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

[Hoggorm]

I see! A hard lesson learnt regarding the Corps HQ!

I was under the impression that some interdiction a few hexes behind the front is better than a lot on the front, as this would make an approaching division suffer from a lot of interdiction along the way.

Does your suggestion here apply to an invasion turn only where a lot of force is applied to one or two hexes only?

[cfulbright]

My recommendation is, when playing the AI, to keep interdiction close to the front line, within a hex or maybe two at most.

I'd be interested to hear what Loki or others say.

Cary

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

My recommendation is, when playing the AI, to keep interdiction close to the front line, within a hex or maybe two at most.

I'd be interested to hear that Loki or others say.

Cary

How can I refuse an offer like that [;)]

broadly I agree but it depends on how you think the AI will move. If its going to do its usual stuff in its own territory (I forget the exact WiTW threshold but in WiTE2 its when its morale bonus is 110+), then interdiction as a hit on movement is a waste of time.

But - you can still use interdiction as a tool vs resupply so it depends a bit on if there is a readily constricted zone you can plaster?

The other issue is that the AI 'moves' when it makes a reserve response. So if you spot Pzrs/PzrGr behind the line then that is worth hammering with interdiction as it can trash them if they are then triggered into combat. I realise this is hard to test, but I still think heavy interdiction will actually cause more losses than a unit attack IF the unit 'moves' and here I really mean 7+ as the target level. But I'd prioritise simply taking out the target hex with GA-unit + GS if I was short of planes.

One other quirk - and this is a wee bit gamey - its relatively easy to get 7-9 interdiction if you use the railway mission. I'm not sure this is WAD but its there and can be used. The advantage is you can actually control where the pattern of interdiction is laid down. This is incredibly useful in Italy when the rails follow the valleys and there is no gain to interdicted mountain tops but can be put to good use in France too. CW Mosquitos with rockets are the ideal for this variant.

[cfulbright]

Hoggorm,

I may have mentioned this, but do you rest all your air groups after the Allied air phase, so they're in Rest mode both during the Allied ground phase and the entire Axis turn? This significantly helps morale.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: loki100

One other quirk - and this is a wee bit gamey - its relatively easy to get 7-9 interdiction if you use the railway mission. I'm not sure this is WAD but its there and can be used. The advantage is you can actually control where the pattern of interdiction is laid down. This is incredibly useful in Italy when the rails follow the valleys and there is no gain to interdicted mountain tops but can be put to good use in France too. CW Mosquitos with rockets are the ideal for this variant.

I do not fully understand this. Attacking railway, if I understand the manual correctly, add to railway usage. I does not really destroy anything. (Will this additional rail usage only apply in the current turn?) Destroying railyards reduses available transport capacity. But interdiction slows down anything else. Am I not correct? So how can you get interdiction when attacking railways. Is this to simulate that an aircrafts mission is to attack trains, but will also attack other targets of opportunity in the same area?

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

Hoggorm,

I may have mentioned this, but do you rest all your air groups after the Allied air phase, so they're in Rest mode both during the Allied ground phase and the entire Axis turn? This significantly helps morale.

Cary

Yes, I rest all air groups that do not have a mission in this turn. Reason for not being set up for a mission could be low morale, high fatigue, etc.

[cfulbright]

Yes, I rest all air groups that do not have a mission in this turn. Reason for not being set up for a mission could be low morale, high fatigue, etc.

I want to make sure I'm clear, as this optimizes rest for each of your air units:

1. At the beginning of the air phase before actual flights, I rest: a) transports, b) low-morale units, and c) units assigned to ground support I assign low-morale FB's to ground support because they may recover enough during the air phase.
2. At the end of the air phase and before starting any movement in the ground phase I rest all air groups assigned to a) ground attack, b) strategic bombing, c) recon, and d) air superiority if they're only set to fly in Friendly turns, including NF intruders.
3. At the start of the ground phase I check the morale for all the Ground Support air groups and activate those that have sufficient morale.
4. At the end of the ground phase I deactivate Ground Support air units with low morale.
5. At the end of the ground phase I Add Pilots.

Are you doing all those steps?

Cary

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: Hoggorm

ORIGINAL: loki100

One other quirk - and this is a wee bit gamey - its relatively easy to get 7-9 interdiction if you use the railway mission. I'm not sure this is WAD but its there and can be used. The advantage is you can actually control where the pattern of interdiction is laid down. This is incredibly useful in Italy when the rails follow the valleys and there is no gain to interdicted mountain tops but can be put to good use in France too. CW Mosquitos with rockets are the ideal for this variant.

I do not fully understand this. Attacking railway, if I understand the manual correctly, add to railway usage. I does not really destroy anything. (Will this additional rail usage only apply in the current turn?) Destroying railyards reduses available transport capacity. But interdiction slows down anything else. Am I not correct? So how can you get interdiction when attacking railways. Is this to simulate that an aircrafts mission is to attack trains, but will also attack other targets of opportunity in the same area?

...

yes you effectively double dip on the mission. Now this is actually true of other GA missions, so a unit attack will generate a bit of interdiction but seems to be more noticeable with this one.

Set up a test, pick your mosquitos and run a normal GA-intediction over a region and then run it as GA-railway. You'll normally see higher interdiction in the target hexes but with the difference that the target hexes will only be rail hexes. In some situations this is no good to you but you can use it a lot in Italy so you don't bomb mountains (let the terrain MP inflict the interdiction for you). It can be useful in France but its more situational there.

[sfbaytf]

Interesting thread. Useful info...

I've been watching a youtube video where the creator read the actual US Bombing Survey and apparently the effort to bomb the Uboat pens was largely a waste of time. I haven't delved too deeply into all the videos yet as there are a lot of them. I am planning on trying to do what the author of the videos is attempting and that is concentrating on German truck production. It does sound though as if I'll have to pay some attention to the UBoatpens and other politically motivated targets if I want to avoid big VP penalties.

One other interesting strategy is the transferring of assets like the Typhoons to the Med in 43. I thought I heard that mentioned. I would think they would be useful in 43 while you're slogging it out in Italy, then moving them back to Europe once the allied land in Europe. I'm planning on exploring the mechanics and logistics of such a move.

Mention was made of the fact Henry Ford owned a truck factory in Germany and that was largely ignored by the Allieds. What minor damage done to the factory was quietly compensated for by the US government after that war. That factory was one of the first targets by the video creator and is mine too. Only difference is I'm using total fog of war, while he isn't so he can better assess the damage.

In the meantime I'm playing the Italy Campaign to work up to the grand Campaign.

[cfulbright]

Some responses to your comments:

1. For the grand campaigns you need to keep the UBoat factories in 1943 and the VWeapons factories and sites in 1944 and beyond at a minimal damage level to avoid the VP penalty. My advice is to hit them hard during the first two good weather turns of any grand campaign (make sure you recon them on days 1/2/3/6, then bomb them on days 3/5/7 or 5/6/7). Then hit every four weeks or so just to maintain some level of damage. And if you're playing Fog of War, better to hit them two turns in a row (three days each turn) to be sure you've gotten good coverage.

2. The Typhoons transfer has mixed opinions. One side considers it "ahistorical" to transfer all those FB air groups to Italy, but the other side, including me, doesn't have a problem with it. I play wargames to try different strategies rather than try to recreate the war exactly as it played out, and I don't see any use for all those Typhoons sitting in the UK for nine months. Same with the 9th US Air Force FB units.

3. My Strategic Bombing targeting has evolved over the past two years as I've read other veterans' posts. I used to target Fuel and SynFuel because of the findings of the Strategic Bombing Survey. But that didn't seem to put a significant dent in the Axis fuel stockpiles in the game, even if I bombed to oblivion the Ploesti area, the Ruhr, the larger targets around Hamburg, Misburg, and the fuel targets in Saxony. Now after adequately suppressing the UBoat and VWeapon sites I rotate among: a) the Bf 109 and Fw 190A factories in Leipzig, Regensburg, Weiner-Neustadt, Kassel, and Cottbus (and possibly Marienburg if I've achieve air supremacy); b) the largest Vehicle factories (e.g., Mainz); and then c) the largest HI targets. I don't hit other aircraft targets besides those FB-F sites, because I don't care about them because the Axis AI doesn't do much with them. I don't directly target Manpower for personal reasons.

I also switch Bomber Command from Night to Day about Turn 7 after the 8th Air Force and Fighter Command have significantly attrited the German interceptor force. I fly the 8th AF with its escorts the earlier days of each week, then the Bomber Command the 5/6/7 days. Also fly the 8th AF on the deeper missions and have Bomber Command do targets like the Ruhr (HI), Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt, etc. I use the 14x1000lb bomb load on the Lancasters for this (and switch out Stirlings and Halifaxes for Lancasters) for industry bombing.

Cary

[sfbaytf]

Victory can be subjective. On one hand there is what the games says. On the other hand when playing against the AI if I do better than what was the historical case, I feel I won regardless of what the game says. You can also play both ways.

Unlike the Torch scenarios-which I can't seem to win as the allieds against the AI-(wondering if the transport targeting bug is a factor), I'm finding the Campaign for Italy against the AI to be pretty easy at Normal levels. The AI does some dumb things-it let me surround the FJ Division in Sicily and destroy it. It also lets me surround and destroy units on the mainland. It likes to counter attack and while it does inflict more casualties most of the time, I'm not sure if this is productive in the long run. At times its challenging and the AI puts up a decent defense, I find that doing an amphib invasion will do the trick for the allied- and unlike the historical case I'm aggressive and not just sitting on the beach head.

Perhaps I'll need to consider making the game difficulty Challenging when I jump into the 43-45 Full Campaign. Against a real human opponent will be another story...

Just for kicks I've started another Italy 43-45 Campaign as the Germans and set it to challenging. I don't really know how to use the Italian air force and if it will be gone if and when Italy switches sides. The ground forces too will likely defect.

I'll need to get better versed in support units. I know how to assign to divisions, but at the HQ level and what it all means and how to go about it is still fuzzy.

[cfulbright]

On support units this is my practice, others may differ:

1. On-map ground units - I assign tank, SP art, and engineer units directly to the ground units I think either are going to attack or be attacked, and I try to do it at the end of the current ground turn, so they're more likely to fully participate in combat the next turn, and so I can relieve them if they take heavy losses. Also, you want to make sure you assign your UK Tank and Armoured Brigades and US Cavalry groups the turn before, so if you advance the unit it's assigned to, you can then convert the attached brigade/regiment to on-map and advance it one more hex - this can allow you to finish surrounding an enemy unit or pocket.

2. Corps HQ - I only assign artillery bns and AA units.

3. Army HQ - I don't assign anything other than AA units to these.

4. Army Group HQ - I put the Army Group HQ's on a big fat city and assign all the non artillery support units to them so they are available to any ground unit under that army group, and also they can recover some TOE in refit.

5. High Command HQ - I put AFHQ in Oran, SHAEF in Birmingham and UK Home Forces in Sheffield. These are National Supply Sources so units there refit the fastest. I transfer support units with 75 or lower TOE directly from the ground units they're assigned to the High Command HQ's at the end of each ground phase, and also transfer recovered support units from that HQ back to the Army Group HQ's.

As for which type of support units to assign:
- If attacking, particularly a unit that is fortified, include at least one Engineer battalion. SP Artillery provide dedicated long-range HE hits. Then fill up on tanks. The game doesn't reward combined arms directly, so once you solve for engineers and long-range artillery, armor is more powerful on attack than anything else. As mentioned, if you can assign a full CW armoured or tank brigade or US cavalry group to at least one of the divisions in the stack, that unit can advance an extra hex after advancing the division as far as you can, then converted the brigade/regiment to on-map.
- If defending, pretty much the same rules. You want at least one engineer per hex so that they hopefully build fortification over the turn.
- Keep you Corps HQ as close as possible to the units you expect to attack or defend, as there's a benefit to the attached artillery battalions being closer to the attack.

Cary

[sfbaytf]

I was assigning engineers directly to units-especially if they were attacking across rivers as I figured they would assist in attacking across rivers. Is there any difference between combat engineers or other types of engineers. I assume a unit that doesn’t move will entrench. Sounds like having an engineer attached to a unit will allow unit to entrench faster.

The allieds have quite a bit of light and heavy AA. The Luftwaffe isn’t much of a threat and I had nothing else available and units with no support or free space so I attached the AA to units especially the light stuff thinking they may assist in attack and defense as AA especially the rapid firing light stuff was useful in the ground role and for the Germans the 88AA was very useful in the ground role. Is that the case in the game?

So far I’ve only attached and detached support from units not HQs so I’ll have to learn more about attaching to HQs. If support like engineers and AA are attached to HQs will they be deployed to units in an assault for instance if needed or useful or do they need to attached to a unit to be used? If I’m not mistaken it sounds like artillery attached to an HQ will be used to support subordinate units.

It sounds from what I read that AA can be attached to towns and cities? This might be more useful fir the axis if true.

Damaged airfields- are engineers useful in repairing them faster?

Support and how to best use them is an intricate subject. It looks and sounds to me like it’s something you need to understand well as it can make or break offense and defense. Once you start playing another human it probably becomes even more important to master.

Another thing I’m considering is more micromanagement of AirPower. Not sure if that’s a good thing or just how much you can do.

[cfulbright]

For Allies, you want engineer rather than Construction units assigned to your ground units assaulting fortified units and yes, across rivers. Some of the Construction units have "engineer" in their name but they aren't that type of engineer.

In the beginning I thought the same as you, that the Allied heavier AA units could be used in an anti-tank role, but that don't work, or at least not very well, in that role. The Allied AA units are pretty much a waste against the AI, except the Axis occasionally will throw in planes for ground support. But air superiority over your Allied front is more effective there.

If you assign support units to corps HQ's, and if you haven't already filled all available spots for support units in your ground units, AND if you have "Lock HQ Support" turned off in options, then there's a CHANCE that the HQ will add some support units to the ground unit during the attack. Given all those variables, and given the chance the game may assign those units to a ground attack I don't care about, that's why I manage it manually.

Artillery acts differently. It never gets assigned to ground units (except for SP artillery), so it's best closest to the front at the corps HQ level.

You CAN attach AA to towns and cities. It costs one admin point to assign them, and I think as much as four admin points to unassign, so I don't use it for the Allies because I need the admin points for building airfields and repairing ports. I've only ever played Axis once in an air campaign, and I did do this to beef up AA defense of key target cities.

I don't think engineers have damaged airfields. Construction units DO help repair as well as expand airfields.

One last thing on support units. When removing them from ground units I don't hit the "[x]" button on the ground unit, because that just sends it to the next higher HQ, which usually is a corps HQ. Because I typically want weakened support units to back to a higher command or army group HQ, I click on the name of the support unit, then click on the name of "HHQ", which brings up a list of HQ's I can assign it to, including the ones I want. This is also how you can directly transfer an artillery battalion from one corps HQ to another (if they're close enough), in case you need to concentrate artillery for a big attack.

As for air war management, that's a tale for another day! There's a lot you can do if you want. Some people like me enjoy setting every bomb load in an airgroup, others want the AI to handle the air war as much as possible so they can focus on the ground game. I think I'm smarter than the AI, or at least more particular.

Cary

[sfbaytf]

I was just removing support units by hitting the X. Now I know better. The allieds have a ton of AA units that really I don't know what use they are. I started a German Italy Campaign and they have AA units. I would think they would be of some use in ground combat. If not then maybe that should be changed-at least for the Germans.

I hope we soon see an expansion for WitW that covers 1941-42. It would really make the Axis side much more interesting.

[cfulbright]

One use of the AA units, at least the British AA units, is to disband them to feed the manpower pool if you find you're running low on manpower for your infantry units late in a campaign, as happened historically.

By the way, from your user name I'm guessing you're in SF Bay Area. I live in San Francisco.

Cary

[sfbaytf]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

One use of the AA units, at least the British AA units, is to disband them to feed the manpower pool if you find you're running low on manpower for your infantry units late in a campaign, as happened historically.

By the way, from your user name I'm guessing you're in SF Bay Area. I live in San Francisco.

Cary

I lived and worked in the SF Bay for years-I was born there, but we moved when I was 5. I grew up all over the world.

I moved out of the Bay area 9 years ago and moved up north near Sacramento. Don't miss the Bay area to be honest. Haven't been back there in ages. I did buy Microsoft Flight Sim 2020 and did a fly over of my old places.

Looks like a lot of people are moving out of SF and moving up north. Remote WAH is taking off.

[cfulbright]

Don't miss the Bay area to be honest.

We feel that way sometimes, we just don't know where we'd move to. Want to get away from 10% state income tax and the politics, but we've been here over 30 years.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

...we just don't know where we'd move to. Want to get away from 10% state income tax and the politics...

Not that it is even remotely linked to the topic, but may I suggest you move to Norway? We have a 22% state income tax and pay 25% VAT on all goods and services.

And best of all, despite what many Americans might belive, we are by United Nations considered the worlds best country to live in.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/count ... to-live-in

[cfulbright]

About Norway, I'm just not sure I could take your winters - both dark and cold.

But I'll keep it in mind.

Cary

[Hoggorm]

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

About Norway, I'm just not sure I could take your winters - both dark and cold.

Just now I kind of regret parts of my previous post, because a nice answer to that would be: it's a small price to pay living in the best country in the world. [;)]

However, since that has already been discussed I guess all I can I say is although I personally agree with you, not all of Norway have dark and cold winters. Experiencing all four seasons each year is nice in its own way.

Having worked for over eight years in the arctic (less than a WitW hex from the Russian border), where the winters are truly dark, cold and indeed long, I still have to admit that standing outside, under a starry night and watching the aurora borealis absolutely has an element of exotic touch. [:)]