First turn air tips?

[captain18]

Am an experienced WITE player, finally getting my feet wet in WITE2.
And as we all know the big difference is air.
I used to have first turn air strikes for the Germans down to a devastating art in WITE and now trying to learn the strategy how to do it in WITE2.
So lets get the ball rolling:
Q1 What is a respectable kill count of Russian planes for turn one? ( In my test game I have destroyed 3780)?
This seems comparable to WITE1.

Q2 what are reasonable losses for the Luftwaffe on turn one?
(my test game has 815 Luftwaffe planes sot down on turn one. 515 air combat and 214 operational losses). This appears quite high so I am doing something wrong.

Appreciate any guideline, strategies of tips for Luftwaffe first turn attacks.

[jlbhung]

You may want to see - https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 5#p4893675.

[Zovs]

I codified and tweaked things and created this as a guide:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6#p4915906

[Zovs]

Following my guide you should see 70-90 Axis aircraft losses to 3,500-4,200 Soviet aircraft losses.

[captain18]

Thanks Gentlemen this is exactly what I was after
I used to use Pelton's as a base in WITE then customised it. I will probably do similar withy this.
I will play around and post the results so all can see the difference.
On a first attempt I think my Russian kills were respectable but Luftwaffe losses were certainly out of the ball park.
Anyway thanks again

[captain18]

As promised only fair I give feedback on the assistance I received.
So followed the Guide ( few anomalies maybe out of date with patches?).
My new opening turn now yielded Axis losses=168, Soviet losses 3178.
So lowered my Axis losses significantly (and a fair chunk of them were Rumanians).
I didn't kill as many Soviets as per my own setup but that is far outweighed by less Axis losses.

Time now to fine tune and tinker.

[Stamb]

There might be a better strategy where you actually don't try to bomb Soviets hard, but instead let them have some planes alive.
And then during your turn (ground phase) they will fly into your own hands, as they have GS on.

I think that strategy was used here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 4#p4954864


IMHO, its on the edge between clever game mechanics usage and an abuse

[captain18]

Ok the test turn yielded 3907 destroyed Soviet planes after the German ground movement. So definitely in the ballpark for a base opening.
There are some anomalies with the Guide in this thread (airfields not in existence which are referenced to in Rumania, and some aircraft figures don't replicate). I will post the details of these when I get a spare moment.

Re the 6000+ plus strategy Stamb refers to. Does this still work with the current patch? Also I presume you then nominate lots of Air superiority Ads for the Luftwaffe?

[Stamb]

I think it should work with current patches, as ,I guess, it was played recently. I do not know details how K62 achieved such a results but we can see that lost on the ground are only 2.3k.
It means that other losses come from A2A battles.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I think it should work with current patches, as ,I guess, it was played recently. I do not know details how K62 achieved such a results but we can see that lost on the ground are only 2.3k.
It means that other losses come from A2A battles.

K62 is doing an AAR which should be starting soon I believe. I am not 100% certain but he said he would be doing one so I am sure he will probably mention it but he would be the one to say so or not. If not I can show you what he did if he doesn't mind me showing in my AAR. Either way he did an excellent first turn bombing of Soviet Airfields & should work in current patch too.

[K62_]

I think it should work with current patches, as ,I guess, it was played recently. I do not know details how K62 achieved such a results but we can see that lost on the ground are only 2.3k.
It means that other losses come from A2A battles.

K62 is doing an AAR which should be starting soon I believe. I am not 100% certain but he said he would be doing one so I am sure he will probably mention it but he would be the one to say so or not. If not I can show you what he did if he doesn't mind me showing in my AAR. Either way he did an excellent first turn bombing of Soviet Airfields & should work in current patch too.

Yes I will start an AAR next turn but the basic idea is pretty simple. I've transferred several bomber groups to the Romanian airfields and destroyed Southern Air Command and the back half of Southwestern Air Command with bomber raids as deep as Crimea, Z-town, Kiev. (It helps to load the scenario in the editor to figure out which airfields need extra attention.) I've hit the fighter bases first and bombers second and used small mission size (3 aircraft sorties IIRC) when in danger of interception. Northern, Western and the front half of Southwestern Air Command were destroyed by fighters in the ground phase. This is not the best strategy if you're trying to minimize German losses but it's pretty good for maximizing Soviet aircraft and pilots killed, I believe.

[captain18]

The Guide says to transfer AOGs to Husi airfield and there is no airfield in Husi?

[Zovs]

Husi was removed a few patches back, I have not updated the guide.

[jubjub]

I think it should work with current patches, as ,I guess, it was played recently. I do not know details how K62 achieved such a results but we can see that lost on the ground are only 2.3k.
It means that other losses come from A2A battles.

K62 is doing an AAR which should be starting soon I believe. I am not 100% certain but he said he would be doing one so I am sure he will probably mention it but he would be the one to say so or not. If not I can show you what he did if he doesn't mind me showing in my AAR. Either way he did an excellent first turn bombing of Soviet Airfields & should work in current patch too.

Yes I will start an AAR next turn but the basic idea is pretty simple. I've transferred several bomber groups to the Romanian airfields and destroyed Southern Air Command and the back half of Southwestern Air Command with bomber raids as deep as Crimea, Z-town, Kiev. (It helps to load the scenario in the editor to figure out which airfields need extra attention.) I've hit the fighter bases first and bombers second and used small mission size (3 aircraft sorties IIRC) when in danger of interception. Northern, Western and the front half of Southwestern Air Command were destroyed by fighters in the ground phase. This is not the best strategy if you're trying to minimize German losses but it's pretty good for maximizing Soviet aircraft and pilots killed, I believe.

Didn't think about using small sorties. That's a good idea and it should greatly reduce the potential for large losses.

Hadradi managed to get >6k kills on turn 1 against me, and it cripples the VVS for many turns. The biggest issue that it causes is that it destroys tons of fighters that would normally be used to train pilots in the reserve. I think it's definitely worth the cost of extra bomber losses, especially since level bombers aren't all that useful.

[tyronec]

Didn't think about using small sorties. That's a good idea and it should greatly reduce the potential for large losses.

That is in my opinion an exploit that should not be used, however other players may regard it as perfectly reasonable.
Just do consider what it is doing, making GA partially immune to fighter intercepts.
This works quite well for the Soviets too, GA and NP that are not intercepted is quite a boon in '41 & '42 when their fighters are no match for the Luftwaffe.

[Stamb]

in my game vs Lovenought even big GA sorties were not intercepted, as a result we house rule it completely

[Lurberri]

in my game vs Lovenought even big GA sorties were not intercepted, as a result we house rule it completely

It's true that there have been problems with the GA, but... didn't that game begin to be played quite a few patches ago? The situation has been changing since then.

[Stamb]

i did not notice any changes in patch notes regarding GA interception, if it working now - its great news
as house ruling it denies Soviet ability to use their massive air fleet

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Didn't think about using small sorties. That's a good idea and it should greatly reduce the potential for large losses.

That is in my opinion an exploit that should not be used, however other players may regard it as perfectly reasonable.
Just do consider what it is doing, making GA partially immune to fighter intercepts.
This works quite well for the Soviets too, GA and NP that are not intercepted is quite a boon in '41 & '42 when their fighters are no match for the Luftwaffe.

Here is a snippet of Soviet fighters intercepting GA on the first turn. My experience so far is that small GA raids can be intercepted just as well as large raids. As you can see in this attachment the interceptions made just in the Northern section of the map.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

K62 is doing an AAR which should be starting soon I believe. I am not 100% certain but he said he would be doing one so I am sure he will probably mention it but he would be the one to say so or not. If not I can show you what he did if he doesn't mind me showing in my AAR. Either way he did an excellent first turn bombing of Soviet Airfields & should work in current patch too.

Yes I will start an AAR next turn but the basic idea is pretty simple. I've transferred several bomber groups to the Romanian airfields and destroyed Southern Air Command and the back half of Southwestern Air Command with bomber raids as deep as Crimea, Z-town, Kiev. (It helps to load the scenario in the editor to figure out which airfields need extra attention.) I've hit the fighter bases first and bombers second and used small mission size (3 aircraft sorties IIRC) when in danger of interception. Northern, Western and the front half of Southwestern Air Command were destroyed by fighters in the ground phase. This is not the best strategy if you're trying to minimize German losses but it's pretty good for maximizing Soviet aircraft and pilots killed, I believe.

Didn't think about using small sorties. That's a good idea and it should greatly reduce the potential for large losses.

Hadradi managed to get >6k kills on turn 1 against me, and it cripples the VVS for many turns. The biggest issue that it causes is that it destroys tons of fighters that would normally be used to train pilots in the reserve. I think it's definitely worth the cost of extra bomber losses, especially since level bombers aren't all that useful.

You don't have a potential for large losses, per se, in one BIG raid, but the potential for many losses over many small raids is there. It seems to be relative.