Acceptable Axis Air Losses T1-2

[loutro]

I don't use Air AI

T1 was mostly hitting air bases, ground support and superiority
T2 was ground support and naval ops up north

I lost 155 pilots in T2...ALL operational.
Those losses are not sustainable.

I did move my fighters close to the front.

Any ideas why the losses are so high?

[aMaschina]

I am interested in this as well. I tend to lose a looot of level bombers, in turn 7 my overall losses as compared to the soviets are around 1:6.

[loki100]

odds on this is being caused by excess mileage.

to control this, esp if you are using GS (as you should), you have to regard it as a rare asset. If you just leave GS on then your planes will fly long distances over the turn and that starts to cause operational losses.

So after T1, turn GS off and only turn it on for key battles where you believe that airpower is really going to make a difference.

This may sound counter-intuitive but its critical to good management of the LW. Especially in say t2-14 when you may well be making many attacks in a turn. Constantly ask yourself, 'do I need my airpower'. I'd strongly suggest there will be very few T2-4 battles where the answer is yes.

[loutro]

I'm not sure what is going on. I reran the T2 Air Phase with a variety of Air Directives. Ground Support off, still lost a lot of pilots.

Finally, I cleared ALL the directives and ran the Air Phase and STILL lost 115 pilots. ?!?!?

I am upgrading to the latest version and starting the campaign from the beginning.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: loutro

I'm not sure what is going on. I reran the T2 Air Phase with a variety of Air Directives. Ground Support off, still lost a lot of pilots.

Finally, I cleared ALL the directives and ran the Air Phase and STILL lost 115 pilots. ?!?!?

I am upgrading to the latest version and starting the campaign from the beginning.

if you had no air directives at all the only feasible source of losses might be from fighters/FB undertaking auto-intercept and possibly a naval air command running some auto-interdicion

[Firewire9452]

Have you examined the air directive summary or air battle report in the commander’s report to identify where these losses occurred? You might have been flying into some bad weather.

[aMaschina]

What is the easiest way to check for air miles status? Whenever i open the window it says 0% air miles, is that all of them gone or none of them gone?

Does the AI not care if an AOg is exhausted and thus causes a lot of operational losses?

Also when i set up air superiority ADs it shows 0 missions..?

[Wien1938]

Turn 1, I find the best way to avoid losses is to set ADs in strict order to wipe out the major fighter bases in close range. If you don't get them, the later strikes (on D1) will fly back *past* the still live fighter bases and get massacred. Don't try deep penetration raids (except for Luftflotte 1) as the layered defence means there's a good chance of your bomber groups getting hit hard. For Luftflotte 1, I find that the bases between Riga and Parnu are safe to strike.
Ground support is fine, so long as you watch the fighter range and only use it where you think it might help. Dug-in rifle divisions are good targets as are tank formations.