A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

[Harrybanana]

I can see why it is harder to damage a larger airfield, but is it harder to destroy aircraft on larger airfields too? If so, I don't see the logic in that. I didn't check my recon values, I did recon airfields heavily, but it was raining. Also, since the airfields were in urban and city hexes I suspect my recon values were low. As for aircraft damage, all I know is that later in the week (days 5 to 7) he once again hammered Bomber Command.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana



But what is really annoying is that I thought I had finally figured out why his NFs are shooting down my NFs and Night Bombers by such a wide margin. He was basing his NFs in Holland and that way getting several shots at me both on my way to the bombing targets and again on the way back (at least I assume the latter). So I thought I could counter this by having 9th AF bomb his Airfields in Holland during the day the first part of the week, and then bomb at night on the last 3 days.

...

An alternative (quite nasty in turn) is to set up an air superiority AD using your night fighters over his known bases. Put in place to only fly in his half of the turn and you have a good chance to catch his (exhausted) NFs coming back to base. Its not usually that effective if the NFs are all back around the Ruhr but this sounds like a good opportunity

[Helpless]

I can see why it is harder to damage a larger airfield, but is it harder to destroy aircraft on larger airfields too?

Larger AF means not only bigger air strips, but more of them and more distributed. In fact level 3 AF in the game is a collection of air bases located all around the hex.

[LiquidSky]

I am visiting my parents for the weekend, so it will be a day or so before I can do my turn. I did bring my Surface Pro 3 with me so I can see the turn, but it is kind of awkward to use for transferring air around, and as HarryBanana has noticed...

I like to move my air around.

Well..not the NF squadrons. I had originally set them up in the Netherlands so they could fly Air Superiority (night intruder) missions into Britain....mostly for training purposes...

But I noticed the bomber streams by following the interception/air combat icons in the battle reports, so I moved them to straddle the line from Amsterdam to Cologne.

And that is when the real damage seemed to start.

I moved half the Luftwaffe Reich interceptors to France in the hopes that they could catch a bunch of bomb laden fighter bombers at low altitudes. I noticed that earlier that the Axis Minor aircraft had some good success in that department (until they were essentially wiped out a turn or two later)

And it looks like they hit paydirt. I am hoping to lower the morale of his FB squadrons before the good weather and invasion occurs in mid May.

But it just isn't sustainable. My day fighter force is down to around 500 Ready aircraft. I could pump it back up with an infusion of trained pilots from the NF squadrons...or I could fill it with untrained pilots and lose a bunch of airplanes next turn while the numpties (thanks Loki!) die off. Or I could split the difference and take half and half. I have to think about it.

I am losing the game victory point wise.....almost up to 400 vp for the allies. It's going to take a lot of casualty vps for me to bring the score back down to a draw...let alone a German victory.

[carlkay58]

A typical French invasion will cost the Allies about 100 VPs due to casualties in the first few turns. It can be more than that, but very rarely have I seen less than that - even in non-contested invasion areas such as the Britanny peninsula.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

I can see why it is harder to damage a larger airfield, but is it harder to destroy aircraft on larger airfields too?

Larger AF means not only bigger air strips, but more of them and more distributed. In fact level 3 AF in the game is a collection of air bases located all around the hex.

Okay, that makes sense. But it also makes sense that the more aircraft you have based on an airfield (or even a collection of airfields in the case of level 3 airbases) the closer you have to pack them together and therefore the more damage that can be done. So do the number of enemy aircraft based at an airbase affect the number that are likely to be destroyed? In other words, if I am bombing a level 2 airfield with 150 enemy LBs based at it can I expect to destroy more of those aircraft than if I bomb a level 2 airfield with only 30 LBs based at it? I'm not saying I should destroy 5X as many aircraft; but logically speaking I should destroy more aircraft if I hit a hangar containing 10 aircraft than if I hit a hangar containing only 2 aircraft.

I note that in my game with QBall he just finished attacking a level 2 airfield at which I had about 30 LBs based with several missions of 50 bombers each (almost identical to what I tried with LS) and he destroyed several of my bombers. To be fair he made more attacks and some of his later attacks didn't destroy any aircraft. But still, I would have thought bombing airbases containing 160+ aircraft each (as I did with LS) would have a greater chance of destroying an enemy aircraft.

Having said all of the above, I understand that this is just a game and it isn't perfect. I really just want to understand the rules in this regard. If the number of enemy aircraft at a base has no effect on losses than so be it, I just want confirmation that that is the case.

[Helpless]

Number of AC on the base has effect, especially when it is over the limit.

[Harrybanana]

Thanks Helpless, good to know. Maybe I just got unlucky then.

[LiquidSky]

Well...I'm home now. Time to make a decision.

Here is the Luftwaffe Reich. Experience is high. Morale is good. Pilots are low.

The locations have been censored to protect the innocent.

[LiquidSky]

It's May 9, 1944. Thought I would take a peek at what might be going on in Englands southern ports.

And this is what I found:





I lost 9 Recon aircraft getting this information to the High Command.

[whoofe]

unfortunately there is no exhaust port weak point for you to send a torpedo thru

[Q-Ball]

Wow, so you learned that the ports in Southern England are stacked with Allied troops? And that the Allies have alot of units in England? Probably alot of aircraft too! Alert OKW: There might be an invasion when the weather clears!

In all seriousness, you might be able to tell where the landing is by seeing where all the FBs are, but even then it would be pretty easy to move them the turn of the invasion.

Recon over England IMO is a waste of time.....but I guess why not, beats just sitting there

[LiquidSky]

It was raining heavy, so I thought he wouldn't be shooting down my planes. It was more of an experiment. I wasn't sure if I was even going to get any info.

I look at it now as a missed opportunity to bomb airfields since my airfields were fair and good. His airfields were poor.

[Harrybanana]

I will return the favour and show my recon of France and the Low Countries for T45. Assuming it is accurate it shows what I have said before; LS does not believe in garrisoning the coast, or even particularly close to it.

[Harrybanana]

On the other hand he is not shy about committing the Luftwaffe to the defense of France, as can be seen in the map below. Once again he takes a heavy toll of the 2nd TAC LBs bombing the rail yards and airfields around Paris. And once again the 100s of bombers assigned to this task fail to destroy any aircraft on the ground or even damage an airfield. Meanwhile in Holland (off map) the 9th Air force hits empty airbases and also does minimal damage. I begin to think that Airbase attacks are a waste of time, or else I am really doing something wrong. Not shown, 8th AF is unopposed in its bombing of the German heartland.

Oh yeah, it looks like LS is expecting an invasion in the Brittany/Normandy area.

[Harrybanana]

The Air Losses. In my game with QBall he was impressed that I managed to shoot down 400 Allied aircraft in A2A action in a single turn. Childs Play compared to what LS does to me every single turn.

[LiquidSky]

Somebody doesn't like Paris in the springtime.

There is a downside to my aggressive stance in France...it allows you the freedom to bomb me in Germany.

I tried something new this turn and it seems to work quite well...I based my aircraft looking at the range circles (and my aircraft do not use drop tanks), so that the pilots will always be shot down over friendly territory.

As usual, I give all the BF squadrons the extra cannons, and I keep my fighters clumped in one area, protected by flak.

I'm a bit surprised at the units that are not reconned by the allies...I guess terrain plays a part in whether he can see them or not.

I'll take a picture to show the true extent of my Atlantic Wall...well..not much a wall then a series of sharp spikes.

As far as I can tell..the coast belongs to the allies..they can land wherever they want...unless it is a port. Every port (that I care about) gets a division
Then I make linear lines away from the coast to trap and envelop any landings. The armour/mech along the Dieppe Rouen line can swing either north or move west. More panzers scattered south of Normandy. A line across Britanny, from the bocage/Rennes along the river to the Atlantic.

A strong showing in southern france in the ports..

But I write off certain areas of the map..Britanny is his if he wants it. Normandy is his, but I will glue myself to the bocage hexes for as long as I can. If the invasion comes between Dieppe Le-Havre, then I have to use the panzers to try and hem him in...bloody for me, but I should be able to delay him.

Pas-de-Calais has strong infantry but little armour...mostly paratroopers which should make it impossible to take any of the ports. Netherlands is a bit weaker then I like, but in range of the para army in Belguim-Northern France.

I like my defence, but its not designed to prevent the landings. Its more to contain them after they hit.

[LiquidSky]

To show the contrast...this is the bombing in Germany. 8th airforce got a free pass. My training NF squadrons got more training around the Ruhr.

My Fighters cant be everywhere, and if I split them up to defend everything, it accelerates it's demise.

If I could be so bold as to make some suggestions...(to my detriment)

Forget night bombing the Ruhr. It may be as effective or almost effective as bombing by day, but what you are also doing is training my pilots.
Bombing my airfields is a good idea, but you aren't using enough strength. Hit the areas you suspect (or don't want to be) defended with your strat bombers. Several thousand 4-engined bombers will not care about flak or fighters and destroy a lot of planes on the ground or make the airbases unusable.
And use a lot of escorts....if they are heavily defended, you will be fighting around a thousand German fighters.

If you overwhelm the defence in the air, you reap a double benefit as the airfields get damaged.
It is also why I try and move my fighters around. If you know where they are, they are vulnerable to a mass bombing attack.

Air superiority is good, but only works if it is in the area of my fighters. I am not likely to let my intercept circles go near areas of likely superiority. You should use it, but your hoping to get lucky and pick the same area my fighters are in.

[Q-Ball]

Interesting thoughts on Strat bombing...what is harrybanana targeting with Strat bombs? That cluster around Liepzig looks like FUEL bombing.

Against harrybanana, I've put alot of effort on AFV bombing. I've kept the Panther factories in Duisburg, Hannover, and Nuremburg from expanding, and also bombed the Panther factories in Berlin, as well as the 2 Pz IV factories. Hopefully he runs out of tanks at some point. But that does take effort away from VPs. I've also put some effort on Vehicles, but not as much; mostly the cluster of plants around Mainz, and the one in Cologne.

[Harrybanana]

In order of preference I have been bombing Fuel, Oil, HI, Manpower, Vehicles and occasionally AFV. Of course, I also bombed the UBoat factories in 43 and the Vwpn sites in 44. So I have concentrated more on the VP sites than you have. As a result I am scoring about 10 SB VPs per turn (pre-July 44) while you were scoring about 7 per turn against me. On the other hand Liquid Sky's AFV production is much higher than mine.