Air - *Night Missions*

[Wiedrock]

I'd like to also hint at the AA effectiveness.
I may provide pictures in the comming days, but until then I would point towards 2/3rds effectiveness of AA during night as during day. In the AA setup I used some posts above for A2A (but without A2A).
The damage done by AA to planes during day in the setup is about 1k-1.1k while during night it is about 700-800. So -33%.

Not sure in how far that would be appropriate when you are already changing 20-30% Mission effects for 1-3% in favor to avoid AA.

It is possible that Flak in Uraban areas performs differently during night than in a normal Hex due to search lights, ...at least that is something I would expect Gary to have added. I did not test this yet.

[Wiedrock]

I'd like to also hint at the AA effectiveness.
I may provide pictures in the comming days, but until then I would point towards 2/3rds effectiveness of AA during night as during day. In the AA setup I used some posts above for A2A (but without A2A).

Here a test series of 5 runs each of a setup I decided to do without Escorts (does not change the % much, just the total damage numbers it seems).
Planes use the 2x1000kg bomb.
Target Priority is only Manpower.
Planes are based as in the initial tests very close to Leningrad.
AA is inside Leningradd massed in SUs as well as there being some AA in the paths/adjacent hexes.

We see the usual RNG making it hard to get a proper sense of actual effects of things and proper numbers shown...

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Damages
Looking at the damage done by AA [Air Execution log] the Night AA damages (921 average) 65% of what the Day AA damages (average 1419).
So here we see the 2/3rds of AA effects I was hinting at.

Lost Planes
Looking at planes downed by AA, we have an average of 14.2 planes at night and 23.6 planes at day. Note that as usual there are planes that are shot down before bombing (this is reported in the combat log) and then there are planes destroyed by AA in the final calculation/conclusion of a mission.
So night suffers 14.2/23.6=60% the planes lost as it would during day.

We combine the damage 65% and plane losses 60% to 60% to have an easy figure.

Ammo
Ammo consumed by Flak is about the same, we ignore the slight difference of ~1-3tons and set 231tons as a base for both test series so no need to account for this going forward.

Effects
5x165 at night caused 2% effects.
5x165 at day caused 41% effects.
So the night mission, in this setup, with this 5 results each, is 2/41=4.9% as effective as day. We round to 5%.
So day is 20times as effective.

Efficiency
Now we can compare this reduction in losses to AA to the caused effects.
If we ignore the OPS this means we have:
23.6 planes lost for 41/5=8.2 effect. So 0.347 effect per lost plane.
14.2 planes lost for 2/5=0.4 effect. So 0.028 effect per lost plane.
So 0.028/0.347=0.0806 → 8.1 → 8%
So nighttime attacks are 8% as effective as Daytime missions when only accounting for AA caused losses. So we lose 92% efficiency.
....now if we include the OPS during night this won't get any better *hint*hint*.

For the sake....day takes 24.4 losses to AA+OPS and night 29.8 losses on average.
So nighttime vs daytime missions without A2A are 4% as efficient regarding losses as daytime when accounting for both, AA and OPS.

Now....also adding A2A.....I would propose (but not in the mood to test) it may get even worse since the Escort at night does not do what it is supposed to do.

Note: As mentioned the RNG is crazy. These are only 5 runs runs each only which have been performed in this order. 5 Other runs may therefore be able to produce vastly different results (like assuming the "best" of one daytime x5 compared to the worst of another daytime x5).
Additionally, if I had not gotten the 20% effect mission at daytime the math would have also been rather different or if nighttime would have had 2 or 3 Missions instead of just one with some percentages.
But overall the series's provide a good average I would propose, tho certainly not perfect.

Savefile attached (see Leningrad), one AD only. It's the nighttime test, just change the AD to daytime to compare.

pre AA.rar

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