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[tbauchot]

Hello, thank you very much for all your posts!!!

My request is to have civilians in order to have a back ground more realistic and more fun.
Villages homes, taverns, farms, stations, harbours, markets... will be more sympathetic with civilians rather than uniform people and life would be more colourful and rather than kill them it would be pleasant to protect them !...    It is a very good start with  the multitude of civilians objects and cars but where is "Pretty woman" ??? I'm sure that a lot of player would like to help her... (smile...)

Thierry . (sorry for my bad language, I'm French...)

[El_Marta]

"If civilians were hit in WWII, tough luck for them, that was the attitude, they didn't care about civilians because there was nothing they could do. What's gonna matter more, dead civilians or stopping the enemy's war production machine? I'd choose the latter because it's more important that the enemy stop making weapons that kill our boys on the front lines and shorten the war. The civilians are an abstraction to the larger goal of denying the enemy the means to fight. look, I know these guys have families."


Civilians were designated targets of "strategical" bombing offensive and they cared a lot about hitting them effectively. Firebombs were specially designed to deal with civilians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebombing

[Thunda]

I disagree that incendiary bombs were designed to 'deal' with civilians. Incendiary devices were used during strategic bombing raids by the Luftwaffe and the RAF in the west, and the USAAF in Japan in order to de-house the population and destroy buildings. If you read the quote from Air marshall Harris in your link, you will see that the British observed the devastating results in the Luftwaffe raid on Coventry, where high explosives were mixed with incendiary bombs, and decided to use the strategy during RAF raids in Germany, not in an anti-personnel role, although many, many civilians died, but as a way of destroying factories and warehouses, and the de-housing of the working population.

Who is your initial quote by?

[agracier]

Who is your initial quote by?

It comes from page 1, a quote by Patchman123 ...

[Thunda]

Right, yes, I see it now Agracier, thanks. Interesting outlook.

[agracier]

For the mid 20th century it is a run-of-the-mill mindset, which was a more or less logical extension of ideas developed during the Great War when life was cheap and notions of expediency were even more prevalent.

A lesson however about the effectiveness of civilian bombing, is that as far as moral and commitment to war aims goes, it does nothing to lessen enemy resolve and may probably strengthen it quite effectively and unintentionally. And it makes it much more difficult to get back to more or less normal relations once the war is over - as it eventually will be. All wars end. And since enemies of today may be allies of tomorrow and vice versa, thinking in terms of the long run may be more advantageous ultimately.

It's not a bad lesson to learn, even if it is only in the virtual world of simming ... you never now when it might influence real world thinking ...

[Thunda]

Good points, Agracier. WWII was the first war that put civilians 'on the front line' and made them strategic targets. Interesting to note that, whilst British planners saw the physical effect of the Coventry raid (the type of bombs used etc) and the psychological effect on the population (initial shock and terror, followed by resiliance and determination), they still went ahead with a strategic bombing offensive of their own. I suppose it was, at that time in the war, the only way that Britain could hit back, and I'm sure there was an element of revenge too, but they must have known from their own research that the campaign was very unlikely to destroy German morale.
Anyway, enough philosophy! This is a game after all!!

[Bobbo]

I would think civilians would be a big issue in the Asian theater in places like China. I got the impression after so many years of fighting the civilians ended up with a fatalistic attitude and the Japanese military wasn't exactly tender hearted towards the Chines.

Now if if we could get Chines civilians to run  across active runways to scare off demons, like the 20th Airforce reported, that would be something.

[juanmalapuente]

Guernica bombing, in SCW, has been usually called the first example of deliverate destruction of civil population by air bombing, but it isn't true. In WWI, London was sistematically bombed by zeppelins and then Gotha and Zeppelin Staaken planes, just to cause terror and demoralization. British responded with their Handley Page O 400.
If talking about attacking civilians, there have been many other systematic killings: again in WWI, German shelled Paris with their Bertha super- guns. In SCW civilian fleeing from just occupied Malaga were shelled from fascist navy ships along the coast road...WWII was the definitive step to include civilians in destruction. Just think how it ended.
But for the game, I'm not too willing to attack civilians, I rather defend them as tbauchot says.

[tomoose]

What about Ground Crew?  I've done a search but only found Ranwers excellent Carrier Crew (already installed).
In the past I have used the generic military figures posed as ground crew but it would be nice to see something a little more detailed and accurate (i.e. grey coveralls for the mechanics etc).
If I knew how to do it I would use the existing soldier figure objects and "repaint" them if you get my meaning then add them back as extra object figures.

Maybe someone has already done this?  If so I couldn't find anything on it and would appreciate a link.

cheers,

[Thunda]

You used to be able to get a fantastic Luftwaffe ground crew from checkmysix, to go alongside the excellent DLV_infantry mod, but the link is down.

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,6005.0.html

 Somebody here might have it if you ask nicely!

[El_Marta]

@ Thunda

"de-housing" is a cynical euphemism. Buildings become houses because people are living in them. I think the miltary was well aware of the consequences of what they were doing to civilians and took their death and suffering into account as helpful for achieving their target of winning the campaign.

At the end of the war "de_housing" the working population had become a big buisness for the weapon dealers.

Germans already shelled Paris in the Franco Prussian war of 1870/71. Civilians are and have been victims in any war.