SU AA firing at GS

[tyronec]

T33 of my StB game with Rosencrantus.
All attacks during the Soviet turn.

This is a normal attack, there are no AA SUs and it seems to work OK.

[tyronec]

This is an attack where I loaded the infantry corps with AA SUs.
They shot down a few aircraft, but primarily fighters and not the bombers that were blasting them to bits.
They do have ammo so that is not the issue.

Maybe this is WAD, am not sure...

[tyronec]

This is a follow up attack after the last one, the AA are now doing nothing at all.

[Stamb]

Is it possible that Axis fighters are actually using bombs and dive? Can you show load out for the units?

[tyronec]

Is it possible that Axis fighters are actually using bombs and dive? Can you show load out for the units?

I don't have access to the save any more, yes - some of the Axis losses are likely FB-B's but that makes no difference to the point.

[Stamb]

I thought that level bombers do not suffer AA as they drop bombs from a higher altitude, depends on the settings, but let say 15k. While FB are actually diving to lower altitudes (I don't know the values) and suffering from AA.

[Rosencrantus]

ORIGINAL: Stamb

Is it possible that Axis fighters are actually using bombs and dive? Can you show load out for the units?

I can chime in on their loadouts.

None of the 109 G-6's had bombs on them. They were all in 100% fighter role.

Every other air group were in a bomber role and had bombs as their loadout.

[tyronec]

I thought that level bombers do not suffer AA as they drop bombs from a higher altitude, depends on the settings, but let say 15k. While FB are actually diving to lower altitudes (I don't know the values) and suffering from AA.

I think a lot of bomber crews would have been happy if AA guns didn't work above 15k and they were immune to AA !

[Stamb]

Low flak has some ceiling. I don't remember exact values. But I would imagine that flying GS at higher altitude than effective AA ceiling should lead to almost no AA losses

[Rosencrantus]

Nope, the bombing was done at 9000 ft.

[tyronec]

Low flak has some ceiling. I don't remember exact values. But I would imagine that flying GS at higher altitude than effective AA ceiling should lead to almost no AA losses

The AA is listed on the combat report. The gun characteristics are in commanders report under equipment. Even if the aircraft had been LBs they would still have been within range.

[tyronec]

Here is another combat from my StB game with Rosencrantus.
AA SUs attached to units are definitely not firing.
Has this been looked at, I know it is not a major issue but would be good to have it confirmed as bug or not.

X13.jpg (238.9 KiB) Viewed 1257 times

[Joel Billings]

As I didn't respond to this, I must have missed this thread. Does anyone have a save with a bunch of AA support units attached to the attacking units? I don't know how the system treats attacking side flak support units. They wouldn't fire from an adjacent hex at aircraft this low, but not sure who gets to participate from both sides. Are you seeing flak guns listed in the battle report on the attacking side? It would help if I could get a save I could use, otherwise, I can try to set something up myself when I have a chance.

[tyronec]

The earlier posts in this thread the AA guns were listed in the combat report. T33
On this last post the AA guns are not listed, that is under patch 2.21. T34
These are all combats with Soviet Infantry Corps attacking with AA SUs attached.
Game is StB, vs Rosencrantus.

[Joel Billings]

There is something odd going on that I can't explain. I'm using saves from Soviet turn 34 and attacking near Leningrad with units that have support AA. Many attacks are showing the correct number of 37mm and 85mm guns in the battle as adding to the flak fire. Other times, I see only 12 37mm. It's always either the correct total of all the support units, or just 12 37mm. I will use put the save in with a bug report and hopefully it can be duplicated by Pavel or Gary and they can either explain what's going on or fix it if in fact there's a bug here. Now even when I get the full complement of AA guns (as many as 200 when I included 9 support units in the battles), the flak losses are underwhelming and the flak guns are taking a lot of damage in the combat (from air and ground). As the units are low morale/experience, maybe that's WAD, I can't say, but the unusual number of guns being reported in the battle (just 12 sometimes) does seem strange. One other thing I noticed is that in some cases their are Stukas, and given they are dive bombing, I would have guessed that some 12.7mm elements might have contributed, so I will ask about that as well. Thanks for pointing this out.

[Wiedrock]

Been looking at air stuff recently.

There always have been the cases where Germans had several AA SUs attached but the VVS somehow managed to hit many targets, I based this on RNG but this may not be the case.

---

I found it (still) being the case that Flak may not do anything most of the time (or in certain setups).
If we take vanilla VtB and attack in the South we get results like these:
This is the setup (yes there is still LW Regiments attached in this scenario).

Flak_Germans.jpg (212.24 KiB) Viewed 375 times

This is the result:

Flak_SAV attack.jpg (572.46 KiB) Viewed 375 times

So, we have lots of Flak.
The Altitude is in range for all types of Flak.
We do not "fly below 5k to avoid most conventional Flak".

.......now what would one expect from the AA? I am not sure...
Either 3-10 destroyed planes maybe ....and another 20damaged (did not check for damage in the airports - the log gave ~3xLa-7 damaged in both runs (not a single IL-2)).
AND/OR at least a reduction in GS efficiency and not an increase of hit targets.

Furthermore, when modifying the scenario (like removing the Regiment) I get again results similar to what I have found here:

1st with 3xFlak attached, then moved to the Hex to attack. [3.75 hits per plane]
2nd without Flak. [2 hits per plane]

whereas in this example above we have planes hit 55 elements with 32 planes → 1.719 hits/plane
and when removing the LW Regiment (see below - 1 plane shot down this time) it gave me 28 elements hit with 32 planes → 0.875 hits/plane

removed Flak Regiment.jpg (110.67 KiB) Viewed 375 times

So there is/may be in the current game version (likely all to some degree depending on planes/setups(GroundSupport)/periods).

1. Low/no losses of planes to AA fire - even when AA is stacked [it obviously also shouldn't be too high to not be exploitable]
2. Low/no damage to planes [logs give damage reports but AGs end up without damaged planes in their airfields]
3. No reduction in bombing efficiency - in reverse it may even increases the number of hit elements (+especially targeting AA at times at least - without the AA being able to defend itself at all).

Looking far back, the balance was off several times when it comes to A2A and Flak over early development but then seemingly this (of this post) "balance" seems to have settled.
If there are ways to make it work, pls someone could share and we may figure what's the issue in some setups/results.

Btw. all this goes on top of not being able to attach LW/PVO and on top of the fact that rolled AA SUs do not fire any AA.

[Joel Billings]

I will put this on the list to look at. I have a save for that attack you show. Flak was a part of the game that had a lot of work and rework by Gary, and, IIRC, also suffered from their being effectively 2 air combat sections, one for the ground combat and one from the air combat phase. Gary was more responsible for the ground support phase, and Pavel more responsible for the air execution phase. I can't give an ETA on when this is going to be looked at, as Pavel's time on WitE2 is once again much more limited, but don't expect anything in the near future. I also don't expect there to be a smoking gun issue that has an easy fix (and if it does, it might require additional changes to balance out). Since Pavel likely didn't write this part of the code, the analysis may take some time (although with AI help he at least has a chance to understand it in a reasonable time). The way a/c are damaged and repaired may come into play here as well. I seem to recall at some point Gary made it so that damaged a/c could repair during the ground combat phase after returning from a mission (which might explain why you are seeing few if any damaged a/c), but my memory could be wrong on this.

[Wiedrock]

TLDR:
It may not be the AA or the SUs or anything player controlled, not even anthing "directly" RNG related.
I can repeat these two attacks a dozent times and the results will always be the same (one the AA fires, the other it does nothing). The only difference being the different Hex.

Setup:

• I made VtB have sunny weather.
• I removed all the AA/units surrounding the area.
• Now I test the Pz.Div. with the attached LW Regiment in two different hexes.
  1. Hex 1 being the one I already tested above which never gives real AA performance.
  2. Hex 2 being the one to the NW of Hex one. That one I chose because in vanilla VtB this Hex always gives lots of AA kills for some reason.

Hex 1 results.
We get 0 instant planes shot down. This aligns with the numbers shown "pre retreat losses calculation" in the screenshot below.
We get 6 "damaged by flak" reports.

Hex1_pre-RTR calculation and log.jpg (535.04 KiB) Viewed 134 times

In the "post RTR calculation" there are (additional) plane casualties due to flak being added as well as the OPS.
0x IL-2 are reported as being damaged and none shot down before bombing, we get 1.43 hits/plane.

Hex1_post RTR calculation.jpg (323.33 KiB) Viewed 134 times

Hex 2 results.
We get 9 instant planes shot down. This aligns with the numbers shown "pre retreat losses calculation" in the screenshot below.
We get 147 "damaged by flak" reports.

Hex2_pre-RTR calculation and log.jpg (590.93 KiB) Viewed 134 times

In the "post RTR calculation" there are additional plane casualties due to flak being added as well as the OPS.
79x IL-2 are reported as being damaged and one shot down before bombing, we get 1.35 hits/plane.

Hex2_post RTR calculation.jpg (407.75 KiB) Viewed 134 times

Sooo....

2 notes:

1. What stands out is that I never get the ~30+50=80 20mm Flak to shoot or get listed in the "AA-List" despite planes being in altitude for this guns. If this AA-list has any real relevance I do not know at this point.
2. Original Hex 1 I never got any IL-2 shot down at all, while Hex 2 it is sometimes the most DES plane by Flak.

...so it seems not to be the
- altitude
- planes
- guns present
- guns on the AA-List
- Pz.Div.
- LW Regiment
- adjacent AA
- seems also not to be other AA shooting during plane pathing/route

....so all there is left is the change of the Hex. One Hex the Flak shoots, one it simply does close to nothing.


It ofc could be some issue with the stetup (e.g. pathing of planes) or whatever.
But regularly we see single digit Flak listed and shooting down 10+ planes and sometimes 100+ guns do nothing at all.
And since I can repeat these results over and over again without it being RNG I wonder what pre-predicts the results.

[M60A3TTS]

Hex 1 is not a town, and Hex 2 is. Maybe look at that, even if there is no logic to it.

[Wiedrock]

Hex 1 is not a town, and Hex 2 is. Maybe look at that, even if there is no logic to it.

This is the same Scenario but I now moved the Pz.Div. 2 Hexes further up ...why there? Because I know it is another Hex always giving good AA hits (again - for whatever reason - in this exact setup). One quick Editor attack and another in a live game.

I found that it sometimes seems to be related to how many adjacent Hexes are friendly or red but then you have cases which break that rule....so not sure.