BoB - Kevin v Swift

[K.Pooley]

I used to fly all my recce missions at max altitudes, but in this game I have been experimenting with 5,000'. It seems to be working well at the moment, and losses are within acceptable limits. Presumably I am getting better results, but I have never done a proper study of I don't know how much better. Of course without radar the recce flights, like all others, are not being spotted as early.

The main thing I must stress is the importance of reconnaissance; without it less damage likely to be caused to the target. Not only in breadth, but in overlapping in critical areas, as some missions will not make it, either because of enemy action or because of weather.

For the first time in the game I intend to rest the bulk of my forces. Why? Because most of my bombers are below 40 morale, and many are down to 14, which is pretty much as low as it gets. I hate to do it because it gives the enemy the same chance to recover their strength, but since my 'quick knock out' approach has failed I need to prepare for a longer slog.

1st Priority
30 recce flights will between them cover virtually all of the radar sites and airfields along the 'radar gap', as well as many of the airfields further inland as well. Both can recover quite quickly so need to be monitored frequently.

2nd Priority
Some smallish raids using high MOR crews just to avoid giving the RAF a complete bank holiday. They are:

0815 - 42 Stukas with 110 escort to Rame Head radar, 16,000'

0935 – 20 '88s with very heavy 109 escort at 8,000 to Rye radar
- 37 '88s and heavy escort also at 8,000' to (I think) Pevensey radar

These three raids should knock out the three radar stations close to becoming effective, and the raids should also give the RAF some scrambling practice.

1035 – The main raid of the day, at least to my mind, to Gosport PRIAF, as recce has identified 15 fighters having dispersed to this CC AF. Damaged AFs recover quickly, and it's close to the coast, which should enable me to strike without too much warning and withdraw in good order.

Consisting of 37 '111s at 9,000' with heavy '109 escort split between CE and 2,000'+ HE. By going in at 1035 I hope that he will already be a little unsettled because of the earlier raids, and maybe since its unusual for me (in this game) not to launch the whole first wave at 0600, some of his patrols will have landed and so the pickets might be a bit thinner on the ground.

1212 – Just because they look too good targets to miss, Bircham Newton and Horseham St Faith SECAFs will get visits from raids at 200' coming in low straight off the sea. One will be a small group of '88s while the other is the whole of ErprGr210. At this point in the game SECAFs are nice targets, as the squadrons have dispersed to smaller fields, most of which have no AA cover (although good continual recce is needed here as well, because the RAF know that as well!)

Wish me luck!

Kevin

[K.Pooley]

Well, recce flights went well, and with just a few aircraft lost. Radar strikes ditto, all knocked out, although Rame Head did cost half-a-dozen Stukas. The 110s failed to protect them (what a surprise) and they proved easy for the locals to shoot down (another surprise).

SECAFs Bircham Newton got hammered but Horsham St Faith escaped serious damage. Unfortunately I had underestimated Fighter Command's ability to respond without radar. The '88s withdrawing got bounced by several South Coast squadrons cutting across their line of retreat - Not pretty.

Gosport The getting-in-undetected and the getting-out-without-too-much-drama bits all went very well, but unfortunately the bombing-the-living-highlights-out-of-the-British didn't. The lead bombardier seems to have taken exception to some poor defenceless part of the Hampshire countryside and bombed it instead.

Ah well, better luck next time

Kevin

[K.Pooley]

I should have mentioned that this turn probably represents a career Personal Worst for me as far as aircraft casualties are concerned, with the score 33-0 to the Brits!

Kevin

[K.Pooley]

Unheard of – today is a second consequitive rest day for the LW, but I still have most of my bombers below 40 MOR, in same cases only just in double figures! So priorities are Radar recce and strike and hitting something to stop the Brits getting the whole day off.

Radar Recce
I let my staff plot recce missions for all three Luftflotte, all against radar, and this gave about 20 missions, quite intelligently plotted. I was reminded of one of the little idiosyncrasies of staff-plotted missions – recce flights are always set at the aircraft's maximum ceiling, it never seems to plot any lower level ones.

Next I plotted a few manually to cover the less seriously damaged ones that they omitted, applying the following rule of thumb:

If 1day old photos are available I plot a mission for any site with damage <80%
For all others I plot a mission for any site with damage <90%.

There's nothing in my notes about strikes on any radar sites, so I have the horrible feeling that I didn't plot any [:(]


Bombing Missions
Although most of my bombers are hammered I do have a small number of units that are in good fighting shape. I also have plenty of JG and ZG that are in tip-top condition, so I decided to combine these two and launch a substantial raid on an undamaged industrial target.

I chose Shellhaven OILR at 10:00 and allocated a mixed force of about 80 '111s and '88s going in at 12,000'. Since I was launching only this single raid in this part of the world, I committed 520 Bf-109s at altitudes between +1,000' and +4,000', along with a close escort of 78 Bf-110s. Now most of my experience in this game (back to TOH) has been against the AI, so I will be interested in how a human player deals with something so extreme.

As a diversion I also targeted Westhampnett SECAF, since my recce shows about 20 a/c there. 09:00, 77 Stukas at 25,500' escorted by 117 Bf-109s and 37 Bf-110s.

Night Bombing
Something I have only used once in this particular game, but this time plotted several:

Llandarcy OILR
00:30 Seven He-111s of KGr 100 lead 66 '111s against this target, the first Welsh target in this game, at 10,000'.

Canvey Island OILS
00:00 55 Ju-88s at 15,000' followed by
01:00 a mixed force of 114 bombers.

Hopefully the second raid will just have to follow the fires lit by the first one!!!!

Also at:
01:00 Five He-111s of KGr 100 lead 53 '111s against Haw Wood OILS, leading them north across the West Country and then straight up the Bristol Channel at 12,000' to their target.

That's it, although my notes do also indicate what looks like another raid, but I can't read my own handwriting, so I could be wrong! Well, I've just received Werner's next turn, so I'm about to find out if that was another raid.

Kevin

[K.Pooley]

Turn 13 – Planning

Well, 'nuff said I think! Having had time to rest and regroup it's now time to devise a new strategy and launch a new offensive on the British. Aiming to build on my previous successes the main targets will be industrial sites, concentrating on those south of a line running roughly from The Wash to The Severn (see map), and including both old target-types and ones I have not previously hit. However, in order to keep the RAF off-balance it will still be necessary to strike at airfields, targeting mainly those PRIAFs controlling SECAFs with the largest number of fighters as shown up by my recce flights. I'll work up a detailed analysis of these targets later.

- more tomorrow -

[K.Pooley]

[1] Staff-plotted recce flights against ARM for attack in future turns.

[2] Then manually-plotted against recovering RADAR, selected PORT, CFAC, CHEM, POWER, OILR and OILS. The manual flights are usually two per target, hi/lo about an hour apart, in the hope of improving accuracy, as well as providing some redundancy.

[3] 0630-0700 (Hopefully) pinpoint attacks against recovering RADAR sites in SE England and East Anglia, using the same criteria as last turn.

[4] At 0900, mixed bomber force of 160+ escorted by 100+ '109s against Canvey Island OILS, and
a slightly smaller raid against Beckwith CHEM. Hopefully the simultaneous raids will split FC efforts to intercept. Both at 14,500'.

[5] 160+ '88s and '111s bombing the already damaged Shellhaven OILR. If it goes according to plan any fires from the previous day should act as aiming points.

These missions look like:

[K.Pooley]

[5] (Clarification) This to be a night raid at 2130, with NJs as escorts, a few ahead at same altitude, the rest of the NJ force coming in later, 4-5,000' above the bombers, crisscrossing the bombers' path.

[6] Some smallish low-level raids up and down the North Sea coast just to stop Werner thinking I've given up attacking there altogether. All below the level for CH and through the gaps in the CHL network.

[7] 11 Group Organisation
The map below shows which Sector Airfields control which SECAFs, and is key to understanding the most effective ways to attack FC in the SE of England.

[K.Pooley]

[7] (Continued) 11 Group Recce
This chart is a bit embarrassing, as it shows how I have neglected reconnaissance of the enemy's AFs over the past few days. It is useful because it gives me a general picture of the distribution of his fighters; he has almost completely abandoned his Sector Airfields in favour of the SECAFs. It also shows that Biggin Hill remains a useful target, despite having already taken a hammering, since it handles C^3 for four busy satellite fields.

[K.Pooley]

[7] (Continued) AF Targets to hit. Northweald shows 34 aircraft (currently only sector AF with any fighters – and photo uptodate), and any comms damage caused will affect the deployment of fighters from Stapleford as well. Secondly, Biggin Hill is an obvious target as mentioned above. I'll wait for recce results before launching either of these.

[8] AF recce (11 Group) Fairly straightforward this, with at least three missions per AF, at different times, hi/lo, hopefully giving good coverage.

[9] Two ultra-low-level raids to hit Haycastle and Warren RADARs in West Wales, the last two CH sites operating south of the Humber.

Chocks away!

Kevin

[K.Pooley]

Post-Mortem

[3] 0630-0700 (Hopefully) pinpoint attacks against recovering RADAR sites in SE England and East Anglia, using the same criteria as last turn.
All completely destroyed, except for Bawdsey and Dunwich each shown as 56%, just enough to keep them out of commission though.

[4] At 0900, mixed bomber force of 160+ escorted by 100+ '109s against Canvey Island OILS, and
a slightly smaller raid against Beckwith CHEM. Hopefully the simultaneous raids will split FC efforts to intercept. Both at 14,500'.
Canvey Island OILS shows no additional damage, but at least the 160-something strong bomber force didn't suffer any casualties. Beckton CHEM (No, I don't know where Beckwith is either!) suffered similar damage, this time the LW losing 8b and 9f. Of course, I hope that both of these results are caused by suspect recce, and that in actual fact considerable damage was done

[5] 160+ '88s and '111s bombing the already damaged Shellhaven OILR. If it goes according to plan any fires from the previous day should act as aiming points.
No RAF NFs showed up (I wonder why not) which was nice of them, and dispute several crews suffering the stress of being 'coned' over the target, none became casualties to AA fire. Hopefully the next day's PR will show massive damage, but I will have to be patient.

[6] Some smallish low-level raids up and down the North Sea coast just to stop Werner thinking I've given up attacking there altogether. All below the level for CH and through the gaps in the CHL network.
Typical! The piddling little raids appear to have done the most damage:

Thrumster RADAR 100%
Dorman's STEEL 100%
ICI Petrochemicals CHEM 100%
Invergordon PORT 62%

Hopefully the next day's recce will confirm most of this.

[8] AF recce (11 Group) Fairly straightforward this, with at least three missions per AF, at different times, hi/lo, hopefully giving good coverage.
Went quite well, see the updated recce chart below.

[9] Two ultra-low-level raids to hit Haycastle and Warren RADARs in West Wales, the last two CH sites operating south of the Humber.
These didn't go quite so well, as Haycastle was bombed but not damaged, and instead of Warren CH the other raid totalled St Twynells CHL instead! Interceptors catching the raids just to the west of Lundy were part of the problem, but the fault was all mine. Although the raids were flying under the radar, I plotted both of them to the east of Penzance instead of the west, over the sea, so they were easily spotted by the Royal Observer Corps, giving the FC stations in South Wales plenty of time to plot their interceptions.


11 Group Recces
The updated chart is below, with the major changes highlighted in yellow. Just a comment about damaged AFs where no new recce happened. These are consistent with the strange way your staff have of extrapolating the damage state of un-recced targets; assuming a -1% change per turn, when we know that left to themselves AFs will repair at vastly greater rates than this. This makes it something to keep an eye on when interpreting recce results.

[Hard Sarge]

How are your losses Kev ?

do you notice much difference in combat with the new patch ? (this game updated or still with the old patch ???)

(I read, but I miss stuff

[simovitch]

FYI I'm noticing that my bombers are not getting any hits against British interceptors in defensive fire in BoB. Not a single one in over 30 days.

I seem to remember before the patch that several of my He, Ju, and Do squadrons would get at least a few hits.

[Hard Sarge]

I'll keep an eye open for that in my games

[K.Pooley]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

How are your losses Kev ?

do you notice much difference in combat with the new patch ? (this game updated or still with the old patch ???)

(I read, but I miss stuff

Patched. I must say I've not noticed a big difference, maybe because there are so many variables anyway it's difficult to tell after only a short time.

[K.Pooley]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

FYI I'm noticing that my bombers are not getting any hits against British interceptors in defensive fire in BoB. Not a single one in over 30 days.

I seem to remember before the patch that several of my He, Ju, and Do squadrons would get at least a few hits.

That's strange. After two weeks of combat my bombers have racked up the following kills:

Do - 6 kills
He - 18
Ju 87 - 9
Ju 88 - 19 (2 by the same aircraft)

So does your 'Top Pilot' list not include any bombers at all?

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: K.Pooley

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

How are your losses Kev ?

do you notice much difference in combat with the new patch ? (this game updated or still with the old patch ???)

(I read, but I miss stuff

Patched. I must say I've not noticed a big difference, maybe because there are so many variables anyway it's difficult to tell after only a short time.

this was started with 1.01 ?

patch should take effect, but, from my game with Dixie, I seemed to be getting about 10 damaged for every kill I pull off, he is doing a little better, but he has a lot of damaged (and I think his kills are my damaged trying to get away)

[K.Pooley]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ORIGINAL: K.Pooley

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

How are your losses Kev ?

do you notice much difference in combat with the new patch ? (this game updated or still with the old patch ???)

(I read, but I miss stuff

Patched. I must say I've not noticed a big difference, maybe because there are so many variables anyway it's difficult to tell after only a short time.

this was started with 1.01 ?

patch should take effect, but, from my game with Dixie, I seemed to be getting about 10 damaged for every kill I pull off, he is doing a little better, but he has a lot of damaged (and I think his kills are my damaged trying to get away)

I think it was 1.01, we started in the first week of December.

[Hard Sarge]

Roger

then, your bomber kills could be mainly from the 1.01 verison

will have to keep an eye out for the battles with 1.02

[Hard Sarge]

okay for what it is worth, I have lost 50 bombers so far in my game with Dixie and have not shot down a fighter yet with those units

(kind of early yet)

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: K.Pooley

ORIGINAL: simovitch

FYI I'm noticing that my bombers are not getting any hits against British interceptors in defensive fire in BoB. Not a single one in over 30 days.

I seem to remember before the patch that several of my He, Ju, and Do squadrons would get at least a few hits.

That's strange. After two weeks of combat my bombers have racked up the following kills:

Do - 6 kills
He - 18
Ju 87 - 9
Ju 88 - 19 (2 by the same aircraft)

So does your 'Top Pilot' list not include any bombers at all?

Here's the kill tally for He 111 after 45 days. Ju 87's & 88's and Do 17's are just as dismal: