Experimenting with Air Doctrines

[matchwood]

Have been experimenting with Air Doctrine settings and learned a few things which I thought I would share.

1) The Superiority doctrine impacts automatic interceptions - as in fighters not on rest or train with no mission.
2) The Mis Pct is somewhat counterintuitive. You can't have 300% of your squadrons fly at once of course. It's more of a sliding scale from 0-300 in terms of intensity. Setting this to 300 means that you have more of a 'big wing' approach. This can expose you to greater levels of attrition but it also might help better loss ratios over all by avoiding small numbers of your planes being overwhelmed trying to take on 5x the number.
3) Pct Fly set to a high number (eg >80%) might be a good way of resting your big wings so they don't fly too often. Unlike the "Pct" above, Pct Fly is actually a percentage and has to be set from 0-100.

So suggested LW tactics for Germany - concentrate your fighters, use Fw190 over Paris with a dedicated AS mission. Fly every 2nd day. Set Mis Pct and Pct Fly to high numbers. Keep Bf109’s in the rear area, with extra armament.
Also, in testing Bf109 with extra cannons had a better kill ratio than Bf109 with WGr210 so use cannons. They will also be better off if they accidentally get bounced by escorts.

Thanks
Matchwood

[kentkroeckel]

Another great post Mr. Matchwood. Seems your investigations are creating additional question in how WitW system generates results.

I do have one fact that I would like to add in your conversation. Not a right or wrong point either. Just a style of play I have come accustom to using while playing either side.

I usually set my air force to one percent to fly. However, game has twenty percent as normal default and that is what I observed on the snapshot you provided. Yet I think you said you changed that around too at times.

But my point is this. I want to maximize the amount of aircraft I can commit to each turn. Not talking about those that are resting, training, or upgrading. But what I am talking about are ones I have committed to a mission. If a squadron only has three aircraft out of sixteen, I still need them to fly if committed. Losses like that do affect moral but sometimes this is nessecary. Again, no right or wrong way on this. Perfectly fine to keep twenty percent.

Please keep your in depth posts coming Mr. Matchwood. WitW community benefits from them!

Best Wishes,
Kent

[matchwood]

Thanks Kent,

Sorry forgot to add that in this test I was using assets in LW3. As per the screen shot that was set to 80% to fly and 300% intensity.

Do you mind sharing more about your use of in 1% min to fly to get more intercepts? Is that because more intercepts is expected to equal more Allied aircraft shot down in absolute terms, or is it about a better ratio?

I could look at doing a test between the two settings. I wonder if small numbers of LW planes intercepting large swarms of Allied air suffer disproportionate losses?

Thanks
Matchwood

[kentkroeckel]

Matchwood Comment: As per the screen shot that was set to 80%

Kent Response: Yes to the point that I am talking about setting both sides to 1 percent to fly. I always felt odd about setting the percent to Zero. Just afraid that the system would get confused and none would fly. One percent gets all planes off the ground.



Matchwood Comment: Fly at 300% intensity.

Kent Response: Interesting that you went above 100% intensity Mr. Matchwood. I do not have a clue as to what happens in this range; as I do not have the intestinal fortitude to place intensity above what I presumed was max: One hundred percent. I have failed. Ha.



Matchwood Comment: Do you mind sharing more about your use of in 1% min to fly to get more intercepts? Is that because more intercepts is expected to equal more Allied aircraft shot down in absolute terms, or is it about a better ratio? Could look at doing a test between the two settings. I wonder if small numbers of LW planes intercepting large swarms of Allied air suffer disproportionate losses?

Kent Response: yes to your comment Mr. Matchwood. I would expect more engagements for either side when reducing from twenty percent to one percent to fly. Your next part of the question is also yes. More engagements equals more of the enemy shot down or more damage from bombing. Your last part of the question I am hesitant to answer but am inclined to think the ratio does not matter significantly. I realize this being counter intuitive but but I think ratio stays close to same with maybe slight fluctuation. Meaning, ten aircraft on six verses ten aircraft on nine will not change the loss rations much. However, this last conjecture is solely opinion based from simple and inconsistent observations.



Kent Comment: I wanted to show a benefit when using the one percent doctrine. It is possible to run many air frames to zero. Below is snapshot from my AAR, were the following chart is posted under turn 7. The Hurricane II D has been consumed completely.

Screenshot 2026-06-04 205124.jpg (71.37 KiB) Viewed 599 times

[matchwood]

Hi Kent, well had some spare time today so did a test. Set 5 LW squadrons set to intercept near Paris. Ran 5 turns. I set Pct Fly to 1% and Mis Pct (intensity) to 25 to best generate lots of small engagements. I had planned to run this against settings of 80 and 300 but given the data I'm not sure I need to.

Took screenshots of the combat summaries for each turn and put into ChatGPT. Looks like small engagements are causing poor loss ratios - less than 1:1 even.

Thinking about the small engagement results, it's *possible* that these might be happening disproportionately as a result of multiple missions already flown by the squadron meaning that the pilots have high levels of fatigue. So not necessarily caused by them being outnumbered, it could also be exhaustion. Unfortunately there's no way I can see in a combat result to see what fatigue levels applied. Not sure Kent if you have any better ideas?

Matchwood

[matchwood]

Oh I also took some screenshots of LW pilot lists before and after. I was curious to track experience gains. Put the screenshots into ChatGPT and this is the summary observation:

The observed pattern is:

**Experience growth does happen, but it is modest and selective.** In the visible before/after pilot lists, only a handful of surviving pilots gained experience, and the increase was only **+1 point**.

The gains were concentrated among pilots in roughly the **low-70s experience range**, not among the elite pilots already in the 80s or 90s. The very experienced pilots mostly stayed unchanged even when they flew and/or gained kills. So the pattern looks closer to **mission participation** than **kills**.

Kills do **not** appear to be the main driver. Several pilots gained kills without gaining experience, while several others gained experience without gaining kills.

The likely rule-of-thumb from the observed data is:

**Flying missions creates the opportunity for experience growth, but the gain is not automatic; it appears probabilistic and harder for already high-experience pilots.**

So for practical purposes, if you want to develop pilots, you probably want them flying enough missions to be exposed to experience checks, but there is no clear evidence that chasing kills specifically is necessary for experience growth. The visible evidence suggests **missions matter more than kills**, and **lower-experience pilots have more room to improve**.

[kentkroeckel]

Your analysis is outstanding, as usually Mr. Matchwood. And I do apologize for not making my previous statement clearer beforehand too. What I meant by utilizing the one percent goal was to make available as many aircraft as possible on air missions. This is for either side as well.

Example: I have ten squadrons assigned to an air superiority mission. Five are in the 20-100 percent level and five of them are under 20 percent. My goal is to have all ten squadrons participate in this air superiority mission. My point is that having the depleted air wing engage on the air mission can often be more beneficial than leaving them out of the fight.



Huge point you have now created Mr. Matchwood, is this. having five small boxes of, say two hex missions versus, one larger box set at eight or nine. (Nine being the largest.) Your finding though, have given me pause on what I thought would be a better idea or at the very least gives the same results. (Having several small mission boxes. But your findings suggest a reduced result. This I find confusing and makes me want to reconsider air superiority missions. Have massive boxes, (9) instead of several smaller ones.

Does WitW send interceptors to an intrusion rather than spreading out interceptors in the large area? Because if that is the case, better to have a large box rather than several small air superiority missions. If this statement is accurate, it would change how the game should be played. This point is also a fact that could have been easily overlooked by designers. I am thinking your results could be heavily impacting on game play if this result holds true.

Sincerely, Kent, and thank you Mr. Matchwood.
PS. I am playing a game now with Mr. Bimmler so I have a personal interest. Allied Intelligence. Ha. Of course I will pass on the findings to Mr. Bimmler if proven affirmed.

[matchwood]

Thanks Kent, just to be sure I ran another test using the settings Pct Fly 75 / Mis Pct 300. 5 turns the same as previous. Rested Allied squadrons as soon as they dropped below 50 Morale the same as before.

107 fewer German fighter losses
49 more Allied aircraft losses
a loss ratio improvement from 1.55 to 3.73 Allied losses per German fighter

That is about a 2.4x improvement in Luftwaffe exchange efficiency.

The likely reason: Pct Fly 75% filters out weaker/depleted fighter groups, while Mis Pct 300 still allows large aggressive interceptions when enough ready aircraft are available.

Next test would be to run the same scenario but using AS. The combination of AS missions and Pct Fly 75 / Mis Pct 300 might be 'optimal' for the LW player. At least for France. High intercepts of the 8th air force over Germany seem to be a very different matter.

[matchwood]

I ran the same test with a 4 radius AS LW mission over paris. Set to run odd numebered days, 25000 feet same intensity settings.

The result was a small beneficial increase in loss ratio for the LW. Not sure if this is statistically significant or not.

Thanks
Matchwood

[kentkroeckel]

Hello Mr. Matchwood, Hope this post finds you enjoying the day. I have a question for you that involves your air research. What is your interpretation from the air analysis?

Should air missions from either side be mostly large versus small?

Is there any noticeable advantage or disadvantage to having depleted squadrons participate in a mission.

Does it matter as to which type of air mission is being considered. Interception, air superiority, strategic bombing, or perhaps ground attack? the other types really do not matter.

Finally, what level of intensity would you employ when playing Axis? I chose Germany for your conclusion since most data is concentrated on them but would love to hear your thoughts on Allies as well.

I guess I should specify which campaign. 1943-1945 grand campaign.

Wanted to add my thoughts on expanded Allied air headquarters. Too many air missions, which dilutes effects. One additional point from my match with Mr. Metalist. I underutilized reconnaissance. Strategic reconnaissance to be specific. Nearly all reconnaissance missions were assigned tactical. I felt strategic bombing missions alone could do well enough and that was a mistake. Or at least I believe so but will see how my current challenge plays out.

A direct effect with the expanded air headquarters option, having so many air missions, was the impossibility of assigning escorts to all. Around 250 missions. Many missions did have small escort amounts, but many had none. This raises the question of a mission with few or many escorts / interceptors. I hope your findings answer this paradox Mr. Matchwood.

One final aspect of the challenge I played with Mr. Metalist was this. I felt it impossible to be efficient with escort activity so applied maximum air ground attack. A hope that Axis ground units would be overwhelmed by continual air assault. this is where reconnaissance concentrated too. Also, most crews were trained as bomber fighters. Almost every hex along contact line was getting bombed. Despite all of this, German units were not impacted significantly.

In current challenge with Mr. Bimmler Allies are in a traditional setup. There are additional administrative points but this has had little impact on the game so far and I doubt it ever will. But the point I wanted to mention was that every strategic bombing mission has had current reconnaissance along with escort when feasible. Yet losses seem consistent along with facility damage.

I think in 1944 I will notice a difference if a pattern of losses is substantially different from a high intensity game. As this game is low intensity, except for the strategic mission portion. Mr. Bimmler is dedicating all interceptors available to this cause, as I can detect. Allies have now begun the process of doing the same with escorts. This leaves Italy, to a certain degree ignored by both sides; as it relates to air fighter bombers.

Best wishes, Kent

[matchwood]

Hi Kent,

Thanks. I think the main qualification is that most of my testing has been around Paris in 1943, so I would be cautious about turning the results into a universal rule for every mission type or theatre.

My current interpretation is as follows.

1. Large versus small fighter commitments

For the Luftwaffe, the results strongly favour larger, concentrated fighter commitments over repeated small interceptions.

In my first test, using 1% Pct Fly and 25 Mis Pct, there were many small engagements. The smallest engagements produced poor exchange ratios, often below 1:1. When I repeated the test using 75% Pct Fly and 300 Mis Pct, German fighter losses fell by 107, Allied aircraft losses increased by 49, and the exchange ratio improved from 1.55 to 3.73 Allied aircraft lost per German fighter.

That does not necessarily prove that numbers alone caused the difference. Fatigue may also have mattered, because repeated small interceptions can mean the same units fly several times and become progressively less effective. However, the practical result appears to be the same: concentrating the available fighters into fewer, larger engagements was much more efficient.

I therefore suspect that one large Air Superiority area may often be better than several small overlapping areas, provided the large area does not spread the fighter force too thinly or pull it into unwanted battles.

2. Depleted squadrons

I now think there is a real disadvantage to allowing heavily depleted Gruppen to participate routinely.

A 1% Pct Fly setting makes virtually every unit available, including units with only a handful of ready aircraft and potentially tired pilots that have already repeatedly flown. That may increase the total number of engagements and perhaps total enemy losses, but it also seems to generate small, inefficient interceptions and exposes weak units to further attrition.

For the Luftwaffe, where aircraft and experienced pilots are difficult to replace, I currently would favour filtering out depleted units with a relatively high Pct Fly setting. This sacrifices some immediate sorties but appears to preserve force quality and improve the overall exchange ratio.

The Allied calculation may be different. The Allies can sometimes afford to maximise total sorties and accept poorer exchange ratios, particularly where the operational objective is bombing damage, interdiction or exhausting the German fighter force rather than achieving a favourable fighter exchange ratio.

3. Mission type

I would not yet assume the same rule applies equally to every mission.

For interception and Air Superiority, concentration seems important because small fighter forces can be overwhelmed by larger escort formations.

For strategic bombing, the important issue may be whether the bomber stream has enough escort at the point of interception. A large bombing force with inadequate escort could simply provide a larger target.

For ground attack, I am less certain. Ground attack effectiveness may depend more heavily on reconnaissance, target concentration, weather, altitude and whether enough sorties are being directed at worthwhile targets. Dispersing attacks across every frontline hex may create a great deal of activity without producing decisive results.

Your experience against Mr. Metalist may support that point. A very large number of ground attack missions can dilute aircraft, escorts and reconnaissance across too many targets. The missions may be individually too weak to cause significant disruption.

4. Intensity settings

For German fighters, my provisional setting would be:

Pct Fly around 70–80%
Mis Pct around 300
concentrated fighter deployment
Air Superiority flown on alternate days where possible
rest units before fatigue becomes excessive

This appears to create a “big wing” effect: weaker Gruppen remain on the ground, while larger forces are committed when sufficient aircraft are ready.

One additional point from a separate test is that Mis Pct also appears to affect night-fighter interceptions. I ran several concurrent turns comparing the settings and found that increasing Mis Pct to 300 resulted in night-fighter interceptions involving roughly 20% more interceptors.

Unfortunately, I did not save screenshots from that test, so I would treat it as a provisional observation rather than a fully documented result. Even so, it suggests that Mis Pct is not limited to daylight Air Superiority or automatic daytime interceptions, but also influences the size of night-fighter interception packages.

I would be more cautious over Germany itself against the 8th Air Force. Large interceptions against heavily escorted bomber formations may still produce unsustainable German losses. The optimal setting there could be different from the Paris tests.

5. Using Air Superiority to control heavy fighters

One of the main reasons for running Air Superiority missions over Germany is not simply to create larger interceptions, but to control the employment of heavy fighters such as the Me 410.

If these Gruppen are left available for automatic interception, they can be drawn into battles anywhere within range. That may include engagements over Belgium or the Netherlands against large Allied escort formations, where the heavy fighters risk being rapidly decimated in an unfavourable dogfight.

A better approach may be to assign them explicitly to a defined Air Superiority box over the targets they are intended to protect—for example, over northern Germany to cover U-boat factories. This allows the Axis player to concentrate the heavy fighters in a selected defensive area rather than allowing them to respond indiscriminately to Allied missions throughout their operating radius.

The important point is that the heavy-fighter Gruppen need to be manually assigned to the Air Superiority directive. They should not be left on AUTO. If left on automatic selection, they may still be available for unrelated automatic interceptions elsewhere within range, defeating the purpose of using the Air Superiority box to control their employment.

So in this case, the benefit of Air Superiority is not just that it may produce a larger or more efficient interception. It also provides a way to reserve specialised aircraft for the particular targets and geographical area where they are most useful.

For the Allies, I would generally use lower Pct Fly settings than Germany because the Allies can sustain more aircraft activity. However, I would still avoid creating so many directives that escorts and reconnaissance are fragmented into ineffective packets.

6. Reconnaissance and escort allocation

I agree with your observation about expanded Air Headquarters. More available directives are not automatically an advantage. If the result is 200-plus missions with inadequate escort or reconnaissance, then the additional directives may reduce effectiveness by dividing the same aircraft among too many tasks.

My current view would be to use fewer, better-supported directives:

current strategic reconnaissance over important industrial targets;
sufficient escort for the main strategic raids;
concentrated ground attack against selected operational targets;
fewer low-value missions spread across the entire front.

So my tentative overall conclusion is:

Axis: concentrate, filter out depleted units, fly fewer but larger fighter operations, use Air Superiority to control where specialised aircraft engage, and manage fatigue carefully.

Allies: use numerical superiority, but avoid diluting escorts, reconnaissance and bombing strength across too many small directives.

There is still more testing needed, particularly to separate the effect of numerical concentration from fatigue and to see whether the Paris results hold over Germany and in Italy.

Thanks, hope this helps!

Matchwood

[matchwood]

One more thing: a higher **Pct Fly** setting also appears to filter out many reconnaissance interceptions.

In 1943, these often seem to be a poor use of scarce Luftwaffe fighter strength. The German fighters frequently lack the speed to catch Allied reconnaissance aircraft, so the interception achieves little while still consuming sorties, increasing fatigue and creating air operational losses.

In my tests, those operational losses appeared to outweigh the limited benefit of occasionally damaging or shooting down a reconnaissance aircraft. Recon interceptions therefore looked like a net loss for the Luftwaffe.

A higher Pct Fly threshold helps indirectly by preventing depleted Gruppen from launching for these marginal interceptions, preserving aircraft and pilots for bombers and escorts.

This may be different in late 1944 or 1945, when faster Luftwaffe aircraft have a better chance of catching Allied reconnaissance types. My observation mainly applies to the 1943 situation tested here.

Matchwood

[kentkroeckel]

Thank you so very much Mr. Matchwood on your research. I will try to include some thoughts on it but very little can I add. You are the master and I am the student!



Your point Mr. Matchwood, on not having small interceptions by Axis squadrons (~ equivalent) is revealing. I think one can conclude this being factual, given current WitW system. I think the limited pilots are the key, as you suggest for Germany. For Allies this is not a factor so I am not sure this would cross over. Your example of a strategic bombing mission was excellent.

‘Even with fewer escorts the bombers themselves are capable of fighting. The goal is to cause factory damage so every additional bomber helps in that equation.’ (Paraphrased)

Since each side has a different goal, each side tries to achieve it in different ways. Germany wants to stop the bombing. To do this the Luftwaffe needs to make bombers abort. Notice I did not say destroy. Flak breaks up bombing raids along with interceptors. Some bombers go home without success, while others are shot down. Those that are successful in getting over target are then rewarded, with a change to inflict damage. Not a guarantee.



Your thought, Mr. Matchwood on air superiority boxes for interceptors instead of generic interception is a powerful point! And I must admit, when I have played Germany I relied much on generic interception. My bad. Ha. Your evidence makes it clear that Germany should incorporate many small, and I would even say single hex air superiority missions.

‘Why have interceptors wasted on Allied escorts if not necessary? Do not have them engage over hexes that are not targets.’ (Paraphrased)

Often Allied escorts end their assistance just before the intended hex. Particularly in 1943. So your above statement is sound.



Your observation of the game between Mr. Metalist and myself is accurate Mr. Matchwood. More Allied air missions does not equate to success. I wanted to see if two hundred fifty missions could overwhelm the Luftwaffe. It did not. And a special thank you to Mr. Metalist for his help.

All of us have concluded that additional Allied air missions do not benefit Allied air tactics. This can be applied to strategic bombing missions but also on tactical ones as well. Five hexes set at 2 level interdiction are not effective. One or two hexes set at 6 or 8 level interdiction can impact the ground units on those hexes.

Now I do want to add something, which is covered in the manual, as an example. ‘Covering an invasion area with a 6 box can be useful.’ (Paraphrased).

Units coming to a crisis that go through multiple hexes which are interdicted at level 2 are going to be slowed down. So of course there will be uses for a broad area but I think the majority of usage will be on specific hexes.

[LiquidSky]

As someone who has played the Germans a fair bit back in the day, and recently a few times I have a few things to say about the German airforce.

First of all...the goal of the German airforce is not to try and shoot down the enemy bombers. You just want to discourage them a bit so they either return to base or lose efficiency in dropping bombs. Their morale suffers and they have to rest meaning you won't see them two turns in a row.

Second of all...you need to conserve the Fighters for as long as possible. Air Superiority missions are bad for this. They basically say FLY! No matter what. And you don't want that. You only want to fly when you are being Strategically bombed.

If your fighters are just sitting on bases with no air mission assigned..and you are not resting, they will fly to intercept anything in their range. You can see the blue circles of their range if you go into the Commanders Report and filter to FB. When you hit the air transfer button up it pops.

Thirdly. You do not want to engage enemy fighters. This is just a waste of good German pilots that will be replaced by worse ones. You only get 37ish trained pilots a turn. The turn you have to put untrained pilots into fighters is the turn you lost the airwar.

What I do with the German fighters is I put the night fighters all in the Ruhr in or adjacent to the factories. I leave them on NO and I only give them untrained pilots. This is where the training happens since they don't lose a lot of morale/fatigue and don't need a lot of travel time to fight the English night bombers. After D-day, at some point I will start disbanding squadrons so the pilots feed into the Day fighters.

The Day fighters I will either split up between Hamburg and Cologne or just put the whole force in one or the other. Long range fighters I park in either Berlin or Bucharest to build up and train. The BF/FW's are TPI while the long range planes can get untrained pilots. They can train.

You do not want any of those blue range circles to intersect the allied fighters. So I will change the load outs on my fighters to have cannons and no drop tanks. The early FW's will be none until they get cannons and the BW's get the cannons.

Now most of the time for the first few months, you will be fighting unescorted American day bombers and escorted English night bombers. Night fighting is fairly tame and is pretty much only to train your night fighters. If the allied player is persistant, you will be lowering his morale so much that he can only bomb you every second turn with the americans. Even unescorted the American bombers will make you lose about 50 pilots a turn. And you can only replace 37 of them.

Last note. On your turn you need to set all your day fighters to rest. You don't want them flying if he isn't bombing, and he only bombs on his air phase. They won't train on rest, but they will have high morale and no fatigue on his air phase. As I mentioned earlier, leave the night fighters on NO since they don't lose much fatigue/morale and they can train.

Don't put your fighters on bases in range of the allied fighters. And especially don't fight AIR SUPERIORITY. If I am playing against a German who does that, I will have my fighters always on AIR SUPERIORITY and where the circles intersect its bye bye German pilots.


In my experience, despite all this....somewhere around the spring/summer of 1944 you will be forced to disband your night fighters. The allies will gain long range escorts, and you will eventually have to put untrained pilots in your fighters. By the end of 1944 they will no longer make any meaningful contribution to slowing down the bombing.


Thinking about one hex AS missions over the factories. Not sure if that is better then just hitting them randomly on the way to the target multiple times. For one....the allies will know from looking at the target symbols where your AS is. Also, if they don't hit that particular factory, those fighters do nothing but burn fuel.

[LiquidSky]

Fighting the airwar is much different then fighting in Western Europe.

The Allies are limited but airbases. They can only cram so much with what they have. The airbases in Sicily can only reach so far. Because of this, the Axis can actually maintain air superiority over different regions of Italy. I've played many allies who take Corsica, and think that it will be enough to invade north of Rome. The Axis have way more airbases in Northern Italy and around Rome and with the bad weather over France and Germany, I can afford to send half my fighters and all my bombers into the Italian theatre with lots of naval patrol and airbase bombing of Corsica.

The allies have to be more careful...take Sicily...use it to take the toe. Push north, use those airfields to take around Naples and Foggia. And so on. But the German air power will punish any allied player who invades too far from his air cover. Most German victories happen in Italy when the allied player concedes.

[matchwood]

Thanks LiquidSky you've got really good points there.

Kent got me thinking about how the air war over Germany vs the 8th Air Force might be different to France so I did some more tests. The sample size is not huge, so I would treat this as observational rather than definitive, but some patterns seem to be emerging.

The doctrine settings used for these tests were **Pct Fly 50%** and **Mission Aircraft Percentage / Intensity 300%**. So this was not a default interception test. The settings were deliberately designed to encourage larger Luftwaffe commitments while still allowing groups to fly even if they were not at very high readiness. That may be important to the results. I set the BF109 squardons to DO so they would automatically interecept and I set the heavy fighters to AS to control the interception window (and avoid them encountering fighters over Western Germany).

The first and clearest point is that **engagement size matters a lot**. Across the tests, the larger engagements produced the best loss ratios for the Luftwaffe. This held true across different Bf 109 armament configurations — clean, rockets, extra 20mm cannon — and also in mixed formations with heavy fighters. The smaller interceptions tended either to produce very few bomber kills or to generate poor exchange rates. By contrast, the larger engagements were where the Luftwaffe started to get meaningful results and better loss ratios.

That is the most important observation for me. The larger interceptions were not just producing more bomber kills in absolute terms; they were also producing **better loss ratios**. The Luftwaffe was not simply losing more aircraft to shoot down more bombers. In many cases, larger engagements were both more destructive and more efficient.

This suggests that the Luftwaffe benefits from concentration. Small packets of 50–70 fighters seem prone to getting poor results: they may be disrupted, fail to penetrate the bomber box effectively, or simply lack the mass to inflict serious damage. Larger groups appear much more likely to achieve a favourable exchange.

The second point is that **Bf 109s alone are not especially reliable bomber killers**. They can sometimes do well, but the results are inconsistent. In one test, around 150 Bf 109G-6s intercepted nearly 400 B-17s/B-24s and shot down only 1 bomber while losing 7 fighters. In another similar-sized engagement, they achieved roughly parity: 5 German losses for 5 bomber losses. In a better case they managed 9 bomber kills for 4 fighter losses. So the Bf 109 can hurt the bomber stream, but it does not look like a dependable anti-bomber solution by itself.

Loadout also matters, but less consistently than engagement size. Clean Bf 109s appear more survivable, but lack killing power. Extra 20mm cannon seem to increase bomber losses, but also increase fighter attrition. Rockets were disappointing overall: they did not clearly outperform cannon and produced a worse exchange rate across the full set. My tentative view is that clean Bf 109s are best for preserving the fighter force, while extra cannon may be useful if you deliberately want to trade losses to damage the bomber stream. I would be cautious about rockets unless other players have found better conditions for them.

The third aircraft-specific pattern is that **the Bf 110G-2 appears to be a much better bomber killer than the Bf 109G-6**. One pure Bf 110 intercept produced 29 bomber losses for 8 German fighter losses. Another heavy-fighter engagement involving Bf 110s and Me 410s produced 26 bomber losses for only 4 German losses. That is a very different level of return compared with most of the Bf 109-only engagements.

The most striking result was a mixed intercept of roughly 150 Bf 109G-6s and 150 Bf 110G-2s against about 330 heavy bombers. That produced **39 bomber losses for only 4 German fighter losses**. My interpretation is that the Bf 109s may be helping to screen or support the heavy fighters, while the Bf 110s do the actual bomber killing. The 109s by themselves are inconsistent; the heavy fighters by themselves are powerful but vulnerable if mishandled; together, in a large enough engagement, they seem much more dangerous.

The operational lesson I’m drawing is this:

**Do not leave the Luftwaffe to make lots of small, random interceptions. Try to engineer large, concentrated combats over targets that are actually worth defending.**

In practice, that means manually assigning Bf 110s / Me 410s to specific Air Superiority boxes over valuable targets in Northern Germany — for example U-boat factories, ports, or aircraft industry — and using Bf 109s to support those boxes. I would avoid leaving heavy fighters on AUTO where they can be dragged into random intercepts over Belgium or the Netherlands, potentially against Allied escorts, rather than engaging the bomber stream where you want them.

So my current takeaway is:

**With Pct Fly at 50% and Mission Aircraft Percentage / Intensity at 300%, the Luftwaffe can still hurt the 8th Air Force in July 1943, but the key seems to be concentration. Engagement size was the most consistent factor across the tests. Armament and aircraft type mattered, but the larger engagements produced both the meaningful bomber losses and the best loss ratios.**

Open to debate of course - just becuase a ratio of 10:1 is possible over Germany in 1943 doesn't mean the LW player can afford the pilots...as per LiquidSky's point if you only get 37 a turn then even a really good loss ratio might be difficult to sustain. Although, one other factor is that pilot loss rates over germany (planes destroyed vs pilots killed) might be the best ratio available compared to the risk of losing pilots over water in the Italy theatre?

Thanks
Matchwood

[kentkroeckel]

Thank you for your interest on this subject Mr. Liquid Sky; and to you Mr. Matchwood. This thread is absolutely fascinating and informative. A point I wanted to add is resting air resources at end of turn. Mr. Liquid Sky mentioned this and I too find this beneficial when playing either side.

Meaning, Reconnaissance and transport should be placed on rest at end of turn. Then, any aircraft that will not be active on opponents air phase should also be placed on rest. For Allies, all aircraft on strategic missions should be placed on rest. All aircraft assigned to ground attack should too, because they only fly on freindly air phase. Do not confuse air support, which attacks when friendly ground units are attacking or defending. They should stay active through whole turn.

Once again, thank you Mr. Liquid Sky and Mr. Matchwood.

Best wishes, Kent

[matchwood]

Great point! The trade-off is morale and repair/rest versus automatic experience training through DO/NO/DN.

Not putting your squadrons on rest during the friendly turn is really only useful if you have, ahem, “Harleyed” your squadrons with lots of untrained pilots.

Of course, making sure they are connected to an Air Command with high-morale leadership is important too, in order to get the benefits from resting. Passing a morale test for an Air HQ is not subject to distance penalties, but it is limited to 90 hexes.

Thanks,
Matchwood

[LiquidSky]

For simplicity and ease of doing my turn, I will try to put all the different types of axis aircraft in their own air HQ.

For example in my current game, I have all the day fighters in JG1. Night Fighters in JG2. LB's in Luftwaffe Reich and so on. The Italians I do something similar although they have a lot of aircraft that are prohibited from changing HQ's

I also change my auto training from 50 to 60. I once tried using hard training TRS mode, but it seem to cause more damage then it was worth.