Air Power questions

[MAS]

1) Are there disadvantages to setting air units to 'both' night and day mode? I would think it would come at a cost of fatigue and/or fewer aircraft flying any one mission, but have not found any information on this. If no downside, it would seem a 'no-brainer' to set all aircraft to both all the time.

2) In a solitaire campaign game using version 1.11.00, I was able to whittle down the German Fighter strength to about 240 aircraft by Sept '41, by utilizing both day and night bombing missions. The VVS losses were often horrendous, but they can take the attrition. Their remaining fighter strength is about 2400 and 1800 level bombers. Is this a) "realistic" / historically plausible, and b) what counter-measures would prevent such heavy LW losses this early? I've tried assigning 2 to 3 flak battalions to each flieger korps and setting all fighters and fighter bombers to 'both'.

Thanks in advance for any information / tips!

[thedoctorking]

Yes, if your units are flying both day and night, they will run up fatigue quickly. It's a function of how many miles they fly, so this would only be true if the enemy were attacking at night and they were intercepting.

Yes, that is a quite proper and historical outcome. The counter-measure is to keep the German air units concentrated - air bases stacked three high - to prevent many bombing missions. Then, you assign a bunch of AAA units to each air HQ and keep them close, too. The concentrations should be well behind the lines. Most USSR fighters have ranges in the 15-20 zone, so putting your airbases more than 18 hexes or so back is a good move. Then, you put an empty airbase from each air corps close to the front (and within fighter range of your main group) to serve as a "staging' base.

Also, you should withdraw any air unit that has very high fatigue levels (I use 25 as a guideline), very low morale (50 for the Germans), and/or low numbers of ready aircraft (under 40% or so) back to National Reserve at the beginning of the turn. They aren't going to do you any good and will just allow the Soviets to rack up cheap victories.

[thedoctorking]

As the Soviets, you can cheerfully lose all the SB-2's you have. If you go bomb a German airfield and lose 30 SB-2's and destroy 3 Me-109's, that's a victory.

[MAS]

thanks much!