Question about Air Doctrine

[Seminole]

I have question regarding my understanding of how Air Doctrine functions in the game.

In the Battleground Italy scenario I am attacking an Italian port.
I use 4 B-17s and 1 P-38 group for escort (Strategic Air Force).
I set the Ground Attack doctrine for the Strategic Air Force to 21,000 ft and select 4 days active for bombing.
In the Air Directive screen I have set the Ground Attack primary target to none for everything but ports, which is set to high. I have only the target hex selected and the intensity of the mission is set to low.

Should the flights launch attacks each day in the air combat cycle, or only the days prescribed in the Air Doctrine screen?

In my case they are flying all seven days, resulting in more losses (enemy action and operational) that I'm trying to avoid.

I'm also not sure I understand correctly the damage indicator at the end of each row. Is that the overall percentage? e.g. if I see damage 46%, does that mean the port (regardless of size) is now at 54% strength until the next repair phase? The reason I ask is that I've seen damage cumulatively in excess of 100% on that screen, but examining the port it is barely damaged.

[NotOneStepBack]

Your air directives will follow what you set for each individual one, the air "doctrine" is basically a default template to start with. The only caveat to this is that automatic patrols will run based on air doctrines and training levels will be set there for pilots.

The damage reports will be for a number of the factories or port levels and how much it was damaged. This is also fogged up due to the fog of war. So if you see 2 - Port Damage 25% and the port is level 4, 2 are damaged at 25% but only according to the bombadiers and pilot. It could be more or less.

[Seminole]

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

Your air directives will follow what you set for each individual one, the air "doctrine" is basically a default template to start with. The only caveat to this is that automatic patrols will run based on air doctrines and training levels will be set there for pilots.

The damage reports will be for a number of the factories or port levels and how much it was damaged. This is also fogged up due to the fog of war. So if you see 2 - Port Damage 25% and the port is level 4, 2 are damaged at 25% but only according to the bombadiers and pilot. It could be more or less.

I set my ground attack air doctrine to attack 4 days a week and they are attacking 7 days a week. I take it that is a bug?

Also, I see two rows for each day, do I understand correctly that represents two attacks on the target on the same day?

[Baelfiin]

what does the air directive itself say? my understanding is changing doctrine settings does not update preexisting air directives, it only applies coing forward.

each line is a separate raid, so could be same target or another target depending on how large your target box is

[Seminole]

what does the air directive itself say? my understanding is changing doctrine settings does not update preexisting air directives, it only applies coing forward.

Couldn't find a way to check the existing air directive schedule so I created a new ground attack and it followed the updated doctrine settings. That was my problem.

each line is a separate raid, so could be same target or another target depending on how large your target box is

What does 'intensity' actually affect in the air directive settings?
A setting of high, medium, or low seemed to have no effect on either the number of aircraft committed per sortie, nor the number of sorties per target. I was targeting a single hex and two raids per day were launched irrespective of this setting. Is this setting just for when auto assigning a/c to the directive?

[Baelfiin]

I think pavel describes the intensity setting as the amount of sorties it will attempt, so a high intensity will try to fly twice as much as a medium etc. The number of aircraft is controlled the mission setting in the doctrine screen, starts at 100 percent. if you want more aircraft in a single raid then set it upwards to 200 or 250.

[Seminole]

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin
I think pavel describes the intensity setting as the amount of sorties it will attempt, so a high intensity will try to fly twice as much as a medium etc.

I hope someone can clarify this point (what does 'intensity' setting alter), because the number of sorties didn't change when I altered this setting. I thought two missions per day was a pretty steep tempo for B-17s flying from Africa to Cagliari (Sardinia), and was surprised it didn't drop to 1 per day when I changed the intensity from high, to medium to low. Maybe just too small a sample size
I surmised the AI is just checking available miles of the assigned air groups and committing aircraft per doctrine %.
If 'intensity' alters the number of groups auto assigned instead of the umber sorties flown by those assigned it has important implications for not burning out the air forces with overwork.

[marion61]

Advanced Options, strike number. Intensity increases the number of ac in each strike.

[cfulbright]

ORIGINAL: Seminole
I set my ground attack air doctrine to attack 4 days a week and they are attacking 7 days a week. I take it that is a bug?

Also, I see two rows for each day, do I understand correctly that represents two attacks on the target on the same day?

Can you upload a screenshot showing the seven days of bombing, and/or of the AD screen before the air phase, showing the four selected days?

Cary

[cfulbright]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin
I think pavel describes the intensity setting as the amount of sorties it will attempt, so a high intensity will try to fly twice as much as a medium etc.

I hope someone can clarify this point (what does 'intensity' setting alter), because the number of sorties didn't change when I altered this setting. I thought two missions per day was a pretty steep tempo for B-17s flying from Africa to Cagliari (Sardinia), and was surprised it didn't drop to 1 per day when I changed the intensity from high, to medium to low. Maybe just too small a sample size
I surmised the AI is just checking available miles of the assigned air groups and committing aircraft per doctrine %.
If 'intensity' alters the number of groups auto assigned instead of the umber sorties flown by those assigned it has important implications for not burning out the air forces with overwork.

The squadrons weren't each flying two missions per day. There were two separate missions with different squadrons in them flying one mission each.

Cary

[LiquidSky]

I always set the number of missions per day to 999. Which makes intensity meaningless as it is an AUTO setting overridden by my manual number (of 999 missions per day).

What I observe happening is that my missions will fly as much as they can. For the longer deep strategic missions, they tend to be once a day, but some of the mid ones will fly twice.

The closer strike missions will fly a few times. My fatigue levels never seem to be too high (and in actual fact seem to be higher for squadrons that I don't set on any mission..although I now know they are either training or flying naval missions behind my back.

[Helpless]

Intensity sets the amount of strikes per number of valid targets. Air group can fly multiple sorties per day if it still has enough ready planes and free miles (depends on morale). It can be overridden by the strike num setting.

[Seminole]

Can you upload a screenshot showing the seven days of bombing, and/or of the AD screen before the air phase, showing the four selected days?

The issue was my order of operations. I was replaying the first turn trying different settings to gauge their results.
Because I was changing the doctrine AFTER the directive had already been created the changes I was making to the doctrine did not alter the existing directive. Changing the doctrine and creating a NEW directive put the changes into effect. I'm not aware of a way from the directive settings to alter the number of days scheduled, insofar as I'm aware that has to be done on the Air Doctrine settings before you create the directive.

The squadrons weren't each flying two missions per day. There were two separate missions with different squadrons in them flying one mission each.

Actually, the escort squadron did fly more than one mission per day, but it doesn't appear that (for this particular mission's range) any individual planes flew more than once per day.

I always set the number of missions per day to 999.

Where exactly do I find that setting?

[Helpless]

I'm not aware of a way from the directive settings to alter the number of days scheduled, insofar as I'm aware that has to be done on the Air Doctrine settings before you create the directive.

Where exactly do I find that setting?

It is all hidden under advanced options of manual AD setup.