Air turn 2/ Part 2 of Nekronion trying to learn arcane advanced air warfare methods in War in the East:
My to-do list for this turn:
1.Ground support on
2.Fighter Intercept to 25%
3.Manual plane switching according to Telemecus instructions
4.Railyard strat bombing campaign + Bombing the Osinovets port
5.Ground commanders can recon and ground bomb
6.Switch the LW Befehlshaber Mitte to outdated Fighters
7.Turn off replacements of III.KG 2 due to withdrawing in turn 12
8.Switch the air groups using Do 17Z-2 (No models left in the pool) to HE-111 H3
9.Distribute recon equally among the army airbases (4 recon+2 strat recon and 5 in NR)
10.Unfuck the Romanian bombers
11.Test where the Soviet airforce (Currently 2.7k deployed) is deployed with recon
12.Air supply and recon coordination with ground
1 & 2: Just normalizing the settings from T1 shenanigans
3: I decide to trust Telemecus in his wisdom and follow the suggestion/order
Suggest Stab/JG 53, III./JG 53, Erg./JG 51, II./JG 27, Stab/JG 27, III./JG 27 are swapped to Bf109E3, then a fighter group in Germany and the remaining 25 Bf109E3 in the pool swapped to I./JG 53
- Suggest 2 or 3 He111H-4 air groups are swapped to He111H-3
4.As described in turn 1 I will try to cripple Soviet rail capacaty early on. Osinovets is planned to be bombed, however no plan survives contact with the enemy.
5&12.Pretty straightforward. I mainly recon airbases at this point and let the ground commanders be flexible for now.
6,7&8:More switching and saving on aircraft
9: With every ground commander doing his own recon for the most part, distributing it somewhat equally for now is just fair.
10:
11: The Soviets didn't send all of their planes to the Reserve, once I locate them I can plan my next move.
The position of the Soviet air deployment quickly reveals itsself:
The Soviets really don't want Osinovets to be bombed. With the hex still out of escort range and the Finns frozen, bombing it now would throw away planes for little gain thus the Luftwaffe has to look for prey elsewhere.
And they find it with some unprotected recon bases all over the Soviet front.
At first I suspect a fighter trap of some kind, but thorough recon reveals no Soviet fighter groups nearby, thus giving free real estate for even unescorted raids.
Once all is done and over 68 rare and valuable Soviet long range recon is no more:
With Soviet logistical losses:
Strat bombing and ground support caused a few bomber losses, but they are replaceable.
