Not much excess if you ask me

[M60A3TTS]

jubjub was kind enough to show a screenshot from his side of the Axis WE TB on turn 109 of our PBEM game.



He's racking up a good number of VPs for exceeding TB requirements to the point where I asked him what his secret was. Apparently he has none, the AI just seems particularly gracious in defining excess requirements.

Meanwhile, all my boxes have had excess and I can't recall the last time I got anything.

[Denniss]

may be triggered by air day or night

[M60A3TTS]

may be triggered by air day or night

When you say "may", do you know this as a fact or are you presenting that as a possibility. My understanding was that air did not impact the VP bonus. In any case, I've certainly been at and above those air levels in certain TBs and seen nothing triggered.

[Joel Billings]

Yes, event 234 has ground, air day and air night each having a chance to trigger the excess.

[M60A3TTS]

ok, thanks Joel. I guess jubjub is having most of the luck in this game.

[Wiedrock]

may be triggered by air day or night

When you say "may", do you know this as a fact or are you presenting that as a possibility. My understanding was that air did not impact the VP bonus. In any case, I've certainly been at and above those air levels in certain TBs and seen nothing triggered.

Air percentages does not trigger VP bonuses in any soviet Theatre by itself (and equally not in most Axis TBs). I think West TB is the only one giving VP by air, Afrika only has advance/delay-Events by air checks (AFAIR).

[Denniss]

likely because of the importance of the air war in the west

[M60A3TTS]

Not too long ago I was comparing LW losses in the Western TB with those numbers from Williamson Murray's Strategy for Defeat The Luftwaffe 1933-1945. Although written in 1983, it's an insightful document. Anyways, it seemed to me the LW losses in the Western TB were not sufficiently high and perhaps about one half of actual reported losses. It was a point of interest to me, and certainly not expecting anything to change. Just wanted to mention it.

[Wiedrock]

Not too long ago I was comparing LW losses in the Western TB with those numbers from Williamson Murray's Strategy for Defeat The Luftwaffe 1933-1945. Although written in 1983, it's an insightful document. Anyways, it seemed to me the LW losses in the Western TB were not sufficiently high and perhaps about one half of actual reported losses. It was a point of interest to me, and certainly not expecting anything to change. Just wanted to mention it.

I think not much has changed concerning LW losses knowledge since then, LW had lists/records for about every lost plane, so not many secrets overall in this regard.
The question is if TBs are "properly" separated (in game terms) and if 1st January 1945 is being accounted for.
The losses afaik/afait can easily be changed with increasing the "intensity" of a TB's air war so if you share the numbers it's easily changeable.

Some info on Intensity WEST (hope that's all):
It begins "Very Low" Intensity
17.08.1942 "Air Offensive" Air Intensity 3
15.02.1944 "Air Offensive intensifies" Air Intensity 4
15.04.1944 "D-Day" Air Intensity 5
01.06.1944 "Falaise Pocket" → only affects Ground
01.12.1944 Ardennes → only affects Ground
01.01.1945 no Event

Two important things about this may be/may not be...

1. in how far a surplus (above 100% Air Day) has the ability to mitigate losses in the formulas used, some said it'd do so.
2. in how far AA/Flak values in TBs have the ability to mitigade losses in the formulas used (AI-AI games the AI stacks AA assets in Western TB without being allowed to do so)

Quick Source I've found: http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm
Losses there in WEST+REICH (I'd assuem that's "WEST" in game terms overall) = 9785+12807=22592 for period 09/1943-10/1944.
Checking this period in an old AI vs AI gives 2419 losses at start of recording and 13452 at end of recording (end of October 1944), which means 11033 planes lost compared to the historical 22592.
Assuming you and my just found numbers are correct it is possible that Dev's used the Fighter losses which have been 5311+7758=13069 during this period, which is much closer, to "make the losses" in game.

[Joel Billings]

Wow, 22k losses in one year in the west. That's about what they lost in the east in about 3 years (IIRC, I think we were benchmarking 24k losses in the east to the end of 1944). I don't remember what we were benchmarking the TB air losses against. At the end of a recent AI vs AI test game, the Germans had about 27k aircraft in the pool, of which 8k were fighters. So they could stand to lose some additional aircraft, but this would have an impact on pilot quality. My recent AI vs AI test game had about 26k German losses in all the TBs, of which about 24k were in the Western Europe TB. You could play around with higher air combat intensity values in the West and see how that changes things. Sounds like there should be an event in 1943 that boosts the intensity at some point. No way to crank the intensity up to an 11 (or 6 in this case), so the question would be what the impact of increasing to a 4 sometime in 1943 and a 5 in 1944 would do. It looks like the losses at intensity 5 are around 400/week, while they are only around 100/week at intensity 4.

[Denniss]

It would also be interesting to know how many pilots were lost with their aircraft in the west.
From my experience in AI testgames the germany have a large surplus of Bombers and F/FBs. There's often a large suplus of TacBs as well but most of those units are in the East or elsewhere.
On the other hand their night fighters seem to take a heavy toll from high air activity with barely having a surplus in 1/45.

[M60A3TTS]

It's understandable that there are only so many events that are ending up in this game, but with respect to the air war, there is no event around things like the "Baby Blitz" and Operation Bodenplatte where the Luftwaffe tried with little success to conduct offensive air operations. There is also nothing related to the arrival of the P-51s that replaced the less capable P-47s and P-38s and basically doomed the Bf-110 Zerstorer groups that had no chance of survival against them. It also resulted in the death spiral of even the LW single engine fighters as more and more of their irreplaceable veteran pilots died in their cockpits and their replacements could only undergo limited training as the oil and synthetic fuel plants became priority targets.

If you have not seen the short film Target for Today on youtube, it is definitely an eye opener. You see how western planners thought the way to air superiority was by going after the aircraft assembly plants. There was little appreciation of the fact that the Germans would be more than capable of dispersing these plants and with Albert Speer tapping an increasingly large slave labor force, the Luftwaffe would never lack the aircraft. Again, the key to victory was getting the guy in the cockpit which eventually they largely did.

I think if there is some concern about too many losses eating into German experience levels, I'd suggest that is precisely what this game needs in order to reflect the impact of the air war in the western theater.

[Denniss]

P-38, not P-39.
The P-47 crews actually had the most impact vs the most experienced german fighter pilots in early 44, the P-51 just took care of what was left over once they appeared in large numbers by about 5-6/44. The most shocking effect of the P-51 was range so they could attack german a/c in their formation areas where the P-47 often had no option to get into (and make it back to base). Doolittle's 1/44 strategy change to have fighters fly ahead of the bomber stream and shoot at everything flying in their path played a major role in disturbing german formations, preventing their coordinated attack and shooting many of them down.

[M60A3TTS]

P-38, not P-39.

Quite so. Corrected.

[Wiedrock]

It's understandable that there are only so many events that are ending up in this game, but with respect to the air war, there is no event around things like the "Baby Blitz" and Operation Bodenplatte where the Luftwaffe tried with little success to conduct offensive air operations. There is also nothing related to the arrival of the P-51s that replaced the less capable P-47s and P-39s and basically doomed the Bf-110 Zerstorer groups that had no chance of survival against them.

There's some events in other scenarios removing like 1% planes in the TB by events.

If you have not seen the short film Target for Today on youtube, it is definitely an eye opener. You see how western planners thought the way to air superiority was by going after the aircraft assembly plants. There was little appreciation of the fact that the Germans would be more than capable of dispersing these plants and with Albert Speer tapping an increasingly large slave labor force, the Luftwaffe would never lack the aircraft. Again, the key to victory was getting the guy in the cockpit which eventually they largely did.

Germans planned with more planes needed to be built in their fighter program, so it had an effect, altough they still produced riduculous amounts under those circumstances.

It also resulted in the death spiral of even the LW single engine fighters as more and more of their irreplaceable veteran pilots died in their cockpits and their replacements could only undergo limited training as the oil and synthetic fuel plants became priority targets.
[...]
I think if there is some concern about too many losses eating into German experience levels, I'd suggest that is precisely what this game needs in order to reflect the impact of the air war in the western theater.

Indeed, training for new pilots was reduced more and more, so they ended from 1:2 training hours before first combat at 1:10 or even worse.
And as for them game you are completely right, with closed TBs/AIvsAI the Air values end up way too high.

[Wiedrock]

Checking this period in an old AI vs AI gives 2419 losses at start of recording and 13452 at end of recording (end of October 1944), which means 11033 planes lost compared to the historical 22592.

As an comparison concerning the losses from start until 09/1943.
This Study gives losses for the Western Front (page 47) between 06/1941-12/1943 as ~5821, if we substract the 09/1943-12/1943 (1730 planes) we get 4091 which may/should have been lost in the West (not 100% clear about NOR/REICH countings, just glanced over it).

[M60A3TTS]

Can someone tell me what event triggers Axis Air Day requirements for the WE TB to 150? Is it Escorts Arrive Over Germany?

I had that at 135 in the living manual but jubjub is showing 150, and I didn't see any related pop up in the event log.

[Wiedrock]

Can someone tell me what event triggers Axis Air Day requirements for the WE TB to 150? Is it Escorts Arrive Over Germany?

I had that at 135 in the living manual but jubjub is showing 150, and I didn't see any related pop up in the event log.

Yes it is the escorts.

Since it appears the manual is not completely accurate about these I've lifted them from the editor and tried to organize them chronologically. Let me know if you see any errors and I'll update accordingly.

1941-06-22:
Western Europe Ground: 410 Air Day 53 Air Night 33;
Norway Ground: 64 Air Day 5 Naval 14;
Finland Ground: 200 Air Day 11;
Soviet Garrison Ground: 0;
North Africa Ground: 68 Air Day 12 Naval 7;
Italy Ground: 52 Air Day 17 Naval 12;
Balkans Ground: 110 Air Day 4;
1941-08-10 Consolidating control: Soviet Garrison Ground: 60
1941-12-11 US Enters the War:
Italy Ground: 68 Air Day 35;
North Africa Ground: 70 Air Day 28 Naval 7;
Norway Ground: 82 Air Day 8 Naval 24;
Finland Ground: 225; Western Europe Air Day 73 Air Night 39
1941-12-15 Winter is Here: Western Europe Ground: 345; Soviet Garrison Ground: 90

1942?-?-?? Axis capture Leningrad: Finland Ground: 210
1942-06-01 It's not Over: Finland Ground: 245 Air Day 14
1942-07-01 Allied Bombing Increases: Western Europe Air Day 85 Air Night 59
1942-08-01 The Soft Underbelly: Balkans Ground: 135 Air Day 6
1942-08-02 All in for Cairo: North Africa Ground: 85
1942-08-19 Dieppe Raid: Western Europe Ground: 475
1942-10-20 Security Forces Reorganize: Soviet Garrison Ground: 140
1942-11-?? Tunisia Must Be Held: North Africa Ground: 125; Italy Naval 19

1943-02-27 Allies Raid Norway: Norway Ground: 95 Naval 17
1943-05-?? What's Next?: Western Europe Ground: 530; Italy Ground: 230 Air Day 70; Balkans Ground: 160 Air Day 11
1943-07-01 Escorts Arrive Over Germany: Western Europe Air Day 150 Air Night 80
1943-09-?? The Shrinking Axis: Italy Air Day 20 Naval 7
1943-12-01 Battle of Berlin: Western Europe Air Day 200 Air Night 95

1944-01-01 The Atlantic Wall: Western Europe Ground: 570
1944-01-27 It's Only a Matter of Time: Finland Ground: 260
1944-06-01 P-51s in Action: Western Europe Air Day 270 Air Night 75
1944-06-06 D-Day: Italy Ground: 195 Air Day 7
1944-08-?? Rumania Surrenders: Balkans Air Day 0
1944-08-25 Disaster in the West: Western Europe Ground: 550; Norway Ground: 75; Balkans Ground: 130
1944-10-?? Norway on the Frontline: Norway Air Day 15
1944-12-01 Final Effort: Western Europe Air Day 300

1945-04-18 Rheinland falls: Western Europe Ground: 345; Norway Ground: 68; Balkans Ground: 100
1945-05-?? Austria on the Frontline: Western Europe Ground: 425

[M60A3TTS]

Yes, event 234 has ground, air day and air night each having a chance to trigger the excess.

Now that I have had a chance to dig into this, I think it's fair to say this trigger as designed is unwarranted. At medium air intensity, the Western TB consumes about 35 Axis aircraft per week. This level of intensity doesn't increase until April 1944. An Axis player is/was getting VP bonuses through 1943 at 109% of air day requirements. That's small potatoes as I'm still dealing with 500+ fighters in the east in 8/43. The next bump in Axis air day requirements is December 1943 when it goes from 150 to 200. So if we want to talk AP/VP bonuses, fine, at 125-150% of requirements maybe. At 101-109%, no way.

[Wiedrock]

Many translated German Documents on Aircraft Losses from the RAF:
https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/our-h ... nslations/