AAR from a test run

[Hard Sarge]

okay may be short or long in doing, but after reading Swift, thought I would add some also

doing some testing and picked on Big Week, a 7 day battle, to see how it is working and what I need to work over (this stuff will drive you to drink, found a ton of places that need correcting, what bugs me, is they are/were corrected in the main OOBs, but the short battles read the info different)

but

Big Week happens in Feb, the US plans on taking down the GE Aircraft production and expert a good week of weather to do so

score starts out at 3-5-6

I plot out a number of strikes on AFAC, EFAC And a few CFACs (also try to hit the big Chem plant and a big Engine site)

plus some recon, 62 recon birds are sent out

[Hard Sarge]

Oh Oh, this may be tuffer then I thought !, the LW kicked my butt, but I Got some of the targets, two of the big ones had clouds and ruined the main drop (11 and 30% damage done)

but I did do some good damage, and scored 3 points of SB damage

and found out the HARD way, that the Ju 88s are nasty, if they can latch onto a BG and there are no Allied fighters in the area, they can last a long time

my timeing needs work, early decoy raids did good at bringing in enemy planes, but the main killer decoy, was too early and the main raids too close to the killer, nothing hit the killer

I lose 202 plane today, the LW loses 230
(in this battle, the 2nd Tac and 12th and Med are not there, so a lot of the decoy and side action is not there)

on the testing side, things looked good, I got a number of bases to work over, the recon looks like it didn't bother the battle, and the birds taking extra photos during there mission is sweet, where things worked as planned, the battle went my way, where things didn't quite work out, I got hammered, the AI did well

now to see if I Can change my ways enough that the AI can not follow, or if I keep getting hammered

[Hard Sarge]

part of my fighter force

[Hard Sarge]

my bomber boys are not too happy, my morale is shot

so, today, we go for the fighters, or at least, we go to protect the bomb raids with more fighters, Kassel is the main area, with the 2 big EFACs I didn't knock out yesterday

in the Med, I am headed into the soft underbelly and give the Med forces some rest

again lots of Recon, need to know what I am faceing (which since, I made most of the targets, it is interesting, to see what the player sees, you need recon, lots of recon)

(Harley, the meany that he is, has made recon mistakeable, don't always believe what you see)

[Hard Sarge]

just in case, I got target damage highlighted, so that is why it stands out with different colors, Green is good, yellowish is damaged (or is that organgeish ?) and Red is knocked out (50% or higher is seen as knocked out, 49% and under is workable)
 
 

[wernerpruckner]

I see that you do not use many waypoints to confuse distract the AI ?!?

[Hard Sarge]

well, most of what is being shown is the AI plotted recon, some of the broken ones are my raids
 
 

[Hard Sarge]

Day two is somewhat better, got hammered on the way home, and ran into clouds in England

but I took out most of my targets for the day

the attack in the Med was a snafu, missed the target and some 190Fs went to town, when they found a gap in the escourts

but if nothing else, day two will go down as the death of the Terror Twins, the twins got caught and were not let go

Flak is doing major damage

had a 109 Gruppen get 7 damaged and 1 kill on a B-17 raid !, that was a major hurt

[Hard Sarge]

only gained 1 SB point today, but hopefully wearing down the LW (wearing the Allies down pretty good tooooooo)

[Hard Sarge]

Questions or comments are welcome
 
when no one is saying anything, I tend to get tight lipped and not say much

[Hard Sarge]

okay, day 3

the Med is pretty shaky, morale is pretty low across the board, so will keep the raids closer to home and work over the IT Aircraft production, those 3 sites, if knocked out, will still do some hurting

in the North, going to the Frankfort (?) area, since I got the Rubber production hurt, I want to make sure it takes a good pounding, the 3rd largest site is coming back on line, and a hit to a size 20 site is always good

plus there are some large EFACs close by, will make it a major raid area

[Hard Sarge]

just in case

my raids are pretty much all using the same basic pathline, but each will be a little behind the other, this way, escourts for one raid, will also help another as they join up, also, the LW likes to drop into the backpath of a raid and work over the units headed back after takeing damage, if there is a follow up raid, you got a chance to engage these guys who are picking on your cripples

no decoys out this time, all to the point, the idea is to get the LW to engage and to engage where my fighters are

got some side sweeps in, for my lesser range planes, they catch something, good, they don't, oh well

not done the Recon plotting yet, as I think that confuses what the main idea of the raid plotting is

[Hard Sarge]

which as I was saying, once recon is added, it confuses what I am showing

and again, just in case, that is a switchable button, you can turn it on to see where you raids are plotted or turn it off

[Hard Sarge]

which needless to say, after 3 days, I should have a pretty good idea of what is what, I have flown between 50-70 recon missions each day, and each bird can take up to 5 snap shots
 
also, since my raids against the EFACs have been better and done more damage, I am going to start with them as the main target, I can bottleneck the production system better, by hitting one target type, then by hitting all 3 types
 
BWM engines are hurting now, so the FWs are going to be slowed down (for this game, it won't really matter, but in a full game, it would be importent)
 
 

[mattpenfold]

Can I ask what the RAF is upto during all this ?

[Rebel Yell]

This is a lot to digest, but one thing that jumps out at me is the extremely high losses for both sides.  122 bombers on day one is horrendous (considering the 8th AF lost 137 bombers for all of big week) and the Luftwaffe will cease to exist in a few days at the current rate.
 
Now then, I know there are a lot of mitigating factors, since you are just doing a test run (not enough fighter cover, etc, etc) but I'm having a hard time coming to grips with 500+ aircraft going down on day 1, and 300+ on day two. 
 
I'd be interested to know if this represents typical results for this period of the war.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: mattpenfold

Can I ask what the RAF is upto during all this ?

hehe, to be honest, nothing, they are back sitting on there butts watching the fun [:-]

okay more to the point, this is one of the short battles, and only the 8th and 15th AFs are included, so there is no RAF or 2nd Tac or Med or 12th AF in this battle (which would make it a lot easier to fight out)

there are also short battles on the night war, and then only BC is in the game and stuff like that

in the 43 and 44 main Campaign, then you get all the nuts and bolts (and lots and lots of bolts)

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Rebel Yell

This is a lot to digest, but one thing that jumps out at me is the extremely high losses for both sides.  122 bombers on day one is horrendous (considering the 8th AF lost 137 bombers for all of big week) and the Luftwaffe will cease to exist in a few days at the current rate.

Now then, I know there are a lot of mitigating factors, since you are just doing a test run (not enough fighter cover, etc, etc) but I'm having a hard time coming to grips with 500+ aircraft going down on day 1, and 300+ on day two. 

I'd be interested to know if this represents typical results for this period of the war.

okay, one thing on this side of the battle, there is no other battle going on, there is no 2nd Tac, running wild on the coast, there is no 12th or Med making things dicey in the Med, so here, you pretty much have the LW vs the 8th and 15th, which is not how or what it really should be, so the losses are going to be higher

also, this battle starts on Feb 20th and 1944, you have not been fighting and wearing down the enemy for the last 6 months either, the LW is pretty much at full strength

which over all, the losses are going to be a lot higher then they should normally be, or should of been in RL, but that is one of the things with a game, it is easier to take losses when they are game losses

in a normal game, I would of had say, 1000 planes in the air, way before my first "real" raid had even started to take off, in the MED, the 12th and Med would had tons of med bombers and many scores of fighters running around, most of the bases the LW is takeing off from in the MED would of been pounded to dust by now

I picked this one to test and write about, since it is short (7 turns) and I have been working on these part of the game (I see some map errors that I need to fix , but really it is a short battle)

[Hard Sarge]

day 3

ahhhh, a little cloud, dang nab it

so, the Rubber plant got away with no damage, and the 2ndary Chem plant was also missed

and one of the Big EFACs was missed along with a IT AFAC

but over all a good day, I took most of the other targets, a size 8 EFAC went to 45% !!!!!

so means a repeat is in order

and since I missed the Rubber and the other Big EFAC in the area, looks like a prime area for the next days attacks

only 1 point of SB damage scored today, but am close to the 2nd (of course the 3 misses would of been nice)

I need 5 more points and 4 days to do it, going to be close, even if I hit all targets, my morale is pretty shot

the terror twins took another pounding today, they are nasty when they get in, but they take heavy losses when ever fighters are around

[Hard Sarge]

in a real game, that damage would be a real mess for the LW

30% + in EFACs would mean, something is not going to be built, a lot of somethings, so, the AI or the player, would have to start jumbleing there production around, to keep what they want to be built, being built, which means, the AI or player will also be doing damage to there own Production (time delays and what not due to production changes)

so in this case, I could lose this battle, but would be in a spot to win the war

losses while still heavy are getting a little better, of course, most of the Allied losses are on the way home and crashes, but a loss is a loss