VVS destroys nearly 500 German fighters in a single Soviet air phase in 1941: WAD?

[Beethoven1]

Maybe the Soviets should be restricted to set the AD above 100% until Nov 1942, when they can go to 200% and the finally to 300% in July or Nov 1943.

I view some things as Soviet 1941 problems, but personally this is not one of them. IMO it is more an issue with the air in general.

IMO it should not really be possible to get significantly ahistorical results in the air war just because you change some obscure settings somehow. Loss ratios and effectiveness should be more or less along historical lines regardless of what air settings players choose.

Realistically the determinants of the outcome of the air war would be mostly things like the quality of planes, the quality of pilot training, production, and tactics. None of these are things that are under the control of the player in a game on WITE2's operational scale. If players can't change those sorts of things, loss ratios etc should only really be impacted on the margin for the most part by player actions.

[M60A3TTS]

I tend to agree with Beethoven that actually simplifying, or dumbing down things would probably improve things. GA missions are needed for bombing Soviet airfields on turn 1. After that, just don't allow those missions. So you lose out on port bombing, depot bombing, rail bombing. It's not the end of days.

Looking over the air missions, K62 might have something. First, in answer to HLYA, it shouldn't matter what you did, or in this case didn't do, namely move around a lot of stuff or fight a lot of air battles. You had your log phase at the start, got whatever fuel and ammo you were getting to tide you over until your next log phase at the start of your next turn.

In between that, Beethoven one-upped you in the air game with GA airbase spam which the AI never does, it wasn't accounted for in any testing, may not have even been done in this scale until now, and judging by the fact that at least one of the 309 air missions drew 100+ fighters in response, it possibly did exhaust your fuel and ammo, depending on how many similar responses their were.

To Beethoven, yes, the case has been made numerous times. The VVS shouldn't be able to do all these missions at the same time. It's terribly unrealistic. But that didn't stop you from trying, did it?

So now I'm back to the Soviet leader air ratings don't adequately represent their ability to coordinate missions. A typical early-war level 4 Soviet air leader in theory is only 20% less likely to fly the missions than their best leaders like Novikov who has a 6 air rating. Maybe these early-war Soviet air leaders should be a 2? Meanwhile, yeah, jusst ditch GA missions. My $.02.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Looking over the air missions, K62 might have something. First, in answer to HLYA, it shouldn't matter what you did, or in this case didn't do, namely move around a lot of stuff or fight a lot of air battles. You had your log phase at the start, got whatever fuel and ammo you were getting to tide you over until your next log phase at the start of your next turn.

I don't know how much supply you need nor how little you need to fly to have good interception but here is a snapshot at the end of turn of Vitebsk. So, more than adequate supply and no miles flown. I hope that shows a clear picture.

Vitebsk.png (1.49 MiB) Viewed 1301 times

Vitebsk2.png (752.79 KiB) Viewed 1301 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Here are the groups to show their other stats. All stats optimal.

1.png (1.46 MiB) Viewed 1298 times

2.png (1.45 MiB) Viewed 1298 times

3.png (1.47 MiB) Viewed 1298 times

4.png (1.45 MiB) Viewed 1298 times

[HardLuckYetAgain]

In the end it could have been just overwhelmed by pure amount of missions. I don't know and we are not going down that path now in our game now. What Beethoven and I are doing now is coming to consensus of a way forward for the Air and give Mr. Billings insight into those workings so we can carry this forward and work on making it better for all that love this game.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Again,

15 intercepts out of 309 bombing missions from what I read.

[Zovs]

I am sure you already know this, but you can get an exact count by going into the CR and Battles tab and sorting by type, it should show all the interceptions vs. bombing runs.

[K62_]

Even if the logistics log gets fixed there is another way for the Soviets to make good guesses at which airfields to bomb: just keep track of places that have been air supplied recently. (An Axis player who does not air supply before moving the fighters forward will not do very well for long.)

I agree with M60 that the problem is not so much auto-intercept (which has been tweaked many times) as the unrealistic capabilities of the VVS in '41. The ability to coordinate hundreds of bomber sorties on a single target simply did not exist at that time. I have a book by a high-ranking Soviet officer that describes a 1945 attack on Koenigsberg airfields with 500 bombers as a major accomplishment that required massive amounts of planning. In this game the Soviets can easily do these kinds of attacks as soon as the war starts, which seems like a huge stretch.

I know that the bombing capabilities of the VVS have already been toned down, and the developers may be concerned that further dilution would just make Soviet bombers completely useless. This can be solved by increasing the Soviet ability to conduct interdiction missions instead. By all accounts the VVS did a decent job with interdiction in summer '41 as this type of mission only required small groups of bombers seeking targets of opportunity (as opposed to massive strikes on the same target, which needed a lot of coordination). It would not be unrealistic for the Axis player to face low-to-moderate levels of interdiction in all areas outside fighter cover, and for the Soviets to suffer significant losses when they guess wrong.

[Mehring]

To reflect poor planning in the early war, what about reducing the efficacy of each plane incrementally as the number of bombers in a raid increases? Many small raids might not be so effective and instead incur higher VVS losses.

[Jango32]

Alternatively a limit of how many air missions can be done on a single hex might warrant some discussion on desirability and feasibility as a mechanic. This could theoretically also permit reverting ground attack behaviour to what it was at release instead of potentially turning into interdiction.

[Mehring]

Bear in mind that the LW destroying 2, 3, or 4+ times VVS on day one than historical losses seems to be accepted as normal. So why shouldn't the VVS give some payback to a sloppy Axis player? You want the VVS to bomb the wrong fields? Then drop some supply on empty fields. You don't really need much supply to keep fighters in the air anyways. Just saying.

Edit: On the other hand, a point I've raised countless times before is that Soviets lacked high octane fuel in the early years until lend lease was stepped up and with it, refining technology to improve domestic product. The shortage of 100 octane aviation fuel doesn't seem to find any representation in game through either curtailing the number of flights modern engine machines can fly or reducing the performance where lower grade fuel was used.

[redrum68]

Alternatively a limit of how many air missions can be done on a single hex might warrant some discussion on desirability and feasibility as a mechanic. This could theoretically also permit reverting ground attack behaviour to what it was at release instead of potentially turning into interdiction.

I think in additional making it so many missions in the same hex have diminishing returns. Essentially limiting the effectiveness of massive missions (100s of bombers) and the number of missions per hex would then make things like airfield bombing have more reasonable results.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Even if the logistics log gets fixed there is another way for the Soviets to make good guesses at which airfields to bomb: just keep track of places that have been air supplied recently. (An Axis player who does not air supply before moving the fighters forward will not do very well for long.)

I never use Air resupply for Fighter bases nor even remotely close to the front for that matter. So, yes that may be the case with many players but it is not what I do with my transports. I use them to ferry supply forward faster in the rear. I already have enough OPS loses from that in a turn outstripping replacement rate.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Alternatively a limit of how many air missions can be done on a single hex might warrant some discussion on desirability and feasibility as a mechanic. This could theoretically also permit reverting ground attack behaviour to what it was at release instead of potentially turning into interdiction.

I think in additional making it so many missions in the same hex have diminishing returns. Essentially limiting the effectiveness of massive missions (100s of bombers) and the number of missions per hex would then make things like airfield bombing have more reasonable results.

Correct. Excellent point. Hopefully in our game (Beethoven & I) along with others in the discord can come up with a happy medium for that. Again, great point.

[Light4bettor]

By all accounts the VVS did a decent job with interdiction in summer '41 as this type of mission only required small groups of bombers seeking targets of opportunity (as opposed to massive strikes on the same target, which needed a lot of coordination). It would not be unrealistic for the Axis player to face low-to-moderate levels of interdiction in all areas outside fighter cover, and for the Soviets to suffer significant losses when they guess wrong.

Yeah, have read so much anecdotal evidence at the effective harassment and damage that small scale flights could cause(though its always difficult to quantify).

Element (possibly rear echelon of one of the Motorized Rifle regiments) of 3rd Panzer Div being attacked on 09 August 1941, 30 miles west of Roslavl. (edit date/location)

Straffe.jpg (1.78 MiB) Viewed 1095 times