How to Toast the Red Air Force

[Q-Ball]

I admit I am lost when it comes to Air Doctrine Settings, and pretty much the air war in general. I played for months before even paying attention to the air groups, and most of the time I pretty much let the AI do the work.

I have tried a few times in test, but I can't toast 5500 Red Aircraft turn one. Can someone share step by step how you are doing this? Including Doctrine settings?

Thanks!

[Ketza]

Start off to dropping to 5% the percent required to fly or even 0.

I fiddled around last night with turn 1 air attacks and its completely different now then before. Will have to play around with it some more before more can be reported.

[Helpless]

I assume we speak about 1.05.

First of all we try to make the ahistorical losses just due to the AF attacks 5000-7000K on turn one not to happen. Therefore 2-3K shouldn't be considered as bad result. Then since the CAP is more aggressive you should send much more escorts - set it to >200%. Escorts will create extra sweep flights. It works other side around, with the exception that Soviet air force has hard time clearing German CAP due the difference in experience.

You can also increase AF bomb % and decrease % to fly, but going too far will get you ground support much weaker, thus creating more losses on the ground.

[Helpless]

Btw, one very important point - there was a scenario data corruption bug in 1.04.xx which was corrupting (increasing) air losses statistic. So in realilty losses could be much different.

[cherryfunk]

Using manual attacks and 'recon by bombing' I managed 3900 kills on 1.05, which is fairly close to historical.  I was getting around 5500 kills on 1.04, so it's definitely more difficult than it was.
 

[CarnageINC]

I also am like Q-ball.  I usually set all my airfield and sweeps (pre 1.05) to 5% or 0%.  I would bomb the farthest airfields first once each then repeat it until I could not bomb anymore.  Then I would work over the closer airfields until depleted.  This usually netted me 4000 to 4800 aircraft.  I'm not sure if I'm setting my percentage right because I see this 200% air sweep factor being thrown around recently.  I'm confused on which way to really go on the settings. [&:]

[Peltonx]

This was my first try and I got 4200 so once I figure out a few things I think 5000 will be possible.

Helpless might be right about the 200% thing, but Ignore it the first turn.

There is always more then one way to skin a cat.


Pelton

[Peltonx]

I follow Katza advise and went from 4500ish a turn to 5750ish a turn.

I am guessing 1.05 will make 4000 to 4500ish normal.

Figuring out AI's is always fun any game.

I will mess around some more this weekend to see if 5000 is still possible.

Ketza might beat me to it.

OH I still have ok numbers for turn one ground support.

Pelton

[CarnageINC]

Pelton, what are your initial settings and the sequence your using to bomb the fields?

[Peltonx]

100/100

Bombed the closest ones first. Used whatever bases I figured would be closest.

Messed around some more, some raids are better on some fields set lower and some better set higher on some fields.

Don't really have enough time to pick apart first turn, but I am sure you can get more then 4216. I am guessing if you take the extra time and pick which squads you want to send in one each raid you be able to get much better.

Short range planes hitting closest based, long range deep bases ect ect

Pelton

[CarnageINC]

K, thanks for sharing Pelton, I'll give them a try.

[ComradeP]

I can still manage ~4500-5000 aircraft destroyed in 1.05, but it's difficult now and you need to be willing to take more losses than before.

The main reason, for me, why Soviet losses won't get much higher than that is that attacking the fighter only airfield west of Smolensk is now far more costly and that using the Romanian air force to attack air bases in cities is pretty suicidal for them with the improved AA effectiveness.

The Luftflotte in Romania not being active also reduces Soviet losses, as otherwise those could be used to bomb the air base in Kishinev.

[KenchiSulla]

Few things I noticed:

- HE111 are your best airfield bombers since they have most bombs
- JU88 are not that great
- You need escorts now more then ever
- Weaken CAP first, that means high escort flights to airbase units close to each other to wear it down. Soviet fighters can really hurt your bombers if your not careful...

[Peltonx]

Wow nice job ComradeP I am stuck just below 4500.

I do have PRF% at 20 for ground support.

I guess I have to test opening moves to see if thats about right. Probably a trade off at some point.

Pelton

[PeeDeeAitch]

I am not the best attacker of airfields on turn 1, but I can get around 4500-4600 fairly regularly with 1.05. JAMs hints are the way to go, Helpless added in good stuff about the doctrine, and sometimes it is just luck.

Of course, since they are still mostly I-15 and I-16 it seems as if my achievements are more in line of winning the Spanish Civil War than anything else [:)]

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch
JAMs hints are the way to go, Helpless added in good stuff about the doctrine, and sometimes it is just luck.

Where did he hint in this thread?

[PeeDeeAitch]

JAMIAM mentioned the "bomb airfields with just one group"/bomb recon plan in another thread to raise the recon value, much as Helpless mentioned the raising of doctrine values in another thread. My bad if that was missed.

[KenchiSulla]

I guess you could combine that "bomb with one group" with a good fighter escort on fighter bases.

[ComradeP]

I don't fly any ground support missions on turn 1, or most other turns in my phase as the Axis, so I can use all level bombers for air base bombing/resupply missions.

When attacking strong stacks, ground support can be useful, but there are few strong Soviet stacks in 1941, at least initially. The losses you suffer to AA/operational damage can also really add up if you fly lots of ground support missions. Stuka's in particular are really vulnerable.

For some reason Bf 110's also seem to be far more vulnerable/likely to crash than regular fighters, but I haven't figured out precisely why yet. They're less reliable than Bf 109's, but more durable. A reliability of 15 doesn't seem too bad, however, it's just as high as that of the He 111's and Ju 88's, but Bf 110's still seem to crash more often, especially in bad weather.

[KenchiSulla]

Best try, have a full GS of stuka's in reserve in the center. Level bombers are spent though.