Strategic Air War performance Assesment

[Radagy]

Hi guys,
How do you assess the effectiveness of your Air Bombing campaign as WA player?
I'm playing my first solo campaign and right now I feel a bit lost.
How many points I'm I expected to do each turn bombing german cities?
How many bombers can I afford to lose each turn without depleting my air force?
I know that there are different strategies and that keep playing will answer all my questions, but ending a full campaign is quite a long affair.
Any of you already has a clearer idea on that subject?

[carlkay58]

I look at four things:

1) Bombing VPs - cause I always need more VPs to offset Allied losses.

2) Axis Fuel Stores - it lets me know if I am beginning to put a hurt in the Axis mobility

3) Axis Oil Stores - the same as #2

4) Total aircraft comparison between Axis and Allies - it lets me see the long term ratio and whether or not one side is obviously winning the air war

If all three of these are looking good then I am doing alright.

As to losses - yes I take a lot of losses - probably in the 400 range per turn - or about 20,000 a year. The historical losses for June, 1943 to May, 1945 were about 40,000 total air losses.

[marion61]

The bombing campaign is like the ground. There will be ebbs and flows. In 43 your bombing should concentrate on u-boats as they give the axis vps for functional ones. After 44 your gonna want to target v weapon sites. Before you plan a raid check your moral, and experience. If these fall low (I use 50-70 depending on what I need that turn) then you should rest and/or train the group that turn. Fatigue I try not to let get above 15-20 depending on if I'm pushing in the air. Most of my air groups are never above 15. You have to recuperate and refill losses, and you don't have to use every bomber, every turn to achieve results.

Use the pathing tool in the Air Directive to go around Flak concentrations before you reach the target. Saves lives!

Don't make huge hit boxes for your bombers. The more area they have to cover, the more flak they take, the more interceptions, and it reduces how many hits you can get on a single target.

RECON! RECON! AND THEN RECON SOME MORE! You don't want to waste bombs on what you've already hit and destroyed, and you have to check on how fast they are being repaired.

Check the Commanders Report every turn for your air groups. This is the easiest way to spot problems.

Use your load outs! Doesn't do a lot of damage to a sub pen dropping incendiaries on them.

Use your tactical air in England to punch holes in his fighter cover, and destroy as much as you can on the ground. By October, the AI will be posting bug reports on the forums that your cheating lol.

Playing the Allies is hard, because you have so much going on and so many units. The air war is just as important as land combat, if not more. You use your air forces properly, and aside from plain bad luck, you should be okay.

[Radagy]

Ok. They are sensible advices. Kind of stuff you can't find in the manual. Thanks guys.
I was just wondering why I got a minus 3 points each turn on U-boats, bombing night and day at high priority. May be I should adjust bomb load or fine tune targets, as you suggest.
Carl, point 1) is what it is all about. in October 43 I score 5 for bombing and -3 for U-boats for a net result of +2. I still can't say if it's an awful score or an average one.
When you think about ground war it's much easier assessing your performance: having a look to a war atlas it's a good and easier starting point.

[Kronolog]

Does anyone think it's worth the effort to have some bombers bomb aircraft or AFV factories? Would it be feasible to, for example, focus on the Panther and PzIV factories and try to strangle the flow of tanks to the panzer divisions? Or on the Bf 109 and Fw 190 factories in an attempt to limit German production of aircraft?

[loki100]

My feeling is you want to hit the German economy at its core stage rather than worry about specifics - except where this enters the VP calculations.

On that basis, if you hit Heavy Industry you reduce their supply production. Supply is not just used in units but also in production of named items (mostly tanks and planes), trucks and arm pts. If you then go for fuel/oil, you really start to weaken the German army, if they lack supply and fuel they can have as many modern tanks as they want.

A global lack of supply is not good news (I'm suffering from one in a WiTE PBEM at the moment). Its means you have to be very limited when you attack (supply is used to produce ammunition too), units can lose morale (under-supplied units are at risk in this respect) and of course you are producing less replacement and reinforcement elements.

[HMSWarspite]

I am trying a HI/UB and Manpower based air campaign so far. The best way to deal with aircraft is to shoot them down in the air with the 8AF fighters, and I am assuming that allowing them to burn fuel will create a fuel shortage anyway. I am hoping I get to the stage where LW is using poor pilots to burn fuel and gwt shot down, whilst economy as a whole slows down.

Got to try these experiments anyway

[Kronolog]

ORIGINAL: loki100

My feeling is you want to hit the German economy at its core stage rather than worry about specifics - except where this enters the VP calculations.

On that basis, if you hit Heavy Industry you reduce their supply production. Supply is not just used in units but also in production of named items (mostly tanks and planes), trucks and arm pts. If you then go for fuel/oil, you really start to weaken the German army, if they lack supply and fuel they can have as many modern tanks as they want.

A global lack of supply is not good news (I'm suffering from one in a WiTE PBEM at the moment). Its means you have to be very limited when you attack (supply is used to produce ammunition too), units can lose morale (under-supplied units are at risk in this respect) and of course you are producing less replacement and reinforcement elements.

But given the large number of heavy industry factories that the Germans have, is it actually possible to make a lack of supplies felt before 1945? Same with oil/fuel: is it possible to strangle production of these before the Soviets capture the Romanian oilfields? Some German AFVs and aircrafts are only produced at a single or a couple of different factories, and perhaps it's possible to give the German player a headache by focusing on some of them?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Kronolog

But given the large number of heavy industry factories that the Germans have, is it actually possible to make a lack of supplies felt before 1945? Same with oil/fuel: is it possible to strangle production of these before the Soviets capture the Romanian oilfields? Some German AFVs and aircrafts are only produced at a single or a couple of different factories, and perhaps it's possible to give the German player a headache by focusing on some of them?

good question [;)], to which I really have no answer.

I think the answer will only become clear over time. My feeling is that I am not too worried if the Germans have a few more or less of their best tanks. The only solution in either case is to have so many Shermans it doesn't matter - which is ruthless but close enough to reality. It wasn't just the Soviets who decided the simplest answer to a quality deficit was to deploy in quantity.

Hitting the base of their production chain (ie HI) seems a more valuable project, whether you can take out enough to make a material difference is another question. Guess one solution is every now and then open up the AIs turn to see - you'll see in the regular turn report if it is suffering from supply problems. This is both within the production system and at the operational level.

[Q-Ball]

Excellent question, on where the most vulnerable spot is in German production. We probably won't know until a few players get toward the end of a PBEM and start to report problems from the German side.

Regardless of HI or Fuel or Oil, I would like to see the results of going "all-in" on either HI or Oil/Fuel, and see which one hurts the most

[carlkay58]

From play testing experience the Oil/Fuel route is very nasty to the Axis. When you can't fly the planes you have and you can't move your mechanized vehicles and your supply routes are three hexes from the nearest depot (horse drawn wagon time) the Axis have some real problems to deal with.

[Kumppi]

ORIGINAL: Radagy
I was just wondering why I got a minus 3 points each turn on U-boats, bombing night and day at high priority. May be I should adjust bomb load or fine tune targets, as you suggest.

It is pretty much impossible to not get negative VPs with U-boats. You just cannot bomb everything. The question is how many negative VPs you get and -3 is pretty good. That is what I lose every turn. Remember that just a single percent damage on a U-boat factory means that it is not calculated against you. That means you don't have to bomb every turn.

ORIGINAL: Radagy
Carl, point 1) is what it is all about. in October 43 I score 5 for bombing and -3 for U-boats for a net result of +2. I still can't say if it's an awful score or an average one.

I score about 9-10 for bombing. I keep hitting German HI factories and manpower. I also target fuel and oil around Hamburg. When I get air bases in Italy I will go against fuel and oil in Romania. Just for the heck of it I will bomb aircraft factories now and then. They don't give VPs though.

[Radagy]

Ok, so I finally get a benchmark: 9-10 points. I got 7 on my best turn, then I started to hit airplane factories, just to reduce my expected losses in the air campaign and I dropped to 5.
5 points * 108 turns means 540 points
9 points * 108 turns means 936 points (+396)

Choosing targets not giving victory points should be a well considered choice: 396 point could make the difference between winning or losing a game.

[Kumppi]

If I hit targets that don't give VPs I always do it after a turn that I have hit VP targets hard. That way the damage usually carries over and you don't lose that many VPs.

[Balou]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

RECON! RECON! AND THEN RECON SOME MORE! You don't want to waste bombs on what you've already hit and destroyed, and you have to check on how fast they are being repaired.

Tons of good advices. Want to add some thoughts:

I've seen an impressive increase in bombing damage when I keep recon levels high. And I did it in
1) keeping the recon area (eg. around Hamburg) small, range 2-3 hexes
2) assigning all long range strat recon aircraft (eg.Lightings) to 8th AF and to fly at 25k (optimum altitude for high level camera), from D1-D7, on very high priority
3) never bombing before D3 + lomg range escorts,
4) and then only D3 D5 D7, medium intensity (keeps morale high).
5) Especially (8th AF) never flies unescorted (Thunderbolts swap to Lightings w/300 USG drop tanks)
6) flying to northern Germany via the North Sea
7) rearranged AF, so all of 8th AF around Nottingham

And, as a sort of "what-if":

RAF (night) Bombers + Mosquito (NF) escorts did daylight bombing (2-3 days a week): awesome, the Ruhr (HI, MP) by the end of August 43 in ruins.

[marion61]

Aside from vp points, I will always cripple the fuel/oil industry first. Almost every unit needs some fuel, and those trucks taking supplies do, and the planes flying. Once you have southern Italy to launch attacks on Ploesti and the area around it, by the late spring, early summer of 44 you will start seeing "no fly, low fuel" messages for the axis planes trying to fly. Once I take out that industry as much as possible, then I move to manpower and aircraft factories. I would like to hear how others are doing it, cause there's more than one winning strategy in the air war.

[Balou]

I start strat bombing of the oil/fuel hexes around Vienna (Strategic Air Force) before getting within reach of Ploesti. Together with the oil/fuel around Hamburg the figures for fuel (but interestingly not for oil) depots of "Germany/all Areas" drop by about 3-5% each turn (depending on weather + bombers at target) beginning in late summer of 1943.

[Kumppi]

How do you check the figures for fuel in enemy depots? Do you mean the fuel stores + pool in the metrics screen?

[Balou]

Still learning and trying to understand game mechanics: therefore I sometimes check german production thru "games Option Screen" and turning the "Axis Computer control" Switch off (Spy Button).

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: Kronolog

But given the large number of heavy industry factories that the Germans have, is it actually possible to make a lack of supplies felt before 1945? Same with oil/fuel: is it possible to strangle production of these before the Soviets capture the Romanian oilfields? Some German AFVs and aircrafts are only produced at a single or a couple of different factories, and perhaps it's possible to give the German player a headache by focusing on some of them?

good question [;)], to which I really have no answer.

I think the answer will only become clear over time. My feeling is that I am not too worried if the Germans have a few more or less of their best tanks. The only solution in either case is to have so many Shermans it doesn't matter - which is ruthless but close enough to reality. It wasn't just the Soviets who decided the simplest answer to a quality deficit was to deploy in quantity.

Hitting the base of their production chain (ie HI) seems a more valuable project, whether you can take out enough to make a material difference is another question. Guess one solution is every now and then open up the AIs turn to see - you'll see in the regular turn report if it is suffering from supply problems. This is both within the production system and at the operational level.

It I believe is going to not matter unless your putting pressure on the ground.

If your having an amazing Air Campaign, but are not putting pressure ( allot of battles win or lose) on the ground its not going to have any real effect.

I am guessing from what I am seeing in my 4 games at some point it will "pay off" by the German Army crumbling so to speak.

What, how much and how long this will take will remain unknown until we see some games finished and can look over the data points to see what happened to cause this crash.

I know what causes the crash in WitE. Armaments and manpower, not sure it applies to WitW.

The grinding down of the German Army is what I would look at first.