For Judge, BoB 7 day Campaign

[JudgeDredd]

I suffer double losses too. I wasn't sure whether it was down to me not providing enough fighter cover, or me not providing the "right" fighter cover (High as opposed to close etc). Also, I have no been paying enough attention to fighter range and in doing so, I suspect some of my bombers are heading on alone in some places.

[TechSgt]

ORIGINAL: oldspec4

I'd like to know how HS keeps his loss ratio so low? I suspect one reason is his apparent use of plotting points around flak areas?

I'm into about turn 18 as the LW playing the entire campaign. W/ the exception of one day, my daily losses are about double that of the RAF. Although my AS score is 7 (which I think is good). BTW, I have ignored the radar and have concentrated on airfields.

I think it is because HS has been playing this game in his sleep for ten years, plus. [:D]

TS

[TechSgt]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

I suffer double losses too. I wasn't sure whether it was down to me not providing enough fighter cover, or me not providing the "right" fighter cover (High as opposed to close etc). Also, I have no been paying enough attention to fighter range and in doing so, I suspect some of my bombers are heading on alone in some places.

It's part close vs high escort. But, the main reason is the "right" escort part.

There is an "art" to the escort timing and altitude. Simple example; send an apparent unescorted bomb group -- use the delay feature. Then, have the escorts arrive just before the interceptors and have them at a high enough altitude to get the bounce bonus. After a good bounce the interceptors will break off, now you want to have a fighter sweep catch.

Last, bomb the interceptor's base while they are away -- cratered runways cause crashes, crashes cause dead and wounded pilots. Plus, a damaged airfield will slow maintenance and will lower morale. Lower morale enough and the unit will be withdrawn to safe areas to recover.

See... simple, eh? [:D]
TS

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Lützow

Curious about the fighter escort setup for high altitude bombing raids (25k feet). According to wikipedia the Bf 110 was, due to it's lack of agility, best used as high escort (quote: "Although outclassed, it was still formidable as a high escort for bombers using the tactic of diving upon an enemy, delivering a long-range burst from its powerful forward-facing armament, then breaking contact to run for it..."). That would leave the Bf 109 for close escort duty here.

but...

that leaves your 2nd best fighter, to try and get the bounce, and then get into a dogfight, or if it don't get the bounce, to get into a dogfight, and leave your best fighter, flying low and slow, and shackled to the bombers

I would rather have my 109s have a little freedom of action

but, will agree, there are a lot of debates, that maybe the 110 was just used wrong, but I think a lot of the trouble for the 110's, was the pilots didn't believe in them, thought they were outclassed and didn't stand a chance, so if combat came up, they didn't stand a chance

standard tactic was to go into a defensive circle once the enemy was spotted (makes it ruff to protect the bombers, when you break off and from a circle)

which some say, that people have the wrong idea about the circle, they could still move forward while in the circle, and still offer some protection, and they could break off from the circle to make attacks and then fall back to join

but that sounds like wishful thinking

still think it was the tactic and the man, there were good 110 pilots, just that there were a lot of decent ones, that never got the chance to hang around long enough to become good ones

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Nice campaign and explanation of target planning.

Now I have questions on tactics:

1)  What's your usual bombing altitude?

I showed most of my mission plottings ? 14-17 K, I would say, 25 K for my bait raids

2)  What's your usual fighter escort settings (close / height / delay)?

110s on close, 109's about 4K above, if more then a gruppen, then I stagger it, most times I will put a Gruppen, at 4, and the Stab for the Gruppen at 6
Delay, depends on how long the mission is, if my guys can't cover the whole mission, then I start to add some delay, if I am following a raid or two in front of it, then I can add in some delay

3)  Noticed that you only send 1 unit for FS unescorted.  And where do you target them?  What's the underlying logic for this?

Why would you add escorts to a sweep ?, escorts are for protection, a sweep is looking for a fight, mostly, a sweep is timing, you can send out dozens of them, but if the timing is wrong, they won't do a thing, or a Gruppen or Stab can get lucky and get a lot of action in, if the timing is right

the enemy wants to get into the backspace of a raid, damaged or bingo fueled fighters, will break off and start to head for home, enemy fighters will have a field day, in the backspace, the sweep is set up to cover that backspace when it can, and where it can, to catch fighters returning to base

And one final thing:
As LW, is it generally easier to win by points (1D and 1W campaign)... But harder to win by objectives (1M and full campaign) despite employing the same tactics and stragetgy.

I think the same tactics will work, you just have to shift your targets, in BoB that can be HARD, as most of the good stuff, is beyond fighter range, overall, I would say the 1 day, one week, campaigns are easy to win (easier) while the one month and full can be kind of HARD to finish off

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: Richard III

I`ve not played the German side in this yet, but shouldn`t you be losing a lot more AC then the Brits by this point both from a historical point view and a Game Play view ?

Looks like your trading losses about equal here. I know your an expert player who knows the game inside out but this seems too easy ??


from the old days, I am the only Allied player who won the game twice, and took less losses then the LW did in both games, I don't like taking losses, I don't believe in taking losses

so, that said, I do a lot of decoys, bait and switch, faints, to keep the Enemy out of place

but over all, it is timing, when everything works right, and your timing is good, you going to get away with a lot more then if your timing is off

run into some heavy weather on take off, and it can ruin your whole day !!!

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Thx very much HS.

I haven't read it all...it's morning and I have to get to work so I'll read it tonight.

But looking at your first Campaign result screen...! WOW 200-47! And 29LW losses to RAFs 38! They are normally the other way around for me and RAF normally have at least double points....and this trend stays for my week!

I guess I suck! [:D]

Naw, as I said elsewhere's most of it is timing, some times, the first 10-15-20 attacks will all be your's, other times, the enemy gets off the first mass of attacks, it can really ruin your day, or ruin the enemy's day, when one of these happens, most times, it is trade, you attack, he attacks, but sometimes, somebody is just in the wrong place at the wrong time

remember most of my scoring is for hitting the target, I got 38 points for aircraft losses, while the rest is airfield damage

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

And you're getting these results WITHOUT taking out any radar. That's a pity...I had hoped punching a hole in the radar was a "necessary" tactic, though I suppose IRL if the bombers are protected well enough, then maybe not.

well, I did hit one , but in this case, it is a short battle, so I am more interested in getting in and getting out, if it was the month long or full campaign, I would be more interested in shutting down part of the radar net

[JudgeDredd]

Bad news....very bad news!

Still taking heavy losses in the air even following peeps advice. Lost 60+aircraft to the RAFs <30!

Campaign is winning on points, but air losses are too high...and it's consistently one thing I keep getting wrong.

I set my escorts to high (between 2 and 4k above bombers). Staggered all my bomber missions between 7 and 14k. Spread the attacks out. Still get hammered.

In these two shots, my escorts appear to have pissed off early and headed home. This Ju87 raid on Thorney Island was left alone!

[JudgeDredd]

This one to Biggin Hill again was left by the escorts over the Channel

[JudgeDredd]

Like I said, points wise the campaign is going ok...but check out those air losses!

[JudgeDredd]

This one shows the air losses by type

[JudgeDredd]

And this shows the raid list

[JudgeDredd]

Makes me sad when I see those losses...especially knowing others are getting closer to 1:1 [:(]

[Golden Bear]

Hey, JD, I haven't played much of BoB, mostly BTR, but play the bomber side when I do.

Don't compare yourself with HS on your results. Even compared to other masters of the game, he stands out as unique. I had similar reactions years ago for BTR when I saw how different his results were than mine. But he helped me a lot - like what he has done with this game.

So, first, you need to study the game to see the patterns of what your enemy does. When do they attack and how? More importantly if you want to be like Sarge, study the patterns of their retreats from combat. These change as your target and raids move so it isn't easy to turn it into a formula. But you want to know these things to use HSs favorite weapon - the FS. He is genius with these.

A starting point on these, then. As your planes get attacked, they will turn around and head home when they get damaged. These are the easiest of all victims for the defender, particularly since you cannot escort them!!. Try running a FS up the expected path of retreat for your bombers, play with the altitude and timing, and you can bag the interceptors as they are fueling out and turning for home. But, as above, it is all a manner of timing.

Just keep after it and when you think that you cannot win, start over and keep going. The disadvantage ast he LW in BoB is that you are supposed to lose and it is HARD to win. In BTR the Allied side keeps building and you have a lot of room for error - basically if you can avoid early loss then you'll win eventually.

There are many useful ways to employ FSs and many ways to use your raids to confuse the interceptors.

Carlos

[jomni]

I'm done with day 13 of my full LW campaign and AS is still 4-5 (got it up to 6 at some point) and Industry 1.&nbsp;&nbsp; I get days with equal losses but most are still double.
&nbsp;
On the good days, FS does seem to be the key to increasing kills.&nbsp; I was lucky enough to sweep an airfield full of planes on the ground got about 10 or more.&nbsp; My usual plan is to sweep airfields timed together with bombing raids.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
I did the mistake of doing escorted sweeps which ties up precious stabs / gruppens.&nbsp; Now I'll try to keep them separate.&nbsp; I will also try sweeping return paths more as these seem to be the most vulnerable spots.
&nbsp;
Anyway as the attackers, doing damage to ground targets will give you the points you need and not the kills.&nbsp; So we all should never forget that.
&nbsp;
Thanks sarge.

[Hard Sarge]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

Bad news....very bad news!

Still taking heavy losses in the air even following peeps advice. Lost 60+aircraft to the RAFs <30!

Campaign is winning on points, but air losses are too high...and it's consistently one thing I keep getting wrong.

I set my escorts to high (between 2 and 4k above bombers). Staggered all my bomber missions between 7 and 14k. Spread the attacks out. Still get hammered.

In these two shots, my escorts appear to have pissed off early and headed home. This Ju87 raid on Thorney Island was left alone!

looking at the fighters headed home, it looks like those maybe JG 2, did you move them closer to the coast ? , you got to watch the range to the take off field, 109s got short legs, they not going to fly too far

2nd pic, not sure, if those are from JG 2, but would be willing to bet JG 27, so, looks like that raid to Biggin Hill was from Luft 3, which is too far for fighter coverage

Luft 3 got to hang around the English coast (Tangmare to 10 Group) or use the bombers for night attack, move the Fighter JGs close to the coast (in real life, shortly after the start of the game, the fighters would be moved to Luft 2, and the bombers switched over to night raids (with in reason) (also in real life, the fighters would stage to the coast, fly the mission, return to the coast, refuel and then head home, we can't do that in the game)

Stuka, will clobber almost anything they attack, but will drop like flies, if the enemy is around, you got to keep them away from the RAF (they get hurt by the ground defences too)

[JudgeDredd]

Thx all.

I didn't have any fighters left to do sweeps. Maybe I created too many missions?

As for moving units...do you have anytime for that in the 1 week campaign? I mean moving them from one airfield to another means you cannot use tham that day, doesn't it?

Also, one of my minor complaints with the interface...something that could be clearer...when you go to add bombers or fighter escorts...you're presented with a list which shows where they come from. There are two independant faults with this presentation I think and fixing one would be enough.

1. You cannot tell the distance from the lead group - so have NO IDEA where your planes are coming from unless you know where the locations are
2. You cannot "mouse over" the airfields on the map to get the names of the airfields, hence point 1 - you do not know where your added bombers and fighters are coming from.

Fixing one would help tremendously by allowing me to see where the added units are coming from. So for point 1, showing the distance to the Lead bomber unit (or lead fighter unit in a sweep) would allow me to choose the closest bombers/fighters to add to the raid, hence maximising coverage. OR you could allow mouse overs to work...so when I see units at Brest (lousy example as I know where that is), I can mouse over the airfields to find Brest.

I'd prefer the first option though. Mousing over all those airfields would be horrible.

I'll put this in the wish list thread.

[jomni]

Why would you want to know where they are coming from?

The effective range of your figher escorts can be seen by looking for where the green line starts and ends during mission planning. Just choose those units that cover most of the route. And also time some escorts to join in during the return flight. Distance is also listed in the escort selection screen.

I guess it's more used to gague if they need moving or not. Am I not right?

[JapLance]

I'm in my 30th day of campaign, and I've more or less stablished my strategies (some things learnt in these forums, some from the real campaign, and also the hard way...[X(]):

-All my Bf 109 Geschwader are based in the coastal airfields (Pas de Calais and Cherbourg) to maximise their range. The Calais Gruppen can more or less reach London, the Cherbourg ones only coastal targets in the South.

-I send only a couple of big, heavily defended raids a day in the SE/London area, and another one or two in the South: 70-80 bombers, escorted by 150-200 fighters. All of them timed to be at about the same time on the target, to overwhelm the defenders. RAF fighters usually come in great numbers. No Close escort, only Top cover, with a layer of 109's 2000-3000 feet over my bombers, then 110's at 4000-5000 and still some more 109's over the Zerstörer units up until maybe 8000 feet over the bombers. If I still have 109's left, use them in fighter sweeps a bit later than the main raids. I always try to keep the raids route (even the night ones) off other targets, so no extra AA fire can damage my planes, break formations or tire out my crews: to reach London targets, for example, I take the Southern route instead of the straight one from Calais.

-Stukas based in Cotentin Peninsula are only valid for coastal raids. When they venture inland they are massacred, as the escorts usually can`t reach very far and turn away as soon as confronted with the first defenders (even Gladiators can shoot down Stukas).

-Always try to eliminate radar cover over the channel. The later they discover your raid, the shorter time they have to climb to intercept altitude and the easier they are to get bounced by your Emils. Stukas are great for that, one group is enough to demolish a radar site, but always with proper escort. Once a radar site is heavily damaged, the Erprobungsgruppe is great for keeping it off.

-I use only my Ju 86 high altitude planes for recce. I also use sometimes my Bf 110, as they fly fast and reasonably high, but only when RAF fighters are tangled somewhere else in big numbers. Ju 88, Do 17 and the rest are dead meat over enemy territory, and as soon as Ju 86 replacements are available I replace them.

-Most of my bomber gruppen are set for Night bombing. The three Kgr.100 units have navigational aids, so they're always used at night as lead units. I usually target industry inside cities, so if they miss the target, at least I can possibly get some terror points (I know, I'm a SOB [:D]).

-Luftflotte 5 (Norway/Denmark): I use them in low level or night operations only. When in daylight low level raids over Scotland, at about 2400 feet (away from the lightest AA guns) with 110D's 500 hundred feet above them (just in case). That makes all planes below 3000 feet, the lower limit for CH radars. If I know no serious Flak cover is over the target, I may send them with no escort at 500 feet, so no radar can reveal their presence. I also use this tactic against the radar stations East and NorthEast of London.

Using this in my first game, during the first 30 days of campaign the LW loses are 1134 planes, while the RAF has lost 1010 fighters. It took me a few days of gameplay to learn a few things (eg: you can't trust the radar cover display completely unless the radar reconnaissance is not old. That cost me a LOT of bombers sent without escort the first days), so I'm sure that the net losses result for the last two weeks is probably in my favour. Probably I won't win the campaign (4-3-0 are my points until now), but it's been great for starters.