No evidence of interdiction happening?

[MarkShot]

So, the enemy has created a weak defensive line of units in front of me, and I know I am going to throw them back this turn.

Thus, I do AD recon (only priority is UNIT to HIGH) maybe 5 hexes deep from the line to see what lies beyond.

And I do one full week medium of AD ground strike (only priority is INTERDICT to HIGH). I get interdiction markers and some numbers in circles.

I then hammer them back causing them to move over the interdicted hexes; but the manual also indicates that interdiction will be applied to combat in the hex. (The manual indicates I can see the result in the battle AARs clicking on the markers.)

I click on the markers. I see no units impacted due to air action in the summary, and I see no ground losses due to air activity.

How can I tell if my interdiction ADs are, in fact, achieving anything?

Thank you.

[MarkShot]

I cannot find any evidence ...

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[Wiedrock]

Thus, I do AD recon (only priority is UNIT to HIGH) maybe 5 hexes deep from the line to see what lies beyond.

To reveal Counters you want to use Recon mission INTERDICTION (=scan for counters). UNIT is trying to gather information about existing Units/Counters, which has several limits to it (see manual section about Detection Levels) and is imo usually not worth it.
Afaik GA Interdiction levels also reveal Counters, tho not sure if that's a 100% chance.

And I do one full week medium of AD ground strike (only priority is INTERDICT to HIGH). I get interdiction markers and some numbers in circles.

I then hammer them back causing them to move over the interdicted hexes; but the manual also indicates that interdiction will be applied to combat in the hex. (The manual indicates I can see the result in the battle AARs clicking on the markers.)

I click on the markers. I see no units impacted due to air action in the summary, and I see no ground losses due to air activity.

How can I tell if my interdiction ADs are, in fact, achieving anything?

There are many thing to the whole Interdiction missions. What you are looking for I only have seen once in a testing setup, where I increased the Interdiction to like 80 or so (showing a 8 on map) in the defenders hex, then when I attacked I have seen enemies being hit by planes without planes present. So in general "it works". But as you've noticed it is far from observable under normal conditions where you will never get interdiction levels that high. And even if you would, the chance even at 80 I'd guess is pretty low.
I feel like (outside ground battles) there seem to be some weird calculation going on when moving through Interdicted Hexes, not sure if the combat effect has the same shenanigans going on. As long as a unit moving through interdicted hexss has lots of MP left it will not take any/many casualties, but once it is low on MP you MAY see massive damaging of elements by (I guess) the Interdiction in the Hexes you pass (same goes for units on trains which only get damaged when low on SMP). It seems to be an "all or nothing" roll in all cases.
Any Interdiction in a Hex removes administrative movement, this mostly has an effect in bad terrain/weather. On good roads this could have the biggest effect theoretically. Supposedly this added MP will also need to be paid by Trucks delivering supplies, and eventually cause more truck losses I suppose, but no idea if anyone ever tried to quantify this effect. Maybe it is also such "all or nothing" thing.

[Joel Billings]

My recollection of how interdiction works is that units that move through a hex with interdiction, or are in battle when in a hex with interdiction, will suffer damage to some of their elements. I'm pretty sure this damage is not reported in any combat reports.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Two groups of 40 each of JU-88's (80 bombers) flying Interdiction will leave 7-8 interdiction in a hex if done correctly. Meaning correct bombs, alt, strike total etc etc.

[Wiedrock]

My recollection of how interdiction works is that units that move through a hex with interdiction, or are in battle when in a hex with interdiction, will suffer damage to some of their elements. I'm pretty sure this damage is not reported in any combat reports.

It is as the manual suggests, it is shown in the reports, but as mentioned it needs to trigger.
As you can see in both cases there have been no friendly level bombers/fighter bombers/tactical bombers in combat. But in one of the battles the enemy suffered massive DISruptions and in one 0. 0 as for none. The chance of triggering (at least "on" the defender is relatively low, I'd assume it being impacted by fortification or force size or whether being attacker/defender, but never tested properly. Estimating the chance I'd say it is below 10% and is an "all or nothing".

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And I do one full week medium of AD ground strike (only priority is INTERDICT to HIGH). I get interdiction markers and some numbers in circles.

As HLYA won't share anything of his "sectret knowledge" and not understanding that there are people not willing to test/minmax everything and just would like to see AT LEAST SOME EFFECT on the actions they do, I'll give you something you can either use or go forth to test from that.

You can try fly at ~6k altitude, regarding only looking at mission effect 22k is also alright tho not much less from the RNG I get. One can say lower means more accuracy usually but then there's also Flak and enemy Fighters that take their part...so..., use the 50kg Bomb loadouts for the levelbombers (Tactical bombers simply have too little loads to make serious effetcs [in interdiction missions!] - in the game interdiction seems to be not the "hunt for enemy convoys behind the lines" thing as one might guess) and then as you did "give em all". The maximum interdiction per Hex is 99, so no need to got beyond that. The effect of the missions is simply added up to get the SUM.
There are several ways to improve the effect. I don't know the best version, "best" depends on how you see effect vs losseses/freight consumed individually, the first option is preferable (according to some testing),...if you have the "ready" planes around to mass such huge missions. And then it also depends on how far the distance to the mission hex is regarding the max traveled miles used for planes per mission.

Ways to get from your "0" and "1" Interdiction numbers to higher numbers:

• Set the "req" Aircraft to 200, this way in good conditions you get +35'ish Interdiction PER MISSION (of 200Sorties), so you may already be at "3" on the map after 1 day/mission.
• OR manually set up mutiple missions (for each KG individual) ...I'd say that's less optimal, but depending on you AG assignments may be necessary.
• OR you change the number of strikes manually to a higher number (per day). When doing a single Hex GA, the system only uses 2 or so, even if you use the "HIGH" setting....also less optimal I'd say

As said, I don't know the "best". I'd go with the first one usually.
From what I see, the game favors big blops of planes, I'd assume it has to do with the knowledge about the strategic bombing in the west and the interdiction is using the same formulas in game. So interdiction in a WITE2 sense is less of a "strafing" and "hunting for convoys of trucks" with fighter bombers - like mission as one could imagine. So more planes means more confusion among fighters and flak numbers can't adjust to numbers flexible and so on. So the effect per plane results are slightly in favor of big Missions, but the difference on effect per plane is not too large overall, sometimes results even reversed so not 100% sure.
I'll attach for you a screen of a possible setup of a Mission AD.
BUT BE WARNED the chance to trigger the actual effect on the defender (and I guess attacker) is low!!! Effects on Attacker may be larger tho ...or the chance to trigger at least higher, but never tested (see what I replied to Joel before).

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That's a possibility on how to set it up. I don't claim it being the best. You can also set the Strike number to 2 or 3 (per day) and/or only fly fly on 2 or 3 days a week. You can also leave the fighters at "0" automatic.
Regarding freight consumption, a Ju88 has 3200lb ammo load and 2778lb fuel load per mission, so almost 3tons (5978/2000=2.989ton) per Sortie (if I now didn't mess it up the math). So flying 800Mission-Sorties means 2400tons of freight consumed and on top the fighters are also consuming stuff (altough way less).
Attached some results, 2 at 6k and 1 at 22k altitude.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

As HLYA won't share anything of his "sectret knowledge" and not understanding that there are people not willing to test/minmax everything and just would like to see AT LEAST SOME EFFECT on the actions they do, I'll give you something you can either use or go forth to test from that.

Huh????? I have shared so much on this site. When I don't elaborate because of f time I get pointed out as a bad guy. That is not nice.

[MarkShot]

Wiedrock,

Thanks very much for all your efforts. Yes, I was looking at two places in the battle AAR, the summary units tab display (ground line) and the ground combat display tab.

I saw zeros. So, I guess it was bad luck or not enough interdiction.

---

I did find interesting ... There are 7 days in a week. If you only fly interdiction for one day, then ground combats seem to take place on that same day.

Now, interdiction persists until your next air phase. Thus, besides battles, the enemy may be subject to interdiction during their non-combat move phase. I assume, you should be able to verify such interdiction looking at the losses screen for the enemy's turn.

---

You are right. I wasn't min-max'ing just attempting to see if I was using the game mechanics properly. The combination of Internet and MP has led to too much focus on min-max and metas which take the fun out of games. Games are for fun, and particle physics analysis should be left for science.

However, I have gotten the impression that for the losses I sustained my planes and pilot losses would have been better applied to F2-CAS as the impact can be quite noticeable and turn a battle similar to artillery. Interdiction is more a long-term attritional approach. And perhaps the affects are tuned down as since you know when you will be attacking and where the enemy will be in motion, it is almost impossible to call this wrong.

What are you thoughts? Is F2-CAS a better use of limited air assets especially since it can be toggled before a particular battle?

---

Again, thank you for your time!

PS: Curious - I can see interdiction prior to moving ... almost like Achtung Minen ... does the AI attempt to path find around interdicted hexes?

[MarkShot]

Huh????? I have shared so much on this site. When I don't elaborate because of f time I get pointed out as a bad guy. That is not nice.

HLYA, I acknowledge your many, many informative posts and my enjoyment of the game has benefited from them. Thank you.

[Wiedrock]

I saw zeros. So, I guess it was bad luck or not enough interdiction.

I don't know if there is a minimum interdiction to see the effect trigger, even with 8 or 9 you rarely see it, so no idea how high the chance at 1 Interdiction is for it to trigger.

I did find interesting ... There are 7 days in a week. If you only fly interdiction for one day, then ground combats seem to take place on that same day.

Yes, that's where the system is a simplification over 7 days.

Now, interdiction persists until your next air phase. Thus, besides battles, the enemy may be subject to interdiction during their non-combat move phase. I assume, you should be able to verify such interdiction looking at the losses screen for the enemy's turn.

You should be able to see the losses (can't remember), it's been a while I looked into that. What I found was that there also is a "all or nothing" involved in this. And the "all" happens rarely (as the trigger during ground battles) and if it does then it only ever happens when a unit moving through such intericted hexes has low MP according to my observations (so has already expended most of its MPs). Not quite sure if that is actually intended or whether there is some buggy thing involved, since a similar observation I made when testing Ground losses by moving trains over Interdicted Rail Hexes, altough not sure if it's spent/leftover SMP or the clogged status of the rail causing the losses in this case (or both combined), but for sure there never were losses when passing the initial 10 times over the Hex that got interdicted to 9. For me this seems like a bug, I'd prefer to have 1.effects to trigger more often 2.effects to be more "balanced" so not "all or nothing", one time killing 500 elements and one time 0.

You are right. I wasn't min-max'ing just attempting to see if I was using the game mechanics properly. The combination of Internet and MP has led to too much focus on min-max and metas which take the fun out of games. Games are for fun, and particle physics analysis should be left for science.

I can completely understand you, hence it'd be nice to easier see effects of things you do, so you'd not do an hour of testing setups to get things to show up once you "maximized" effects.

However, I have gotten the impression that for the losses I sustained my planes and pilot losses would have been better applied to F2-CAS as the impact can be quite noticeable and turn a battle similar to artillery. Interdiction is more a long-term attritional approach. And perhaps the affects are tuned down as since you know when you will be attacking and where the enemy will be in motion, it is almost impossible to call this wrong.

What are you thoughts? Is F2-CAS a better use of limited air assets especially since it can be toggled before a particular battle?

Many players only ever use Fighter cover (sometimes by AS), Naval interdiction for Ports and as you said, GS through Fighterbombers and Tactical Bombers during combat.
Some who know how to make things also use GA UNIT, pretty similar to interdiction, just that you actually kill/damage at least some Elements before combat (there you should in return rather use large bombs from my observation if you want to kill/damage elements, since DISrupted elements will reset DIS state before combats (but gain some fatigue)).

PS: Curious - I can see interdiction prior to moving ... almost like Achtung Minen ... does the AI attempt to path find around interdicted hexes?

I'd guess it always uses the least spent MP pathing, so if the 9 Interdiction hex is less MP then the Heavy Mud Heavy Forest Hexes next to it, the Movement will go through the Interdicted Hex (my assumption, not tested).

[Erik Rutins]

As HLYA won't share anything of his "sectret knowledge" and not understanding that there are people not willing to test/minmax everything and just would like to see AT LEAST SOME EFFECT on the actions they do, I'll give you something you can either use or go forth to test from that.

Huh????? I have shared so much on this site. When I don't elaborate because of f time I get pointed out as a bad guy. That is not nice.

I've seen both HLYA and Wiedrock be very helpful on this forum. There's no need to call HLYA out. If I may suggest, it's best to focus on gratitude for the information any and all veteran players share which helps everyone get a better handle on this complex game. There's a lot to learn and a lot to keep in your head if you don't play every day.