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

[cfulbright]

Hoggorm,

I may have asked this before: are you bombing the same targets? If so, you're getting less incremental damage, and you should find some new targets to bomb. The targets won't be as big, but you'll be getting 50% damage points rather than 5-10 points.

On the three graphs you posted:

1. You're losing a lot of Allied aircraft! What altitude are you flying at? You should be at 21K' at least for 8th AF, if not 24K', to take advantage of the Allies' better performance at that altitude than the Bf 109's. Are you using the four adjustable way points to avoid heavy flak concentrations? Are you losing primarily 8th AF planes or Bomber Command planes?

2. What were you bombing through turn 28, when you were getting 70-100 bombing VP'ss per turn, what were you hitting in turns 33-36, when you were only getting 21 bombing VP's per turn, and what did you hit in turns 29 and 40 to get back up to 59 bombing points per turn?

BTW, keep in mind that the bombing VP's appear in the turn AFTER the actual bombing took place. The top graph you posted actually shows 0 bombing VP's in turn, which might be hard to see because the Y axis starts at -180.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

Cary,

Thank you for once again taking your time to help me!

I try to vary the targets, but after a few turns I often return to Ruhr (Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg, Dusseldorf, Wuppertal and Cologne). Other targets are Kassel, Bremen, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart.

Do you say I get one point per percentage damage done? I've tried to avoid the cities with lower manpower and HI (under 10) as I was thinking hitting 50% in a 20 HI city is better than hitting 100% in an 8 HI city. Am I wrong? As far as I understand it destroyed 10 HI in city A, but only 8 in city B, correct?

If I should follow the advice received earlier with having twice the fighters to bombers in 8th AF, I see that I cannot hit larger HI or AIR cities further into Germany with very many bombers. There might only be around 60 fighters to escort. That means no more than 30 bombers, and they do not do much damage.

I try to keep my Air Directives as few as possible so that I can have many bombers in one strike a day. That means that I have to limit the range to the fighters with the less range. One other reason to keep my Air Directives as few as possible is because of recon. I seem to not have enough there to fly to more than three bombing targets a turn.

1 - I am flying at the highest altitude possible. For the 8th AF that is around 31 to 35000 ft. For RAF I split into two ADs. One fly at 23000 ft with mainly Lancaster’s and all escorts I can gather, while the Halifax and Wellington fly unescorted at 21000 ft. Both are at their maximum altitude.

I always use the adjustable way points to route the bomber force around heavy flak. I might go next to and even over some hexes with light flak.

I seem to lose mostly Bomber command aircraft (Perhaps since I only have around 100 fighters escorting them, and I fly with twice the number of bombers). In 8th AF I lose a lot of fighters, but not very many bombers.

2 - In turn 28 I was bombing Cologne. It was basically what I always do except that I used all three bomber ADs on the same city. I used the following ADs:

Recon with the following priorities: MAN High, HI High and ARM Low
39 aircraft in 3 groups
Days 12 4 67
35000 ft
Min 0
Request Auto

RAF Bomber command with the following priorities: MAN High, HI Low
60 groups
Days 234
23000 ft
Min 100 bombers and 100 escorts
Request 150/150

RAF Bomber command with the following priorities: MAN High, HI Low
7 groups
Days 56
21000 ft
Min 0
Request Auto

8th AF with the following priorities: HI High, ARM Low
37 groups
Days 2 4 6
31000 ft
Min 250 bombers and 500 escorts
Request 270/550

Turn 33 were a turn with rain and heavy rain. I did not fly that turn. All crews were resting.

Turn 34 I bombed Frankfurt and Bielefeld.

Frankfurt was hit with:

Recon with the following priorities: MAN High, HI High and ARM Low
40 aircraft in 3 groups
Days 12 4 67
35000 ft
Min 0
Request Auto

RAF Bomber command with the following priorities: MAN High, HI Low
68 groups
Days 2 4 6
23000 ft
Min 100 bombers and 100 escorts
Request 160/160

8th AF with the following priorities: HI High, ARM Low
24 groups
Days 2 4 6
31000 ft
Min 100 bombers and 150 escorts
Request 100/200

Bielefeld was hit with:

Recon with the following priorities: MAN Normal
11 aircraft in 1 group
Days 4567
35000 ft
Min 0
Request Auto

RAF Bomber command with the following priorities: MAN High
11 groups
Days 56
21000 ft
Min 0
Request Auto

Turn 35 was targeting Cologne, Sweinfurt and Freiburg

Sweinfurt was targeted by RAF with basically the same settings as before.

For Cologne I could only request 75 bombers and 150 fighters.

In turn 36 I guess I was somewhat frustrated so I targeted Aachen HI and ARM with 250/500 8th AF bombers/fighters and RAF MAN with the Halifax and Wellington groups.

As far as I know RAF bombed Berlin during night in 1944, so I tried with 1000 bombers and 100 fighters. It was not very successful... But as far as I remember I did not lose more than about 40 bombers.

I also targeted Bremen AIR, HI, ARM and U-Boat with 8th AF and requested 250/700 bombers/fighters.

Turn 29 and 40 was raining turns so I did not fly either of those. And that is where I really struggle to understand what is happening. I gain more VP during turns I do not fly...

[loki100]

few general bits - but as much my opinions rather than anything else

a) you are flying 8 AAF too high, I'd only do that if I was making a lunge for the U-Boats at Danzig etc or for a deep raid. You are building up fatigue (=op losses) and trading off too much avoiding flak for accuracy. I suspect that is also why you are losing 8 AAF fighters

My view - go in about 24,000', you can play around a bit but this seems a decent trade off. Equally, esp with 8 AAF you want to engage the Luftwaffe (and at your altitude they won't come to play) but to pull them above their natural cieling (which is mostly around 21.000').

b) targetting. its worth a really careful read of the rules both for damage repair and what generates VP. At the end of the day 1 pt of damage is 1 pt towards the VP score so it doesn't really matter too much if you stack up lots of small targets or a few big ones. Except, small 'factories' repair faster, so your damage to HI in the Ruhr sticks around longer than taking a small HI location in the Rhineland. There is a small flip side to this - its clearly easier for the axis to concentrate their repair efforts on a few large locations. So ideally you want some sort of spread.

c) BC and Berlin - we all do this (despite the evidence). The key is it is outside the OBOE range so any raid is less effective. You are better keeping to a pretty simple minded diet of the Ruhr week in week out with side trips to say Hamburg or down towards Stettin.

d) Cary has a well developed view on how he uses fighters, hence his view on the ratio of escorts to bombers. its not that I think he is wrong (its a good approach) but its not one that I regularly use. If I feel I have extra fighters once the missions are well enough escorted, I go for AS instead. But then I'm willing to gamble on the occasional 'tits-up' (to use the precise term) mission where my bombers just get caught out.

Roger

[Hoggorm]

Thank you also Roger for once again giving helpful advice!

a - I only had one consideration when choosing the high altitude, and that was flak avoidance. I see that there could be less accurate bombing from that altitude. But why would the fatigue be higher when flying high? Less dense air is the only thing that comes to mind, but that would be basically the same from 20000 ft as well. I'll try a lower altitude anyway as you suggest! But why do you fly high on longer missions? Is it because of little, or no, air cover?

b - Spreading makes sense! Do you have a reference to the manual where I can read about the damage repair and VP generation?

c - Is the OBOE system simulated in WitW?

d - I am sure it is a good idea to have lots of escorts together with the bombers. I really have little knowledge about this (and how it was actually was done during WW2) but I see that the more fighters I have, the less bombers I tend to loose. The problem however is that I can have nearly ten times the amount of bombers than fighters. So many of my bombers may not fly for several weeks, while my fighters might fly several times a week. I'm not sure how realistic this is? I was under the impression that during the war many bombing missions were flown with either no or just partly escorted. But I might very well be wrong here!

[loki100]

a - not quite sure where the rules are but its from 1.01.31 patch notes in the living manual. if I recall the key point is >26,000' - in effect it simulates the effect of extreme cold on the bomber crews. So yes, I'd only go high if the mission is basically going to be unescorted - the obvious one is taking out the Danzig U-boats (which you probably need to do say 3 times in 1943), others are 8 AAF over Berlin in 1943 or 15 AAF hitting S Germany/Austria in 1943

b - its the table in 21.2.3 and the notes that smaller factories repair faster. The VP rules are in 25.1.1. This also helps your targetting decisions, VP earned off oil production lasts longer than off say manpower for a given block of damage.

c - yes, see 17.3.4.1, which is why I end up being boring and concentrate on the Ruhr with BC

d - this is a judgement/best guess/some knowledge of the rules. At its simplest escorts don't go looking for a fight, if the enemy doesn't bother the bombers they have done their job. So at a point, you get less and less reward for more escorts. AS goes looking for a fight, so once your bombers are reasonably protected, running an AS will trigger more A2A. You can sort of see this in the detailed battle reports where air groups on sweeps tend to fight more than those on escort. Whether this is what you want is very situational.

I would run AS with Fighter Command in 1943 (its not doing much else), I wouldn't with 8 AAF (its hard enough keeping the bombers escorted). Come 1944, I go hunting and if anything under-escort to get more fighters into the AS missions.

[cfulbright]

Hoggorm,

Loki makes excellent points. I'll reiterate them and make some more:

1. For 8th AF you're flying way too high! As he says, I would fly between 21K and 24K. At 30-35K, a) you don't hit anything, and b) there's a fatigue penalty and on your air groups for that altitude that results in higher losses for no gain.

2. My recommendation on flying 2:1 escorts to bombers is a) do it when you can afford it, and b) do it for the earliest turns. If you're successful in wearing down the Luftwaffe and their EXP levels come down due to attrition you won't need to do it as much. For bombing effectiveness you want/need 50-100 aircraft per target (target being one factory in one city, in clear weather.

3. Recon - if I read you correctly and you're flying 39 recon aircraft over Cologne for 3 targets, you're flying too many aircraft. I'd fly 1 or 2 planes per target (2 if you haven't reconned it lately, 1 if you reconned it last turn), so I'd only use one air group and designate Rec AC as 1 or 2.

4. Recon - I fly at 27K and medium-level cameras. I don't know whether I get better or worse results, but I do get less fatigue fur sure on the air groups.

5. Bombing - I only target one type of target per AD. So in your second AD you list, I wouldn't bother "HI Low". The game usually won't hit the Low priority target. If you want to hit two types of targets in a hex or area, do two AD's instead of one.

6. Night Fighters - I find they're more effective doing Night Intruder missions than escort. I usually will include one NF air group as escorts, but use most of the rest for large area Intruder missions. You set them up as follows:
- Air Superiority AD
- Choose night
- Choose Friendly air phase only
- Choose all days you are flying night bombing missions
- Pick an area like size 4 over Groningen or size 6 over Hamburg, or just size 6 over your target for the week
- Assign two NF air groups per Intruder AD and set Req AC to 12 (as high as it will go).
After turn 1 look at your Combat results to see where your NF's shot down their NF's, then you know where their NF air bases are and can just target those bases. I don't think this is cheating because I'm sure those RAF NF pilots would tell their debriefers where they pounced on German NF's that were landing.

7. NF's and Additional Air HQ's ("AAHQ's") - It may historically have been true that the NF's were assigned to Fighter Command (I have no idea), but you don't have enough AD's per HQ to keep them there. Assign two NF air groups per Bomber Command group (e.g., No. 1 Group RAF, No. 6 Group RCAF), to give yourself more bandwidth. And when you get No. 100 Group RAF, assign two or four groups that you use for Intruder missions to it. Historically it was formed for exactly that purpose (as well as ECM AC that never made it into the game).

8. AAHQ's in General - this is one of the scenarios you want to use all your AD's so you can operate with ine precision when you want to. The scenario already comes this way, but for 8th AF, spread FB and Recon air groups among the three Bomb Divisions. You always can do an 8th AF AD for a big target and the Bomb Division groups will be available, but it doesn't work in the other direction (you can't use groups assigned to 8th AD for a 1st Bomb Div AD). Keep the BR Rec in No. 106 Group, as that was the purpose of the group and it gives you 4-6 more AD's.

9. In the Weeds - these are low-level tactics and techniques I use. If you want to devote the time to them, but they're mostly set (on Turn 1) and forget:
- Turn 1 - you may want to waste Turn 1 and use it to reorganize the locations of all your air groups (see below). You have 42 more turns to take advantage of this investment.
- Fighter Command - you've got 29 FB and F groups. Group them in two bases (e.g., Boxted, Southend, Ashford, or Martlesham), and fly two size 4 Air Superiority AD's as far out as you can and on the path to your daytime targets. For example: 15 groups in Ashford, make sure 90gal tanks on all, Staging base Ashford, size 4, target Eindhoven, Friendly Air Phase only, 24K' (if you're flying 8th AF AD's at 21K') Follow path yes (otherwise your Staging base will keep changing and your groups won't be able to reach the target), Req AC to 3/4 of the available (to give the rest some rest each day). Note, if you do this, MAKE SURE you set the Ashford air base MAX TOE to 100 and Supply Priority to 4, otherwise you won't have maximum Ready aircraft) The other one could be out of Boxted to two hexes to the East of Enkhuizen if you have 8th AF bombing Hamburg.
- Also Fighter Command - a) The Mustang IA is useless, swap it out. b) The Spitfires XII's are great planes, but don't have range, so swap them out. c) When you have ~160 Spitfire VIII's in the pool, swap out your ten best Fighter Command groups to this model and create a new Superiority AD with a longer range (e.g., out over the Ruhr). I don't know what to do with the Typhoon groups. They can't do strategic bombing and I've never seen them effective in bombing airfields. I retain them as swap them out for Spitfire IX's, retrain them as Fighters (do it in the same screen before you move to another air group), and get them back in eight turns to use for Air Superiority AD's. If the game didn't want you to do this, it wouldn't have given them to you.
- 8th AF - a) For your escort groups, range is vital, so move them as far East as possible (what are they doing in Debden???). You only are going to have the six 8th AF escort groups, so I'd put four in Halesworth and the other two in Bungay, that will give you maximum escort range over the Ruhr and targets SE of there. b) Upgrade to P-38G's when you have enough to outfit two or three air groups (all in the same base!), so that will be turn 5 or 7. Even though you take a two-point hit in Exp, the much longer range is worth it. c) Move all your air groups as far East as possible for shorter range purposes, so move those B-17 groups to Hethel, Metfield, etc. You ought to be able to get 4-5 B-17 groups in each size 3 airfield. Again, make sure you set air base MAX TOE to 100 and Supply Priority to 4.
- Staging Bases - ALWAYS move the escorts (which have shorter range), including the NF's, to the farthest East base that is closest to the path most of your bombing AD's will take, then use those bases as your Staging Bases for your bombing AD's. For example, if you follow my advice above, in 8th AF your AD's should use Halesworth as the staging base for ALL your AD's. The reason is that you want the bombers flying to the fighters, not vice versa.
- Air bases - this may just be my obsessive-compulsiveness, but if you do move all your air groups to much fewer air bases in the East (leaving the Bomber Command groups in Yorkshire is fine), then after you've done your moving around in Turn 1, go into the Commander's Report, filter to Airbases only, then filter to Airbases without AC, and set TOE to 1 and Supply Priority to 0. That will keep men and supplies from going to them. This only matter in land/air campaigns, I don't know for sure. Also, sort by HHQ and assign the empty air bases to RAF HQ or USTAF. Again, this may not make a difference, but I figure the fewer air bases that Eaker or Harris has to worry about, the better.
- Days of the week - a) You want to tire out the Luftwaffe, so fly both Day and Night bombing AD's every day - but never one AD more than three days per week. For example, fly a No. 1 Group RAF night mission days 1/3/5, and No. 3 Group days 2/4/6. b) (Possibly "gamey") Fly the AD's for which you have the most escorts the first days of the week, when the Luftwaffe is strongest and most rested. Fly an 8th AF AD with four escort groups on days 1/2/3, then fly 1st Bomb Div and days 4/5/6 and 3rd Bomb Div on days 5/6/7.
- Req AC - If you have an AD with multiple targets, you can use the combination of Strike Number and Req AC to put more Escorts in the first strikes and less or none in the later strikes of a day. For example (probably silly example) let's say you target Ghent HI, size 4, so there are five HI targets. Set Strike Number to 5 and set Req AC to 90 bombers and 70 escorts. The fourth and fifth strikes won't have much if any escorts, but the LW typically assigns its interceptors to the first 2-3 strikes.

And lastly, to your question about how you get VP's when you rest; VP's are based on ALL damaged factory values, not just newly damaged ones. So if you bomb Essen HI to 100% in turn 2, you'll reap the VP rewards of that for many turns thereafter, on a declining basis. That's why you need to keep finding new targets.

I hope this helps. I think I've forgotten some things, but they may come to me later.

Cary

[cfulbright]

I completely agree with Roger on his points here. I should reiterate that I use my 3:1 escort/bomber tactic in the earlier turns of a long campaign when you want to wear down the LW and kills its better pilots. Once you're no longer losing lots of AC's and in particular lots of bombers you can go to 1:1.

Also, if you send out heavily escorts AD's in Days 1/2/3, you can use lightly escorted AD's in Days 5/6/7.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

Thank you very much both of you!

Great suggestions that I will try to implement in my gameplay right away.

Regarding Fighters in Fighter Command I have transferred them to the 8th AF so that they can join in on the escort of my bombers. What do you think of this strategy? That leaves Fighter command with only the Typhoons that I have more or less ignored. I will try to train them as fighters instead.

Is it important that all squadrons at one airbase are from the same 8th AF Bomb division or RAF bomb group? I've more or less ignored the Bomb Groups and Bomb Divisions and instead just focused on RAF BC or 8th AF.

[cfulbright]

Regarding Fighters in Fighter Command I have transferred them to the 8th AF so that they can join in on the escort of my bombers. What do you think of this strategy? That leaves Fighter command with only the Typhoons that I have more or less ignored. I will try to train them as fighters instead.

As Loki indicated, AS is always up, looking for trouble, so more likely to run into something than escorts. Also, if you spread out your daytime AD's so one is flying every day of the week, and also have your AS AD's up every day of the week, you'll get more coverage that way. Lastly, assigning FC groups to 8th AF is ahistorical. I'm not a pure stickler for that - why bother playing the game if you're not willing to try different strategies and tactics - you have to make your own judgment on that. I generally keep the Commonwealth air and ground units together, and than the US, BZ, and FF together (except the FF numbered RAF groups).

Is it important that all squadrons at one airbase are from the same 8th AF Bomb division or RAF bomb group? I've more or less ignored the Bomb Groups and Bomb Divisions and instead just focused on RAF BC or 8th AF.

There was a rule changed at some point that made it so there's NO penalty to have air groups at non-group bases. I try to do it because I'm OCD, but I don't wish that on anyone!

Cary

[bomccarthy]

It's actually not ahistorical for RAF and USAAF to escort each other's raids. This was very common for England-based groups in 1942 and early 1943 and occasionally happened after that. In the game, the only way to get an escort is to have the fighters assigned to the same HQ as the bombers, regardless of nationality.

The problem with an RAF escort is the short range of the Spitfires - it seems hardly worth the trouble.

[Hoggorm]

The last couple of days I've tested out the new tactic and without doubt the best result came from lowering the altitude.

From the original playthrough I reverted back to turn 10 (I think) and started playing from there. This was the time when I started loosing a lot earlier.

This time it started very well and my VP rise like never before until turn 24. At that point I made some daring raids on Hamburg I think where I lost a lot of bombers. I tried something similar in the next turn and my VP rapidly dropped back nearly 10 turns worth... After that I seem to gain very little VP again even though I escort my bombers heavily, loose few aircraft and hit quite good.

I'm thinking about why it can be so this time. Could it be because of winter and low temperatures again? Any suggestions why the situation has changed?

[GloriousRuse]

It could be that you are hitting targets that are already maxed out (or near it) on damage, but are now paying the loss cost of flying into the snow. Few points coming in, more going out.

[Hoggorm]

Yes, I think you are right. For some reason my bombing damage dropped very much from turn 29 to 30. After that there has been a few turns with bad weather...

Is there a way to set up an AD so that I make sure that those 200 fighters that can go all the way to the target do so, but also so that the 600 fighters that can only do part of the trip also join in?

It does not seem to work very well when I ask for 800 fighters to join...

[bomccarthy]

Strategic victory points based on strategic bombing points drop in Jan '44 - this could explain much of the drop.

[Hoggorm]

That would make sense considering some turns later I'm in march '44

So there is nothing to do about this, I just get less VP for the same damage done?

[cfulbright]

Is there a way to set up an AD so that I make sure that those 200 fighters that can go all the way to the target do so, but also so that the 600 fighters that can only do part of the trip also join in?

It does not seem to work very well when I ask for 800 fighters to join...

Unfortunately I haven't found a way to make that work. In 1944 when the Allies get long-range P-51D's and P-38J's, all with different ranges, in order to get them all to fly I actually choose the smaller tanks on the model that has the longest range, so technically none of them can make it all the way, then they'll all fly. Hopefully that makes sense.

But an alternative would be to create two AD's. One has the longer range escorts and a proportionate share of the bombers, and flies on days 1/2/3, and the second has the shorter range escorts and the rest of the bombers and flies on days 4/5/6.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Unfortunately I haven't found a way to make that work. In 1944 when the Allies get long-range P-51D's and P-38J's, all with different ranges, in order to get them all to fly I actually choose the smaller tanks on the model that has the longest range, so technically none of them can make it all the way, then they'll all fly. Hopefully that makes sense.

But an alternative would be to create two AD's. One has the longer range escorts and a proportionate share of the bombers, and flies on days 1/2/3, and the second has the shorter range escorts and the rest of the bombers and flies on days 4/5/6.

Cary

I understand. I see that I lost a lot of bombers on a couple of mission where I did this. When the bombers and their escorts are engaged some of the fighters drop their fuel tanks and at seems like fewer and fewer fighters are able to follow the bombers towards the target.

I just completed my next play through. It did initially start very well, but after turn 24 everything came apart. I took a great deal of losses in a couple of turns there and I were never able to recover what was lost... Now, I did not start the scenario from the start (I used a save from turn 10), so there could be some error brought forward from the previous play, that were not possible to correct.

[Hoggorm]

Victory points bombing

[Hoggorm]

Victory points us lost (is it Us lost or United States lost?)

[cfulbright]

I just completed my next play through. It did initially start very well, but after turn 24 everything came apart. I took a great deal of losses in a couple of turns there and I were never able to recover what was lost... Now, I did not start the scenario from the start (I used a save from turn 10), so there could be some error brought forward from the previous play, that were not possible to correct.

I see two inflection points, and ask what you started doing differently in each case:

1. Turn 25 - What did you change or start doing that turn and through turn 28 that resulted in almost 700 lost US points?

2. Turn 29 - was it bad weather or something else that caused your weekly bombing VP's to go from ~140 to ~40?

By the way, "US Loss" is United States lost. You also should look at "Other Loss" to see what's going on with Bomber Command and Fighter Command.

Cary