Nuggets of wisdom

[Seminole]

"The Allies get over 600 new trained pilots a turn. The Germans get 37." - QBall

I didn't know this.
Just like I didn't know that the Allies produce 4 troop ships and 30 cargo ships per week until Joel mentioned it (lack of playing the Allied side so far).
I've used the latter information to create a Shipping Losses spreadsheet and monitor Allied naval capacity (only variables I need are the turn and troop/cargo shipping losses from the Ground Losses screen).

What's the nationality breakdown on the pilot creation? Is there somewhere in game I can find/monitor this info?

As the German player I've not had a complete campaign run through. My opponents have pursued various air war strategies, so it is difficult for me to draw much in useful knowledge from the production screen (discerning the impact they're having). The differences in ground combat from game to game also make it hard for me to judge from pools, or gross OoB numbers.

Anybody have what they consider 'baselines' for any of the above? Is there any use in trying to track production/losses (is it fixed or variable for the Allies?) with regard to certain airframes?

Part of what interests me in these games is the opportunity to shape your OoB, as either side. But part of that is understanding what forces you're going to have, or have to make sure you have, later.

[LiquidSky]

Open up the Commanders Report...click on Air Groups tab and at the top right hand corner hit the Pilots text.

You get this:

The number in parenthesis is the number trained. FREE is a list of trained pilots (with role) without planes, in my case the 138 is probably all naval pilots (since I lost all my naval squadrons early game)

the TO MAX is the number of pilots I need to fly maximum planes. Most of them probably are bombers but a lot of them will be fighters.

POOL is Trained Pilots not yet assigned a role (Such as Fighter pilot or Bomber Pilot)

Note that you can influence this by disbanding squadrons.

[Q-Ball]

LIquid Sky has some good advice on extending the LW. Basically, you want to manage it so all new pilots are fighter pilots.

As Germany, you have to make liberal use of the Disband feature for air units. There is no point to keeping lots of depleted units you don't have pilots for. I have found training pilots to be about worthless; it causes big ops losses, and uses alot of fuel, so it's pretty useless. You have to just live on the meager replacements, and reinforcements. You can make an argument that putting bombers up with rookies is a "why not" move, since you may have bombers in the pool, but if your opponent is bombing fuel I think you're better off just not bothering.....waste of fuel.

The most important are the day fighters. You can extend their life first by funneling replacements there, then disbanding night squadrons and usings those pilots in day units. I disband all the HQ units fairly early, just to reduce clutter. I keep a couple FB HQs, only so they can convert to a new type before it's available

The FW 190 is quite good, the Bf-109 is serviceable. The Bf-110 is dead meat against any Allied fighter, and should be sent to Romania and retired fast. The Me-262 is AWESOME, the other jets are useless, particularly the Me-163...that's my experience.

Ultimately it's a losing effort no matter what, but if you can keep the LW in the air until the end it makes a difference

[Seminole]

LIquid Sky has some good advice on extending the LW. Basically, you want to manage it so all new pilots are fighter pilots.
As Germany, you have to make liberal use of the Disband feature for air units. There is no point to keeping lots of depleted units you don't have pilots for. I have found training pilots to be about worthless; it causes big ops losses, and uses alot of fuel, so it's pretty useless. You have to just live on the meager replacements, and reinforcements. You can make an argument that putting bombers up with rookies is a "why not" move, since you may have bombers in the pool, but if your opponent is bombing fuel I think you're better off just not bothering.....waste of fuel.

A working strategy relies greatly upon what the enemy is going to do, and what you can influence them to do. I used my Luftwaffe pretty hard in my latest game, to significant advantage.
Here is the OoB on turn 69:

The FW 190 is quite good, the Bf-109 is serviceable. The Bf-110 is dead meat against any Allied fighter, and should be sent to Romania and retired fast. The Me-262 is AWESOME, the other jets are useless, particularly the Me-163...that's my experience.

I like to use the twin engine German fighters for CAS. That or you have to set them farther back so they conduct their intercepts out of range of most escorts. I tried using them as escorts a few times, but it as disastrous more often than not.

Ultimately it's a losing effort no matter what, but if you can keep the LW in the air until the end it makes a difference

Unfortunately I haven't had a game run until the end. Thus I've focused on using the Luftwaffe while their morale and experience are at their peak and the Allies are not in a strategic position to bring their full weight to bear. I feel like if I try to 'save' the Luftwaffe for the end I'm just saving them for when the Allies are strongest, and that I can get more from them by squeezing it out early.

[LiquidSky]

I am not sure how many vps I am gaining from bombing the allies in late '44 but I am getting around 100-200 afvs and around 5-7k men per turn. My bombing losses are not even that high since I restrict the pilots. Once the operational losses kill off the weak, the stronger guys only get shot down by flak mostly as they don't seem to see much air to air combat.

The fuel savings for not using poor pilots and training I think is huge. I suspect I have made fuel a non issue for my Germans. I am definitely on a downward spiral but I think I will not run out before Berlin falls.

I am starting to run out of planes though...I've had about half my air factories bombed and my pools are starting to reach empty. I have tons of bombers though, and don't mind filling them with 16 year olds. They provide a valuable service in making the allies use up travel time shooting them down (the ones that don't crash on take off). It allows my real bombers (the FB's with rockets) to bomb later in the week.

[Harrybanana]

Any pearls of wisdom for the Allied Air forces? I currently have 2 FB air groups (1 Belgian and 1 Norwegian) with less than 45 experience and a 3rd Norwegian FB with less than 55 experience. I have had them Flying training missions for several weeks with 0 experience improvement. Should I just disband them? What else should the WA be doing other than retraining FB-Fs as FBs?

[smokindave34]

For the "Free" pilots who already have a role, how can I tell what role they are trained for? Is there a way I can influence what role pilots are trained for?