Air battles - what am I doing wrong?

[jjdenver]

I have full strength (10 strength) Luftwaffe FTR units in May 1940. Each FTR unit has one of my best air leaders attached. All are in a city or within 1 hex of a city to get max supply. If any take losses I immediately replace those losses to put the FTR back to 10 strength.

Yet.....the British bombers are bombing my ground units in Netherlands and every single bomber run says that the interception failed and my interceptors take losses. It seemed like I was the only one taking losses. Then i checked the losses dealt/taken and for GB it shows I've dealt 19 planes and taken 34 planes loss. This doesn't seem to make sense since I'm flying fully supplied and best led full strength FTR units vs his bombers that seem to be unescorted hitting my units in Netherlands. Furthermore I assume my units that he's bombing fire back with some sort of flak/AA right? Still my losses are almost double his.

What is going on? Fully ready and led Me-109's shouldn't be getting shot down at a negative 2:1 ratio vs what seem to be unescorted British bombers.......furthermore even if escorted I still don't understand the losses I'm taking. Me-109's intercepting at short range vs Hurricanes and Spits escorting Blenheim's out of England should still have a loss ratio that favors the Luftwaffe I would guess. But I don't want to confuse the issue since I think there are no Brit fighters escorting anyway.

Thanks

[comsolut]

My limited experience seems to indicate that the Fighter unit's experience plays a big role in interceptions. I have a Russian Fighter unit that has around 68 exp and it seems to intercept everything that comes near it while other fighter units with low experience never get an intercept.

For the Germans, recon British and French fighter units and then attack those bases with the fighter units to build up exp. As their exp goes up I think you will see intercepts go up.

[freeboy]

or you could push the planes closer to the front lines...
 When my heavies attack a city the troops are a secondary result to the bombers hitting the ports, when my medium bombers are hitting your tanks in the front I doubt your fighters can reach?
note
this is our pbem game... just trying to slow the giant German blits a little

[jjdenver]

Thanks com and freeboy. The problem though is not that the planes aren't intercepting. The problem I see is that overall the bombers are taking fewer losses than the FTRs. I don't think Brit bombers have more experience than German fighters since the war just started and even if they did, I just don't see any way that bombers wouldn't take more losses from combined flak and fighter intercepts than fighters do from trying to shoot down those bombers. Otherwise what is the purpose of fighters? They are made to shoot down bombers in droves right? It seems like something is really broken at the game engine level here when fighters take more losses than bombers while bombers are bombing tank divisions across the channel. First of all the ground troop AA should increase the bomber losses. Second the droves of German fighters lined up a few hexes away should just be murdering the bombers. It's the main thing fighters were built for - shooting down bombers very efficiently.

[comsolut]

You might check the Fighter Attrition post in Tech Support section. Seems like a report might be developed to better define some air combat going on "behind the scenes" so to speak.

As far as WAD or not, I'm too new to the game to know.

There are definitely some dark spots to the game (rules, examples, charts missing) that make it hard to precisely say if I do X and Y I should get Z for an answer. But I still keep hitting next turn [:)]

[Razz1]

Fighters always took heavy losses against bombers in WW2 and bombers do take heavy losses against land targets.

Tech level is very important. Once you get ahead by one level it is easier.

Bombers usually take a strength point loss when bombing.

It balances out.

I believe it is easier to attack them on the ground.

If you don't want to loos fighter move them back.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Razz

Fighters always took heavy losses against bombers in WW2 and bombers do take heavy losses against land targets.
Tech level is very important. Once you get ahead by one level it is easier.
Bombers usually take a strength point loss when bombing.

It balances out.

I believe it is easier to attack them on the ground.
If you don't want to loos fighter move them back.

In the early stages of the war, bombers were slaughtered in large numbers by fighters (except when escort fighters were available), unless, as the Germans tried to do, the enemy air-force was destroyed on the ground at the start. Even as late as 1943 the USAAF had to suspend daylight strategic bomber operations over Germany, due to excessive losses from defending fighters. The bombing campaign only really got started again when long range fighter escorts became available.

I haven't gone beyond the Fall Gelb scenario, but I was able to attack fighter airfields quite successfully (e.g. over 5 attacks destroyed 17 enemy strength points, lost 4). When turning to attack TAC airfields, I was generally losing more strength points that I destroyed. In airfield attack I cannot see why bombers should be favoured.

Perhaps airfield attack on fighter airfields is too overpowered, after the first turn, the enemy is now alert and will disperse aircraft making them more difficult to find and hit.

I would suggest that the vulnerability of fighter airfields should apply equally to bomber airfields, but only for the first one, or two turns after the DOW. After that all airfields become more difficult to hit, with the exception of UK airfields. Britain was the only country at the start of the war with a working radar air defence system, this meant that fighter aircraft based in Britain will not be on the ground in the event of attack (bombers will be dispersed). That does not mean that they are completely immune from attack, but that they do not suffer the vulnerability of the first turns after DOW.

British aircraft deployed to other countries are then just as vulnerable as other air-forces and all bombers are vulnerable when subject to fighter interception, unless friendly fighters are within range to provide escort. The exception might be strategic bombing at night, but that gets more complicated as increase in tech level, brings in night interception.[:)]

[jjdenver]

ORIGINAL: Razz
Fighters always took heavy losses against bombers in WW2 and bombers do take heavy losses against land targets.

Sorry Razz but that is absolutely not true. Bombers vs Fighters through WW2 was always in favor of fighters, even when the bombers were the very heavily armed and armored B-29 and B-17's. I have no idea why you would say something like this.

ORIGINAL: Razz
Bombers usually take a strength point loss when bombing.
It balances out.

It clearly does not balance out in my experience. Fighter losses are consistently higher than bomber losses when bombers hit ground targets. And that is even including the very minimal losses that bombers take when bombing. They do not "usually" take a strength point when bombing, at least based on my observations to date.

As the side with fighters not only are you taking higher plane losses, but you are also absorbing ground losses. And all of this is without the enemy using their fighters at all. The only way to attrit them is to get close enough to hit them at their airbase, or to fly your bombers to attrit their fighters. It seems like there is some kind of bug in the game right now......

[Razz1]

Bombers do loose a strength point most of the time when bombing
Fighters do loose a strength point most of the time when intercepting
Damage done to land units is very light
Once in a while the fighter will succeed without damage.
Once in a while the bomber will succeed without damage.

Bombers are more expensive. Hence they loose out in bombing.
To compensate fighters loose a strength point and the land unit looses a little.

It does balance out.

Look at the combat report and you will see the results.

This has been tested for over 200 games.

[Rasputitsa]

ORIGINAL: Razz
Bombers do loose a strength point most of the time when bombing
Fighters do loose a strength point most of the time when intercepting
Damage done to land units is very light
Once in a while the fighter will succeed without damage.
Once in a while the bomber will succeed without damage.

Bombers are more expensive. Hence they loose out in bombing.
To compensate fighters loose a strength point and the land unit looses a little.

It does balance out.

Look at the combat report and you will see the results.

This has been tested for over 200 games.

It is certainly too early to make significant changes to the game, unless a major problem is identified, but it's not surprising if players indicate where unexpected results occur.

In France 1940 and Russia 1941 allied aircraft were destroyed in the air and on the ground in huge numbers, there was no balance, the Germans had a big advantage. Later in the war the balance shifted, such that at the end it was the Germans whose airpower was almost completely ineffective. The real unbalance comes with tech level, perhaps the Germans should start with a higher tech level, reflecting not so much better equipment, but better tactics and training. The Allies, with more resources (PPs), should be able to match and then possibly surpass the Germans as the war proceeds.

Whether, or not the devs are able, or want, to represent the air war in more detail is something to be handled after there is more experience in the game, but hopefully these effects will be noted for possible inclusion.[:)]

[doomtrader]

I'm following the discussion of course, but this si too early to make any conclusions.

[Vasquez]

At the beginning I was also a bit confused about air combat and losses etc. Meanwhile it works pretty well for me. My experienced german Fighter squadrons are ruling the skies and my bombers are pounding them at will. Of course I suffer some losses but thats normal. Second Year into the war and even a romanian bomber squadron has 90 XP =) The only issue so far, that the sowjets stopped their fighter production. At least Ive not encountered them for a while anymore. Will check the AI production in my current game.