Bug or WAD: no fighter intercepting

[jzardos]

Situation:
version 1.05.v40-(42?)
date: summer-fall 42
resources: 12K Sov planes (~5k fighters)

Not sure what is going on, but consistently for the last 4 turns (or more?) I've yet to see any of my Soviet fighters make an attempt to intercept axis bombing runs on ground units. Last turn the axis player had about a dozen ground attacks on units that were close to or in some case adjacent to Soviet AB with fighters. So I would expected after about 50 ground attacks in that last several turns at LEAST ONE soviet fighter group to try and intercept?


What am I missing here? I have interdiction attack at 0, but that is not intercept? I hope it's some simple or I've going to lose even more faith in the air war component of WitE that already seems to be the really sad point on the game.

This has been my air doctrine during this issue:

[OTZ]

Your percent required to fly might be to high. Try lowering it to 20 - see if that makes a difference.

[ComradeP]

Are STAVKA units being bombed? Keep in mind that Soviet air bases will only send air support to units belonging to the same Front (or belonging to armies attached to the Front the air command is attached to).

[jzardos]

Comrade,

An army HQ belonging to the Bryansk front was bombed with no interception. I had about ~200 fighters in an AB attached to an Air Army that is belongs to the Bryansk 4 hexes away!

My precious turn, those fighters were not even used. In fact just as a test I didn't use my fighters last turn and still none flew. Just to see if using all their movement was preventing them from flying on the axis turn.

[jzardos]

Does it matter that the fighters are in a ShAD base and not in an IAD base?

[jzardos]

ORIGINAL: OTZ

Your percent required to fly might be to high. Try lowering it to 20 - see if that makes a difference.

From what I understand about the 'Percent ready to fly' value, this should not matter because as you can see most of these planes are way more than 40% ready.

[Flaviusx]

It shouldn't make a difference, no.

Jack up the intercept ratings and see what happens. I always set mine to at least 200.

[ComradeP]

Intercept ratings shouldn't make much of a difference, they should only influence how many try to intercept, but there should generally be some. It could be that the air commander failed his roll, but if it happens all the time it might be a bug with "bomb unit" interception.

[FredSanford3]

Does the number of units at an airbase negatively affect the chance of scrambling?  I wonder if 9 regt's isn't overwhelming the ground support?

[gingerbread]

There are no fighters escorting either - night bombing?

[ComradeP]

You know gingerbread, that's actually a pretty good point. However, if night bombing by 39 bombers causes that many casualties, it's probably time for a nerf.

Franklin Nimitz: as you can see, the support need is below what the air base has. The first problems with support for 9 air groups will appear when the air groups increase in size, but even then it's cheap to maintain fighter air groups (for both sides). Il-2 units also don't require all that much support.

[jzardos]

ORIGINAL: gingerbread

There are no fighters escorting either - night bombing?

So there is no way to tell if the bombing was at night? If, not maybe that should be information that is present? I would think the bombed forces would remember if they were bombed at night or day. [8D]

[Jakerson]

It is no bug it is night time bombing to intercept you have to switch part of your fighters to night combat but they will be away from day action and night intercepting is not very effective.

Combat report is not very clear about night attacks but clear sign is that if fighters dont intercept its night bombing I have done it many times in my games. 

[Encircled]

You could just have asked me![:)]

Its night bombing, and I'm also wondering why my night fighters are not escorting them while we are at it.

[Gremell]

I’ve noticed that since I installed patch 1.05.42 beta Soviet fighters no longer adequately defend against German attacks. (I’m playing the Germans against the Soviet AI). As a consequence, unescorted Soviet bombers are being slaughtered.

Have a look at this screengrab from Turn 208 in the campaign game. The Soviets lost 73 bombers against 71 attacking German fighters. Not one Soviet fighter escorted the bombers, even though there were heaps of Soviet fighters available at the nearby airbases around Cherepovets.

It was the same with the other battles in that area. In another unescorted slaughter, the Soviets lost 59 bombers.

This only started happening from patch 1.05.42 beta.

[mmarquo]

"From what I understand about the 'Percent ready to fly' value, this should not matter because as you can see most of these planes are way more than 40% ready"

This is not correct. The percent ready refers to the percent of the number of planes which are operational in the air group. So if you have less than 8 fighters in an airgroup with a max of 20 slots, then these fighters will not fly if you are set at 40%.

"Percent Required to Fly: Indicates the percentage of an air group unit’s aircraft that must be ready for the air group unit to be able to participate in any mission. This percentage is based on the air group unit’s TOE, not the current number of aircraft present with the air group unit."[/b

]What is the TOE of your units?

Marquo

[jzardos]

ORIGINAL: Marquo

"From what I understand about the 'Percent ready to fly' value, this should not matter because as you can see most of these planes are way more than 40% ready"

This is not correct. The percent ready refers to the percent of the number of planes which are operational in the air group. So if you have less than 8 fighters in an airgroup with a max of 20 slots, then these fighters will not fly if you are set at 40%.

"Percent Required to Fly: Indicates the percentage of an air group unit’s aircraft that must be ready for the air group unit to be able to participate in any mission. This percentage is based on the air group unit’s TOE, not the current number of aircraft present with the air group unit."

]What is the TOE of your units?

Marquo

Yes, that is how I understand it too. So for a Sov fighter group with 20 planes the threshold to which they would not fly, at the 40% value, would be 11.

I got my answer from my opponent, he was flying these mission as night bombings and I had no night fighters.