ORIGINAL: Joel Billings
Looking at the results of your test, they aren't far off from what we'd like to see (especially given this is bombing of a size 1 airfield that is full - it matters how many a/c are on the base and what kind of base it is). The interesting thing is how the flak losses decline as the missions go on. Thus less attacking a/c destroyed with each mission, but more importantly a much higher number of a/c on the ground are lost. If you looked at just the first two missions I'd say this was a Soviet defeat. Can you get these results fairly consistently when you rerun? If you add missions on the other days, does it continue the trend? Gary and I are wondering if our routines that can rearm the airfield with ammo may not be sufficient. Given this is a turn 1 test and the airfield is likely very near depots, it should be able to get more ammo. If you've got your save and can run more tests, it would be useful. If you get this consistent reduction in flak losses with each mission, please attach the save.
Although based on this test alone, we're not convinced that night bombing is ultimately a winning tactic (certainly doesn't seem decisive), but we're willing to make tweaks if it appears the results are too good. The player that reported losing 2000 a/c trying offensive missions seems to be arguing against it being an impactful strategy. Gary says his understanding was that the Soviets also tried some early night bombing and didn't do well and gave up on it for some time. He said in 1943 the Soviets did some major night bombing of the railyards/depot at Orel and that for this reason the Germans shifted some night fighters east, but that was the only time they did that (I see them in the reinforcement schedule). I think there was a reason we locked the units in the west, but I don't remember why we did that. I doubt it would be a big deal if we unlocked a few of the units since there is a cost to transferring them east and I don't see how they could be abused.
Thank you Sir as always. Night bombing German fighter bases may or may not be a winning strategy but from my games and the losses I have seen the Soviets take GA bombing & interdicting my Germans in the game I personally would have used the bombers on the night bombing fighter bases which is more of a German crux. I know I could in a year game time as a Soviet player in the game I personally could make night bombing German Airfields work and wreck the German Fighter arm. But that is just me.
I do have the saves but I hastily made a directive to try it out to see what I got. I ran the one bombing run again and this time I got;
12 Fighters & 9 Recon (Pictures attached)
I could sink some time into this if you like if you give me some scenario parameters you would like to see or a different scenario start point. More than happy to test this out and send you the saves from those parameters since I can spend more time into the directives instead of AD Hoc single directive I have now from all over the place and is "not" optimized. Just let me know if you like me to sink some time in it for you or you just want this AD Hoc directive I made.
Here are the pictures 1 of 3 (This is the 2nd running of same file save)
