Airfield bombing

[spearsup]

I just see in some AAR German players killing 5000+ soviet planes ... I never succeed to destroy more than 3400 !!! How to achieve 5000 ?

[atheory]

I've worked it to where I typically down 5700-5800 on the first turn and by the end of turn 1 total soviet losses are about 6000-6100

Step 1: Set air availability (air doctrine - top bar) to 10%
Step 2: Recon all airfields before bombing. Get detection (DET) rating up to 8-10
Step 3: Bomb Airfields closest to front and then hit the airfields farther east. You can hit the airfields in northern Estonia, Smolensk and Crimea. Sevastopol area actually has its own air units that can reach it.
Step 4: Bomb The larger airfields first (those that have most planes) the more you bomb the more depleted your own strike force will be.
Step 5: Bomb each airfield only once to start. Once all airfields have been bombed once. Then go back and finish off with whats left. (again start with larger AFs first)

results will vary, but i've never destroyed less than 5600 AC unless I forgot to hit an AF

Josh

[Zort]

Do you bomb with all available planes for each attack?

[spearsup]

Thancks, I gonna try immediatly !!!!

I didn t know detection was so important ! Is it the same for ground attacks ?

[Zort]

Yes check section 13.1 in e-book.

[SgtKachalin]

Josh, fantastic tips. Works like a charm. Let the computer do everything - recon and bombing. Just right click on the proper hexes.

Anyone using Josh's tips be sure to bomb until you've nothing left to bomb with, till you get the message "bombers unavailable or out of range". That means bombing some bases repeatedly. Use the recon to see how many planes are left at a base, then bomb those with the most planes. (Recon won't always be accurate, but gives a good idea.) Plastered some bases >5 times, at the end of the session destroying 5,692 for a loss of 180 Germans. And the ground offensive hasn't even started yet. [&o]

[CarnageINC]

This is definitely a area I need work on, good order of directions on how to do it, I was doing it mostly backwards and only getting 3600 kills.  Thanks Josh.[;)]

[Ametysth]

Getting 5000-6000 requires bombing fields until there are no planes left.

Way I see it, most frontline airfields will get overrun with German tanks during turn 1 anyway, so bombing them to oblivion is just wasting of bombers which could be used against targets. Losses from bombing itself will be less, around 4000, but after turn 1 you still have the 5-6k total destroyed as the retreating airfield have caused all the damaged/non operational (and some of the operational) planes to become casualties.

On airfields away from the front I still see it as counter productive to reduce Russian squadrons bellow 20-30% of TOE, as this will be bellow his "Required to Fly" strength, keeping them from flying during the first Russian turn anyhow. Replacements will probably arrive equally to all damaged squadrons, which means that there is good chance most of them are still under RtF - strength at turn 2. I feel it is better to hit more targets and disable them, rather than hit fewer to destroy them.

[heliodorus04]

Rank newb reading this.  I'm reading the rules and playing, but one thing I'm not certain of is how actual airfields/aircraft are represented.  Is the counter on map an actual airfield with the units' 'contents' (forgive my lack of terminology awareness)?  If so, and overruning the counter destroys aircraft, great.

The follow on to that would be: what happens when you deliberately move your aircraft counters to the units contained theirein? 

[ComradeP]

I'm not sure I understand your second question, but airfields are abstracted and planes are represented in air groups, which in turn need to be placed "in" air bases to get on the map.

[heliodorus04]

I guess what I'm trying to ask is if I as a player need to worry about the range of my aircraft from their airbase (to wherever they are needed for missions). 
From what I gather, the answer is yes, range matters.  And wherever your airbase counter is on the map is where you fly from.  So to stay in range, I would expect I have to move airbases now and again.  Actual "air fields" are not represented in the game, right?  (you don't need to build them)

My second question was about what penalties there are for moving an airbase (to conducting further air missions in that turn or the next few turns).  Since I'm a newb doing more reading than playing, I'm not sure I understand how the motor pool stuff works when you move HQs (which is a somewhat different subject than the original) and how moving airbases affects other operational considerations.

I'm headed back to read the manual on air units right now...