Air Superiority is worthless UNLESS used properly

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I have to say that what Tyronec said is so TRUE & I will paraphrase here, "Air Superiority flies around engages nothing and loses a bunch of aircraft to Operational losses". I have to confirm that is exactly what I am seeing. Granted my aircraft were not in the area of the Soviets and I lost 18 Rumanian Aircraft & 6 German 109 to just flying around. I took care to schedule the aircraft judicially spaced out with 2 days in between using them again and multiple air-groups. At this point Air Superiority is just worthless for the losses incurred even when not even engaging a damn thing. Granted some of those OPS losses can be tied to the horrendous German airbases getting Soviet stats on their airbases. But boy is this bad for Air Superiority to lose 24 aircraft for basically flying around.

IMO the actual problem is that the intercept routine is way too good. The dense network of radar and early warning stations that allowed fighter direction and control in the West did not exist, and the intercept routine developed for WITW does not transfer well at all.

The reality was if one did not happen to have at least a semi regular presence over an area, or the enemy was targeting something near your airfield, the raid was going to get through most of the time. This is not reflected in the current system at all. If one were forced to operate as one should, one could start dialing in what numbers are reasonable.

That ops losses are too high for the missions flown in the game is IMO true, but many sources of ops losses are not accounted for. Every movement of aircraft incurred a certain % of ops losses. Moving your air force should cost, especially to new small airfields in bad weather. Training flights also do not exist which led to further ops losses.

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

"Supply is for us the greatest difficulty in this war." - Richthofen.

"The air losses suffered by Fliegerkorps VIII in twelve days (August 10 to 21) while supporting I Army Corps in its effort to cut the main Moscow-Leningrad railroad dramatizes the impact of attrition on Luftwaffe strength. In this period supporting the advance of one army corps, Fliegerkorps VIII lost 10.3% of its aircraft (destroyed or written off as a result of operations), with 54.5% of its aircraft damaged but repairable. During this action, the air corps had 3.9% of its flying personnel killed, 5.7% wounded, and 2.9% listed as missing for a 12.5% total casualty rate.
"Aiding the Luftwaffe in its support of the army's advance was the flexible supply and maintenance system already discussed in relation to the French campaign. Units moved forward rapidly behind advancing spearheads; and as the campaign's emphasis shifted from one front to another, bomber and fighter units moved swiftly to to new bases and areas of operation. Such flexibility allowed the Luftwaffe to give maximum support to the armored drives and helped the army push ever deeper into Russian territory. Nevertheless, the continual movement of units across the Russian landscape was not without cost. These shifts strained the maintenance and supply system to the breaking point so that by late fall 1941, operational aircraft ready rates were way down, thereby having a negative impact on the whole force."

"Milch in a visit to the eastern front discovered that hundreds of inoperable aircraft were lying about on forward airfields. They had either broken down or been damaged in combat, and spare parts were not flowing forward to repair these aircraft."

Table XVII German Losses, All Cases - 1941 (Not including November) - Aircraft Written Off

Close Recce - 263 (total) - 165 (Due to Enemy Action ie combat losses) - 98 (Not Due to Enemy Action ie Operational Losses) - 37% operational loss rate

Long Range Recce - 290 (total) - 195 combat/95 Operational - 32% operational loss rate

Single-Engine Fighters - 1,327 (total) - 622 combat/705 Operational - 53% operational loss rate

Twin-Engine Fighters - 463 (total) - 246 combat/217 operational - 46% operational loss rate

Bombers - 1,798 (total) - 1,154 combat/644 operational - 35% operational loss rate

Stukas - 366 (total) - 225 combat/141 operational - 38% operational loss rate

Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 by Williamson Murray.

To be fair that was a Luftwaffe operating at an exteme Op tempo even in bad weather with bad airfields and bad supply. Non overstacked appropriately sized airfields with good supply/support, operating only in good weather should not see this, especially given the pilot losses.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I have to say that what Tyronec said is so TRUE & I will paraphrase here, "Air Superiority flies around engages nothing and loses a bunch of aircraft to Operational losses". I have to confirm that is exactly what I am seeing. Granted my aircraft were not in the area of the Soviets and I lost 18 Rumanian Aircraft & 6 German 109 to just flying around. I took care to schedule the aircraft judicially spaced out with 2 days in between using them again and multiple air-groups. At this point Air Superiority is just worthless for the losses incurred even when not even engaging a damn thing. Granted some of those OPS losses can be tied to the horrendous German airbases getting Soviet stats on their airbases. But boy is this bad for Air Superiority to lose 24 aircraft for basically flying around.

IMO the actual problem is that the intercept routine is way too good. The dense network of radar and early warning stations that allowed fighter direction and control in the West did not exist, and the intercept routine developed for WITW does not transfer well at all.

The reality was if one did not happen to have at least a semi regular presence over an area, or the enemy was targeting something near your airfield, the raid was going to get through most of the time. This is not reflected in the current system at all. If one were forced to operate as one should, one could start dialing in what numbers are reasonable.

That ops losses are too high for the missions flown in the game is IMO true, but many sources of ops losses are not accounted for. Every movement of aircraft incurred a certain % of ops losses. Moving your air force should cost, especially to new small airfields in bad weather. Training flights also do not exist which led to further ops losses.

Like a blanket OPS loss to get close to historical results overall?

[Great_Ajax]

Mechanics could definitely be looked at as I wouldn't like a pre-determined operational rate. I don't honestly know how a German player is going to keep up a high optempo to support the ground forces to make this situation much better. The Germans ran their panzers in the ground in the same manner as their Luftwaffe.

Operational Loss rates should be affected by:

Weather
Pilot Experience
Level of Supply (maintenance)
Quality of Airfields
Distance Flown
Fatigue (optempo)
Changing airbase assignments

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

"Supply is for us the greatest difficulty in this war." - Richthofen.

"The air losses suffered by Fliegerkorps VIII in twelve days (August 10 to 21) while supporting I Army Corps in its effort to cut the main Moscow-Leningrad railroad dramatizes the impact of attrition on Luftwaffe strength. In this period supporting the advance of one army corps, Fliegerkorps VIII lost 10.3% of its aircraft (destroyed or written off as a result of operations), with 54.5% of its aircraft damaged but repairable. During this action, the air corps had 3.9% of its flying personnel killed, 5.7% wounded, and 2.9% listed as missing for a 12.5% total casualty rate.
"Aiding the Luftwaffe in its support of the army's advance was the flexible supply and maintenance system already discussed in relation to the French campaign. Units moved forward rapidly behind advancing spearheads; and as the campaign's emphasis shifted from one front to another, bomber and fighter units moved swiftly to to new bases and areas of operation. Such flexibility allowed the Luftwaffe to give maximum support to the armored drives and helped the army push ever deeper into Russian territory. Nevertheless, the continual movement of units across the Russian landscape was not without cost. These shifts strained the maintenance and supply system to the breaking point so that by late fall 1941, operational aircraft ready rates were way down, thereby having a negative impact on the whole force."

"Milch in a visit to the eastern front discovered that hundreds of inoperable aircraft were lying about on forward airfields. They had either broken down or been damaged in combat, and spare parts were not flowing forward to repair these aircraft."

Table XVII German Losses, All Cases - 1941 (Not including November) - Aircraft Written Off

Close Recce - 263 (total) - 165 (Due to Enemy Action ie combat losses) - 98 (Not Due to Enemy Action ie Operational Losses) - 37% operational loss rate

Long Range Recce - 290 (total) - 195 combat/95 Operational - 32% operational loss rate

Single-Engine Fighters - 1,327 (total) - 622 combat/705 Operational - 53% operational loss rate

Twin-Engine Fighters - 463 (total) - 246 combat/217 operational - 46% operational loss rate

Bombers - 1,798 (total) - 1,154 combat/644 operational - 35% operational loss rate

Stukas - 366 (total) - 225 combat/141 operational - 38% operational loss rate

Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 by Williamson Murray.

To be fair that was a Luftwaffe operating at an exteme Op tempo even in bad weather with bad airfields and bad supply. Non overstacked appropriately sized airfields with good supply/support, operating only in good weather should not see this, especially given the pilot losses.

[Zemke]

HLYG, how many total fighters were in the AS mission? That way we have an understanding of what your percentage loss was.

[tyronec]

There are two issues here.

One is that AS is not intercepting when it should. In particular it is not intercepting GA correctly. This is a recognised bug and will be fixed in due course.
It is intercepting Naval Patrol OK.
Am not sure about intercepting GS.
I think it is also not intercepting air supply, that is not confirmed a confirmed bug but it is on the 'to look at' list.

The second issue is ops losses. As I understand it ops losses are proportional to miles flown - I think there are other factors but that is one of them. So if you fly a long range AS with Migs you could lose 100%.
This has been discussed many times. It is working as designed. If you don't want high ops losses then don't fly long range.
Personally I am not fully in agreement with the way ops losses are calculated but neither am I in full agreement with many other of the finer details of the game. It is just something to take into account when using ADs.

[GibsonPete]

+1 on what tyronec wrote.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

This is perfect & I agree with each of these and what you posted here! I just believe the distance flown should be broken down into two sub-catagories. 1st is distance flown without engaging in any type of combat. 2nd is distance flown engaging opposing forces. I feel, as I stated above, that if you fly around and don't engage ops losses should be less. I agree whole heartedly that if you fly AS and engage in combat then yeah those OPS losses are going to be a great deal more. But I believe that just the 2nd sub-catagory is being used. That is just my whole premise I have been trying to say.

Yes, I should have named the subject better. I am sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. But to me, and this is only me, in current state I won't be using AS so AS just becomes a button on the main bar. I know you all are working on it & I appreciate that for the community. Thank you for listening.

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

Mechanics could definitely be looked at as I wouldn't like a pre-determined operational rate. I don't honestly know how a German player is going to keep up a high optempo to support the ground forces to make this situation much better. The Germans ran their panzers in the ground in the same manner as their Luftwaffe.

Operational Loss rates should be affected by:

Weather
Pilot Experience
Level of Supply (maintenance)
Quality of Airfields
Distance Flown
Fatigue (optempo)
Changing airbase assignments

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

"Supply is for us the greatest difficulty in this war." - Richthofen.

"The air losses suffered by Fliegerkorps VIII in twelve days (August 10 to 21) while supporting I Army Corps in its effort to cut the main Moscow-Leningrad railroad dramatizes the impact of attrition on Luftwaffe strength. In this period supporting the advance of one army corps, Fliegerkorps VIII lost 10.3% of its aircraft (destroyed or written off as a result of operations), with 54.5% of its aircraft damaged but repairable. During this action, the air corps had 3.9% of its flying personnel killed, 5.7% wounded, and 2.9% listed as missing for a 12.5% total casualty rate.
"Aiding the Luftwaffe in its support of the army's advance was the flexible supply and maintenance system already discussed in relation to the French campaign. Units moved forward rapidly behind advancing spearheads; and as the campaign's emphasis shifted from one front to another, bomber and fighter units moved swiftly to to new bases and areas of operation. Such flexibility allowed the Luftwaffe to give maximum support to the armored drives and helped the army push ever deeper into Russian territory. Nevertheless, the continual movement of units across the Russian landscape was not without cost. These shifts strained the maintenance and supply system to the breaking point so that by late fall 1941, operational aircraft ready rates were way down, thereby having a negative impact on the whole force."

"Milch in a visit to the eastern front discovered that hundreds of inoperable aircraft were lying about on forward airfields. They had either broken down or been damaged in combat, and spare parts were not flowing forward to repair these aircraft."

Table XVII German Losses, All Cases - 1941 (Not including November) - Aircraft Written Off

Close Recce - 263 (total) - 165 (Due to Enemy Action ie combat losses) - 98 (Not Due to Enemy Action ie Operational Losses) - 37% operational loss rate

Long Range Recce - 290 (total) - 195 combat/95 Operational - 32% operational loss rate

Single-Engine Fighters - 1,327 (total) - 622 combat/705 Operational - 53% operational loss rate

Twin-Engine Fighters - 463 (total) - 246 combat/217 operational - 46% operational loss rate

Bombers - 1,798 (total) - 1,154 combat/644 operational - 35% operational loss rate

Stukas - 366 (total) - 225 combat/141 operational - 38% operational loss rate

Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 by Williamson Murray.

To be fair that was a Luftwaffe operating at an exteme Op tempo even in bad weather with bad airfields and bad supply. Non overstacked appropriately sized airfields with good supply/support, operating only in good weather should not see this, especially given the pilot losses.

[Yogol]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

if you fly a long range AS with Migs you could lose 100%.
This has been discussed many times. It is working as designed.

Sorry, but then the design is wrong.

You can not argue that 100% of the fighters should be destroyed when they don't see a single enemy aircraft, even if they fly all the way to the end of their range.

100% is simply not realistic.

[Denniss]

Then ferry flighty over max distance must be extremely deadly.

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

Mechanics could definitely be looked at as I wouldn't like a pre-determined operational rate. I don't honestly know how a German player is going to keep up a high optempo to support the ground forces to make this situation much better. The Germans ran their panzers in the ground in the same manner as their Luftwaffe.

Operational Loss rates should be affected by:

Weather
Pilot Experience
Level of Supply (maintenance)
Quality of Airfields
Distance Flown
Fatigue (optempo)
Changing airbase assignments

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

"Supply is for us the greatest difficulty in this war." - Richthofen.

"The air losses suffered by Fliegerkorps VIII in twelve days (August 10 to 21) while supporting I Army Corps in its effort to cut the main Moscow-Leningrad railroad dramatizes the impact of attrition on Luftwaffe strength. In this period supporting the advance of one army corps, Fliegerkorps VIII lost 10.3% of its aircraft (destroyed or written off as a result of operations), with 54.5% of its aircraft damaged but repairable. During this action, the air corps had 3.9% of its flying personnel killed, 5.7% wounded, and 2.9% listed as missing for a 12.5% total casualty rate.
"Aiding the Luftwaffe in its support of the army's advance was the flexible supply and maintenance system already discussed in relation to the French campaign. Units moved forward rapidly behind advancing spearheads; and as the campaign's emphasis shifted from one front to another, bomber and fighter units moved swiftly to to new bases and areas of operation. Such flexibility allowed the Luftwaffe to give maximum support to the armored drives and helped the army push ever deeper into Russian territory. Nevertheless, the continual movement of units across the Russian landscape was not without cost. These shifts strained the maintenance and supply system to the breaking point so that by late fall 1941, operational aircraft ready rates were way down, thereby having a negative impact on the whole force."

"Milch in a visit to the eastern front discovered that hundreds of inoperable aircraft were lying about on forward airfields. They had either broken down or been damaged in combat, and spare parts were not flowing forward to repair these aircraft."

Table XVII German Losses, All Cases - 1941 (Not including November) - Aircraft Written Off

Close Recce - 263 (total) - 165 (Due to Enemy Action ie combat losses) - 98 (Not Due to Enemy Action ie Operational Losses) - 37% operational loss rate

Long Range Recce - 290 (total) - 195 combat/95 Operational - 32% operational loss rate

Single-Engine Fighters - 1,327 (total) - 622 combat/705 Operational - 53% operational loss rate

Twin-Engine Fighters - 463 (total) - 246 combat/217 operational - 46% operational loss rate

Bombers - 1,798 (total) - 1,154 combat/644 operational - 35% operational loss rate

Stukas - 366 (total) - 225 combat/141 operational - 38% operational loss rate

Strategy for Defeat, The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 by Williamson Murray.

To be fair that was a Luftwaffe operating at an exteme Op tempo even in bad weather with bad airfields and bad supply. Non overstacked appropriately sized airfields with good supply/support, operating only in good weather should not see this, especially given the pilot losses.

Also needs to be considered that those hundreds of aircraft that Milch mentions were abandoned almost certainly show up as operational losses in the above statistic. The Op loss category as such didn't exist in the Luftwaffe, only losses with enemy action and losses without enemy action. However since the Luftwaffe used a % system of damage, a damaged plane that makes it back with f.e. 20% damage, then gets abandoned would count as non enemy action induced loss.

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

I have to say that what Tyronec said is so TRUE & I will paraphrase here, "Air Superiority flies around engages nothing and loses a bunch of aircraft to Operational losses". I have to confirm that is exactly what I am seeing. Granted my aircraft were not in the area of the Soviets and I lost 18 Rumanian Aircraft & 6 German 109 to just flying around. I took care to schedule the aircraft judicially spaced out with 2 days in between using them again and multiple air-groups. At this point Air Superiority is just worthless for the losses incurred even when not even engaging a damn thing. Granted some of those OPS losses can be tied to the horrendous German airbases getting Soviet stats on their airbases. But boy is this bad for Air Superiority to lose 24 aircraft for basically flying around.

IMO the actual problem is that the intercept routine is way too good. The dense network of radar and early warning stations that allowed fighter direction and control in the West did not exist, and the intercept routine developed for WITW does not transfer well at all.

The reality was if one did not happen to have at least a semi regular presence over an area, or the enemy was targeting something near your airfield, the raid was going to get through most of the time. This is not reflected in the current system at all. If one were forced to operate as one should, one could start dialing in what numbers are reasonable.

That ops losses are too high for the missions flown in the game is IMO true, but many sources of ops losses are not accounted for. Every movement of aircraft incurred a certain % of ops losses. Moving your air force should cost, especially to new small airfields in bad weather. Training flights also do not exist which led to further ops losses.

Like a blanket OPS loss to get close to historical results overall?

IMO no, but we simply don't have the real life stats for what ops losses are in the game (plane crashes during a flight due to some problem).

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: MechFO

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

ORIGINAL: MechFO



IMO the actual problem is that the intercept routine is way too good. The dense network of radar and early warning stations that allowed fighter direction and control in the West did not exist, and the intercept routine developed for WITW does not transfer well at all.

The reality was if one did not happen to have at least a semi regular presence over an area, or the enemy was targeting something near your airfield, the raid was going to get through most of the time. This is not reflected in the current system at all. If one were forced to operate as one should, one could start dialing in what numbers are reasonable.

That ops losses are too high for the missions flown in the game is IMO true, but many sources of ops losses are not accounted for. Every movement of aircraft incurred a certain % of ops losses. Moving your air force should cost, especially to new small airfields in bad weather. Training flights also do not exist which led to further ops losses.

Like a blanket OPS loss to get close to historical results overall?

IMO no, but we simply don't have the real life stats for what ops losses are in the game (plane crashes during a flight due to some problem).

Hi,
On top of it, where those ops losses are starting to be considered ridiculousy high, during non-combat mission, like unopposed AS, it's when one (HLYA) has previously fought 885 air combat during the Ground Phase (auto-interception) and only lost during this battle 4 x Bf 109 (1 combat + 3 ops). And a few turn later, 24 for just flying around...

What seems even more ridiculous (for me) is to compare it with this ratio of 1 to 885 (or 1 to 221 overall).

When doing that, those AS missions generating 24 ops loss would have represented the losses sustained in Air to Air combat for shooting down 221 x 24 Soviet aircraft = 5,304 kills!

(edit: imagined numbers)

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Ok, going to answer the question of how to tell if AS is running in a hex. But first lets just do a dry run on AS at the beginning of a campaign game to get some numbers rolling and I will show you how you can tell during this dry run. I will start a campaign game and skip to turn 2. I will put all the Soviet aircraft on rest only so no interception is done & I will use just JG-3 to set up an AS into the Lvov Area turn 2. There is roughly 100 German Fighters for this and flying every single day from German bases. I run the Air phase and sustain 9 OPS losses off the bat before even engaging a single Soviet. Roughly a 9-10% casualty rate it looks like is the price just to have the privilege of flying Air Superiority. We pay the price for the privilege and move on.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Now we start to attack with the German forces in the area and get the result I am looking for right off the bat. No German aircraft were in Ground Support but I still lose a fighter! Why? Because of the Air Superiority. So now I lost my 10th German fighter because I am running AS in this area.

This is one of the ways to tell when an AS is present in the hex. Look for a hex that has no aircraft and if there are fighter losses then an AS is running. But lets continue a few more attacks.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Here is the increase to 10 fighters lost so far without engaging a single plane. We will do some more attacks.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

2nd attack by ground forces, another fighter loss.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Here is the increase in fighter losses to 11.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

3rd attack by ground forces and yet another fighter loss.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

I am now up to 12 planes lost engaging not a single Soviet Aircraft. Lets do another one and I will advance the turn to the Soviet side.