Soviet Biplanes

[Ridgeway]

What should one do with the obsolete Soviet fighter-bombers (like the I-15 and I-153)?

If one uses them as cannon fodder, is there any downside? I am not clear on how the game treats pilots -- is it possible to preserve experienced pilots, or do new planes automatically come with new pilots?

The only other option seems to be manual upgrades to better planes, but again I am unclear whether there is any benefit to doing so, rather than having the better planes flow throught the replacement process and saving on the APs.

I am curious what others do on this.

[PyleDriver]

Put them in the air and let them die...

[cpt flam]

absolutely
with time they will become better
actually March 42 some groups have more then 10 victories
better planes becoming large will upgrade them
not too much at time
at first glance seems to have a cumulative modifier when changing plane
1st -2exp ,2nd -4exp and so forth

[cookie monster]

http://witewiki.com/index.php/Soviet_Ai ... y_Strategy

[Mehring]

Get your air units over 50% morale and experience and commit them to battle ASAP. It doesn't matter if you lose many, you have many to lose. You will be able to recce the enemy advance, interdict their movement, bomb their airfields and protect your own movement from enemy interdiction.
Pick your battles as far as you can. The results are more straws on the enemy camel's back and along with your losses, usually an increase in morale and experience and a host of Guards airfields.

You will have to cycle units back and forth from reserve and this involves micromanagement. It's well worth it.

[color]

http://witewiki.com/index.php/Soviet_Ai ... y_Strategy

(in reply to cpt flam)

By proactively controlling which planes are in which unit I have discovered the following:

Lower experience leads to higher operational losses due to training, which is important to take into consideration to get the soviet air force ready more quickly.

... leading to the following conclusion:

Use the old aircraft models for training, and switch to the never models once exp gets somewhat decent.

The rationale behind this is explained below.

In the start, by having all the russian air units in the reserve, with no combat whatsoever you will see around 150++ operational losses from training only.
Consider the following rule:
- All air units with less than 50 morale will get switched exclusively to older models (I-15, I-16 for fighters), and only above 50 moral will get the new models (Yak 1, Mig 3, Lagg 3).

After a month or two of this, what you will start to see are a significant amount of losses on the older models and few of the never models. This is due to low experience leading to high operational losses.

Take note that the computer will create new units using new models every turn, so make sure to switch those low exp (35+) units to older models.

[Mehring]

I can see the rationale of that but while I've never run out of MiGs, LaGGs or YAKs. I run out of APs every turn so I'd say they were better spend switching leaders or upgrading SUs.

[Ridgeway]

I think I see how it works now. Although there is technically no "upgrade" path for these planes AFAIK, they do get replaced with superior a/c as they become available. That was the part I was struggling with.

[color]

Ridgeway, unfortunately, you have to spend AP to change the old planes to new ones when there is no upgrade path, the computer won't do the switch for you.

That or wait until the pool of that particular model is exhausted and you air group drops below 50% due to losses - THEN then computer will swap it for a similar model.

[Ridgeway]

ORIGINAL: color

Ridgeway, unfortunately, you have to spend AP to change the old planes to new ones when there is no upgrade path, the computer won't do the switch for you.

That or wait until the pool of that particular model is exhausted and you air group drops below 50% due to losses - THEN then computer will swap it for a similar model.

I see that now -- you need to blow through the pool first. Thanks.