SU AA firing at GS

[Wiedrock]

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.

Like if I flip this way we change the outcomes not at all (1st example with flipped Hexes in the North and SE) and we massively reduce the AA performance (to levels before seen in the Hex 1) when taking the two hexes in the south. Note that there is no AA in the Airfield I am taking by doing this, as you can see with the Flak value indicators.

[Wiedrock]

Against this Hex we always get good AA hits. Six attacks all get good hits, so again no real RNG on the "all or nothing"-observation bewteen hexes.
An possible explanation could have been the "lines" we see from bombers (black) and fighters (red) (e.g. flying over a red hex gives better chance to hit at target hex), but as seen here this seems to not be the case. All pathing over friendly hexes and still good AA hits.

[Joel Billings]

I'm guessing, but I don't think the 88 and 105 are good at aircraft flying at lower altitudes (they are very good at high altitude bombers). The smaller auto weapons are better at the under 10k stuff, but can't say exactly what everyone is flying at, so can't say this explains it for sure.

[Wiedrock]

I agree on the bigger guns (88mm+) being unsuited for this test with IL-2s flying at 9k (+diving even deeper).
But ...
1. Why do they/does any Flak (whichever one it is) hit in one Hex and not in the other using this exact setup?
2. Why are the 20mm not being shown in the AA-List (not shown = not shooting....right?)?

P.S.: And it is rly just about GS, GA ADs with that setup get shot to pieces in all Hexes.

[Joel Billings]

They are coded as two distinct systems (that may share a few functions, but also don't share a lot of others). They also represent two different types of attacks, with GS being air missions flown in close cooperation with ground forces, while GA is more general bombing that is not used during actual ground fighting (started out as a way to do carpet bombing). But why they are different is not clear to me, although based on what you are saying there must be something coded in GS that reduces some of the flak participation in some cases. At times I understood bits of what was going on, but never really understood all the differences. Now I don't remember anything specific, and neither does Gary.

[ImperatorAugustus]

AA is incredibly bad in GS if you fly above the low altitude, which soviets do by default against 20mm. Across an entire front it can add up, but its certainly not realistically working

Or its just absolutely crack in air phase to the point where any sort of bombing of cities or airfields is entirely undoable after turn one. Like even if you dont get eviscerated you will just do nothing. Which is also not realistic.