WP Conventional Bombing Raids

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

Afternoon all,

Wondered what everyone's opinions were on the likliehood of the WP Air Forces carrying out conventional bombing attacks on targets behind the front lines (e.g. airbases in the UK and the Netherlands, British and Dutch ports, POMCUS sites etc) before the War goes nuclear? Would Soviet strategic and medium range bombers be able to cause significant amounts of damage in rear areas or would NATO air defences be likely to intercept any attacking aircraft before they could get near enough to their targets to cause much damage?
Cheers

In my limited experience of WW3 wargaming, I would go all-out as the Pact air commander to hit the NATO rear ASAP. Those American POMCUS sites are really juicy targets-- if I can negate those, I take out a huge amount of NATO's second-stage counter-offensive capabilities.

In GDW's Third World War games, my preferred tactic was to send a desant division or two after them. That could prevent an American division or three from showing up at all in the game, and keep the French busy for weeks. If the game had made it possible, I would also have used Spetsnaz and persistent chemical strikes.

Headquarters and supply dumps would also be big targets, they just weren't in that game.

Of course, in order to get to any of those, one needs to hit airbases and air-defense bases, too.

So, yeah, if the Pact has any air capability at all, they need to get it active ASAP. Probably not a winner of an idea, given that NATO should be alerted and may defend West German airspace from the get-go, but ya gotta try.