Trying to understand effect of targets and best use of the air force

[loki100]

1 - definitely happens for non-strategic recon, you can set up a flight path that checks out interesting areas beside the target. I've never noticed this for strategic recon so it maybe WAD - I presume that by its nature its a much more specialist mission?

2 - F11 will bring them up, that'll show all battles in the last 2 phases (ie axis and allied)

3 - yep, they are going for say manpower but hit something else, given BC's accuracy sometimes you're lucky the target was in Hamburg [;)]

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: loki100

3 - yep, they are going for say manpower but hit something else, given BC's accuracy sometimes you're lucky the target was in Hamburg [;)]

Thank you for the quick answers. I do not see any battle sites however in F11 mode when starting a new turn...

I have another one:


I see that in turns with bad weather where I rest all my crews, I still gain VP (even more than if I fly... I must be really bad at bombing...) Why is this?

[cfulbright]

Thank you for the quick answers. I do not see any battle sites however in F11 mode when starting a new turn...

I have another one:


I see that in turns with bad weather where I rest all my crews, I still gain VP (even more than if I fly... I must be really bad at bombing...) Why is this?

Click on the Filters near the top of the screen and make sure you have all battle types checked.

I playtested the air campaigns and found that if I bombed on turn 1 and never bombed again for the rest of the game, I still got victory points every turn because of the damage I'd caused in turn 1. I think they tried to address this by increasing the required victory points at each level for Allied victory, but I believe getting victory points for past air damage is built into the code.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Click on the Filters near the top of the screen and make sure you have all battle types checked.

I playtested the air campaigns and found that if I bombed on turn 1 and never bombed again for the rest of the game, I still got victory points every turn because of the damage I'd caused in turn 1. I think they tried to address this by increasing the required victory points at each level for Allied victory, but I believe getting victory points for past air damage is built into the code.

In your picture you are still in your ground phase, and then I can see the battle sites. However when starting the next turn all those are lost (unless I was attacked by the other side).

End of turn 34

[Hoggorm]

Start of turn 35

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I playtested the air campaigns and found that if I bombed on turn 1 and never bombed again for the rest of the game, I still got victory points every turn because of the damage I'd caused in turn 1. I think they tried to address this by increasing the required victory points at each level for Allied victory, but I believe getting victory points for past air damage is built into the code.

I really do not understand this... As mentioned I was running through the Pointblank Directive and from turn 13 I used a lot more escort than earlier. This gave me a boost in VP, however only for a few turns. After around turn 25 I was only able to gain VP when not flying. Even though I shot down more axis planes than I lost myself (there is a bonus for the axis when they shoot down four engine bombers). My bombing seemed quite successful also.

I must be doing something wrong here, or was it just because I lost too many planes in the first few turns when I did not fly with enough fighters?

[cfulbright]

I believe the way the VP's work in Pointblank is that the Allies lose VP's for aircraft losses, but don't get any for Axis losses.

Can anyone confirm that?

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I believe the way the VP's work in Pointblank is that the Allies lose VP's for aircraft losses, but don't get any for Axis losses.

Can anyone confirm that?

Cary

That is true as far as I can understand. But why so few VPs for hitting targets? In the end I had a loss of about no more than 30-40 bombers out of nearly 1000 flown each turn. But the loss of those bombers, and some escorts made the trip not worth while.

[cfulbright]

Are you hitting the bigger 20 VP targets? As I recall they are HI, Air, Manpower, and Armament. So, relatively close to England:

HI: Essen, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart
Manpower: Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart
Air: Kassel, Bremen, Braunschweig, then farther: Leipzig, Regensburg, Bernburg

Also, if you've already gotten to 100% damage on the targets, then you won't get additional VP's. You need to switch to other targets.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

Yes, I target those, and occationaly U-boat factories that also produce 20 VP. I do see though that I often bomb other, less valuable targets, such as resources even though their priority were set to none. I often targeted a size 3/4 area around Essen. Bombing Bremen or Hamburg I normally used a size 0 area (one hex only).

I guess I`ll try the scenario again, and see what I can do differently. I`ll use more escorts for sure, although the range in the beginning is very limited...Can hardly reach Essen or Cologne I think.

[cfulbright]

For Cologne I would use Bomber Command at night, with the 14x1000lb loadout.

For Essen and Dusseldorf I'd use 8th Air Force, with P-47's escorting as far as they can.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

I were using the load with incendiary bombs on Bomber command since their target usually were manpower (as I understand is basically civilian homes and houses? Terror bombing in another word?) For the 8th AF I use as many 1000 lbs bombs I can get.

[cfulbright]

I'd also go for the 25 points of HI in Cologne.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

I'd also go for the 25 points of HI in Cologne.

Cary

What do you mean Cary? Should RAF bomb HI instead of Manpower?

Im about to redo the scenario from start. I do intend to bomb Cologne HI, but was planning to use 8th AF for this and RAF to Manpower only.

[cfulbright]

What do you mean Cary? Should RAF bomb HI instead of Manpower?

Bomber Command should do both. It's safer to bomb at night, and as your P47-C's don't have the range to get close to Cologne, let the BC do Cologne and Stuttgart.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

I understand. But you would not do boh Manpower and HI on the same turn?

[cfulbright]

You could schedule two strikes per day, and allocate 1/2 of your AC to each, but my experience is that the AI sometimes has both strikes target the same target. For best control, either set up two air directives, one for each target industry in the hex, or target one industry one week, and the other one the second week.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

I really have a hard time understanding what I am doing wrong here...

I've completed my 2nd play through of the Pointblank Directive. I've basically bombed two days with 8th AF, and 2 or 3 nights with RAF. For both I've done one strike per day/night For 8th AF I've used twice the number of escorts compared to bombers. Usually I've flown with about 100-300 bombers and 200-600 escorts. For RAF, since they fly at night, I've bombed with twice the number of bombers compared to escorts. Usually around 200 bombers and 100 fighters.

For the first nine turns I gained VP with this strategy. But after turn 9 I started to loose VPs. Normally I would call it funny, but since I have no idea why, and how to counter it, it is quite frustrating to see that every time after turn 9 that I flew, I lost VPs. Every time there was bad weather and I rested my crews, I gained VP...

There really is a logic I do not understand...

[Hoggorm]

Losses are mostly fighters, but around 3-6 out of 100 bombers were lost

[Hoggorm]

I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at here. I had the most damage done in the first turn?