Air Interdiction and Unit Attacks

[actrade]

Despite setting interdiction as a high priority in my ADs, I rarely see anything more than a "1" in a hex. I start off with LB and FB at 21000 before I attrite the Axis AF and Flak units. Is there an optimum height for attack for LB and FB? Once I get total air superiority should I go to a different height?

[cfulbright]

Despite setting interdiction as a high priority in my ADs, I rarely see anything more than a "1" in a hex. I start off with LB and FB at 21000 before I attrite the Axis AF and Flak units. Is there an optimum height for attack for LB and FB? Once I get total air superiority should I go to a different height?

Are you bombing hexes adjacent to land units, and are you doing a lot of recon from low altitude in advance of the bombing? I do recon on days 1/2/3/6, and bombing on days 5/6/7. If you're bombing hexes that aren't adjacent to your own units, discovery levels go down quickly.

Unless you use most of the 8th AF or Bomber Command, the only way to get good interdiction is to use FB's. For them altitude doesn't matter because they'll always dive-bomb from 11K' even if they come in at 21K'.

Altitude doesn't matter as much as the flak values of the hexes you're bombing. If flak values are low or non-existent, you can bomb with LB's at 6K'. But they'll get slaughtered by flak if it's there or in the hexes you fly over to get there.

Cary

[actrade]

I have my days set up just like yours. I was doing interdiction across a 3-4 hex range..would it be better to concentrate it closer to my units in individual hexes and do more ADs? Does it work better that way?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: actrade

I have my days set up just like yours. I was doing interdiction across a 3-4 hex range..would it be better to concentrate it closer to my units in individual hexes and do more ADs? Does it work better that way?

there's quite a lot at work here, so its not always possible (or worth it) to get much over 3+, esp in 1943 in Italy.

Some things:

a) LB are rubbish at interdiction, think of it as best done by a versatile aircraft that can operate on call (the British tactical air commander invented what he called the taxi rank principle of ground attack aircraft in the broad area and drawn on as needed);
b) your target is something moving, possibly relatively quickly
c) so your attack plane of choice is a FB or tactical bomber
d) your weapon system of choice is multiple small bombs (you aren't hitting entrenchments etc) or rockets
e) the effect of interdiction dips a lot in broken terrain
f) its not a killing mission, its a delay/disrupt mission (I know he's describing the Eastern Front but Stahel's analysis of German war diaries is indicative of how disruptive to movement even low intensity VVS efforts were in 1941)


So those are the basics. Now the next question is why are you running this:

a) to be annoying, up the cost of supply (taking out trucks does pay off, esp if you then bomb the truck production) perhaps a bit of extra fatigue on stuff moving normally
b) pin reserves so if they move, they get ripped to pieces?

for (a) 1-4 interdiction is pretty good, it'll start to cause problems, but the pay back is long term - get this bit of the war right in 1943 and come late 1944 German pzr divisions will have MP <15 due to a lack of trucks. For (b), you want 5+ so if that formation moves it hurts but you may also want a single hex target - so you need good recon and/or a good guess where such things are likely to be. In the main I'd say this is a France 44 mission not an Italy 43 one.


Quirks

Railway bombing generates normal interdiction as well - but only in railway hexes. You can use this to your advantage. In Italy, the rails follow the better terrain so it means you don't waste effort plastering mtn tops (where even if there are targets, you are wasting your time). But in N Italy or France, it can be used to lay down a belt of interdiction, depending on your invasion plans there are some prime targets for this.

Even odder, for some reason you get better results/effort than normal interdiction, its also a good deep mission using RAF mosquitos (that tend to get chewed up by front line flak levels). This can cause real misery to the Axis side in Italy.

So if you are just being annoying, try for something like 10 planes/hex (so 1 hex wide/7 target spread would use about 70 planes - this is rough and ready but gives you some feel - if you only have 40 viable aircraft a 3-4 hex spread will yield very low results). The bigger levels take a more focussed allocation and, really, planes designed to do it.

edit: if you want to kill/directly affect ground combat, then GS is the mission. The reason is that airpower strikes first and disrupted elements then take no part in the ground combat but are then move vulnerable to being damaged or destroyed, especially if you win the actual battle.

Quite often in Italy, GS and a bit more GS is the best tactical mission to hand, linked to railway/railyard bombing to mess up the axis logistics system

[actrade]

Ok thanks Loki. I did notice that I was devastating Italian rail as I made railyards a priority. I get what you're saying as in Italy, much of the fighting is against entrenched troops except when they fall back to the next line. So, if I'm hearing you correctly, I would be better served doing railyards and railways and ground support missions in Italy and probably not waste a lot of sorties on interdiction? When I eventually tackle the GC, especially in open country, then throw interdiction back in?

[loki100]

pretty much, in the GC you can (both sides will) over-commit to Italy and certainly bring the Typhoons in. There are sectors such as the plains NE of Brindisi and around Rome where interdiction can work. But in the main its set piece assaults on units in poor terrain so movement is not really a feature. If you spot a Pzr/PzrGr formation behind the line in a clear hex then that *might* be worth hitting in case its going to reserve react but in the main GS on the front line is as useful as anything else.

[actrade]

One last question. Believe it or not, I actually re-read the manual every time before asking you guys questions lol. Anyway, is there a way to see effectiveness of GS Air Directives? I can't find anyway to tell how much good they are doing. I'm assuming their just part of the multiplier of ground attacks, but does the game show how much impact GS is having anywhere?

[loki100]

aye, you need to dig into the battle reports.

The first tab (if you expand) has a section that shows how many elements were destroyed etc in either retreat (if the defender lost), the ground fighting or the air GS.

That'll give you a nice quick feel for what it did.



So here we see some disruption, not much actual damage, not really a surprise as its in poor terrain.

If you go into the detailed tabs pick the damage one and you'll see all that broken down by element type, so you see what your air power hit. My experience is its particularly good at disrupting artillery

so we get this



so not bad, given the terrain but I took out enough artillery and armour to have maybe made a difference - remember that later in the ground fighting those disrupted tanks/artillery are not firing at me and its a few less rifle squads to worry over.

Same battle in a clear terrain hex may well have seen even that much airpower being decisive.

If you want to see the interaction of plane + weapon system vs elements, the only way is to run the battle at a speed 5-7. It gets tedious after a while but done once or twice it can be very informative.

[actrade]

Oh wow...those flash by so fast I never noticed all that detail. Will slow things down and start looking a bit closer. Thanks!