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I have AI assist on. Put all planes on day missions. Ground support is on for most missions. Why am I losing 485 planes on the first turn when from what I've read the Germans lost 119 planes in week 1?

Ok, there are several reasons.

1. The default Air Directives are not optimized. In fact, they leave open the possibility of bombers flying without escorts. Historically, that did occur on occasion, but WiTE2 can be punishing when you do this.

2. A number of the aircraft may be flying from Level 1 bases or from overloaded airbases. These incur greater OPS losses if you do not rebase your AC before hand.

3. Yeah, you took some big hits on level bombers... that can be corrected with different air directives.

4. The big hits on Fighter Bombers may be coming from BF110E-2s? I would check that to see.

5. Some of the Flak hits may be further mitigated with tweaking your mission Altitude. I think the turn 1 defaults are 15k feet IIRC? I would change that at least for your recon AC. Many can fly much higher without noticeable impact. (they drop down to optimal Alt for picture taking anyways...)

... just a couple of suggestions.

The best advice is to forget about AI assist and learn how to manage air war yourself. It is not that hard.

For the first turn bombing setup here is a great thread:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5101678

this is my first turn.

only ran some recon and some airfield bombing missions. all airfield bombing missions were on day 1 only

destroyed a bunch more aircraft on the ground when i overran the airfields (i believe the damaged aircraft from the day 1 bombing runs get scrapped/destroyed upon airfield capture?)

i probably could have been more aggressive, but i felt the soviet airforce just needed a good punch in the nose, not a haymaker, to keep em quiet,

5.5k aircraft destroyed in the first turn is what you can really achieve if you do everything like in the textbook.
Your result is rather weak, while losses per 5.5k aircraft may not exceed 200 Luftwaffe aircraft.

Even I don't get 5.5k downed ac through ground strikes the 1st turn as I cannot make myself go through the ordeal of min/maxing 50+ air directives every time I start a new game.

The 1st time was a novelty, but after that I would rather get a root canal.

It is just a mind-numbing experience to manually enter all of those micro detailed AD settings just to exploit 1st turn knowledge to the extreme limits.

If he gets 3k, he will be fine. He can pick up the rest via GS mission.

I think you get something around 4k.

Some people just over claim Soviets losses, as always.

If you follow my advice and setup the AD for GA only (no need for Recon or GS on turn 1), then fir just the air execution phase you should loose about 75-90 aircraft and destroy about 3,500-4,500 aircraft, average about 3,750-3,850, the. You should be able to overrun or intercept and knock out 500-1,000 more aircraft.

Then on turn 2 delete them all and setup Recon and GS missions.

yeah, that is what i wrote, around 4k on the ground

I was following ur guide with a little modifications in my pvp game.

But t1 air losses makes little difference for a whole campaign, if any.

ORIGINAL: Stamb

But t1 air losses makes little difference for a whole campaign, if any.

I disagree the more Soviet pilots you kill the better, you should be able to Kia 600-800 fighter pilots on turn 1.

The original post has a high LW air loss because of Ground Support being on during the turn. This will result in bombers flying without escorts (so high A2A losses) and a LOT of air mileage used up (so high Operational Losses).

I don't agree that Soviet air losses T1 are inconsequential. The VVS can do significant damage if left unchecked. Sure you'll kill all those planes eventually but they'll also inflict lots of GA, GS and NI at the points you like least. Personally I'm on the side of pushing the Luftwaffe a little further while having the T1/D1 advantages, even if it costs extra German casualties. Here's a server game where I was able to get pretty decent results with this approach.

I wrote that, in my opinion it makes little difference for the GC. I am not saying that you should not bomb or put all your fighters on rest.
I don't think that is matters much for a Soviets if you kill 3 or 4k planes.
Sure if you kill 0 - then it matters.

And K62 results are exceptional, probably the best that I have seen.

But anyway. Author was asking if LW losses are ok if used extensively for the first turn. Any experts here? What was happening back in the days? Did Germans use LW only for a big battles, or there was ground support all of the time (and what were their losses)?

I've never dipped into 'losses' because in general the games I play and my historical interest is more into the grander picture.

German operational doctrine for ground support is the base of what has been in vogue for long.
They were not -that- short of fuel, and in an offensive operation there was to be the need for ground support.

They always kept planes in the skies. That were called by their ground forces for direct support. That is what made the 'Blitzkrieg' efficient - combined arms.
A bunker or fortified emplacement is stopping the panzers, call the 'air artillery'. Stukas or bombers were already somewhere, not too distant.

They operated on a rotation so to always have some ground support at hand.

But in general it was a localized effort on relevant point. More than a widespread carpet effect - even because numbers were not there.

Many also forget the strafing effect. Soviet swere ever short of AA guns in '41 era, so Bf109s were often gunning over marching columns and the like (Exactly as Allies do in '44 in France where they have absolute air supremacy).

Any update on this in 2025 and 1.04 final patch?

K62's results are outstanding especially from a VVS pilot loss perspective. I have yet to figure out how to drive the Luftwaffe to intercept during the ground phase to that extent. I'm also hesitant to loose that many fighters/pilots. Here are the results I'm getting with the latest patch.
.

What is also interesting is that I recently read that the Luftwaffe did not even fly escort missions the 1st day, relying entirely on suprise they did not feel escorts would be needed.

Try doing that in WiTE2.