European Theatres of Operations Game 2

[82ndtrooper]

and Paris area

[82ndtrooper]

I forgot to take a pic of the turn totals but they where not good for the Luftwaffe I lost 2 fighters and 3 bombers for no kills.

here is a pic of my bombing raid on Paris

[82ndtrooper]

oh grumpy I got this error for some reason but i just canceled it and finished the turn

I had clicked on paris then hit bombing run and it popped up.

[Bombur]

I had this error too, in our 1st game, but I was able to continue the game..

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: RufusTFirefly

August 40

This turn was a desaster. And I have to say that I am absolutely not content with the way game mechanics work in case of air fights.

I spotted a German HQ southeast of Paris. To prepare an air raid I first send i a lonely Hurricane, then thre French fighters. Of course the Hurrican and two of the French fighters got lost due to German fighters. Then I sent in a group of 9 bombers and several groups of fighters. Although the ratio was 2:1 in fighters to my advance I lost 11(!) fighters (5 Typhoons, 3 Spitfire Mk V, and 3 Hurricans) while the German side lost only 3 fighters. Some more turns like this and I have to give up. This is not the way I am able to protect Britain from an invasion as it is impossible to win the Battle of Britain when things turn out like this. Or is there anything I am doing wrong?

I admit with 82ndTrooper that Norway should have something thats worth fighting for. Norway was important because of its ports from where iron ore from Sweden could be shipped. The reason for the German invasion was to get access to the ports and use them for German transports of iron ore, as well to cut off the supply of Britain with the Swedish ores. Later in war the Norwegian facility got important that was the only one in Europe that was able to produce heavy water (deuterium oxide) that is used as moderator in the production of uranium for atom bombs.

Well there is nothing I changed about air combat from vanilla AT aside from the stat's on the planes.
If you compare the stats on the different models, the Typhoons and Spit V's are significantly better then the 109-E's. All other things being equal...on a 1 vs 1 basis they should beat the Emil's hands down.

So not sure what exactly caused the fight to go the way it did.... I'm sure pilot experience, war footing and readiness also play a part... and possibly just plain bad luck. However, as far as the actual mechanics of air combat... it uses the same ones that all other AT scenerio's do.... there's nothing in the editor to tweak about that (which I have seen).... just the stat's on the individual SFT's... and the Allied Level 2 planes are definately better then the Axis Level 1's.

Note that some planes are better suited to certain roles/tactics... which you can pickup on from close examination of thier stats. As 82nd pointed out...the Typhoon has pretty good stats as a ground support plane (The Tempest does as well).... so it can fill a multi-role pretty well.... whereas the Spit V is a little more nimble in the air (i.e. better able to survive a dogfight) but has less firepower.

You can start to pickup on these by looking at the plane stats.

Doesn't sound like you did anything particulary wrong in your attack....unless maybe you had low readiness on your planes when you launched the strike.

[RufusTFirefly]

This error message has nothing to do with this sceanrio. It is a bug in the game (maybe only in case of some scenario writing). I have had it in other scenarios as well and it is always without effect when closing the window.

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: 82ndtrooper

oh grumpy I got this error for some reason but i just canceled it and finished the turn

I had clicked on paris then hit bombing run and it popped up.

This error message has nothing to do with this sceanrio. It is a bug in the game (maybe only in case of some scenario writing). I have had it in other scenarios as well and it is always without effect when closing the window.

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: 82ndtrooper

as you can see all very experienced units and put them up against your much lesser experienced units and I would think that would have an effect on the outcome. I know your typhoons and spitfire mark V's cant have much more than 20-30 xp, since you recently teched up to them.

Thanks for the answer. You are right, my units are low in experience as they were freshly deployed. This might have a stronger effect than I thought, as well as warfooting and readiness as Grumpy mentioned. (Warfooting of Britain was around 90 percent at that turn.)

first never have your fighters escort bombers on a attack unless you absolutely cant help from doing that. Always send in fighters on recon until the defenders fighters stop intercepting then send in your bombers with a small escort maybe. I have found that escort fighters always take huge losses. If you have been following my air attacks on you with the history tab then you may have noticed that when I send in my bombers they are almost always alone. Now to send in enough fighters on recon you have to build fighter units with 6 or more fighters in them just for this purpose.

I was aware of high losses in case that fighters are used as escort in an air attack. But this result was unexpected. Your suggestion of using recon first is just what I criticise in game mechanics. (@ Grumpy: Of course I dont blame it on this scenario especially. So I did not have in mind that some changes you made are the reason for air fights not working well.) In opposite to Krupp_88mm I think AT is just not working like WitP-AE. In WitP-AE or HoI you can select a region and do air patrol in this area, attacking any enemy air unit showing up. In AT you have to select a target to attack. To control an area you can use recon option and send the air squad to a selected area. But in this case you can chose only one unit. I dont think it is a good idea to put a very large number of fighters in a group just to enable them to stand a dogfight at a recon mission. But that is obviously like it has to be done here. In WitP-AE and HoI you can send different units from different destinations to ensure air superiority in a selected area. But I agree with Krupp_88mm that fighters should be less vulnerable to flak, as they are to fas and operating at high altitudes. When doing ground attack they are vulnerable to flak; but for this purpoes tactical bombers are more suitable.

another hint
look closely at your Hawker Typhoons and you will see that they have excellent strike abilities in fact they are as good as my Stukas.

Thats why I build these SFTs - and have used them in the attack. The Germans have some very good tanks. To defend them it is necessary to have some good AT guns. But the best one, the 88mm, is a German weapon. The second best might be a Russian AT gun (referring to historical situation, I have not yet seen the statistics of the Russian units in this scenario.) So for the westerns allies it is necessary to have some tactical bombers to attack the German armoured divisions.

and the other thing i have found is that fighters do much better when defending then attacking (you will be able to defend Britain fine) so I have grown to expect higher loses when i attack and try to make sure I limit those loses. The key is recon missions I feel like that's the way they can attack the best with less losses. I have a couple more tricks i do but i cant tell you everything or you will kick my butt [:D]

I will try to do that anyway [:'(]

[82ndtrooper]

Paris has fallen !!

Due to the distance that 1st army had to travel to encircle and take Paris the 10th and 14th panzer armies where ordered to assist. Time has become an Issue since we need to force the surrender of the low countries or smash them before winter.

Paris at start of turn.
I was so eager to do my turns I forgot to take some pics till after I had made a few moves.

[82ndtrooper]

Paris is taken and now the Armies will spread out and secure all of France with the 7th army and 10th Panzer moving North to secure the low countries.

[82ndtrooper]

The 10th and 14th Panzer Armies with the 8th Motorized will then head east to other duties while the 1st,5th and 7th Armies defend the western front under overall Command of AGC.

a look at southwest France and the 8th Motorized

[82ndtrooper]

and a look at the Waffen SS advance on Nice, the last French stronghold in the south

[RufusTFirefly]

One of the most thrilling games I have played so far (although not much fighting this turn, but much happening behind the screens that will have influence on the ongoing)

Sep 1940

This turn the French army suffered the loss of 120 infantry while the enemy lost 9 infantry. German units have reached the outskirts of Nice. The last French center in the south is close to fall. In the north the defenders have been pushed back towards Dunkirk and might be eliminated the next turn.

Yugoslavia joined the Allies (60 vs 55 points for this event). As Italy has not yet joined the Axis no direct attack is possible.
The Yugoslavian air force based at Belgrade:

[82ndtrooper]

two turns since i last posted. wasn't much going on last turn so I didn't post.

This turn is different and I spent hours getting this turn done.

The reason is Yugoslavia came online for the Allies and Hungry and Romania came online for the Axis.

[82ndtrooper]

I suddenly found myself with a whole new front to manage and little to nothing available to do it with.

This is Hungry and it has a very small military even though it has 3 armies.

The selected unit is the only unit I have close and its a OKH asset.

[82ndtrooper]

Romania has a real nice military all under supreme command though so I have to create some new HQ's. But the problem is 80% of its army is forward deployed along the Russian border. Which doesn't help me with Yugoslavia at all.

[82ndtrooper]

So I had to try to come up with some kind of reinforcements to help along that new front.

I was able to move some fighters dive bombers and level bombers into position and I did have the 5th Fallschirmjaeger already regrouping to be redeployed. This was fortunate for me and I started moving them into position.

[82ndtrooper]

a little better look at the Hungarian forces.

small and scattered.

the red line to the south is the new front.

[82ndtrooper]

and another look at the Romanian forces.

the new front is to the southwest you can just see the line in the very bottom left corner.

[82ndtrooper]

But to be honest the Romanians and Hungarians are pretty much on their own and have to build forces asap to deal with Yugoslavia.
I can give them air superiority but not much else till spring most likely.