Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: TheFerret

Continuing thinking about pilot vs. airframe losses - I tested the theory that letting the VVS fly and beating them in the air will eliminate more pilots than destroying the VVS on the ground. I launched very limited airfield strikes, targeting a few of the largest fighter bases near the border plus most of the bases in the Bessarabia/Odessa region since there's no ground combat there T1, turned on ground support, set a couple of AS directives over Bialystok and Lvov, and let the air battle work itself out during my ground phase.

The result: compared to HardLuck's example, I lost 350 more Axis pilots - but eliminated 600 more Soviet pilots. I'm sure this approach can be optimized (this time around I tried adding drop tanks to all the fighters, which I assume contributed to the very high ops losses) but I'd still expect to lose 300+ Axis pilots - the question is, what is a favorable loss ratio for pilots, and how many losses can the Axis realistically afford at that loss ratio? And note that my airframe losses are shifted away from bombers and toward fighters - I'm not sure what to think of that; while I like the idea of having more bombers around, they won't be worth much if they're sitting around twiddling their thumbs for lack of fighter escorts.

few really big bits as a response.

For most of the war with the axis, airframes are not a constraint but your pilots are. Especially as ideally you don't want to stop using trained pilots till fairly late in the game (that experience/skill boost is what gives you the real edge over the VVS). In contrast the Soviets need to rely on untrained pilots (& get them to some acceptable standard by training up to the NM values in their reserve), it won't be till late in the war does a group of Soviet pilots live long enough to really push up unit experience levels.

So, I think, you are playing 2 different games. As the Axis I regard my pilot stock as critical and will try to keep losses at or under the trained replacements. For the Soviets, the best I can do is to avoid catastrophic losses but I know that a new unit (or one that has just taken heavy losses) will need to sit in the national reserve for some time just to have any value.

So in the main aircraft losses should be readily replaced (you might have to shift plane types in the early game but that is marginal).

In a way that leads to a discussion as to what you are trying to do on T1 vs the VVS. Left unchecked its going to cause you problems in 1941, not least where you can't concentrate or have lagged behind due to supply problems. Even bi-planes and the I-series stuff can generate enough interdiction to deny you admin moves, SB-2s can hit depots and they can generate quite a lot of GS. So the T1 cull is to get you a clear window till the LW is better aligned to the front lines (say from T5 onwards). You'll win every air exchange till late 1942 but you have to be present to achieve that.

To some extent taking out modern Soviet fighters, the Pe-2s and their recon assets is good as those are all hard to replace, but in truth inexperienced pilots in Yak-1s are not that much of a threat. What I wouldn't do is to risk too many Luftwaffe pilots on T1 - set yourself a budget and try to work to that?

ORIGINAL: CapAndGown

ORIGINAL: Dreamslayer

ORIGINAL: loki100
edit - you also have more than 10 ADs so not sure where you have taken that from. Each Air command can have 30 on their own (not a good idea as its going to be chaotic but the capacity is there)

Also a small remark - Soviet AF's should not have 37mm AA guns and DShK's at beginning of the war in their TOE.

I just tried adding an 11th AD to Luftflotte 1 and it would not let me. This seems to confirm that 10 AD per air command is the max.

been reported as a bug, we'll see what the response is. Have you tried this in the 1941 campaign or is just a RTL issue?

ORIGINAL: loki100
been reported as a bug, we'll see what the response is. Have you tried this in the 1941 campaign or is just a RTL issue?

Seems like its in both.

ORIGINAL: Dreamslayer

ORIGINAL: loki100
been reported as a bug, we'll see what the response is. Have you tried this in the 1941 campaign or is just a RTL issue?

Seems like its in both.

thanks, added to the report

Just as an experiment I decided to prosecute all AF attacks on D1 at night....here's the results (note c.100 of the Axis and a similar Soviet are from a few daytime Interdiction missions)

Can now reach 3k soviet planes down at the end of the air phase, with 120ish axis casualties (more then half are always operational, but it can't be avoided if you want to hit some of those undefended big airfields)

12 ADs on AGN (Don't hit north of Riga, nor East of Vilnius)
12 ADs on AGC (Don't try to go near Minsk, hit everything in fighter range)
26 Ads on AGS (Very important, hammer the fighter air bases first, then you can reach out a little to hit the bomber bases that are undefended, but don't go more then 12 hexes in. Use the romanians to hit the airfields near north Moldovia for the last 200 kills)

Day 1 bombing only
1 strike per airfield, except airfields with more then 100 planes, where they get 2 strikes
7000 altitude

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: CapAndGown

ORIGINAL: Dreamslayer





Also a small remark - Soviet AF's should not have 37mm AA guns and DShK's at beginning of the war in their TOE.

I just tried adding an 11th AD to Luftflotte 1 and it would not let me. This seems to confirm that 10 AD per air command is the max.

been reported as a bug, we'll see what the response is. Have you tried this in the 1941 campaign or is just a RTL issue?

Just the RtL.

Well this is definitely an intriguing exercise, I have absolutely no idea how I will have the resources to wade through the whole Grand Campaign...

I stayed up until 2:30am last night (mostly because it was hard to find a picture of Kesselring smiling), but I finally got the whole opening turn Air Directive set sorted, with about the same guidelines as Jajusha. I kept the directives per HQ limited to 9-13 to keep it manageable, but I think it was more of a time sink in the end

I didn't do any recon or naval patrols, they just seemed to accumulate more losses for no gain. I can imagine that in the final (after the last "just one more try"-feeling) directives I would fly recon over key ground targets to raise their detection level. I also didn't play around with ground support, probably would need to limit escort numbers during air planning to be able to give effective GS/air cover in ground phase.

I ran several tests to try things out, and just happened that the final execution was also the luckiest, none of the Minsk and Kiev region fighters responded to my long range strikes in those areas. In a real game I'd probably skip those long distance Dornier and Heinkel sorties to prevent any risks and excessive supply usage.

EDIT: seems like fighter air miles aren't that bad after all! included in the pic. I also didn't use the Bf-110, following HLYA's example and also after considering the general LW fighter situation. They went directly to 8-turn fighter training right from the start.


Anyway here are my results after the air phase, complete with a Happy Alfred-badge.

Turn 1 Axis Air Phase is the most intensive air phase of the entire war. After this turn, you will probably just be doing Ground Support and Recon on a regular basis with only the occasional other directives. If you master the Axis Turn 1, the other air phases will be a breeze.

So very much true, doing it full manual, and the orders aren't more then 2 minutes after then first turn.
And i just love how easy it is to ctrl drag to move all the air groups at once.

Can confirm. After T1 I just set groups to GS, leave some fighters for interception and shuffle recon directives. Other than that, I only setting naval interdiction when it is needed(siege of Odessa, Sevastopol, Leningrad).
But setting T1 directives can take few hours if you go nuts and set for every group separate directive targeting just one airfield. [:D]

Greetings,

so this is what I have achieved after a complete finished Turn 1.
Special about it is: I only used 6 Ground Attack AD (2x per Luftflotte), all 10x10, Auto-Strike-Number, Auto-Loadout, High Intensity. So it looks pretty good to me for a "fast solution" without much micro.

I thus guess that Micro-Managing isn't mostly about getting those kill-numbers on the Soviets but to keep ones own losses down but I'm currently asking myself: How? Okay, not flying over AA I is simple... but how are some of you guys getting below 100 planes killed is above my head.

ORIGINAL: Tyrfinn
I thus guess that Micro-Managing isn't mostly about getting those kill-numbers on the Soviets but to keep ones own losses down but I'm currently asking myself: How? Okay, not flying over AA I is simple... but how are some of you guys getting below 100 planes killed is above my head.

Kill the enemy fighters by prioritizing the closest fighter airfields first on Very High with enough escorts. Then High prio on medium range fighter bases. After that Normal prio for fighter airfields that need escorts with drop tanks. And finally with clear skies you can use Low priority for unescorted bombing runs. On turn 1, bomb only on day 1.

I just did a really simple test. I took the set ADs, made sure each was one day at 9000' and ran them - got about 1000 on the ground kills. I lost about 120 pilots mainly up around Riga.

Ran 5-6 ground attacks at selected points across the border and got > 1000 kills - and mostly stuff I would want to kill.

Now I clearly could have done better with the GA element and that is only a small sub-set of the likely ground battles (though clearly the Soviet response will drop off) and before any over-runs.

Also the trade rate in all this A2A stuff is much more in my favour.

Point is whereas in WiTE1 your T1 cull of the VVS was almost all triggered off a willingness to endlessly micro-manage the airbase bombing in WITE2 its merely the first stage.

Another bit worth bearing in mind, in both air and ground, keeping axis losses down is as important as what you inflict. By late August, you will have gaps in the ranks and worse, its hard to bring up replacements.

You don't have to be 'too creative'.

I am just starting a PBEM game with a fellow by the nick of Keith from Discord (not sure if he is here or not).

I am only setting up 10 AD total (3 for GS and 7 for GA), I used auto for all and set the area and altitude as below, the only thing I did different was to set the intensity to High, this results I think in higher losses for both sides. In this case killing 10-1 is okay by me and good enough.

Here is how many AD I set up:



Here are the turn 1 air losses from that AD:



Killing 3,325 from airbase attacks is pretty good. I'll kill more in the movement phase (I think it's between 1k an 1.5k you can overrun if memory serves from testing).

Well, since everyone is posting their first turn air results, this is a link to my first turn air execution in a PBEM game.

Problems with high air losses for Germany won't be apparent in the first turns.

Germany produces 46 Bf-109 airframes per week for quite a long time. I don't think the factories expand gradually so you're stuck with that for quite a while. They seem to expand to produce 58 airframes / week in summer '42, and more then double the production in 1943. But anyway the production is quite low in 1941-42.

Not sure how the pilot training changes during the war, but at the start Germany trains around 130 trained pilots per week, out of which maybe only 1/3 are fighter pilots if you compare the bomber/fighter/utility ratio of Luftwaffe. Not sure if trained pilots are created only for fighters and bombers which would make the fighter pilot number around 60/week.

I haven't checked the bomber situation but I'm sure the airframe and pilot supply for those isn't endless either.


So you might want to set your limit of fighter losses to a steady 50 or less per week during the early war unless you want to start slowly diminishing your air power. Preferably keep it even lower since the Luftwaffe starts a bit undermanned, missing maybe around 50 fighter pilots.

High intensity basically just increases the number of strikes per day for the missions. Especially for airfield bombings on the opening turn, this could mean a lot of useless airmiles and casualties since most of the fields get completely devastated with a single bombing run.

EDIT: ok the airframe factories don't set the aircraft production limit... seems like it's 42 Bf-109 until May'42 it rises to 57, and after that to well over 100 when the new models arrive in 1943-45. You'll start getting some FW-190 in 1942 too.

ORIGINAL: Nix77

Well this is definitely an intriguing exercise, I have absolutely no idea how I will have the resources to wade through the whole Grand Campaign...

I stayed up until 2:30am last night (mostly because it was hard to find a picture of Kesselring smiling), but I finally got the whole opening turn Air Directive set sorted, with about the same guidelines as Jajusha. I kept the directives per HQ limited to 9-13 to keep it manageable, but I think it was more of a time sink in the end

I didn't do any recon or naval patrols, they just seemed to accumulate more losses for no gain. I can imagine that in the final (after the last "just one more try"-feeling) directives I would fly recon over key ground targets to raise their detection level. I also didn't play around with ground support, probably would need to limit escort numbers during air planning to be able to give effective GS/air cover in ground phase.

I ran several tests to try things out, and just happened that the final execution was also the luckiest, none of the Minsk and Kiev region fighters responded to my long range strikes in those areas. In a real game I'd probably skip those long distance Dornier and Heinkel sorties to prevent any risks and excessive supply usage.

EDIT: seems like fighter air miles aren't that bad after all! included in the pic. I also didn't use the Bf-110, following HLYA's example and also after considering the general LW fighter situation. They went directly to 8-turn fighter training right from the start.


Anyway here are my results after the air phase, complete with a Happy Alfred-badge.

Dang nice!!! This is just the the Air Execution phase, correct? What was the end of turn total if you went that far?

Also did you use the Hungarians?

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Dang nice!!! This is just the the Air Execution phase, correct? What was the end of turn total if you went that far?

Also did you use the Hungarians?

Yes that's air execution only. I think I did use the Hungarians for some of the southern sorties?

End of turn total was close to 4000 with 40 more GE fighters lost, but I actually started practicing other parts of the game rather than carrying on the VVS destruction exercise I blundered my opening in the south really bad, so there were many fields that I could've overrun with better planning, and I really didn't pay attention to Ground Support at all, I just set the directive for AGN to have only fighters fly GS, and it seemed to work almost too effectively. Lost a fair bit of fighters in GS though, probably pushed them too far and hard when not paying attention. Maybe moving the fighters to forward fields on the ground phase might yield more results even on turn 1 if you manage to lure in some distant VVS fighter aces

Not yet sure how the forward moving trick works for fighters since the airfields at front are probably quite empty. Have to experiment more with the supply system! Fun times!

EDIT: just noticed that the GS doctrine for Luftflotte 1 is red, so it probably didn't get executed at all, the fighters were just auto-intercepting?

EDIT2: Bobo's tactic of closing Ventspils with naval interdiction seems like a good plan, with VVS destroyed from that area the interdiction runs should probably work nicely. Also I tested out Guctony's tip of motorizing an infantry division to grab Riga, works nice! The 4PzG panzers can just rush toward Pskov and leave the Latvian cleanup to the infantry.

ORIGINAL: Nix77

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Dang nice!!! This is just the the Air Execution phase, correct? What was the end of turn total if you went that far?

Also did you use the Hungarians?

Yes that's air execution only. I think I did use the Hungarians for some of the southern sorties?

End of turn total was close to 4000 with 40 more GE fighters lost, but I actually started practicing other parts of the game rather than carrying on the VVS destruction exercise I blundered my opening in the south really bad, so there were many fields that I could've overrun with better planning, and I really didn't pay attention to Ground Support at all, I just set the directive for AGN to have only fighters fly GS, and it seemed to work almost too effectively. Lost a fair bit of fighters in GS though, probably pushed them too far and hard when not paying attention. Maybe moving the fighters to forward fields on the ground phase might yield more results even on turn 1 if you manage to lure in some distant VVS fighter aces

Not yet sure how the forward moving trick works for fighters since the airfields at front are probably quite empty. Have to experiment more with the supply system! Fun times!

Ya, ~3,600 - 4,200 seems to be the sweet spot as long as you can keep losses down. I started experimenting again myself

Ya, You really don't need GS on the first turn. But yes you can move the fighters forward and bag more. Really liking the Air part of the game now & will never use the Air AI personally.

I have found moving a few bomber squadrons forward isn't too bad on supply... so far