Tank Anti-Air Tactics

[Veldor]

What is the best way to protect your Tank Divisions from easily getting knocked out from air strikes? Is there a good unit to put in the subformation or is the only way to have fighters around to intercept?

[Banquet]

Have u tried putting flak units in your units?

[Xenomath]

You already named fighters.
Another idea would be to keep flak around.
Till one of those arrives, try to end the tanks move in woody or urban terrain,
as bombers get -50% on their attack value there.

[seille]

Xenomath is right. You have to split the flak as good as possible to avoid direct attacks on them.
But even with flak spreaded around it´s often hard to defend against air attacks depending on the numbers
the enemy is using. Best is flak and fighters in combination or fighters only.
Flak is better at level II or III. I´m using actually flak III in two of my games and this is a tough opponent for the planes
since they not only have more firepower, they have also increased range (+1). That way you can really make
a area a flak hell [:D]
Place the flak in terrain with good protection and they will do it´s job. But as i said don´t expect too much when the flak is caught
in the open by divebombers....they eat the guns very fast.

[Ande]

no army has ever been able to advance while not maintaining airsuperiority, except perhaps the german 1918 offencive but airpower didn't really matter back then and also the wars in vietnam spanning from the french defeat to the american defeat but only because heavy forrest means -50% power.
alright, it is possible to advance while not maintaining airsuperiority but it is very hard

[IRONCROM]

ORIGINAL: seille

Xenomath is right. You have to split the flak as good as possible to avoid direct attacks on them.
But even with flak spreaded around it´s often hard to defend against air attacks depending on the numbers
the enemy is using. Best is flak and fighters in combination or fighters only.
Flak is better at level II or III. I´m using actually flak III in two of my games and this is a tough opponent for the planes
since they not only have more firepower, they have also increased range (+1). That way you can really make
a area a flak hell [:D]
Place the flak in terrain with good protection and they will do it´s job. But as i said don´t expect too much when the flak is caught
in the open by divebombers....they eat the guns very fast.

Whats your flak strategy seille? do you integrate them with your other units or keep them seperate. And if seperate how many do you place in a unit?

[Willburn]

ORIGINAL: Xenomath

You already named fighters.
Another idea would be to keep flak around.
Till one of those arrives, try to end the tanks move in woody or urban terrain,
as bombers get -50% on their attack value there.

Leaving them om wood or urban is really nice if your expecting air combat. Thats a good tip.

[Veldor]

Thing is the AI has been in the habit of building 48+ planes on the island cities and its really rather challenging after trying to land there even with Heavy Armor and such I had not been in the pratice of bringing flak as Id have to tow it and it otherwise seems with my armored divisions that most of the peripheral items I put in them get quickly wiped out while the tanks themselves last much longer (mortars, machineguns, and so forth).

Mostly I've taken to "rushing" the airfields. It's actually proven a bit effective as building 48+ planes doesn't come without the cost of too weak a ground force it would seem..

[seille]

ORIGINAL: IRONCROM
Whats your flak strategy seille? do you integrate them with your other units or keep them seperate. And if seperate how many do you place in a unit?

It depends on the situation. For covering a armored speearhead i would split the flak (at least 2 per unit) between the units.
For protection of cities or important bridges i use sometimes "flak units" with 10 guns or more.
The problems with "Flak units" is, that they are too vulnerable to direct attacks except they are placed in forests or
mountains. Fortifications are also not bad. If an opponent concentrate some planes on them to attack he can eliminate those
threats in one turn with only small losses. Splitted and close to each other the flak guns are more effective since the attacker can´t
supress them all the same time.

In my 1939 game vs Tom i had up to 40 Flak III guns around Manchester. Because of their range it was a very good protection
and made air attacks nearly impossible even my opponent had 100+ planes (upgraded) available. That i lost here to amssive artillery
attacks is an other story [:D]

The AI planes i have no respect for . Sorry....
Either they don´t intercept or they allow me to overroll them.
And even they intercept i would focuss my production to fighters for a few turns and would finish them off this way.

[seille]

But as i already said. Usually i prefer to protect my ground troops by own fighters since this is the best way and fighters can be used
offensive and defensive.

[IRONCROM]

 Thanx Seille...that give me a lot more ideas on how to tweek my AIR game.[:D]