German heavy fighters in Panzer General games (II)

I will continue on this subject by analyzing the BF-110 plane in the Panzer General I game.

In the first game of the series, the BF-110 is defined as a tactical bomber. However, unlike the JU-87 Stuka, it has the ability to actively attack other airplanes. Of course, it can also attack ground and naval targets, like any regular fighter can do. The difference to any unit in the fighter class is that it cannot be used as an escort for bombers. That is, it will not intercept other planes that are attacking an adjacent friendly bomber unit.

Let's take a look at the type parameters for Bf-109 E, Ju-87 B Stuka and the BF-110 C Zerstorer:

Unit	BF-109 E	BF-110 C	JU-87 B
Soft Attack	2	5	9
Hard Attack	2	5	8
Air Attack	14	8	4
Naval Attack	1	2	5
Ground Defense	7	8	6
Air Defense	10	8	4
Initiative	5	4	2
Spotting	3	5	2
Movement	13	13	11
Max Fuel	42	96	54
Max Ammo	7	6	5
Cost	336	348	252

As you can see, the Zerstorer lies between a pure fighter a dive bomber with regards to its fighting abilities. It can hold its own against early-war fighters, but as soon as it will face enemies with greater initiative value, it will need a lot of luck to win that battle.

So the PG1 designers wanted the BF 110 to be good for a multitude of missions, even though it won't perform as good as a dedicated fighter or a specialized bomber. As you might recall from the first part of this analysis, the Zerstorer was not intended to be a fighter-bomber, it was designed to be a heavy fighter. So, it 's unable to operate as an escort to the German strategic bombers sent to attack British cities as it was the case historically.

BF-110 was capable of carrying a powerful array of forward-firing canons and machine-guns, mounted in the nose of the aircraft. This considerable firepower made the difference when attacking the heavy bombers of the western allies, and made the Zerstorer very effective in this role, at least until the long-range escort fighters appeared in the skies. However, we can see that the AirAttack value is a rather meager 8, so this is another case where the game doesn't follow the historical case. It can be argued that the AirAttack doesn't reflect just the firepower, but other characteristics as well, such as the maneuverability of the plane. Perhaps a solution to this would be to add a new attribute to the unit type that would increase the attack value when going after strategic bombers.

Looking at the max fuel value, it is clearly superior to both early Bf-109 and Ju-87 models. Later variants of those planes will reduce the gap, but there are still some advantages of employing the BF-110 unit type in the game. One very important advantage is the spotting range (5), second only to that of the rare HE 219.

Let's take a look at the available BF-110 variants:

Unit	BF 110 C	BF 110 D	BF 110 E	BF 110 G
Soft Attack	5	5	7	7
Hard Attack	5	5	7	7
Air Attack	8	8	8	10
Naval Attack	2	2	3	3
Ground Defense	8	8	8	8
Air Defense	8	8	8	8
Initiative	4	4	4	4
Spotting	5	5	5	5
Movement	13	13	13	13
Max Fuel	96	90	108	72
Max Ammo	6	8	8	10
Cost	348	348	384	384

Historically, BF 110 D was the long-range (Langstrecken) variant derived from 'C' by adding external fuel tanks. Due to those, the maneuverability was affected. However, the type definition in PG1 does not reflect any of these facts. It only increases the max ammo while slightly reducing the max fuel.

The 'E' version had external bomb racks mounted, so this explains the improved ground attack attributes of this type as defined in the game. The range finally gets increased. The 'F' model, is not defined in the game, even though it was considered the best of the BF-110 series. This was due to the more powerful engines, which made up for the added weight of the previous version.

The last of the BF-110 versions, the 'G' featured even more powerful engines, improved armament (like the 30 mm cannons on some planes). This might be the reason for the increased air attack value. You will also notice that the range of this version has decreased considerably, which was the case historically, but it doesn't take into account that it was able to use external fuel tanks.

The BF-110 was extensively used as a night-fighter in the latter stages of the war, but since Panzer General does not feature nighttime operations, such an ability would not make sense.

In my campaigns, I have used at least one BF-110 unit in my core army. Its huge spotting range made it very useful and it wasn't entirely vulnerable to enemy fighters. You could also use it to attack ground targets, bombers or finish off weakened enemy fighters. So, in my opinion, its flexibility made up for the rather mediocre attributes (except the spotting, of course), but I never employed more that two units of this type.

I will continue in future posts with an analysis of BF-110 in the second Panzer General game and looking over other heavy-fighters of the Luftwaffe.