Hi.
When playing the german side, where should you station the fighters if you want them to intercept allied bombers?
Is it beneficial to place spare HQ's in fx the Ruhr-area and over Ploesti or is all fighter activity coordinated from the Western and Italian fronts?
Rgds,
Magnus
Allied bombings
Well, realy, one should place interceptors in OKH/OKW and 7 hexes from Bukharest and Ploesti. Fighters from OKH/OKW will intercept bombers everywhere above the Reich and second group will protect Romania oil only. It seems optimal to me. If things go bad and bombers begin to hit targets regulary, it means you should establish rotation of air groups and some of them must recover and train on Balcans far from Soviet airfield raids and from Romania oil.
I've made some test and my results are:
- Put your interceptor in cap (C)
- Use only FW190 for intercept; a mix of model A and F is optimum.
- Do not base any other fighter in Germany, even in France: only in OKH and in a HQ near Ploesti (when begins the bombing of the oilfields in late '43), otherwise you may obtain undesiderd interception.
With this system in the '43 campaign I have put 2 groups of FW190A and 1 of FW190F in OKH and, increasing this number later,NO a bomb has hit the Reich in all the war!.
This has worked even in the '44 scenario.
- Put your interceptor in cap (C)
- Use only FW190 for intercept; a mix of model A and F is optimum.
- Do not base any other fighter in Germany, even in France: only in OKH and in a HQ near Ploesti (when begins the bombing of the oilfields in late '43), otherwise you may obtain undesiderd interception.
With this system in the '43 campaign I have put 2 groups of FW190A and 1 of FW190F in OKH and, increasing this number later,NO a bomb has hit the Reich in all the war!.
This has worked even in the '44 scenario.
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matt.buttsworth
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MagnusOlsson
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Thanx for your reply's!
Reg the aircraft in West- and Italy-HQ; could they be any types or does quality matter? If it's just the quantity, then it would be beneficial to have one factory produce the cheapest possible aircraft and stock-keep that in the airformations in West/Italy HQ. Right? I would rotate air wings between east front and OKH/OKW to keep up experience for these 'relevant' formations.
Same (quantity not quality) would apply for tanks.
Rgds,
Magnus
Reg the aircraft in West- and Italy-HQ; could they be any types or does quality matter? If it's just the quantity, then it would be beneficial to have one factory produce the cheapest possible aircraft and stock-keep that in the airformations in West/Italy HQ. Right? I would rotate air wings between east front and OKH/OKW to keep up experience for these 'relevant' formations.
Same (quantity not quality) would apply for tanks.
Rgds,
Magnus
For fighter units, this is NOT a good tactic as the West and South fronts as they are part of the Reich air defense against the Allied bombers. I believe that the closest HQ to the city being bombed is the one that sends up its planes to defend from bombers, although it seems like others contribute sometimes. This would result in really bad planes trying to defend the city. This is why Fabio's method works so well.Originally posted by MagnusOlsson:
Thanx for your reply's!
Reg the aircraft in West- and Italy-HQ; could they be any types or does quality matter? If it's just the quantity, then it would be beneficial to have one factory produce the cheapest possible aircraft and stock-keep that in the airformations in West/Italy HQ. Right? I would rotate air wings between east front and OKH/OKW to keep up experience for these 'relevant' formations.
Same (quantity not quality) would apply for tanks.
Rgds,
Magnus
For bombers it really doesn't matter. Tanks don't matter either, so this is a good solution for the PzIIs and Italian tanks.
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi
Semper Fi
As Mist said, the interceptors get a special range increase in the newest versions. Using the initial 1941 campaign OKW/OKH fighters, Konigsberg and Danzig are outside the Interceptor range of these HQs. Vienna and Budapest are also out of range, but the South/Italy HQ does cover these two cities with its initial planes. I don't have time to check right now, but I would bet that using the FWs, as Fabio does, gives enough range to cover all 4 cities from OKH.Originally posted by Matthew Buttsworth:
Did you test Konigsberg? In Version 1.??? the Soviet player could bomb Konigsberg without any interception attacking the FW air factories their. The same happened when you bombed Vienna and Bucherest.
I have not tested this on version 3.0.
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi
Semper Fi
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Ed Cogburn
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IIRC, people noticed mystery interceptions further east of aircraft that turned out to be interceptors based in OKH/OKW. Arnaud made sure this special long distance intercept range applied only to interceptions of western air attacks.Originally posted by RickyB:
As Mist said, the interceptors get a special range increase in the newest versions. Using the initial 1941 campaign OKW/OKH fighters, Konigsberg and Danzig are outside the Interceptor range of these HQs. Vienna and Budapest are also out of range, but the South/Italy HQ does cover these two cities with its initial planes.
Fabio's method works, but its really working because of the FW190, an amazing plane. If you switch air production to FW planes and stockpile the aircraft you can hold off western bombing indefinitely, although if the game goes well into '45 then losses become heavy as western bomber and escort (P51, P47D) groups reach ~250 per group. Of course, by then you have the Me262.
I have to wonder why the Luftwaffe didn't move all production of fighters to FW190s as soon as they realized what kind of plane it was. Its just plane stupid to use any other aircraft when you have an FW190 in your inventory.
[ June 05, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]
To Mist:
No, I don't change production and don't even change the aircraft assigned to the Air Groups, I use only the forces as they arrive.
Of course if the losses mount too high, I switch the Air Groups with other more fresh. But in general the high rate of losses of the USAAF keep its experience low.
I've not seen bombing of any city go without interception, but of course I may have been only lucky.
BTW, in the '43 scenario, since the only superiority the german do have over the russian is the Luftwaffe, I use it from the beginning for strategic bombing the more spread possible, reducing greatly the russian production and forcing the soviet air force on the defence.
I do the same also in the '41 scenario, after the initial attacks on the airports, with terrible effects on the production of Leningrad, Kiev, Sebastopol etc and from August of Moscow.
In this I'm greatly helped by version 3.0 because the bombers execute the Ground attacks anyway.
Playing solitaire human vs human I find that the russian have great difficult to win against this tactics, even if the germans are not able to reach their 5 VP. It's difficult defeat the soviets, but is very difficult reach Berlin, too.
During the german turn I keep the Fighter-bombers in CAP because they suffer too much losses escorting the bombers and all the Fighters in Escort. Before the beginning of the Combat phase I switch them so the F-B help strafing in the Ground Attack as Escorts and I get the maximus number of fighters as CAP.
Typically for October almost no factory east of the Urals is able to produce anything. Even the Urals produce less because of the losses of heavy Industry.
The only problem is that I use for this ANY aircraft on the map, leaving the West totally without air protection.
This don't seem influence the situation in the West (I send there the surplus of infantry to compensate) but may be seen as cheating, and at the very least ahistorical.
For escort I have found that the Me109 is much more efficient than the FW190, I don't know why.
Anybody has tested this tactics? Do you know a way to counter it?
Finishing this long long post: I think the production for both sides, and the German above all, to be too high, the only real drawback for me in this excellent game.
No, I don't change production and don't even change the aircraft assigned to the Air Groups, I use only the forces as they arrive.
Of course if the losses mount too high, I switch the Air Groups with other more fresh. But in general the high rate of losses of the USAAF keep its experience low.
I've not seen bombing of any city go without interception, but of course I may have been only lucky.
BTW, in the '43 scenario, since the only superiority the german do have over the russian is the Luftwaffe, I use it from the beginning for strategic bombing the more spread possible, reducing greatly the russian production and forcing the soviet air force on the defence.
I do the same also in the '41 scenario, after the initial attacks on the airports, with terrible effects on the production of Leningrad, Kiev, Sebastopol etc and from August of Moscow.
In this I'm greatly helped by version 3.0 because the bombers execute the Ground attacks anyway.
Playing solitaire human vs human I find that the russian have great difficult to win against this tactics, even if the germans are not able to reach their 5 VP. It's difficult defeat the soviets, but is very difficult reach Berlin, too.
During the german turn I keep the Fighter-bombers in CAP because they suffer too much losses escorting the bombers and all the Fighters in Escort. Before the beginning of the Combat phase I switch them so the F-B help strafing in the Ground Attack as Escorts and I get the maximus number of fighters as CAP.
Typically for October almost no factory east of the Urals is able to produce anything. Even the Urals produce less because of the losses of heavy Industry.
The only problem is that I use for this ANY aircraft on the map, leaving the West totally without air protection.
This don't seem influence the situation in the West (I send there the surplus of infantry to compensate) but may be seen as cheating, and at the very least ahistorical.
For escort I have found that the Me109 is much more efficient than the FW190, I don't know why.
Anybody has tested this tactics? Do you know a way to counter it?
Finishing this long long post: I think the production for both sides, and the German above all, to be too high, the only real drawback for me in this excellent game.
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MagnusOlsson
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Fabio,
Your final statement about the production is interesting. (Perhaps we should change thread?). Anyway, the inpact of Speer in Germany is shown in the game by an increase in production. It could perhaps be done in a slightly different way, fx by making factories harder to hit by bombers (reflecting underground mfg plants) and also by allowing switching from tank to aircraft and vice versa (from a certain date, reflecting flexibility and a determined and skilled management of production). But I am not sure about the historical accurancy of such a setup.
Your final statement about the production is interesting. (Perhaps we should change thread?). Anyway, the inpact of Speer in Germany is shown in the game by an increase in production. It could perhaps be done in a slightly different way, fx by making factories harder to hit by bombers (reflecting underground mfg plants) and also by allowing switching from tank to aircraft and vice versa (from a certain date, reflecting flexibility and a determined and skilled management of production). But I am not sure about the historical accurancy of such a setup.
This is OK for late war production, but I intended the early years, 41 and 42.
For what I know, german production in this period was caotical at best.
I have read for example (I don't remember in what book at the moment, sorry) that the production of the PZIV had been suspended (or at least reduced) just before the beginning of Barbarossa, because it was seen as too heavy for the war in the east! Hitler saw this as a mega police operation...
In the book "Operation Barbarossa" of Alan Clark is said that until September '41 Guderian received only 300 new motors for his panzers, no new AFV...
In '42 the tank production was very slow, with less than 1,000 PZIV and little more than 2,000 PZIII (which was marginally effective anyway vs the T34).
Artillery shortage was the norm in '42, after the losses of the winter, even in the air the germans were able to give good support only to the 6° Army...
Well, in effect we could open a new Thread...
For what I know, german production in this period was caotical at best.
I have read for example (I don't remember in what book at the moment, sorry) that the production of the PZIV had been suspended (or at least reduced) just before the beginning of Barbarossa, because it was seen as too heavy for the war in the east! Hitler saw this as a mega police operation...
In the book "Operation Barbarossa" of Alan Clark is said that until September '41 Guderian received only 300 new motors for his panzers, no new AFV...
In '42 the tank production was very slow, with less than 1,000 PZIV and little more than 2,000 PZIII (which was marginally effective anyway vs the T34).
Artillery shortage was the norm in '42, after the losses of the winter, even in the air the germans were able to give good support only to the 6° Army...
Well, in effect we could open a new Thread...