Not bad turn 1 air

[bairdlander2]

I used the AI pre set missions as Axis.Changed ground attack to all 7 days and intensity to high as well as set target to units.Results of air losses.

[loki100]

Couple of things to bear in mind when planning T1.

In the main avoid all week/hugh intensity, that has caused that large cluster of operational losses and I'd guess you ended up with under-escorted bombers later in the week when the VVS has woken up.

Second, its far easier to destroy planes on the ground than in #1, so plan your ground moves with a half an eye on large airbases where you suspect there must be a lot of damaged planes. that can add 1000 or so to your air phase cull.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: bairdlander2

I used the AI pre set missions as Axis.Changed ground attack to all 7 days and intensity to high as well as set target to units.Results of air losses.

WOAH!

You won't have any German Airplanes left at that rate. I personally don't use the AI pre-set at all. Of course I don't mind micro-managing everything in the game and as such you can see in my snapshot below the differences. There is a learning curve but well worth it if you don't mind managing your Air Force.


This is what I get for Turn 1 and only fly "only" the 1st day bombing missions for comparison. (this is from the last Beta AAR game I did) You really can't fly the airforce into the ground (nor the ground troops either or you are going to pay a price)

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: loki100
Second, its far easier to destroy planes on the ground than in #1, so plan your ground moves with a half an eye on large airbases where you suspect there must be a lot of damaged planes. that can add 1000 or so to your air phase cull.

It's worth noting that beyond the Air Phase, in addition to capturing airfields, the early ground support missions when you clear away some of the border defenses can also pull in a fair few Soviet fighters and bombers, which generally don't do well in those engagements on Turn 1. You just want to make sure those happen within your fighter range.

[zakblood]

the more you take out on the ground, the less you have to deal with on later turns in the air, so plan, then plan again,

then go back to the manual and read,

then read again, then play and plan again.

after a few losses,

some hair loss,... some games ended early, some tantrums and shouts at the pc,....

and some more time learning the game you think you know, you soon learn Air takes out ground targets, then tanks & Mech units roll over airfields,

which in turn leaves little left,.... apart from what's not in range, or brought in from elsewhere etc etc...

but after saying all that, Russia is vast, and not only is the land never ending, Mother Russia learns

[Speedysteve]

I haven’t run it yet but with D1 being the day when the VVS are all on the ground drinking vodka and smoking I’ll maximise airfield attacks then and my current logic says stagger a mixture of CS and Interdiction missions through the rest of the week at medium intensity. I’ll play around with that when I start my first campaign later after my curry and beers🤪

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: Speedysteve

I haven’t run it yet but with D1 being the day when the VVS are all on the ground drinking vodka and smoking I’ll maximise airfield attacks then and my current logic says stagger a mixture of CS and Interdiction missions through the rest of the week at medium intensity. I’ll play around with that when I start my first campaign later after my curry and beers🤪

That's the way to do it. Can't go wrong with Curry & BeerS.

[dudefan]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: bairdlander2

I used the AI pre set missions as Axis.Changed ground attack to all 7 days and intensity to high as well as set target to units.Results of air losses.

WOAH!

You won't have any German Airplanes left at that rate. I personally don't use the AI pre-set at all. Of course I don't mind micro-managing everything in the game and as such you can see in my snapshot below the differences. There is a learning curve but well worth it if you don't mind managing your Air Force.


This is what I get for Turn 1 and only fly "only" the 1st day bombing missions for comparison. (this is from the last Beta AAR game I did) You really can't fly the airforce into the ground (nor the ground troops either or you are going to pay a price)

Whoa. Can you send a screenshot of your directives?what altitude do you use?

[Searry]

Last time I reached 4200 planes destroyed on the ground after the ground movement was over. The new AOG assigning mechanic is useful in this as your fighters can run many many missions, of course this will cause ops losses of around the same amount as in that image. 3700 is a good target for the air phase.
You want to have all the bases with fighters on very high priority and first on the list and then work down to bomber bases but if you stray too far enemy fighters in their rear will absolutely maul your unescorted bombers.
An altitude of 7k feet is good as it's below the most effective part of low AA.

Even if you feel very tempted, don't use fuel tanks on your F-2s, the ops losses will rack up suddenly and massively.

[dudefan]

Air superiority missions as well?

Even though i only do Medium intensity day1 bombing I lose at least 500 and destroy around 2500-3000

[Searry]

Do you bomb most of the airfields only once? Do you have 1 mission per airfield except in the bialystok area and in areas where there's a good opportunity to easily bomb 2 airfields next to each other if they both have either bombers only or fighters only? No air superiority missions. Also, switch your bombers to have the biggest number of 50kg bombs.

[dudefan]

ORIGINAL: Searry

Do you bomb most of the airfields only once? Do you have 1 mission per airfield except in the bialystok area and in areas where there's a good opportunity to easily bomb 2 airfields next to each other if they both have either bombers only or fighters only? No air superiority missions. Also, switch your bombers to have the biggest number of 50kg bombs.

I have bombin missions on auto (around 76 for day 1). Should I manually set it to 1?

I have several 10 hex wide bombing missions. I will do it airbase specific as you suggested.


Bonus question: is there an easy way to reorganize the order of missions or do I have to redo every mission if I want for example a specific recon mission before every other mission

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: dudefan

Air superiority missions as well?

Even though i only do Medium intensity day1 bombing I lose at least 500 and destroy around 2500-3000

1. The order in which you bomb Soviet air bases matter.

2. Altitude matters.

3. Bomb load out matters (I know many in BETA said it does not but it does, this goes hand-in-hand with altitude)

4. I don't fly Air Superiority missions 1st turn.

5. Anything bombing past 8 - 10 hexes requires an escort of fighter(s). Otherwise you are going to get mauled if intercepted flying un-escorted on the first turn. I do use drop tanks but only when needed.

6. I don't do wide hex bombing.

[Searry]

For large bombing areas the auto setting is good enough(but I wouldn't suggest doing that ever) but on turn 1 you should mostly focus on 1 mission per airfield with 1 bombing run.

There's no way to reorder the missions. Recon missions aren't really needed on turn 1. Also, set your bomber airbase bombing missions to medium priority. Very high and high priority for fighter bases working from closest to farthest.

[dudefan]

Thank you guys for the help.

The only thing I don't understand is how and where I set the fighter priority? Priority of the airbase? Or of the luftflotte?

Edit: ah I think i understand. You mean priority targets

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: bairdlander2

I used the AI pre set missions as Axis.Changed ground attack to all 7 days and intensity to high as well as set target to units.Results of air losses.

FYI, in case you want to compare, using the wartime records of airframes written off, Eastern Front German losses LW to all causes was
June 407
July 715
August 367
Sept 330
Oct 331
Nov 193
Dec 168

Su losses for first 6 days was over twice what you achieved, with a quarter of all of them being in air to air, with 321 lost in air to air on day one.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: zakblood

the more you take out on the ground, the less you have to deal with on later turns in the air, so plan, then plan again,

then go back to the manual and read,

then read again, then play and plan again.

after a few losses,

some hair loss,... some games ended early, some tantrums and shouts at the pc,....

and some more time learning the game you think you know, you soon learn Air takes out ground targets, then tanks & Mech units roll over airfields,

which in turn leaves little left,.... apart from what's not in range, or brought in from elsewhere etc etc...

but after saying all that, Russia is vast, and not only is the land never ending, Mother Russia learns

Sounds confusing. Play, read, play, read...something isn't right.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: Searry

Last time I reached 4200 planes destroyed on the ground after the ground movement was over. The new AOG assigning mechanic is useful in this as your fighters can run many many missions, of course this will cause ops losses of around the same amount as in that image. 3700 is a good target for the air phase.
You want to have all the bases with fighters on very high priority and first on the list and then work down to bomber bases but if you stray too far enemy fighters in their rear will absolutely maul your unescorted bombers.
An altitude of 7k feet is good as it's below the most effective part of low AA.

Even if you feel very tempted, don't use fuel tanks on your F-2s, the ops losses will rack up suddenly and massively.

3700? What was it in reality?

[carlkay58]

Some important things to know about turn 1 air directives in WitE2:

1. The Soviet VVS is much more active on turn 1 than it was in WitE.
2. Any unescorted bombers are going to be creamed.
3. But the Air Directives are executed in the order in which you define them.
4. You will find that a single bombing mission with a single bombing squadron will usually destroy all of the Soviet aircraft on an airbase.
5. Take your time to define everything on turn 1 - it is time well spent and will pay off huge dividends in the long run.
6. Practice you turn 1 vs the AI with FOW off and keep playing with the Air Directives until you figure out what works best for you.
7. Only bomb on D1.
8. Many people do not fly RECON directives on turn 1. I do - but only on D7. Also change the altitude of the RECON Air Doctrine to over 16000 ft, fly them unescorted, and at 25% mission pct. This keeps the Recon planes high (which most of them have medium or high altitude cameras anyways), the number of aircraft flying low making them hard to detect and intercept, and minimizes the distance traveled by the RECON squadrons so Operational Losses are lower. All of the previous are my personal opinion and not necessarily what you may find works best for you.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

ORIGINAL: Searry

Last time I reached 4200 planes destroyed on the ground after the ground movement was over. The new AOG assigning mechanic is useful in this as your fighters can run many many missions, of course this will cause ops losses of around the same amount as in that image. 3700 is a good target for the air phase.
You want to have all the bases with fighters on very high priority and first on the list and then work down to bomber bases but if you stray too far enemy fighters in their rear will absolutely maul your unescorted bombers.
An altitude of 7k feet is good as it's below the most effective part of low AA.

Even if you feel very tempted, don't use fuel tanks on your F-2s, the ops losses will rack up suddenly and massively.

3700? What was it in reality?

by the 28 total SU losses was 4007, of which in the air by day were
322
123
149
155
210
65