Low Soviet Air Experience

[wga8888]

I am in Dec 1941 and of course I have a good portion of my Soviet air groups with experience in the 30s. Will these groups eventually train to gain experience or should I disband them? With exepience so low, putting them into combat seems like a bad choice.

[sillyflower]

they gain wxperience + morale in reserve

[Hermann]

im in de 41 in some games and have soviet units with morale and experience in the 90s 7 gaurds units already - key is setting the mission limits at 60 minimum 40 and launching night missions constantly

[Kel]

ORIGINAL: Hermann

im in de 41 in some games and have soviet units with morale and experience in the 90s 7 gaurds units already - key is setting the mission limits at 60 minimum 40 and launching night missions constantly

"Mission limits at 60 minimum 40" : could you give an example/ develop ?

Thank you !

[Hermann]

Read rule 16.4 in the updated game manual. Basically air doctrine tells your planes when to fly. if the ai decides you need 100% of the available planes planes for a successful mission it wont send planes up if it cant reach the number. Air units don't often have full strength. so I set mine to 60 that means itll fly the planes at 60% of whats required for mission success.. my planes fly even if I have only 40% available by setting the 40% minimum. As Russian you need to deal with overwhelming german pilot superiority and some devastating flak gunnery in the daylight so you need to use night attacks to build up kills - I did an attack in our game to show you an example. I launched 130 fresh/elite aircraft at your airfield in daylight and lost 85 bombers in 1 attack then I followed up with night attacks with minimal losses. if youre going to do daylight attacks then you need to clear the skies of enemy fighters first - that means fighter sweeps - launch airfield attacks using the shift key and select only fighter units these will force enemy fighters to intercept and you can smash them repeatedly ( only 3 attacks per airbase but as many sweeps as you want near an airbase. if you've overwhelming strength its great kills. Doing ground attacks works best on units that are overstacked ( especially with HQs ) and/or have just moved or fought - really good vs retreated units. just be wary if you hit in the day and get intercepted either sweep the area clear of fighters or turn to night missions. if you have less than 2000 kills by December theres a problem

[Hermann]

In the game were currently playing I have 6000 air kills - My Romanian pilots are the most skilled in my military below stuka pilots. that's 2800 ground kills 1000 air to air kills and 2200 ground attack kills. its a huge advantage to have that level of skill in a satellite force

[Hermann]

Here's an image of my Air force in Sept 1941, Turn 10 in one of my games.

[Hermann]

Don't underestimate your air forces ability to inflict damage. If you're serious about defending its the only way to slow a concentrated attack.


Item Destroyed
Points Awarded
Per Man
1
Per Gun
5
Per AFV/Combat Vehicle
10
Per Bomber Aircraft
20
Per other Aircraft Type
10
Points are also awarded for damaging factories by multiplying the percentage of damage inflicted times the number of factory points of that type of factory in the target hex.
v1.05.42 - November 21, 2011
Changed the way air leaders receive win/loss credits. Now only elements destroyed/damaged/disrupted by air are counted. Damaged men divided by 2, disrupted by 10. Element value is the same - AFV 10, Guns 5, Inf 1 (Vehicles 1).

[Kel]

Thank you Hermann, that's interesting.
So your basic settings are chance to fly 60% and the rest at default settings?

[Hermann]

I use 60% minimum 20 to 40% based on my units readiness. I keep my air units fairly close to the front without endangering tem and position them opposite enemy spearheads - like I said it works best on enemy units in motion and if you catch a stacked HQ the whole efforts worth it - 1000 casualties per strike. Use the shift button and be creative don't just automatically attack. Watch the enemy he has to keep moving his air forward - when he does you hit his airbases and units in daytime strikes then pull yours back a bit. Each opponent is different. Theres no sense being miserable for 16 turns while the Germans pound you if you play the Air force creatively you can have fun and set yourself up for later. by spring 42 you will dominate the skies. Do a couple full combat reports and look at the ratio of damaged and disrupted units.

[Hermann]

A very Important thing to remember is to focus your attacks on his ARMY airbases most players tend to stack them with Recon units and having high recon values helps them to find and exploit weak points in your defenses and gives them combat bonuses a lot of players concentrate armor and saturate the focal point of their advance with recon in the game I just showed I've killed 450 recon planes and effectively disrupted his ability to scout by air - the effect is very noticeable in that its caused failed attacks and an inability to exploit gaps in my lines.

[morvael]

I had some 20% more groups than used at any one time, 5-6 airbases far from the front under good general, and I constantly rotated worst beaten groups to reserve and to those bases, and again to reserve, until they returned to morale 60 (replacing them at the front with fresh groups from reserve). Each sending to reserve gives an air group +5 morale, and experience rises slowly automatically if it is below morale. So that's best way to build up better groups. Of course it's micromanagement through and through.

[Kel]

Thank you men, that's great advice !

[Hermann]

Heres the Casualty list

[Hermann]

oops 1 more try too many screenies

[Hermann]

you can see my focus on recon units - his air losses this turn were night attacks on his airbases. What I do is keep my bombers and transports on night missions so they cause partisan havoc. I leave some fighters on night to prevent resupply and protect ports. When I start my turn my tac bombers and fighters launch day attacks on units - if theres fighter resistance I switch to night and send the bombers after his airfields then go back to day missions and hit units again. if theres too much fighter resistance I bomb units at night. at the end of each turn I shift fighters and tac back to day and bombers and transports to night - you gotta be flexible every player is different. In this game ive got 4pza hitting Leningrad alone but with extra infantry ( 16 army is in the 18 army area. Hes cut the city off but his tanks are under constant pressure from the air and moving sluggishly I hold the river line east of Leningrad in force and the Northern front vs the Finns is stable. My troops in Leningrad are dug in heavily with 2 PVO fighter units in the city. 6 AA regiments in the Leningrad port, 3 mech units in reserve behind the line etc... In the center he concentrated ALL of AGC including both tank groups 4th and 9th Armies in the Smolensk Area and screened the rest of the front as far as Kiev with regiments. That attack was insane and it was air support that kept it in check. my Northern Airforce is holding Leningrad, Northwest Air force is basically on vacation Holding the river Novgorod to Demyansk the Western Air units are my strongest and most active vs these massed armor units. Its turn 11 and were fighting for Rzhev atm, Bryansk is safe for the moment. further south pressure is increasing as hes sending more infantry south to push back my screens. in the south he sent 1 pza straight into the crimea in force and then drove for Stalino. he screened the Dnepr Cherkassy to the bend with Romanians and concentrated 6, 17 and 11 armies along the Dnepr - Kiev to Cherkassy- played whack a mole as he kept popping over the river but hes now across in force with infantry. not a threat as ive got his armor tied up below the Dnepr bend under constant air attack from my southwest front air units in the Kiev area. In the crimea Ive held at perekop and retained Sevastapol - reinforcing by sea. and southern front air is protecting me successfully. as well as helping vs the armor south of the Dnepr bend.

[Hermann]

During the mud turns I put all my air forces into reserve and let em rebuild their morale for a few turns to prepare for the German final effort then reorganize them according to front conditions

[hjones6464@yahoo.co.uk]

Some good advice, but to many of the units with good kills are on SAD bases.

My preferance regarding SAD Airbases.

You just don't need them, so I only keep TWO, one with Moscow Air Command and one with Orel Air Command.

These I empty on Turn 12 or so.

Even if you build 8 air units a turn in August plus one airbase every 2nd turn, it takes a while to fill up the NON SAD bases you have.

I disband a few SAD airbases T1, then each time I get extra admin points, like T4 etc.

[Hermann]

I like my SAD bases =(. Pretty sure they convert to SHaD when they get gaurds designation I always put my tac air assets into the sads though guess I need to look at that.

[Dinglir]

ORIGINAL: Hermann
... only 3 attacks per airbase ...

Does this mean that the common house rules are that you can attack each airfield three times pr turn instead of three airfield attacks pr turn?