Sapper 22 Invades his Homeland

[Tom Hunter]

Saper222s turn came back, no offensive, but the air war is dialed up.

In T21 I launched a lot of bombing attacks. The two level bombers at 57 are still at 57, but the number at 56 xp went from 3 to 9. Tack bombers are also climbing, one is at 59 and 58, and others are moving up.

So the lesson is bomb a lot of stuff. It's another positive feedback loop.

The really interesting question (to me) is, if I get my bombers up into the 65-75-85 xp range, can I start to kill substantial numbers of Germans the same way the German bombers regularly kill hundreds of Russians?

[Flaviusx]

Well experienced shturmoviks hit like a mac truck.

Here's a tip for future games, too late to help now: a large number of your I-15 fighters are trained as bombers (particularly the bis models.) Use them as such and when you can reequip them as shturmoviks. It takes a while to build up a large pool of Il2s, thanks to low initial production values and factory redeployments. Most fighters don't have the option to swap into tac bombers, but these guys do. You could even use the I-15s not initially trained as bombers in this role for that matter.

Sometime during the winter, swap the I-15s en masse and presto: veteran shturmoviks, even with the hit you take in swapping.

[Tom Hunter]

Saper222s turn comes in, and it shows 224 Red Airforce planes destroyed and 64 German. 44 of the German planes are recon, and I slammed the recon bases hard in my T21.

Is the report showing the combined result of my T21 and Saper222s T22?

[Flaviusx]

Heh, the loss report screen has this weird tendency to reset each time you check it.

The first time you check it in your own turn should reflect all the activity that took place during the opponent's last turn and going into your logistics phase (which is when training losses get added, I think, and those will constitute a large portion of your losses right there.)

If the first time you check it is well into the middle of your own turn, it should reflect activities you've taken in your own turn addition to the above. The next time you check it before the end of the turn it may reset from that point.

This is incredibly irritating.

[Tom Hunter]

@Flaviusx I've seen the behavior you describe, I keep a save to go back and check Saper222s turn for exactly that reason.

However, in my T21 I bombed all over the place, and I launched one long ranger raid that I though was hitting ground, but actually landed on an airbase and got the crap shot out of it. So losing 100+ aircraft in my T21 makes some sense. Saper222s T22 does not show any attacks on airfields, or bombing by the Red Airforce, so its not clear where the 224 losses came from. That is why I am wondering if its possible that it shows my T21 as well. Or maybe its just another mystery of the code.

The training program is starting to pay off, the combat report said what kind of gun it was:

[Flaviusx]

Possibly they are training losses, check the logistics screen and see what it says there.

[M60A3TTS]

NOOOOOOOOOO... For goodness sakes don't let Flavius see you're using U-2VS' for anything. He'll disavow you.

[Flaviusx]

Mehring swears by them, mileage definitely varies.

Their range is a deal killer for me, others are okay with that.

[smokindave34]

Now that Tom has unleashed the dreaded "night witches" (pictured beautifully above)this game will shortly swing over to the Soviets favor.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Mehring swears by them, mileage definitely varies.

I always use them simply because no Axis player ever sets fighters to night mission. Free bombing run. Of course there is a limit. When you have 4000 U2VS in your pool I think you might have missed the right time to destroy your factories.

Also, my sense of realism just simply forbids me to move my factories west. [:D]

[Bozo_the_Clown]

The really interesting question (to me) is, if I get my bombers up into the 65-75-85 xp range, can I start to kill substantial numbers of Germans the same way the German bombers regularly kill hundreds of Russians?

You can kill many Germans early on. Just find the stacks with the HQs and make sure they are out of fighter range.

Later in the war your bombers will cause massive disruption if you use them before your ground attacks. You can basically disrupt entire divisions if you use enough bombers. It works particularly well against Axis allies. I've only played one game until September 43 so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

[mktours]

My lose rate in Air war is worse than you. The game is too big and really tiresome and I often forgot the air bases,[:)]
The operation in moving planes into reserve is too troublesome, requiring too many click windows around and I don't have patience and time to do it.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

In the air I hit back harder than any turn prior. Over all losses are 2.5 Soviet to 1 German in the air. Mostly I blew up HS129s, but I also got 15 Me109s, which is the first time I’ve shot down a significant number of German fighters in a turn.

In the South I actually achieved air parity on a number of bombing attacks, you can see a 100 fighter sweep hitting 46 Axis and shooting down 7 for a loss of two fighters and a few bombers. I think the airwar is turning from a massacre by the Luftwaffe into a series of punches and counter punches. The fighter force is doing ok, and continues to improve in moral and quality. The next step is to get the bomber quality and moral up.

The Red Army is up to 4.5 million men, 38500 guns, 2200 tanks, and 6850 planes. The Germans are growing a bit too, 3.4 million men, 33,400 guns, 2900 tanks and 2600 planes. My arm pools is drifting downwards, it 27000 now, down from 45k last turn. Manpower is up a bit as I recap towns, but the pools is also down. Trucks are 198k (86k) reflecting the effects of mud, but I gather still alright.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

he operation in moving planes into reserve is too troublesome, requiring too many click windows around and I don't have patience and time to do it.

You can send them all into reserve in one operation using the Commander's Report window. Personally, I use most of my bombers on T1. I put only the regiments below 50 moral into reserve.

[mktours]

I know, but how to sort out the low morale groups? I could only pick them one by one (and clicks the popping up windows around), is there more efficient ways?

ORIGINAL: Bozo_the_Clown

he operation in moving planes into reserve is too troublesome, requiring too many click windows around and I don't have patience and time to do it.

You can send them all into reserve in one operation using the Commander's Report window. Personally, I use most of my bombers on T1. I put only the regiments below 50 moral into reserve.

[lastkozak]

I tend to send them all back to Reserve, kind of gamey, but it is the only way to prevent the Germans from destroying your air force completely. I then wait til they are 62 experience, switch as many over as possible to Yak1s and send them to the southern front to kill Romanians! When their experience is up to 70, and I have 10 or so fighter groups, I transfer them to a front where they can be useful; Moscow, Leningrad (I do not subscribe to the abandonment of Leningrad either; there is too much good terrain and if you can get some forts built up, it is a pain for the Germans to clear the area.

Comrade Bozo said;
You can kill many Germans early on. Just find the stacks with the HQs and make sure they are out of fighter range.

Killing Germans is good for Soviet Morale! But first many Soviets must die! But what real member of the Worker's republic would not be willing to give their Life for the survival of the Great Union of Soviet Socialist Republic? (If you take advantage of German risky behaviours, you can counter attack and actually cut off and rout German Panzer Divisions, inflicting 2:3 casualty rates upon them).

I have wondered what is better, let the air units change up to better fighters on their own (does it still cost AP's?), or pay the AP's and change them yourself.

[Flaviusx]

You can use the commander's report to sort the air list by morale, but unfortunately there is no way to limit the groups shown to only display groups falling within a certain morale range. You'll get a complete list. You could then filter this out by aircraft type, but that's it. Ditto for experience, if you choose to sort out in that way.

It would be nice if the commander's report had this functionality in the future. Then you could globally send groups to the reserve based on the defined morale range (or whatever range you picked.)

It's very tedious as things stand to micromanage the Red Air force.

[Tom Hunter]

No big changes, the Red Army moved up and Saper222 pushed back on a few hexes, but there have not been any major attempts to launch an encirclement. Here and there the Soviets have pushed back a regiment or two.

I'm at 5.5 million men, 45k guns, close to 3000 tanks and 7k planes. Arm has gone to 0 as expected, trucks are about 180k (95k)

The air war continues, and by is Flaviusx right about the time it takes to manage. I'm doing a lot of bombing and airbase raiding, and its a huge time sink. The heavy pace keeps the air groups improving, I think the whole huge mess goes up about one xp point a turn.

Maps with the next turn, I expect we will finish T24 today, but I am not sure about 25.

[M60A3TTS]

Sounds like he has decided to stand pat for the snow turns. You might as well start moving up.

[jwolf]

Glad to see my fears about the snow turns were not well founded.  Good luck with the blizzard counter-offensive; these 13 turns may be the best fun you'll have during the whole game!

[Tom Hunter]

Well founded or not, they were certainly shared by me.[X(]