1.12.05 - WAD or am I mismanaging?

[eskuche]

It can be quite difficult for axis to recover if Soviet player is specifically targeting the Luftwaffe and the Axis does not remove it from escorted bombing range. In one of my games, Axis is doing as Tyronec and ground bombing before attacks. However, he has over-used fighter escorts, leading to a death spiral of me bombing Axis airbases.

Turn 16:

[tyronec]

I would describe the air action in my game versus Tyronec

He bombs heavily my units he is about to attack. That's it for him. His airgroups are very bunched for protection and give good attack.

For me, I bomb units i am about to attack, i attack his airfields especially to kill recon and general front line day and night bombing.

My fighters do zilch when he air ground attacks my units. His fighters will only intercept on my ground attacks and on my airbase attacks. Not on general bombing.

Result is i have some very high morale tactical L2 bombers. and filled Russian units.

He has not been attacking my airbases. Why bother when you are steamrolling on the ground. And i cannot stop his concentration from the air when he wants superiority.

We are at turn 57.

Brian describes it well.
Axis can get some useful bombing before attacks every turn, but I have to be careful not to over use my fighters or they will get too fatigued and then he can bomb my airbases. So I try to use the minimum of escorts on each attack and every few turns a mission gets caught without enough escorts and the Soviets shoot down a stack of bombers. I have a glut of fighters and LBs now so can afford the odd mishap but overall the Luftwaffe is very restricted whereas the VVS can engage at will.

VVS are killing around 2-3k a turn with ground bombing. And then I think there there are more ground losses in the follow up ground combats.
I cannot afford to use GS, except on very rare occasions. So the Soviets have the advantage of that for most combats.

The Recon bombing is reducing the amount of Recon I can do each turn but am never going to run out of aircraft. In my other game he is not doing Recon bombing, it does make life a bit easier for Axis with not having to protect the Recon units. So I think Recon bombing is gaining a very moderate advantage but is not costing the Soviets much.

I think any attempt by Axis to bomb Soviet air bases would totally trash the Luftwaffe. I tried it once against airbases that were about to be overrun and even then it cost far too many aircraft for the damage inflicted. Whereas playing a couple of years ago bombing air bases, certainly in '41, was a fair prospect for Axis.

[joelmar]

I don't think that bombing Soviet airbases was a thing for the LW in WWII beyond june 22 1941 anyway. But I agree with how you use the LW, I do mostly the same.

Except that for ground support/ground attacks I do the opposite, I privilege Ground support instead of bombing before attacks. Ground Support has a direct effect on the battle because every disrupted elements don't participate in the final CV calculation, while disruption by Ground attacks only adds fatigue to the unit, which is also useful, but doesn't have as much impact on ground battles. So if I have the luxury of doing both, I do both, but if I have to choose it's ground support.

For bombing of recon, I'm 100% with Telemecus. Anyone playing the Soviets against me is very welcome to do so.

[tyronec]

Except that for ground support/ground attacks I do the opposite, I privilege Ground support instead of bombing before attacks. Ground Support has a direct effect on the battle because every disrupted elements don't participate in the final CV calculation, while disruption by Ground attacks only adds fatigue to the unit, which is also useful, but doesn't have as much impact on ground battles. So if I have the luxury of doing both, I do both, but if I have to choose it's ground support.

Understand that, however the problem with GS is a lot more Soviet fighters are turning up and you have less control over what the Luftwaffe send so you have to be careful with where and how often. With direct bombing you can tailor what goes to each attack and as long as the Soviet fighter response is not too erratic you can get a lot of use from the bombers, usually I get some units up to 100% traveled.

I would prefer it if the optimum tactic was for both sides to primarily be using GS but I don't think that is the case at present.

[joelmar]

It all depends on doctrine levels. But there is the interception bug that is a big problem ATM for reserve activations (not enough CAP missions to counter added enemy ground support). It's particularly painful when the enemy gets 2 corps activated on reserve... your ground support suddenly gets overwhelmed and losses are ridiculous. I can't wait for the next patch when this is fixed, until then, the air war is very much biased to the Soviets.

[eskuche]

@Tyronec.
Mostly good play! You can consider also stacking recon bases on or near your fighter bases. I know many hesitate to move airbases after they are placed and airgroups transferred to them, but in reality it's a minor fatigue bump and the occasional damaged plane (for Germans at least) to scoot bases back even 10-20 hexes after planes have flown. This 1) prevents recons from getting bombed or 2) prevents you from having to dedicate fighter range and expected help to airbases relatively far away.

Another point is that ground bombing will have only very minimal effects on a future battle. Soviet manpower is so expansive that ground bombing for casualties as the VVS can do (I've gotten 10k+ a turn in 1941) is pointless. However, disruption/fatigue is converted as such a bad rate that I only see a point to ground bomb very, very important battles and to disrupt/fatigue potentially pocketed troops by decreasing their MPs. Ground support on your turn should incur about the interception rate as ground bombing on your tunr and is 3-9 times more effective in terms of the direct effects of battle disruption.

[chaos45]

Ground bombing can turn what might be a close battle into a for sure win...esp if the defenders aren't entrenched so they suffer more disruption before your attack.

Not to mention if its a strong stack you can bomb 2x push them back then bomb them 2x more....will basically decimate their combat effectiveness for the following turn...and if you can do 3 hexes against the same units....they become basically combat ineffective even if they don't rout as all their strength is completely disrupted more or less...so the next turn their fatigue will skyrocket with affects their combat ability that entire turn as well.

[eskuche]

Stacks are even worse for bombing because only one unit counter is hit at random. I might be wrong but if the German focuses on using a lot of his air assets in a theatre to decimate one or even five Soviet units at a time, the Soviets are probably winning overall because you're not focusing on pocketing.

I agree that ground bombing can turn the tides, but Germans are getting at absolute max 300 kills per ground bomb run and ~6,000 disrupted (usually 1000-2000), which converts to 2,000/10,000 men in a rifle division = ~20% fatigue for ONE soviet counter. I do not want to spend any fighters doing this at all whatsoever.

Example below: the full complement of axis ground bombing took out ~4000 men, which less than one rifle brigade. Average disruption was 2,000 or roughly 5% fatigue. Look at the required fighter escort the Germans used. That translates to ballpark 10-25% fatigue on the entire Luftwaffe which means in turn I was able to take out 10,000 men and 200 planes as above due to limited LW interception capabilities. It's almost never worth it to stress the LW out for minor, minor gains (in the greater scheme) such as a few thousand men killed.

[joelmar]

I agree with eskuche.

One distinction to make about disruption is that it's always converted to fatigue BEFORE the next battle. So disruption as such never accumulates, but fatigue does.

[chaos45]

I think you guys misunderstand---its not mass bombing you want to do...its selective bombing.

Also why waste bombers on soviet rifle divisions? usually they have low CV anyway. As germans save the bombs for tank corps/cav corps in open if at all possible. As soviets you want to knock German units out of entrenchments then bomb them every chance you get.

In all honesty the game aside from Leningrad/Moscow is all won/lost in the south....as its open ground and once one side has an edge its very hard for the other side to get the initiative back due to the clear terrain and how effective tanks and air strikes are in clear terrain--esp against unfortified units.


In your example you're bombing some very bad targets is part of the reason for your bad results. Its all about hitting targets in the open and not entrenched--that's where Air power gets it best effects.

[Disgruntled Veteran]

I started the thread because my airforce was getting destroyed on the ground. Most other aspects of my air war are same as usual. Last turn I lost around 200 planes just on the ground. You couldn't always do that.

[joelmar]

I do that all the time, but I choose my targets among future objectives for ground offensive to smooth them out a bit, not because they are more vulnerable, and if they happen to be both, well, all the better. I also do that with pocketed units to make them burn supplies faster. Finally, when I wish to have a little more info on enemy units than what normal recon can give, a good old bombing run sometimes does the trick.

The fact that the Soviets can bomb a lot is indeed a good balancing tool for their lack of recon.

You can hit fort levels with some effect too. I use big bombs for that, like the 1000 kg Ju-88As, which are not as efficient as dive, tacs and H111 on unfortified targets to begin with

[eskuche]

Sorry to offtopic. But generally in 1.12 German fighters are 1-2 shot wonders then drop off with fatigue and aforementioned bugs. Against a persistent VVS you have to keep them out of MiG escort range (19 hexes).

[Disgruntled Veteran]

ORIGINAL: eskuche

Sorry to offtopic. But generally in 1.12 German fighters are 1-2 shot wonders then drop off with fatigue and aforementioned bugs. Against a persistent VVS you have to keep them out of MiG escort range (19 hexes).

Good to know

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Disgruntled Veteran

ORIGINAL: eskuche

Sorry to offtopic. But generally in 1.12 German fighters are 1-2 shot wonders then drop off with fatigue and aforementioned bugs. Against a persistent VVS you have to keep them out of MiG escort range (19 hexes).

Good to know

Beware later on in 1941 the soviets get a plentiful supply of Hurricanes so you may want to extend that to 26 hexes. The very long range P-40Bs however you do not need to worry about.

[joelmar]

...and the Soviets can use staging air bases too.

[Chris21wen]

What happened to using an empty airbase well forward as a staging base?