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Turn 27

Well, it was an interesting turn. AS bobbed back up nicely, mainly as a result of my better availability figures and the return to heavy bombing of Sector AFs. I assume that resting some of my bombers (ie no 2nd mission) probably accounts for the former, as I took the usual (heavy) casualties.

To quote myself from yesterday:

If Swift intercepts it (and why wouldn't he) he will at the least get a shock. The staggered timings for this day's missions are intended to make a unified response by FC more difficult, and maybe just throw him off balance a little.

I can announce that this actually worked quite well, as revealed in a recent decrypt of a signal from the headquarters of Air Marshall Sir Swift 'Swifty' Swift, CBE, DSO, DFC, BBC, Channel Four and bar. It read, in part, as follows:

This turn I went for the wrong raids......they looked nice but went so far north that FC was not able to intercept some of the later raids......

This deception worked so well that the North Weald 'Trojan Horse' mission, designed to hammer the unsuspecting interceptors, faced no significant opposition. On the other hand the 'uber' raid against Filton worked very well.

As you table below shows, the crews on the Church Fenton raid paid a very heavy price to be part of my successful deception strategy:

Could you please post LW and RAF total losses?
Thanks.

Bye!

It's not very pretty I'm afraid: LW 1,758 RAF 398

This time I'm going for Sector AFs, but with a much lumpier attack profile, as opposed to the fairly evenly spread attack waves I usually mount.

what! You are using your pathfinders in the daytime?

Thats just crazy, better use them at night where they can bomb the airfield.
That way the morale of the fighters will go down even further!

It seems that it is not the size of the attack, but the number of attack that will reduce morale, so each staffel should go for a Primary Airfield.

what! You are using your pathfinders in the daytime?

It's the only time I can use them, as I almost never fly night raids

Thats just crazy

Tactfully put! [;)]

...better use them at night where they can bomb the airfield. That way the morale of the fighters will go down even further!

Interesting. What percentage of daytime damage do you typically find you get when bombing with the same size force at night?

It seems that it is not the size of the attack, but the number of attack that will reduce morale, so each staffel should go for a Primary Airfield.

If you mean the morale of individual units, at the moment I am aiming to score AS points, and having spent many turns launching large numbers of small raids I have caused considerable airfield damage. Now I am trying to increase the amount of sdam and cdam amount to key stations. Experience has taught me that this means smaller numbers of larger raids, hence the (for me) radical departure of using today's strategy. Hopefully this will cause longer-lasting damage than the smaller raids which often just crater the runway, damage that is often repaired before the bombers land.

Obviously it's a gamble, but this sort of change in strategy always is. If I'm wrong we should see in a few days! And thanks for making such good points.

Kevin

Turn 28

That's a relief! As you can see from the graph above I did exactly the right thing last turn. After all, AS has continued to climb almost as steeply as the previous day* and that's obviously a good thing, so if I just carry on doing the same thing I'll win won't I?

* Why 9.998? When I refreshed the graph after entering the new data it read 10, which made me think the game's sums were up the creek. Not so, it's just that to one decimal place 9.998 is of course 10.

Mmm... I'm not so sure.

If you look at the two formulae below you'll see why I'm a bit reticent about claiming a stunning success. The top one shows the calculation for the turn before last, while the bottom one was for the last turn. As you can see, the LW readiness and Sector AF damage figures are virtually unchanged; the big difference is in the RAF's readiness figures. The figure in brackets shows what would have happened to the AS score if the RAF figures had remained unchanged - Virtually nothing.

Summary

Action Reports

I usually go for the industry with the KG 100, to keep his production down. Occasionally I use them to harass the Airfields that are crowded, a few bombs in the night will keep the bombed crews fatigue up and their morale will go down.
Low morale will not let them engage your bombers, they will break off combat sooner.
High fatigue results in less kills from the fatigued crews and more kills from your escorting fighters, hopefully [;)]

My way of using the KG 100 at night is not to inflict much damage, but more to spread out the pain,also to airfields that are beyond normal fighter escort range. (=less FLaK)

As you stated, your mission today was a gamble where you throw everything at his airfields, and rightly so!
It seems to be paying off [:D]

I usually go for the industry with the KG 100, to keep his production down. Occasionally I use them to harass the Airfields that are crowded, a few bombs in the night will keep the bombed crews fatigue up and their morale will go down.

It seems so obvious now you put it like that! I think I've become stuck too much in the mindset of wanting to create 'measureable damage' every time, and am overlooking the more subtle tactics.

My way of using the KG 100 at night is not to inflict much damage, but more to spread out the pain,also to airfields that are beyond normal fighter escort range. (=less FLaK)

Of course what a suggestion! This could be the answer to my 'Church Fenton Problem'. Looked at this way night raids can actually add an extra dimension to the game, through which a small force of bombers can 'slip', avoiding the daytime defences.

As you stated, your mission today was a gamble where you throw everything at his airfields, and rightly so!
It seems to be paying off [:D]

I've got to be lucky some time [;)]

In the next turn you may see what I think I'm going to call "The Derfel Doctrine" being employed for the first time by the Luftwaffe [&o] With a name like 'Derfel' I just knew you had to be Welsh!

On a more restrained note, this is the pre-strike recce for the next turn. It consists of at least one mission to every Radar site (in my area of interest), every Sector AF, the ten AFACs I damaged a couple of weeks back and most of the EFACs. The last two are so that I can make a decision about possible night raids on industry. I have also moved 3/KGr100 from Vannes to Zeebrugge, in order to make it possible to use on these hypothetical raids or forays to to (say) Church Fenton.

Turn 30

Air Superiority Overview

AARs

Summary

RADAR

Well at least something's going right. I managed to get radar suppression under control after losing it for a few days:

Air Superiority Overview