Pilot casualties during strafing attacks

[Thales99]

In my current LW 1944 campaign I observe that strafing attacks on airfields invariably lead to very high pilot losses on the ground.

As an example, I just had a P47 flight strafe two of my gruppen at Schleswig airfield north of Hamburg. I lost about 50 planes and had 21 pilots killed and 25 wounded during this single attack. I did not anticipate the attack because the contact was part of a large bomber stream passing overhead, and I had decided to stay put and not engange with my planes. So this single strafing event effectively wiped out 2 fighter units with irreplacable losses of experienced pilots.

Now I don't have a problem with the plane losses, but I find the pilot losses excessive. I would understand these losses if I had ordered an alarm start and they were caught during takeoff preparations, but not in this case.

Therefore I would suggest a different casualty calculation for planes destroyed on the ground (or at least the possibilty to tell the air crews to stay in their shelters, maybe leading to increased reaction time).

[zoul310]

That's brutal !

[Oliver Heindorf]

how much light flak was there ? maybe the airfield had lots of them ? (just a guess)

[Hard Sarge]

I would say you had pilots in the planes, they are still going to be in cockpit readyness, the raid was too close

honestly, that is on the player

[kaybayray]

I tend to agree with Sarge with respect to the casualties taken by the AC on the ground. I believe this game fairly accurately models missions that you build. Aircraft have to be brought on the field and manned to launch. If you ready a squadron to intercept and then hold them on the ground IMHO it is accurately modeled that they are manned and sitting on the runway or taxiways. I would expect a bloodbath turkeyshoot if this were to happen when a Ground Attack mission attacked such an airfield.

As for casualties take by the Ground Attack Aircraft.... It makes sense that the closer you are to the AA weapons the more accurate their fire should be and the more damage you should take. Within the range capabilities of each AA weapon in question of course. I would expect to see losses of the Ground attack aircraft directly proportional to the concentration of AA on the field. I have made the mistake of not reconning an Airfield and hitting it hard with several squadrons running sweeps only to find out that there was a high concentration of light and medium AA which shredded my squadrons.

Although I have seen instances where a high concentration of AA on a field did very little damage to my squadrons. Guess there is a Dice Roll for the Reaction of the AA batteries that effects their overall effectiveness.

Later,
KayBay

[Derfel]

The problem with straffing is that as a raid is passing by, the engine will put pilots on alert, ie put them in the cockpit.
As the German player you cannot tell the pilots to take the day off.

So a good gamey solution is to let a raid pass close to an airfield and then strafe it. The antidote to this gamey solution for the German player is to scramble your planes and RUN AWAY. [X(]

If you want to rest pilots then relocate the unit to the east and take the morale hit.
PS.: recon flights do the same, so keep the alert radius down to a minimum.

[Nicholas Bell]

So a good gamey solution is to let a raid pass close to an airfield and then strafe it. The antidote to this gamey solution for the German player is to scramble your planes and RUN AWAY.

Yes.  When I have fighters with low available a/c or fatigue more than mid-20s I put them on a patrol the opposite direction just to get them out of the way!

[kaybayray]

Having not played the Luftwaffe yet I was not aware that the AI would launch your Aircraft without you initiating such actions. I was under the impression that you could shut the AI response protocol off and manually bring squadrons up to ready as you see fit. Can you not do this as the Luftwaffe commander?

Just some perspective I do believe one of the major resources you have as the Luftwaffe is the experience level of you Pilot Core at the start of the game. I would assume that they had a much higher overall average level of experience compared to the Allied Pilot Core at the start. I this true?

If it is correct then a strong part of any strategy operated by the Luftwaffe commander would be to maintain that core of experience and not throw them away. I would expect to take care on how and when you commit them to intercept. I would think one would even avoid certain engagements since the risk of losses may be higher then the need to engage with this precious resource. I think it is a given that German industry is going to get pounded so saving this resource would seem very important.

However I have not yet played the Luftwaffe in this game so I could be completely mistaken.

Later,
KayBay

[TechSgt]

ORIGINAL: Derfel

The problem with straffing is that as a raid is passing by, the engine will put pilots on alert, ie put them in the cockpit.
As the German player you cannot tell the pilots to take the day off.

So a good gamey solution is to let a raid pass close to an airfield and then strafe it. The antidote to this gamey solution for the German player is to scramble your planes and RUN AWAY. [X(]

If you want to rest pilots then relocate the unit to the east and take the morale hit.
PS.: recon flights do the same, so keep the alert radius down to a minimum.

If I target a base with with a strafe wouldn't the engine put them in the cockpit anyways? The question is about a GAMEY solution.
I'd be curious to see what would happen with a very small list of pilots, but a large non-ready pool of planes, (ie. the Americans at Pearl Harbor). Does the engine spread the loss over all a/c on the field, or does it start with piloted planes first?

Yes, I think we Allies get too many Axis pilot kia/wia when strafing. To test, just run a turn doing nothing but strafe attacks, then look at the campaign summary. Then ratio of pilot injures/aircraft destroyed is too high. IMHO.

TS

[Reg]

You are aware that under 'Set Doctrine' you can alter the range in at which the AI places the squadrons on 1 and 5 minute alert???

Unfortunately it applies to all squadrons in the command.

[harley]

ORIGINAL: TechSgt

If I target a base with with a strafe wouldn't the engine put them in the cockpit anyways? The question is about a GAMEY solution.

TS

Pilots are linked with aircraft. If the aircraft is lost there is a chance the pilot is also. The chance of loss is based on the current readiness state for that aircraft.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting it is currently gamey, or it should be?

The only change I plan to make in the future (ie, not in the next patch, and maybe not in the one after that) is to allow units to stand down totally - so day units have 0 ready aircraft till the following day. Planes would still be lost, but the pilots would remain in their billets.

[TechSgt]

ORIGINAL: harley

ORIGINAL: TechSgt

If I target a base with with a strafe wouldn't the engine put them in the cockpit anyways? The question is about a GAMEY solution.

TS

Pilots are linked with aircraft. If the aircraft is lost there is a chance the pilot is also. The chance of loss is based on the current readiness state for that aircraft.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting it is currently gamey, or it should be?

The only change I plan to make in the future (ie, not in the next patch, and maybe not in the one after that) is to allow units to stand down totally - so day units have 0 ready aircraft till the following day. Planes would still be lost, but the pilots would remain in their billets.

No. Derfel's comment about gamey solution to strafing airfields struck me as odd.

About six months ago this question -- high pilot casualties when strafing -- came up. I understand the linkage between pilots and planes. But, on the Axis side the number of pilots is the weakness, and being able to knock off 30 - 40 pilots by strafing alone doesn't seem "fair".

OTOH: Putting that many planes -- hence pilots -- on the same airfield, I feel the Axis player is asking for it. With the IX AF arrival and XII AF released from Anvil, any airfield containing aircraft within range is going to be attacked. So the "best" answer for the Axis player is to move damaged units out of the line of fire.

Curiousity: What would we gain by standing down a unit? Faster recovery of morale, fatigue, replacements, or maintenance?

TS

[Thales99]

The problem I see is that an approaching raid (including the strafing raids themselves) *forces* the pilots to sit in their cockpits even if no start is desired by the player because the situation is deemed unsafe. I understand that this is in part a limitation of the game engine, but an option to temporarily stand down the units would be very helpful.

I doubt that when studying some unit histories of real squadrons during that period you would find many pilots killed during ground strafing, at least not in comparison to other casualties. In the current phase of my game I have days where more than half of my pilot losses happen on the ground.

Also, I observed that night fighter units strafed during the day take considerable pilot losses. In this case I don't even have the possibility to scramble them because of the reaction times for night fighters at day.

[daft]

ORIGINAL: harley


Pilots are linked with aircraft. If the aircraft is lost there is a chance the pilot is also. The chance of loss is based on the current readiness state for that aircraft.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting it is currently gamey, or it should be?

The only change I plan to make in the future (ie, not in the next patch, and maybe not in the one after that) is to allow units to stand down totally - so day units have 0 ready aircraft till the following day. Planes would still be lost, but the pilots would remain in their billets.

Does the game account for actual placement of the aircraft as well? One would think that the a/c would be in dispersal if the readiness was low (ie pilots in their billets) or sitting on or close to the runways with the pilots in their cockpits when alert status is high. The first scenario would probably make it harder for the strafing a/c to score hits.

[harley]

ORIGINAL: TechSgt

No. Derfel's comment about gamey solution to strafing airfields struck me as odd.

OIC

Curiousity: What would we gain by standing down a unit? Faster recovery of morale, fatigue, replacements, or maintenance?

TS

Yes, Yes, No, Yes. Though I hadn't thought about #4 till you mentioned it, it is a good idea.

Fatigue is the big one - you can decide to stand-down a unit now, but they still take fatigue hits as they are on cockpit readiness. This idea would take them off completely - no AC at all available, so no pilot gains fatigue.

[TechSgt]

ORIGINAL: harley

ORIGINAL: TechSgt

No. Derfel's comment about gamey solution to strafing airfields struck me as odd.

OIC

Curiousity: What would we gain by standing down a unit? Faster recovery of morale, fatigue, replacements, or maintenance?

TS

Yes, Yes, No, Yes. Though I hadn't thought about #4 till you mentioned it, it is a good idea.

Fatigue is the big one - you can decide to stand-down a unit now, but they still take fatigue hits as they are on cockpit readiness. This idea would take them off completely - no AC at all available, so no pilot gains fatigue.

Currently, for the offensive player, they can just not schedule a unit to fly, but the defense doesn't have that luxury.

Just thinking out loud...
But, what if the base was attacked -- bombed or strafed -- during the stand-down?
Could this be an exploit for the defender???
You'll have to put damage on the reserve pool or maintenance aircraft.
Morale could still suffer due to the damaged support facilities.
I like it!


A couple of more thoughts...
What about reconning a stand-down unit? How many a/c would it show?
Do you stand-down a base or a unit?
What happens to two or more units at a base, one on stand-down, one on ready status?
Can a stand-down move?

It is almost the same as a unit changing a/c type back to itself, but without the op points!

TS

[Hard Sarge]

the hassle is, now you see what they had to go though, and yes, a lot of pilots didn't make it out of a base attack, either by the bombers or by low level fighters, it is dangerous out there, and while on the defence, you can't just say, hey, I don't want to play today, you got to react to what the Off side is doing

plus there is the story about the RAF Pilots who were given the day off and were in the local pub, a raid came in to attack the airfield and some of the bombers missed, a bomb hit the Pug and a few of the pilots were killed

bad luck, wrong place at the wrong time, but, still, stuff happens

(not along the same lines, but I liked the story, mid 44, the Germans are planing on trying to mass there planes to hit a US raid coming in, so units from all over are flying to a main base, to refuel and regroup, so they can have a mass formation attack, most of the units are flying low, and fast, one of the pilots, is simi new, and while flying is impressed with the number of planes he can see above him, the might of the LW is going to be shown today, he has never been prouder to be a LW pilot, then he has been today, they land, get out of there planes and start the refueling, he sees that most of the old timers are all standing around looking up at the sky, so he walks over and asks them, why are our comrades flying so high ? won't we have trouble joining up with them, to make our attack ?, they look at him like he is stupid, then one tells him, the truth, those are the Yanks, we were lucky they didn't see us, then he could see, there 50-60 planes were all that was there, and all that was going to be in the mass formation, vs hundreds and hundreds of enemy planes)

[Nicholas Bell]

The only change I plan to make in the future (ie, not in the next patch, and maybe not in the one after that) is to allow units to stand down totally - so day units have 0 ready aircraft till the following day. Planes would still be lost, but the pilots would remain in their billets.

That would be excellent, coupled with increased maintenance, morale and fatigue recovery.

[K.Pooley]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

...plus there is the story about the RAF Pilots who were given the day off and were in the local pub, a raid came in to attack the airfield and some of the bombers missed, a bomb hit the Pug and a few of the pilots were killed

Good story Sarge, but wasn't this cruelty to small, annoying lapdogs? [;)]

[Golden Bear]

Ok, now, they are not annoying. I used to live down street from one and when it snowed and it got taken out for its walk, well your heart would go out to it. It would sort of bounce through the snow - only about 8" deep - until it got exhausted and then decide that its dignity could be sacrificied for the sake of avoiding a heart attack. Very nice little critter.

Now, annoying, I think of people in management positions.

Carlos, house-sharer with four cats (and wife) but nevertheless OK with pugs!