & dusk impacts.

Interdiction effect is a percentage used against a 'general airstrike'. A random air unit is selected and its attack value is multiplied by this percentage. in Normandy this is 25% vs Kursk's 15%. The difference reflects the heavier weaponry carried by Allied fighter bombers (cannons, rockets etc).

So for clarity, think of air strikes as planned attacks - preset bombing raids etc that take time to organise and coordinate. The lower the visibility, the harder it is to get these strikes onto their target in a timely fashion.

Interdiction is the cab rank of fighter bombers that were either ready to be called in on a tactical basis or were freely roaming looking for columns of vehicles. Move in the open in travel mode and you're running the risk of being hit. Move normally and you're immune to interdiction, but you are much slower moving, particularly in bocage country.

A couple of final points. There are no air interception values. It's assumed that the German fighters will be intercepted long before they could intercept any Allied missions over the battlefield. There is also no German Interdiction value as there was no German aircraft - one thing that could be included is a low percentage (say 1%) to reflect Allied friendly fire. There are a number of documented cases of Allied aircraft shooting up their own ground vehicles. Happy for peoples thoughts on that?

David