Air War FUBAR in 1.12??

[eskuche]

Oh good, an exam!

Here are the facts: fast light LB's SB-2 and Pe-2 have 6 x 100 kg bombs, whereas the IL-4 and DB-3B have 10 x 100 kg. TB-3 have 250 kg. F/B's have 2 x 100 kg and are probably irrelevant unless you're farming up XP/morale for running missions on them. A few rare ones have 500 kg bombs, and all have some sorts of machine guns.

The knowledge that's been touted around is that heavy bombs with larger blast radius are better against dense terrain or forted units, whereas light bombs have lower radius, but you're hitting more units. This suggests that you should use IL-4/DB-3Bs against open targets. In practice, these level bombers regardless of miles flown tend to fall off in terms of bombing kills around 3-5 sorties in.

I have suspected that this was an issue with supply, which in 12.xx is drawn from the closest base and then, supposedly, from other depots on a per-need basis. It's also possible in this black box that it's better to spread out your 14 regiments over 14 (or 7) airbases, and they will draw supply separately and without overdrawing from one source. This is conjecture, but it is the only other factor that you could be alluding to in the past few messages (ruling out low fatigue, miles flown, enemy interception and escort, sortie range, AA pathing, morale/experience, guards status, rail need).

Edit: also empirically, the heavies do much better against airbases. Could be due to less AA turn-arounds due to their higher endurance.

I hope this is enough for at least a B+.

[heliodorus04]

Was there ever a version where the air war resembled anything close to eastern front historical data?
I remember that being a house rule upon release...

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Was there ever a version where the air war resembled anything close to eastern front historical data?

No

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

The key in v1.12 seems to be ensuring each of the hexes with airbases has say 2-3 fresh fighter air groups. These will intercept in large numbers when directly bombed and tear apart Soviet fighters/bombers. But you can not at all rely on those fighters intercepting in large numbers anything but their own hex in my experience.

I have been playing a game against El Lobo, and he has been quite effective in defending his air bases using the technique you outline here. Destroying the Luftwaffe on the ground is possible, but only if the Axis aren't defending themselves properly - keeping their bases at least 15 hexes behind the line, controlling fatigue, and keeping a couple of air units on base defense duty. I think you can have them set to range 80 and they will intercept in large numbers in adjacent hexes as well, at least that has been my experience with the Soviets when the Germans have tried bombing my air bases.

I think there is no call to limit bombing missions to only hexes that are to be attacked on the ground or eliminate airbase bombing. My experience in campaign games played under 1.12 so far has been that the Axis can maintain air parity at least through 1943.

It seems really silly to restrict ground attack to 10 hexes a turn. As the Soviets in 1942 and thereafter, I am attacking far more than 10 hexes every turn, so that wouldn't even allow for bombing all the hexes where I have ground attacks. And besides, when the Soviet air force has 600 air squadrons, ten attacks a turn wouldn't even allow for those guys to fly even once a month. I think Uncle Joe would object to spending the people's money on all those airplanes if they aren't ever going to fly [:D]

[redrum68]

@thedoctorking - Yeah, that's I think the best option for the Axis right now. That being said, I think its pretty unbalanced as the Axis have to really limit their air usage and make sure to stay out of soviet bombing escort range or with enough fresh fighters to defend which I think later in the game makes sense but shouldn't be how things are in 1941.

Generally, I think the air war should be shifted to fewer, more impactful missions (no hard limits though) so that each plane can fly less missions per turn but have larger results. This helps limit the sheer numbers of clicks/missions and makes the players think more about where to bomb/defend/etc not just bomb every enemy unit. But at a minimum the escort bug really needs to be fixed and I think AA needs to be looked at as it doesn't appear to have much impact currently on reducing casualties or shooting down planes.

[thedoctorking]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

@thedoctorking - Yeah, that's I think the best option for the Axis right now. That being said, I think its pretty unbalanced as the Axis have to really limit their air usage and make sure to stay out of soviet bombing escort range or with enough fresh fighters to defend which I think later in the game makes sense but shouldn't be how things are in 1941.

Generally, I think the air war should be shifted to fewer, more impactful missions (no hard limits though) so that each plane can fly less missions per turn but have larger results. This helps limit the sheer numbers of clicks/missions and makes the players think more about where to bomb/defend/etc not just bomb every enemy unit. But at a minimum the escort bug really needs to be fixed and I think AA needs to be looked at as it doesn't appear to have much impact currently on reducing casualties or shooting down planes.

If you've played WitW, you can see that the way the engine treats air war has changed a lot since this game came out. From discussion on the WitE2 board in this forum, you can see that WitE2 will have a system more like WitW.

That said, for this version I don't think the Soviet air force is ahistorically strong in 1941. VVS had many aircraft in reserve and rapidly restored its losses from the first weeks of the war. By fall, they were contesting control of the air over the battlefield, although still suffering heavy losses.

Here's a nice Wikipedia article about the air war in 1941.

[heliodorus04]

War in the West is an air attrition simulator over the top of a fuel/supply-railroad simulator disguising itself as a wargame. Ground warfare is inconsequential in the WitW simulator. It's reached the point where I have much more fun playing MMP's Operational Combat Series via Vassal than the madness 2by3 pimps out in all its "black-box" glory...

WitE is still fun (after all these years) because it hasn't devolved into the air/supply simulator that WitW is.

[jonj01]

next patch?
this game has been out for a decade and they still after 10 years...10 years
havent fixed the air part of this game

i stopped playing in 2011 because the airwar made absolutely no sense
i come back 10 years older and they still havent fixed it.

A total waste of $100 (2011 dollars)

and you think they'll have it fixed with WitE2?

fool me once.