The early air war

[Kantti]

So, correct me if I am wrong, but according to what Morvael said, that 4000 men disruption (mostly rifle squads I guess, some artillery also) targets single division and thus present around 50% of that divisions ready manpower. That in turn translates to around 50 points of fatigue for that division which lowers the cv of that division by 1/6 (so CV6 division would be CV5 which in turn multiplies the effect if it was entrenched). If bombing would have been more equally spread between all units in a hex, results would be diminished?

What about if I bomb same stack again? Will the same division be hit again OR can it be some other division in the stack? If it can, it would mean that I could easily ramp up fatigue of 2 divisions per hex to 50 which will have impact in upcoming combats.

[morvael]

Each time you launch a new bomb unit attack, target unit is selected randomly from those in the stack.

[Kantti]

Does this also mean that unit density in the hex has nothing to do with the results? There are plenty of AAR's and posts that imply that one should concentrate on bombing stacks on open. Open I can understand, but if it always targets just single divison, every division in open is a juicy target, not just stacks.

[morvael]

Yes, number of units in the stack doesn't matter. Actually you can use two weak units to shield one stronger The bombers simply bomb the first (i.e. randomly chosen) unit they find in the area, not a specific target.
But of course it's better to bomb units in the open, without forts. That way there will be more kills.

[Nix77]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Yes, number of units in the stack doesn't matter. Actually you can use two weak units to shield one stronger The bombers simply bomb the first unit they find in the area, not a specific target.
But of course it's better to bomb units in the open, without forts. That way there will be more kills.

Hmm, more uses for the countless Soviet brigades

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Yes, number of units in the stack doesn't matter. Actually you can use two weak units to shield one stronger The bombers simply bomb the first (i.e. randomly chosen) unit they find in the area, not a specific target.
But of course it's better to bomb units in the open, without forts. That way there will be more kills.

I am a newbie .. but I have found the increase in detection level from ground bombing to be much more valuable than any casualties produced. One outcome is an advantage in the ground attack itself, which the 2 attacks per hex rule seems to be circumvented and a ground support attack is allowed on top of the 2 ground attacks. The second effect of using aircraft to ground attack and raise detection levels is the next phase and interdiction. So ground attack a unit twice, get detection up, and its more likely an interdiction will follow during the opposing players movement phase.

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
Third: I did a turn one bombing run on Brest Litovsk (after moving units to get to detection level 10) with FOW turned off. The result was that the defensive CV changed from 1=15 to 1=18. The result can be seen in the attached file. What am I missing? Is there a way to get more info than you get by having detection level = 10?

Here is the solution to that riddle: normally units do not have disrupted elements, as disruption is converted to fatigue at the end of combat. Disruption is stronger CV reductor than fatigue. In games starting on June 22nd, 1941 Soviet units get random morale, experience, and element damage as described in 23.3.4. 22 June 1941 Turn Surprise Rules. What the manual is not saying is that those units also receive random disruption representing extra surprise that will work for the first attack against the unit hex. After that first attack this disruption is normally converted to fatigue and cleared, resulting in (most likely) CV increase. I think this is WAD and should be taken into account by players. By bombing those units first you're giving them first warning that an attack will soon come, and they will be better prepared for it. So I guess in case of June 22nd turn it's better to hit the Soviets on the ground first, and bomb them only after they flee. This CV increase should not happen on any other turn in the game, just June 22nd.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: morvael

This CV increase should not happen on any other turn in the game, just June 22nd.

So the question is now, is it happening now, which it seems it is, in none June 22 1941 turns?

[morvael]

Sorry, I don't think I understand. Please rephrase your question.

In other words Soviet CV is lowered for the first attack that will hit them on June 22nd, after that it's back to normal. That's all.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: morvael
Sorry, I don't think I understand. Please rephrase your question.

I think some thought it did not happen only on turn 1.

Dinglir gave a specific example on turn 1 of bombing Brest-Litovsk, and morvael has found a very good explanation for that. If a further example is captured in a later turn then we can verify that it does not only happen on turn 1 and then investigate why else it might happen.

It may be that turn 1 results are the only ones and we just interpreted quick glimpses later as being the same effect incorrectly. But if we can verify it does happen in later turns as well there may be other causes still to be explored?

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Sorry, I don't think I understand. Please rephrase your question.

In other words Soviet CV is lowered for the first attack that will hit them on June 22nd, after that it's back to normal. That's all.

It is happening on other turns besides June 22 1941. This CV increase is happening on turns 2 through end of game.

[morvael]

My tests on GC'42 do not confirm that theory. I only got the same or decreased CV after bombing enemy unit (just after bombing). I you can provide a test case in which that happens I'd be interested to see this.

[morvael]

I think you're talking about CV with fog of war turned on. I confirmed then in this case CV may "rise". But this will be new estimates after bombing, actual CV will be still the same.
Dinglir found a case where it happened with fog of war turned off.

[Dinglir]

I am indeed always playing with FoW turned On, so that may be the case.

However, I think I have seen this even when all enenmy units are at Detection level 10 before the bombing. I will have to keep an eye out for this over the coming period.

If I can document the behavior, I will be back.

[morvael]

Detection level 10 can still give false reading, so fluctuation is possible.

[tyronec]

Have been looking at the last turn of air combat in my present game.
Here is the list of attacks launched by STAVKA for T6:



The serious action is around AGN. The Luftwaffe fighters conducted about 5 attacks here last turn so are on moderate fatigue - at least 6 were not used at all. Air bases are about 10 hexes from the front line and 15 from the main Soviet air force.

[tyronec]

So how come the soviets were able to shoot down or bomb so many aircraft ?
The answer is they didn't.
Here are a few of the combats and the losses screen. To my mind the axis fighter defence is about right, most attacks were met with an equivalent number of fighters and few bombers were able to get through. If someone can advise me better I look forward to hearing it.



Am not sure of the exact figure because I don't have a losses screen for the start of the Soviet turn, but my best estimate from looking at the losses from the previous turn is that around 80% are 'operational losses'.

This confirms my experience of playing as Soviets, there is a point at which if you bomb them enough in any given turn the Axis fighter defence becomes ineffective.


Just another thought on this, it would be nice to have the players losses split down by air combat/flak/ground/operational for the phase (as is done for aircraft types) as well as the sum total if that were not too difficult to implement.

[Nix77]

That last result is an absolute mystery to me.

There are 11 MiG-3, 79(!) Polikarpovs and 54 SB-2. I can't see many reasons why you could lose 14 out of 71 German planes other than a freak incident of worst German pilots against the Red Air Force Elite (flying old planes?), or that the defending Luftwaffe pilots are really really fatigued?

EDIT: Just noticed this was a Soviet AF bombing. Maybe the bombing run just was succesful? The Messerschmitt's were busy hunting the slow Polikarpovs while the lumbering SB-2s managed to drop the bombs? An unlikely scenario but that's probably what happened.

Does the "DEF:" aircraft count also planes on the ground? DOUBLE-EDIT: Apparently no, 71 is the number of intercepting aircraft.

[morvael]

71 intercepting, but I think 16 lost includes those lost on the ground.

[tyronec]

Lost on the ground is around 20 for the turn.
I would count myself lucky to get any bombing results from this sort of attack, they have clearly got at least 2. There are a few other soviet bombers that are not shown but with this much fighter cover they would not normally get through - having watched a number of bombing results with high combat resolution.
He has had a lucky combat result on this one but it is not that different from a lot of the others.
I think the great majority of these losses are operational losses because of high fatigue, and most of the fatigue was caused in the soviet turn.