Air Exploit?

[Mehring]

Front wide? Do you mean a Russian 'Front' formation or across the entire front? Playing Russian I've only achieved the latter vs very passive Axis players. The former I consider completely historical. My current game, which I have frequently referred to here and elsewhere, is interesting in that it demonstrates the dependence of success upon tactics.

My Axis opponent played very passively, basicly letting me bomb the *&^% out of him until spring 1942. Then he regrouped, concentrated, pulled back a bit, leaving empty staging bases near the front line and started hitting back. In a couple of turns I had lost more than 1000 planes and most of the regiments they came from, I had to pull as their morale was around 20-40% and their experience was in many cases, shattered. This is with an airforce that I thought I had virtually destroyed.

It has taken months to train and repair the regiments up to what I consider to be minimum combat levels- 50 % morale and experience (sometimes I tollerate 45% experience for bombers). The net result is that he now contests air space over two substantial sectors of the frontline and has greatly reduced my ability to damage him and also to support my ground units. I'm left wondering how things would be if he'd been more aggressive from the outset, but I'm not completely in the dark there.

In a previous game as Axis, to which I've also referred, I did just that, bombing his fields from day 1 onwards. Come 1942, the Russians still had thousands of planes, monoplane fighters in quantity. But every time they took on my fighters, they were trashed. Why? It's difficult for even experienced Russian fighters to take on Germans in the air, but these had been bombed even more than mine in the game above. I was able to trash his 1942 fighter force in the air, without even bombing it. I don't know what his unit stats were, but having played both sides playing close attention to prosecution of the air war and gaining air superiority in particular, I think I'm well placed to assert that his fighters were suffering low experience and morale from being bombed, while mine was sky high.

Conclusion, explore what the game lets you do before drawing conclusions about what is and isn't possible.

[ComradeP]

Front wide? Do you mean a Russian 'Front' formation or across the entire front? Playing Russian I've only achieved the latter vs very passive Axis players. The former I consider completely historical.

If the Luftwaffe is present in force in an area, it should have air superiority in 1942. That's historical. Any other result is not. Currently, there are many games where Luftwaffe control of the skies is contested as early as 1941 in an ahistorical fashion.

My Axis opponent played very passively, basicly letting me bomb the *&^% out of him until spring 1942. Then he regrouped, concentrated, pulled back a bit, leaving empty staging bases near the front line and started hitting back. In a couple of turns I had lost more than 1000 planes and most of the regiments they came from

No matter what I try now or have tried in the past, destroying 10 planes or so per bombing mission is about as good as it gets for air bases with less than 100 planes. Without air base overruns, destroying more than 200-300 or so planes through bombing alone is tricky. Sure, it can be done, but it's tricky and you need some luck.

For some reason, fighters don't seem to do much during air base bombing missions (around release, fighter swarms could destroy hundreds of planes per turns through fighter only bomber missions, but now they've been nerfed too far it seems) as enemy CAP rarely seems to be engaged or shot down.

Fighters are still underperforming significantly in any case. When even a handful of Soviet fighters are present, Soviet casualties during air battles drop dramatically for no clear reason. That's another serious handicap for the Luftwaffe.

Conclusion, explore what the game lets you do before drawing conclusions about what is and isn't possible.

The game lets 100 bomber bombing missions destroy maybe 10 planes if I'm lucky whilst my fighters don't really do much at all. Oddly, the air base itself often gets hit fairly hard with hundreds of casualties, but the planes are often barely scratched.

[davetheroad]

Question - does the number of aircraft on the airbase influence the number of casualties they get from attacking bombers?
I just checked the 42 campaign and the germans average 103 planes per base versus the russians 70

Observation - apparently the germans had fragmentation bomblets in 41 and a bomber could carry several hundred. The tactics were to saturate the base with bomblets and you had a good chance of at least damaging planes which were not parked in hardened locations.

Late war the germans were still attacking airbases as i remember years ago reading an account of how the FIGHTERS did it. the russians built earth banks to protect the planes and the technique the germans evolved was to dive almost vertically from high altitude and use the planes gun armament.

i did a quick test with 42 and set the %age flying to 10, no GS and no interdiction, interceptors 150 . the russians were losing a few hundred planes to the german 10 to 20. The test stopped at 10 attacks as the russians ran out of planes in range. i noticed that switching everything else off meant a lot more fighters flying.

in another test i attached some potent flak to the town plus good AA units nearby and flak accounted for a reasonable number of russian planes.
You don't seem to be able to attach flak directly to a airbase? which is a pity as they should be potent, even if you just point the gun skywards and keep the trigger depressed!.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: davetheroad
You don't seem to be able to attach flak directly to a airbase? which is a pity as they should be potent, even if you just point the gun skywards and keep the trigger depressed!.

You can attach them to air HQs

[davetheroad]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

ORIGINAL: davetheroad
You don't seem to be able to attach flak directly to a airbase? which is a pity as they should be potent, even if you just point the gun skywards and keep the trigger depressed!.

You can attach them to air HQs

Which means that you have to keep the airbases within support range of the HQ. Or even better stack them together.

In another test I stacked a Rumanian airbase in the hex and was glad to see they took some of the casualties rather than the Bf109's.

The number of aircraft present may be relevant, hopefully not as by merely having fewer airbases would increase your casualty rate. Several possible fixes occur to me:
1. simply give the axis more airbases?
2. set the gruppe toe percentage low enough to limit the aircraft on the base and avoid additional casualties?
3. have the option of NOT intercepting recce missions?
4. mix the defending air groups to spread out the casualties?
5. groups bases close together so fighters don't fly far to intercept?
6. stack in a town and add flak to the town?
7. have a Bf110 gruppe available as they seem to normally engage the bombers and shoot down lots of sturmoviks.

Another question - do the staff flights have any relevance or are they just decorative?

[Nikademus]

interesting. Sounds like airbase bombing is too consistant allowing a predictible result to be incurred. In terms of historical comparison.....In 1942, neither side was able to achieve much in terms of destroyed planes on the ground which was a marked difference with the fantastic Barbarossa results. Air superiority was won in the air, over the battlefields.

The similarity to WitP:AE is that often the air model can be exploited in the same way. Its not about the individual loss results....its about consistancy. In AE, the major problem is how fighter sweeps work. Same idea.....steady unsustainable attrition over a series of turns. The bane of all wargames. The more detail and control, the more situations like this occur. Its tough.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Front wide? Do you mean a Russian 'Front' formation or across the entire front? Playing Russian I've only achieved the latter vs very passive Axis players. The former I consider completely historical.

If the Luftwaffe is present in force in an area, it should have air superiority in 1942. That's historical. Any other result is not. Currently, there are many games where Luftwaffe control of the skies is contested as early as 1941 in an ahistorical fashion.

The Germans were at least competent in their prosecution of the air war. Any Axis player who is not is also ahistorical, yielding ahistorical results.

My Axis opponent played very passively, basicly letting me bomb the *&^% out of him until spring 1942. Then he regrouped, concentrated, pulled back a bit, leaving empty staging bases near the front line and started hitting back. In a couple of turns I had lost more than 1000 planes and most of the regiments they came from

ORIGINAL: ComradeP No matter what I try now or have tried in the past, destroying 10 planes or so per bombing mission is about as good as it gets for air bases with less than 100 planes. Without air base overruns, destroying more than 200-300 or so planes through bombing alone is tricky. Sure, it can be done, but it's tricky and you need some luck.

For some reason, fighters don't seem to do much during air base bombing missions (around release, fighter swarms could destroy hundreds of planes per turns through fighter only bomber missions, but now they've been nerfed too far it seems) as enemy CAP rarely seems to be engaged or shot down.

Fighters are still underperforming significantly in any case. When even a handful of Soviet fighters are present, Soviet casualties during air battles drop dramatically for no clear reason. That's another serious handicap for the Luftwaffe.

This is a many sided equation, including an inter-relation of the need for Russians to pack airbases and degradation of morale and experience but you only approach it from the perspective of destroying planes. In any case, if a Russian player can bomb a German base 20+ times per turn, the reverse is also true.

Conclusion, explore what the game lets you do before drawing conclusions about what is and isn't possible.

ORIGINAL: ComradeP The game lets 100 bomber bombing missions destroy maybe 10 planes if I'm lucky whilst my fighters don't really do much at all. Oddly, the air base itself often gets hit fairly hard with hundreds of casualties, but the planes are often barely scratched.

I think you have something wrong with your doctrine settings. Try experimenting with different ones?

I'm certainly not arguing that the system achieves a historical result by historical means, and I'd like to see this remedied. But there are too many German planes flying around if the Russians don't bomb their bases so in the absense of an historical simulation, one good cheese deserves another.

[kvolk]

Another issue that was posted in the Q&A thread is where you place your air bases for them to participate. I know that was a good reminderer for me especially up around Leningrad. I think Ihave lost airunits to be considered to fly because I am not looking at what terrain I place them on all the time.

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

interesting. Sounds like airbase bombing is too consistant allowing a predictible result to be incurred. In terms of historical comparison.....In 1942, neither side was able to achieve much in terms of destroyed planes on the ground which was a marked difference with the fantastic Barbarossa results. Air superiority was won in the air, over the battlefields.

The similarity to WitP:AE is that often the air model can be exploited in the same way. Its not about the individual loss results....its about consistancy. In AE, the major problem is how fighter sweeps work. Same idea.....steady unsustainable attrition over a series of turns. The bane of all wargames. The more detail and control, the more situations like this occur. Its tough.

Nik what are you doing over here? I thought I got rid of you and T on the AE forum?[X(]

[ComradeP]

This is what a "good" air base bombing attack result looks like for me after turn 1.

I'm sending a large number of fighters and bombers over, but the results are disappointing. Even though the bombers (probably the Ju 87's) seem to clobber the actually air base, the planes are barely scratched. There are about 150 Soviet planes (including interceptors) present in the first targeted hex and a similar number in the second battle.

I'm OK with not getting large numbers of destroyed plane totals like what was possible around release, as otherwise it would be fairly easy to bomb the VVS into dust.

My main problem with these results is that my fighters don't seem to do much at all. There seem to be very few air to air kills. 1 shot down plane for, say, every 3 fighters doesn't seem unreasonable to me considering how good the fighter groups are, but now the fighters don't seem to contribute much to the mission aside from escorting the bombers. Even when only a small CAP screen turns up, the fighters still seem to stick to the bombers instead of engaging the enemy fighters.

I agree with the sentiment that the VVS was mostly weakened in the air, as air field attacks were less common than they are in the game, at least on this scale (usually only a group or two would participate, not hundreds of aircraft), so that's why I'd say that in my opinion Luftwaffe fighters are seriously underperforming in these kind of missions and in ground support missions where even a small fighter escort turns up to escort the Soviet bombers (if no escort appears, the bombers tend to get butchered).

[davetheroad]

Maybe escorting fighters only engage the defending fighters if attacked?
So 100 escorts being engaged by 20 interceptors would only generate 20 reciprocal combats?
In addition, perhaps the game engine reserves part of the defending fighters to engage the attacking bombers?

It could be a tactics problem. in the BOB the german fighters flew fighter sweeps before and around the bombers and pounced on any RAF stuff that tried to get close. Then the tactics were changed to a close escort where the fighters waited until they were attacked, not as good?

what tactics did the germans use in russia? I read somewhere that the russians seemed to use distant escort in that they sent the fighters over the target before the bombers arrived.

fighters can also attack airfields through straffing etc without being specifically designated as fighter bombers?
Perhaps a percentage of a surplus escort force can engage the airfield or to put it another way. Are fighters designated as fighter bombers any good versus ground targets and enemy fighters?

Russian losses
IF the russian airforce in the game represents those with the field forces and not the whole pool of airframes sitting under tarpaulins at rear depots.

41 - 650 per week
42 - 233
43 - 433
44 - 477

with the number of training losses this figures should be attainable in the game?

apparently there is already a 'CAP' in place of about 20,000 planes above which the training missions rocket and losses are enormous. Perhaps this cap could vary by year?
41 - 10,000
42 - 10,000
43 - 15,000
44 - 20,000

This could represent the difficulty in building up a airforce which is not just producing airframes but building and training all the ground elements as well.

fuel is another issue. the russian oil industry could not produce the high octane fuel required for high performance engines and they were reliant on lend lease and the rate at which the imports built up. Ultimately it is the amount of 98+ octane available that limits your air operations.

[Mehring]

@ ComradeP
Historical simulation (or not) aside I'd be quite happy with a result like that. Half your bombers, the tactical Ju 87, I don't even include in airfield raids as they generally lower the kill ratio considerably, being shot down for little or no gain (Strange that this being the case, the default plane selection for an airfield raid is usually, you guessed it, tactical bombers). Repeat until target expunged from the planet. What are the figures for damaged aircraft on the airfield? I think there may be a 'two strikes and your out' damage system, as often on 3rd or 4th raid with the same planes, targetted plane destruction shoots up.

I take your point about escorts and interceptors. The only fighter groups that consistently do well in my experience are Finnish, and they can really maul a raid. Interceptors seldom seem to go for the bombers when escorts are around, either. Part of developing a historical means of culling the airforces will certianly involve taking a fresh look at how fighters work.

[ComradeP]

For a mission of this size, casualties are low. Although the German medium bombers of course carry a lower payload, Allied level bomber strikes against German cities averaged about 200-300 planes in late 1944/early 1945 I believe.

I find difficult to believe that the Germans regularly massed 100 or over 200 bombers against a single target (where "target" is a ground unit) in the east, whilst that's quite easily achieved in the game. That goes for both sides of course.

I'd have to recheck my sources, but I believe the Germans never achieved the same tactical bomber density they achieved at Sedan on single ground targets (divisions in this case), although in the case of Sedan it was mostly the number of missions that was high, not necessarily the number of participating planes.

From what I've read, Western Allied and German airfield bombing missions were mostly not too big, a squadron at a time, if that. The numbers the Luftwaffe send against Dutch, Belgian and French airfields were not that impressive and even the concentrated numbers deployed against Britain didn't always result multiple squadron sized strike groups against individual airfields. Likewise, Allied bombing missions aimed at Axis airfields in Sicily or France were often not too big (for example: Steinhoff describes attacks by a dozen to a few dozen planes in his sort-of-memoires, although at that point the Luftwaffe was dirt strips with low number of planes per strip).

@ ComradeP
Historical simulation (or not) aside I'd be quite happy with a result like that. Half your bombers, the tactical Ju 87, I don't even include in airfield raids as they generally lower the kill ratio considerably, being shot down for little or no gain (Strange that this being the case, the default plane selection for an airfield raid is usually, you guessed it, tactical bombers). Repeat until target expunged from the planet. What are the figures for damaged aircraft on the airfield? I think there may be a 'two strikes and your out' damage system, as often on 3rd or 4th raid with the same planes, targetted plane destruction shoots up.

Those are "good" results.

Average to bad ones involve close to a 1:1 loss ratio, which isn't going to cut it. Few Soviet planes are damaged. On the other hand, my bombers seem to be damaged fairly often, although it's unclear what's damaging them (I'm playing at the lowest detail setting, so I don't keep track of what is happening during a battle).

Bombing the VVS should be done as economically as possible, and every damaged or destroyed plane reduces air group effectiveness, so the Luftwaffe doesn't have much of a margin for losses if the goal is to keep experience high.

There's not much of a difference between a strike with 100 medium bombers and one with 50% Stuka's and 50% medium bombers.

Also note that I'm not necessarily unhappy with the result, but that I'm unhappy with the results given the numbers of aircraft involved.

[Mehring]

An in game airbase is an abstraction of numerous arfields, I believe, spread over a wide area, so its multiple targets. The raid may also abstract numerous waves rather than a single mission.

I certainly noticed a difference between strikes with level and tactical bombers long ago, and have militated against bombing airfields with tactical bombers ever since. Indeed, I think a lot of the "don't bother bombing Russian airfields after turn one" argument is based on this misunderstanding of how the game handles the aircraft types. I doubt this is historical but in my game experience it is unquestionably the case. While we can't see how many targets they've destroyed, your examples I'd say, are very unusual for their lack of Stuka losses, perhaps reflecting a lack of light AA. Keep Stukas and Sturmoviks for ground support is my advice.

As for damaged planes, I had to pull loads of air regiments to reserve when my opponent started bombing. They were often reeduced in a turn from around full strength and good levels of exp/morale to 3-6 combat ready planes, up to a half dozen damaged planes, with morale and experience shattered. There's plenty of people who successfully bomb Russian air units these days, so it's something you haven't yet got right.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Mehring

An in game airbase is an abstraction of numerous arfields, I believe, spread over a wide area, so its multiple targets. The raid may also abstract numerous waves rather than a single mission.

I certainly noticed a difference between strikes with level and tactical bombers long ago, and have militated against bombing airfields with tactical bombers ever since. Indeed, I think a lot of the "don't bother bombing Russian airfields after turn one" argument is based on this misunderstanding of how the game handles the aircraft types. I doubt this is historical but in my game experience it is unquestionably the case. While we can't see how many targets they've destroyed, your examples I'd say, are very unusual for their lack of Stuka losses, perhaps reflecting a lack of light AA. Keep Stukas and Sturmoviks for ground support is my advice.

As for damaged planes, I had to pull loads of air regiments to reserve when my opponent started bombing. They were often reeduced in a turn from around full strength and good levels of exp/morale to 3-6 combat ready planes, up to a half dozen damaged planes, with morale and experience shattered. There's plenty of people who successfully bomb Russian air units these days, so it's something you haven't yet got right.

See Attack on Pearl Harbor by Zimm for an analysis of airbase attacks.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Speedy
Nik what are you doing over here? I thought I got rid of you and T on the AE forum?[X(]

I spread out......like a fungus.

[ComradeP]

I doubt this is historical but in my game experience it is unquestionably the case. While we can't see how many targets they've destroyed, your examples I'd say, are very unusual for their lack of Stuka losses, perhaps reflecting a lack of light AA. Keep Stukas and Sturmoviks for ground support is my advice.

I included the Stuka's for some additional damage to the air base, normally I bomb just with medium bombers. Stuka losses are not always bad, although they can be quite fragile. With too few escorts, they'll be butchered, but with limited AA and few interceptors, losses can be OK. Of course, I wouldn't use them for more than 1 or 2 missions.

There's plenty of people who successfully bomb Russian air units these days, so it's something you haven't yet got right.

Detection levels are at 10, and enough bombers are participating to cause some serious losses. Maybe there are just too few planes on the air bases for real losses, but even bombing a hex with 350 planes didn't cause many losses. There are only a handful of damaged planes after an attack, sometimes literally only 1 or 2. I don't know why my inflicted losses are (possibly) lower than those achieved by others, but I have no reason to believe the problem is how I'm bombing the air bases.

I don't know whether there are "plenty" of people who successfully bomb Soviet air bases to the extent that the VVS is actually hurt over time. The destroyed plane numbers that I've read are all in all not that much higher than what I achieve. I can destroy 200-300 planes per turn with bombing missions, but it's taking a lot more time and damaged aircraft than it should in my opinion.

[Mehring]

See Attack on Pearl Harbor by Zimm for an analysis of airbase attacks.

That's one too many books on my read list. I'm afraid , but thanks for the heads up. To what extent would this be comparing like with like though? Weapons, air crew quality and training, doctrine? Dunno.

Detection levels are at 10, and enough bombers are participating to cause some serious losses. Maybe there are just too few planes on the air bases for real losses, but even bombing a hex with 350 planes didn't cause many losses. There are only a handful of damaged planes after an attack, sometimes literally only 1 or 2. I don't know why my inflicted losses are (possibly) lower than those achieved by others, but I have no reason to believe the problem is how I'm bombing the air bases.

That's just one of the system's vagueries. Sometimes neither side suffers any losses at all.

I don't know whether there are "plenty" of people who successfully bomb Soviet air bases to the extent that the VVS is actually hurt over time. The destroyed plane numbers that I've read are all in all not that much higher than what I achieve. I can destroy 200-300 planes per turn with bombing missions, but it's taking a lot more time and damaged aircraft than it should in my opinion.

There are a growing number of forum posters advocating measures that damage the VVS and conserve LW strength because they've tried them and they work. It seems that you, too, have tried them but because you seem oblivious to any measure of damage other than destroyed planes, you discount their value.

I don't know to what extent the losses simulate historical situations, but the Luftwaffe can hit the VVS and hurt it, surviving as an effective force well into 1942 if not beyond. It's tried, tested, and it works.

[ComradeP]

It seems that you, too, have tried them but because you seem oblivious to any measure of damage other than destroyed planes, you discount their value.

I am not oblivious to other measure of damage, I'm just not nearly as convinced as you are that other measures like the presumed radical decrease in Soviet experience (which can essentially only happen when an air group is hit multiple times) is something the Soviet player can't find some way to deal with.

Inflicting losses is something you can control, as you can see how many planes are lost per air group when you look at the base information.

During bad weather turns, you could pull back most of the VVS and let it recover experience. Fewer Luftwaffe bombing missions will actually fly in bad weather and you could always pull back out of range. Considering the low mission rates and the likely decrease in the amount of attacks during the winter/blizzard turns, keeping the entire VVS near the frontline is sort of a waste.

If you pull it back, you have 20-30 turns to get experience back up to around 50 in a situation where the vast majority of the losses you take will be those suffered during training, but at that time production should be able to handle those whilst still allowing the VVS to grow.

You can't bomb the VVS or Luftwaffe into dust if it's literally impossible to bomb them.

[Mehring]

No you can't, so if you disappear your airforce for 20-30 turns- and without any guarantee when it returns that it will not suffer again what it ran from in the first place, you surrender air superiority for that lengthy period, allowing your opponent a breather too. Which somewhat puts the kibosh on the Russians gaining this much whinged about air superiority in 1941 or 42. Simply put, it will rarely, if ever, happen to a competent German player.

The main issue as far as I'm concerned is to improve the form in which the various types of air combat are simulated.