Interception of Interdiction

[tomeck48]

I'm on turn 6 of a 41 campaign as the Soviet. My opponent's air interdiction is killing me as I retreat. Can't get units where I want because of multiple interdiction attacks.

I have 2303 FB and 566 F, only a few of which are in the Nat Reserve. Flying percentage is set at 35. Interception is set at 120. Is there anything I can do to try to counter his interdiction?

[Telemecus]

Make sure the fighters can fly (not in swamp/rough/urban hexes, have fuel/ammo on base, number in group is not below %reqd to fly - a common mistake!). Make sure the fighters are good to fly (low fatigue, good leaders, good morale and experience - hint if you move the airbase overground with airgroups in them in your turn they probably will not be). Make sure the fighters are in easy range of the interdiction (most Soviet fighters are very short range - and will rarely intercept at maximum range).

If this is fine then keep lowering your % interception until you start getting some interceptions.

[tomeck48]

OK, I didn't check ammo and supplies, will check that. Also the ranges, though I think I'm ok with that.

One more question. When I launch a bombing run against German ground units I will often see that I've got 200+ bombers selected but then see only 80 or 90 in the actual attack. Why so low? Same answer I suppose but the "selected" seems to imply that they are ready. Will this improve as I get into 42 and 43?

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: tomeck48

OK, I didn't check ammo and supplies, will check that. Also the ranges, though I think I'm ok with that.

One more question. When I launch a bombing run against German ground units I will often see that I've got 200+ bombers selected but then see only 80 or 90 in the actual attack. Why so low? Same answer I suppose but the "selected" seems to imply that they are ready. Will this improve as I get into 42 and 43?

If doing a manual selection (shift click) make sure they are selected which means highlighted. Aircraft and airgroups will have missions cancelled. Again better morale/experience/fatigue/leaders will reduce that. It is so bad in turn 6 that you should expect many soviet pilots bailing out before they get to their target unfortunately. Remember you need to be rotating air groups in and out of reserve then to be building them up.

[tomeck48]

Didn't know about the "bailing out" part. [&:] I suppose my NKVD will take care of those guys. Thanks for the help, again. [&o]

[Telemecus]

There is a famous story of SB2 crew bailing out BEFORE being shot at by German fighters. Apparently a photo too - but not researched it!

[EwaldvonKleist]

ORIGINAL: tomeck48

OK, I didn't check ammo and supplies, will check that. Also the ranges, though I think I'm ok with that.

One more question. When I launch a bombing run against German ground units I will often see that I've got 200+ bombers selected but then see only 80 or 90 in the actual attack. Why so low? Same answer I suppose but the "selected" seems to imply that they are ready. Will this improve as I get into 42 and 43?

From my experience there is kind of upper limit for how many aircraft can fly non-ground support missions. Yes, you can select some 300 aircraft, but for the Soviets you will usually get 90-120 of them committed for ground bombing and maybe a bit more when doing a combined fighter and bomber airfield strike.

The Axis side has somewhat higher limits, not sure whether the reason are better leaders or bigger air groups. 200+ is quite possible.

[Kantti]

I had also problems with German interdiction. Only that the issue besides mps lost was that my fighters DID try to stop germans which was a big mistake. In any other aerial engagements I could get bearable kill-ratios, but for some reason in interdictions Germans simply wiped me off the skies. I finally had to turn my fighters to night mode while moving units until Axis fighter cover got exhausted after my fresh fighters had a field day shooting down unescorted interdicters.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

ORIGINAL: tomeck48

OK, I didn't check ammo and supplies, will check that. Also the ranges, though I think I'm ok with that.

One more question. When I launch a bombing run against German ground units I will often see that I've got 200+ bombers selected but then see only 80 or 90 in the actual attack. Why so low? Same answer I suppose but the "selected" seems to imply that they are ready. Will this improve as I get into 42 and 43?

From my experience there is kind of upper limit for how many aircraft can fly non-ground support missions. Yes, you can select some 300 aircraft, but for the Soviets you will usually get 90-120 of them committed for ground bombing and maybe a bit more when doing a combined fighter and bomber airfield strike.

The Axis side has somewhat higher limits, not sure whether the reason are better leaders or bigger air groups. 200+ is quite possible.

In manual selection mode for bombing missions there is a limit - I know it is 14 airgroups for city bombing for example. So for a really big attack you need to switch to nights all the stabs or groups with few aircraft to get a selection of the 14 with the largest numbers. I do not know if AI control does something similar - if it does then the hard limit is 14 bombing groups - and it may select those with only or two aircraft ready rather than the ones which have larger numbers. Although by changing night options of airgroups you can restrict the AI to chose the larger ones.

[urtel]

1. check group morale everything below 30 put back to national reserve, they will not fly anyway so they are just targets
2. change order of unit moving
- first move a little troops which u actual not even want to move but just to soak some attack, so dance with them 2 hex back 2 hex up
- then move units who u calculate to have more MPs than it is needed to get to hex u want, so they soak some more attacks and still maybe left with enough MPs to get where u want them
- last move units which have exact number of MPs you need to get to target hex
3. make CAP traps, if u know that on front X u need to move alot units but you do not need to do that on front Y an Z put all fighters from Z & Y to X front bases and fill Y & Z from National reserve. It is also good to have some fighters groups in reserves in bases far from front (defending cities) us them too
4. I-Type fighters range is very short ~10 hex, for this task you should count like 70% of max range so 7 hexes max to hope they get to interdict anything, aloso check cruise speed on example Yak-1 have very low cruise speed which will probably prevent them to intercept at probably half of max range..
5. know ur air frames Mig-3 is best u have in 41 use them wise..

About bombing i think soviets have hard coded penalty for 41 in max number of bombers they can get in one ground attack.

Air war is game for it self invest more time into it, you need to do many things on turn start because transfer between bases and to NR is allow only if unit not fly any miles, so 1st thing at turn stat is plan ur air war for whole turn. On turn end if some units are left unused look you maybe need them in some other place next turn..

Your units are probably low on exp but some Axis allies have very low plane pool maybe can overrun them with numbers (check Finland numbers)

As already is said do not ever move bases with planes in them, you start war with many extra bases u can have one empty base per every front which is enough to move all air groups using air group transfers..

If u find admin points some leaders have criminal air skill like 3 or something, replace them..

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: urtel
2. change order of unit moving
- first move a little troops which u actual not even want to move but just to soak some attack, so dance with them 2 hex back 2 hex up

If trying to take advantage of interdiction by moving surplus units of your own remember detection is a very important attractor of interdiction. So before dancing with any units, first move them to a hex next to the enemy in order to maximise its detection level for attracting enemy interdiction.

Because airfields only lose 1 point of detection each turn I find Axis army recon bases to be very good for this role.

[tomeck48]

I've seen that advice before about moving low morale units to the national reserve. Right now I'm using the commander's report to find low morale units, then searching for their air based and then clicking on the individual regiments to send them to reserve. Is there an easier way to do this? It sure would be nice if there was a button on the commanders report to move them.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus

ORIGINAL: urtel
2. change order of unit moving
- first move a little troops which u actual not even want to move but just to soak some attack, so dance with them 2 hex back 2 hex up

If trying to take advantage of interdiction by moving surplus units of your own remember detection is a very important attractor of interdiction. So before dancing with any units, first move them to a hex next to the enemy in order to maximise its detection level for attracting enemy interdiction.

Because airfields only lose 1 point of detection each turn I find Axis army recon bases to be very good for this role.

Long haul moves attract interdiction more than short bursty moves btw

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: tomeck48

I've seen that advice before about moving low morale units to the national reserve. Right now I'm using the commander's report to find low morale units, then searching for their air based and then clicking on the individual regiments to send them to reserve. Is there an easier way to do this? It sure would be nice if there was a button on the commanders report to move them.

If you can filter just to the groups you want to send to reserve then the picture shows one way



You can also send all the aircraft in a base to reserve by putting commitment to zero and clicking move - but they do not go through transit!

[Searry]

What? Can you select individual air groups in this menu somehow?

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Searry
What? Can you select individual air groups in this menu somehow?

You can filter - and if the filter matches just one air group then yes.

Usually when sending lots of aircraft to reserve you will be able to define many batches to do in sequence - leaving just a handful you want to do individually on the unit details displays.

[Searry]

Yeah this is why prefer WITW so much. So many more filters in the air screen.

[thedoctorking]

You can select the air unit from the Commander's Report, then it will open the air unit's window and you can click reserve. That appears to be the most efficient way to send them to reserve. Yes, lots of clicks and it would be really really nice if you could filter air units by Morale, Fatigue, % ready, etc.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: thedoctorking
really really nice if you could filter air units by Morale, Fatigue, % ready, etc.

You can filter by % ready

[tomeck48]

Many thanks.