Air War - Flak - I must be doing something wrong

[martymatrix08]

Hi All,

Been playing this for about a week and trying to figure out the air war. I must be doing something wrong. The amount of losses from Flak are, at least to me, extreme. Here are two attacks against a surrounded enemy that is 15 hexes behind the lines that is surrounded and without air support. My air directive in this area is ground support for Army Group Center by Luftflotte 2. I did not mess with the altitude settings. This is just doing an attack and the air support comes. In just these two attacks I lost 70+ aircraft in total. In my understanding of history, losses like this equate to losing two entire Gruppe in two attacks against a surrounded enemy. What am I missing? What should I be doing differently?

This is the first attack.

[Yogol]

You could have lower losses from OPS by moving your bombers & fighters closer, but there is nothing you can do against the flak: it tends to have ALOT of flak in some cities. Setting the altitude for all planes on 9000 feet (higher than the highest flak) will probably not change much, if anything. Try it an let us know?

But the lesson here is: don't use your air force for these kind of attacks.

(FYI, when you attack like this, move three Support Units to the infantry unit, like 3 mixed artillery or something. You can move them to another unit later)

[loki100]

less purely about flak and more about general air war management. In your turn, keep on eye on the option to turn GS off (fighters will still do CAP if needed), so if you are going to deliver this sort of one sided attack, flip it off and save it for the battles where the extra impact could convert a loss to a win or a narrow win to one that leaves the enemy in a shambles

I'd also suggest upgrade to 02.12 - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5117554

that modifies some of the interaction between flak and air attacks