What the FLAK you gonna do?

[Wiedrock]

I have some Questions and multiple things in regards to Flak I just can't get my head around.

In the following Screenshot you see LW Flak SUs being rolled into defensive combats. As you can see they do not fire AA stuff at all. You can observe similar things with "rolled" "Army Flak SU" in 1941", not sure if by this I have ruled out the reason being "LW" or the "flag/counter" being Luftwaffe as the reason to this.
As I mentioned in the Screenshot (purple note) I removed the internal SPAA, since I found the presence of any type of SPAA inside a Unit stopping any towed AA inside this Division from shooting AA (at least in defence ....there are so many factors to look at [Altitude, MOTORIZATION, flags/names, Ground Element Types and so on], so concerning this "issue" of SPAA blocking towed AA from performing I may later get into).
For now I will focus on Divisions without internal AA, which get "rolled", so not attached, AA SUs which only contain towed AA.

Flak_VtB_no-internal-aa.png (646.78 KiB) Viewed 628 times

As you can see, the only thing appearing in the "Anti-Aircraft"-Section is 1 Sturm Squad each (this stays consistent across many of these tests). The rolled SUS seem to not perform any AA duties.
Now I assumed it being the LW/Luftwaffe naming/tags/flags, but as said before in 1941 with "Army" AA SUs being rolled it looks similar (not tested this 100 times/in depth yet).
One thing I made sure when doin tests was to remove the adjacent Hex AA (so moved units with AA away) since this confueses things even more. So all I have is CUs without AA and SUs being rolled with AA not doing AA things.

..any ideas what's going on?...or what to look at ...or....

[Wiedrock]

Same Test with SPAA SUs, since they:

Fire at adjacent hexes has much less effect than fire at aircraft flying directly overhead.
For all air missions AA units in the target hex are much more effective. AA units
attached directly to cities or airfields (including flak intrinsic to the airfield unit) are
more effective, as are self-propelled flak units. These are cumulative benefits, so a
self-propelled flak unit in a city that is in the target hex will receive benefits from all
three conditions. Flak against air transport and airborne missions is more severe in
daytime than at night.

...so assumtion could be they have a better chance to be used in AA duties. But the "target hex" may be the one explaining why they are not shooting (at all), since they are only joining the fight....but they make it to the frontline to shoot enemies (rarely), but do not do AA?!

P.S.:
Placing them inside the Airfield (inside the Hex) or placing the HQ they are attached to into the Hex makes them do AA duties but not engaging any Ground targets.

[Joel Billings]

Yes, I think that's true. I don't think flak units that commit into a battle from a HQ are firing flak (at least not as if they are in the combat hex). IIRC, several years ago this came up, and it was determined that given the way the code was written and the systems worked, it would be very difficult to get them to fire flak due to commitment from a HQ (would require major rewrites). I don't remember/don't know if this is something that changed over time during the Wit... series of games, or if it's always been that way. No plans to change the way it is working now given it would require the equivalent of brain surgery to the code.

[Wiedrock]

Okay, thanks for confirming it. Due to the Division internal AA it's not been easy to see their effects.
...well now I can stop stacking LW AA in HQs in hope to get some defence from GS at least.

[battlefield91]

Is this also the case when you attach the LW AA directly to the Division?

[Joel Billings]

No, I think when attached to a combat division they are considered in the hex for all AA purposes (just like internal flak in the combat unit). I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think that's the case (maybe Wiedrock can tell us), so it is good to attach AA units directly to units you expect will be seeing enemy aircraft.

[Wiedrock]

Is this also the case when you attach the LW AA directly to the Division?

As Joel said, once directly attached they act like internal AA (so they fire at Aircraft in defense/attacks).

The thing is, that you can't assing LW AA SUs directly to normal Combat Units (same goes for the Soviet PVO AA SUs), not even to the "LW Field Divisions" or HG Division afaik.
LW AA SUs you can only assign to Cities/Ports/Aifields, Fortified Zones or HQs.

As a list in how I understand/oberserved it so far:

• The Cases of assignment to HQs/Cities/Ports/Aifields/Fortified Zones/HQs inside the Hex of an ATTACKER they will only engage in AA Combat with their AA-Guns with >20k altitude (so they shoot the planes over the adjacent Hex where the battle takes place).
• The Cases of assignment to HQs/Cities/Ports/Aifields/HQs inside the Hex of an DEFENDER they will only engage in AA Combat.
• The Cases of assignment to Fortified Zones inside the Hex of an DEFENDER they will do AA+Ground Combat.
• The cases where they get "rolled" from an HQ into Combat will be those where they only engage in Ground Combat, never any AA.
• Now with normal "Army AA SUs" (so not named LW or Counter-Coloured/Flagged as being LW or PVO for Soviet side) this is different, those can be attached directly to Divisions and seem to perform as expected, doing AA duties and some Ground Combat in both attack and defense. But if they are "rolled" as SUs into combat they behave like LW AA SUs that get "rolled", only doing Ground Combat.