Withdrawing air units question

[Tomcat84]

Noob question here, sorry. Am in my first GC (against AI) and in a couple of turns several gruppen of JG53 are scheduled to withdraw. Right now they have 109 F2s. If they withdraw, do those F2s just vanish? If so, is it potentially worthwhile to switch them to 109 Emils so that the F2s go into the pool for future use and the Emils disappear?
Thanks!

[Dinglir]

Yes, they do vanish.

You should certainly set replacements off - and if you don't have any urgent need to use the fighters, I would replace them with E's as well.

[Tomcat84]

Thanks for the confirmation! Will be sure to swap them

And I'm assuming that if they ever come back (I believe historically I/JG53 comes back late war but haven't checked WITE yet) they will just have their new equipment (in my example's case 109 Gustav variants) and not the old Emils I sent them off with? I'll check WITE later and scroll faaaaar down

edit: checked and they come back in 44 with G6s

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Noob question here, sorry. Am in my first GC (against AI) and in a couple of turns several gruppen of JG53 are scheduled to withdraw. Right now they have 109 F2s. If they withdraw, do those F2s just vanish? If so, is it potentially worthwhile to switch them to 109 Emils so that the F2s go into the pool for future use and the Emils disappear?
Thanks!

Also change them early (turn 2) and use them as much as possible before they go. In theory you could end up seeing zero aircraft being withdrawn.

[Ridgeway]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Noob question here, sorry. Am in my first GC (against AI) and in a couple of turns several gruppen of JG53 are scheduled to withdraw. Right now they have 109 F2s. If they withdraw, do those F2s just vanish? If so, is it potentially worthwhile to switch them to 109 Emils so that the F2s go into the pool for future use and the Emils disappear?
Thanks!

Also change them early (turn 2) and use them as much as possible before they go. In theory you could end up seeing zero aircraft being withdrawn.

Are air unit withdrawals treated differently from ground unit withdrawals? I thought for ground units, at least, that they automatically draw replacements (up to 75% of TOE, IIRC) prior to being withdrawn.

[Telemecus]

There is no mandatory replacements, so unlike on map ground combat units you can manage air units (and also offmap SUs and on map HQs) to minimise what is withdrawing. My strategy is to switch all replacements off for withdrawing groups and use them for as many missions as possible. You can always see in the air section of the arrivals and withdrawers screen how many aircraft they have. Nothing makes me happier than to see zeros after the names of withdrawing air groups. I only replace the aircraft of a withdrawing airgroup with old models if I feel I do not have enough time to get them to zero. And even then do that as early as possible and try to use up the older models before they go too. When you open the air section of arrivals and withdrawers as Axis in turn 1 you can count 1,000s of aircraft there next to the names of withdrawing groups. Do you really want them to head to the war in the west - or would you rather they did the dieing on the Eastern front first.