Ground attack is also not intercepted

[Stamb]

Message from my opponent:



As you can see GA was first and only then city bombing, so fighters did not have any millage

This is GA result:



And this is city bombing:

[Stamb]

Also is it not strange that 100% of my fighters in that area were committed to an interception of the first mission, so for the next enemy mission fighters were not ready thus leaving area completely exposed?

[Markko]

It may be a related issue, it is certainly a part of the 'air game'..... but my question is "where is the Luftwaffe?"

I'm playing a grand campaign as antifascist against the computer. It is turn 3. The latest official release. I checked the Air execution part of the logistics turn detail, and the Luftwaffe is not flying. why?

I see a scattering of air recon flights. There is zero ground attack. Zero strategic bombing. The 'battles' view of the map shows this as well.
There is also very little ground support. I'm seeing less than 200 sorties in the ground support section of air execution detail.
Me, I'm experimenting a bit with what I can do, so I have my biplanes and the Su-2's up near the line attempting to fly some ground support, with a few I-16's doing escorts. I have some 1500 bomber and over 1000 fighter sorties listed as part of the ground support execution in comparison.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Shouldn't the blitzkrieg be accompanied by waves of Stuka's acting as mobile artillery?
I can understand that German doctrine may not have gone for strategic bombing. But should the ground attacks on the airfields just completely stop after turn 1? Do the axis never want to bomb a key railyard behind the front? Can't find any axis interdiction on the map.
The Axis lost 80 planes in this last turn, 12 in the Axis air phase, 68 in the Axis Action phase. I did a bit of going around the map checking land combat battle icons. Most show zero axis gs. My biplanes at times rule the skies over the land battles. The axis losses appear to be highly concentrated. I found for example where some Mig's jumped a Rumanian gs mission and shot down 14 planes in one battle.
My GS lost 195 planes, in the Axis action phase. My losses were mostly Flak and Ops, while the Axis losses were mostly A2A.

Seeing biplane pilots throwing big parties three weeks into the war just seems a bit odd. A biplane unit flying ground support for the western front has 68 morale.
The other air groups are calling asking if they can please turn the music down.

[Stamb]

I did not play as Soviets in grand campaign yet.
But Axis players use ground support in very rare occasions as flak losses are insane and contribution to a battle result from a planes are not worth it (except of hasty attacks).
City bombing is just not worth it as Axis.

I would also expect aviation support for most important battles as it was IRL, but unfortunately right now air game has a lot of troubles.

[Joel Billings]

Was this an MP game, or do you have a save for the GA versus Bomb City. If there is a difference in the intercept routines it would be great to have a save that can be tested.

As for the reason the German AI is not flying, the AI will focus on ground support, so you won't see much other than recon flights in the air execution phase (and occasional naval patrol).

[Stamb]

It is server game. 4-5 turns ago.

[Stamb]

But I will try and run similar setup with a latest patches and posts a results if issue is still there

[Stamb]

Here are 2 saves, before and after bombing.

Axis fighters are in Constanta. No interception at all for city bombing and GA.

[Stamb]

In previous save I removed all ground directives for the Axis and thought that it may be the case that there is no auto interception.
In this test case i have Axis fighters assign to GS army group south.

Still 0 interception for both GA and city bombing.

[Joel Billings]

Thanks for the saves. Will use it when Pavel looks into detection of missions in the Air phase. If I set the mission to hit Bucharest, then I got interceptions from the Rumanian air units. I think this is a case where the system requires flying near multiple airbases to get the system to detect the raids. Constanta on the coast and with only the one airbase isn't raising the detection level early enough. Of course, without radar, there would be a problem detecting the raid. Not sure how good the radar was at this point. Not sure how we'll ultimately deal with this, but it's not necessarily going to be a quick fix. Of course I'm assuming this is all about detection and not some other issue lurking, but last time Pavel looked at this issue that was what was limiting intercepts.

[Stamb]

Thanks for looking into it.

In the first post, on patch 02.11, there was an interception. Now, patch 02.14, there is no. Maybe amount of attacking planes makes a difference?

[Joel Billings]

Yes, the number of attacking a/c is very important because it's all about getting detection of the raid. More a/c is more easily detected.

[Zovs]

Hence for my recon missions I’ll use 24(8), 12(4) or 6(auto) and for GA 30(x).

If you use the defaults (Auto(Auto)) you’ll get higher losses.

I do see lots of interceptions in my games (both solo and MP), and it’s all about how you finesse or micromanage things IMO/experience.

GS produces the most for both sides especially after turn 1.

[Joel Billings]

BTW, I ran a test by putting the fighters in Constanta in an AS mission with a box size 4 over Constanta. The air incoming air raids were decimated with only a few fighters lost (flying in both player turns). So in this case at least, AS works. Still eventually would like to see detection of raids being easier than it is now (if in fact it is detection that is the issue, and I think it is).