Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow Axis (HLYA) vs Guctony (Soviet)

[carlkay58]

I would probably just not use the Stukas for airbase bombing and reserve them for ground support where needed after the Soviet VVS is battered/eliminated near the border.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Stukas are dive bombers and must reach the airspace at over 8000 in order to use their dive bombing bonuses. So your Stukas were level bombing and sitting ducks for the AAA.

Nice to know, Thank you. I will incorporate that into my grey matter that doesn't work very well.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

I would probably just not use the Stukas for airbase bombing and reserve them for ground support where needed after the Soviet VVS is battered/eliminated near the border.

I will still use them for Airbase bombing, will just make the Altitude adjustment. I really don't use ground support on the first turn.

[tyronec]

I tried some GA at 5000 and 7000 as you suggested and found that there were some intercepts but less than normal. Was that luck or a random result - I don't know.

[carlkay58]

The lower altitude exposes the aircraft to a smaller window of detection and thus harder to intercept. You just have to be careful because too low and small arms may hit them.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

I tried some GA at 5000 and 7000 as you suggested and found that there were some intercepts but less than normal. Was that luck or a random result - I don't know.

Everything is random in the game but you can alleviate more randomness by following more criteria for the bombing. Thus, the following are important too to set the Air Directives up;

1. Where you start your bombing runs. I found that if you start in the North or Center you seem to get more interceptions(I have no idea why & could just be a random event that has always happened to me) Thus I start just to the NE of Lvov and work south hitting each base in succession, When I finish with Odessa I come back to where I started and work to Center then to the North.
2. You attack the bases closet to the border with Soviet fighters on them and then go to the next one.
3. The Order in your execution makes a difference. Bomb the Soviet Fighter bases first with the highest priority setting then bomb the Soviet Bomber bases afterward with lower setting
4. How far your bombers fly to do their bombing, keep it short as possible

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Stukas are dive bombers and must reach the airspace at over 8000 in order to use their dive bombing bonuses. So your Stukas were level bombing and sitting ducks for the AAA.

Hi Carlkay,
My understanding is that the flight altitude is only set for the run to the target and, then, aircraft will be attacking as they are configured for. So, the Ju 87 should fly at 5,000 ft all the way to the objective, climb at 8,000 or above for the attack and then turn back at 5,000 ft.

Their higher loss ratio is probably due to the fact that they are much slower than fast German level bombers, hence easier kill for AA/Interceptors (in the game). In reality, above the objective, dive bombers are more difficult to hit by AA fire than level bombers -as they require direct hits.

Escort for Stukas is the way to go in this game, as it was in reality (scores of Stukas were lost to fighters since Poland) but this won't prevent AA losses.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: metaphore

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Stukas are dive bombers and must reach the airspace at over 8000 in order to use their dive bombing bonuses. So your Stukas were level bombing and sitting ducks for the AAA.

Hi Carlkay,
My understanding is that the flight altitude is only set for the run to the target and, then, aircraft will be attacking as they are configured for. So, the Ju 87 should fly at 5,000 ft all the way to the objective, climb at 8,000 or above for the attack and then turn back at 5,000 ft.

Their higher loss ratio is probably due to the fact that they are much slower than fast German level bombers, hence easier kill for AA/Interceptors (in the game). In reality, above the objective, dive bombers are more difficult to hit by AA fire than level bombers -as they require direct hits.

Escort for Stukas is the way to go in this game, as it was in reality (scores of Stukas were lost to fighters since Poland) but this won't prevent AA losses.

no, carlkay is right. If you send in your dive bombers too low then they don't use that option. So that is fine with the later war FW-tac bombers and the Soviet Sturmoviks but not with a classic dive bomber

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: metaphore

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Stukas are dive bombers and must reach the airspace at over 8000 in order to use their dive bombing bonuses. So your Stukas were level bombing and sitting ducks for the AAA.

Hi Carlkay,
My understanding is that the flight altitude is only set for the run to the target and, then, aircraft will be attacking as they are configured for. So, the Ju 87 should fly at 5,000 ft all the way to the objective, climb at 8,000 or above for the attack and then turn back at 5,000 ft.

Their higher loss ratio is probably due to the fact that they are much slower than fast German level bombers, hence easier kill for AA/Interceptors (in the game). In reality, above the objective, dive bombers are more difficult to hit by AA fire than level bombers -as they require direct hits.

Escort for Stukas is the way to go in this game, as it was in reality (scores of Stukas were lost to fighters since Poland) but this won't prevent AA losses.

no, carlkay is right. If you send in your dive bombers too low then they don't use that option. So that is fine with the later war FW-tac bombers and the Soviet Sturmoviks but not with a classic dive bomber

Amazing
My bad. I probably misinterpreted something I've read. Hence, a torpedo bomber attacking at waves high would fly hundreds of miles at 30 ft and return the same, no matter if their target could not be spotted until flying accross or that they would burn twice the fuel doing so.

[carlkay58]

It was actually a surprise to me when I found out that RECON missions automatically changed altitude for optimum camera usage. That removed a lot of micromanagement and careful RECON organization to optimize the RECON missions. All other missions take place at the altitude that you set in the mission directive. Dive bombers require a minimum of 8000 altitude to achieve dive bombing tactics. The rest of the aircraft fly level and true at the set altitude.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: metaphore

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The Stukas are dive bombers and must reach the airspace at over 8000 in order to use their dive bombing bonuses. So your Stukas were level bombing and sitting ducks for the AAA.

Hi Carlkay,
My understanding is that the flight altitude is only set for the run to the target and, then, aircraft will be attacking as they are configured for. So, the Ju 87 should fly at 5,000 ft all the way to the objective, climb at 8,000 or above for the attack and then turn back at 5,000 ft.

Their higher loss ratio is probably due to the fact that they are much slower than fast German level bombers, hence easier kill for AA/Interceptors (in the game). In reality, above the objective, dive bombers are more difficult to hit by AA fire than level bombers -as they require direct hits.

Escort for Stukas is the way to go in this game, as it was in reality (scores of Stukas were lost to fighters since Poland) but this won't prevent AA losses.

no, carlkay is right. If you send in your dive bombers too low then they don't use that option. So that is fine with the later war FW-tac bombers and the Soviet Sturmoviks but not with a classic dive bomber

Ya, Carlkay58 is a wealth of information, just like Loki Thank you two for always sharing your knowledge to us. We are not worthy [&o]

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

The lower altitude exposes the aircraft to a smaller window of detection and thus harder to intercept. You just have to be careful because too low and small arms may hit them.

Plus, you want to have high experience to run low altitude or your will incur higher losses if I read that correctly too.

[Iam5not8]

What you get from the game engine, is impressive and interesting.

When trying to "omptimize" T1 AIr, I reach 3k SOV losses with no loss by interception, but with 60+ directives and 10K+ missions, using automated mission settings (therefore flying 9000ft). With that amount of missions, my Ops losses are rocketing (188 to be exact).

Managing the details of the air directives seems to be a real winner.
Specifically to optimize the number of groups assigned to a mission, I mean to find the minimum needed to achieve the objectives, is the good way to limit the operational losses.
To achieve the same level of SOV ground kills, my LW did 8x times more missions than yours... fuel and ammo wrongly consumed, and 6x times more operational losses.
That is in fact, quite obvious, but that is the first time, I really realize the difference between full manual management, and semi-automatic (manual objectives, automatic mission settings).

Then I used 63 air directives on T1 versus 33 on your side. I definitively need to review that.

On the 5000ft, as I used the automatic mission settings, all missions are set at 9000ft, and there were only 2 interceptions made by Soviet on T1 (for 63 directives).

Thanks for that input on air T1. It definitively gives great hindsights on how to improve.

Have you made experiments on payload ?

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: Iam5not8

What you get from the game engine, is impressive and interesting.

When trying to "omptimize" T1 AIr, I reach 3k SOV losses with no loss by interception, but with 60+ directives and 10K+ missions, using automated mission settings (therefore flying 9000ft). With that amount of missions, my Ops losses are rocketing (188 to be exact).

Managing the details of the air directives seems to be a real winner.
Specifically to optimize the number of groups assigned to a mission, I mean to find the minimum needed to achieve the objectives, is the good way to limit the operational losses.
To achieve the same level of SOV ground kills, my LW did 8x times more missions than yours... fuel and ammo wrongly consumed, and 6x times more operational losses.
That is in fact, quite obvious, but that is the first time, I really realize the difference between full manual management, and semi-automatic (manual objectives, automatic mission settings).

Then I used 63 air directives on T1 versus 33 on your side. I definitively need to review that.

On the 5000ft, as I used the automatic mission settings, all missions are set at 9000ft, and there were only 2 interceptions made by Soviet on T1 (for 63 directives).

Thanks for that input on air T1. It definitively gives great hindsights on how to improve.

Have you made experiments on payload ?

Thank you it is all trial and error over many many many practice games. Sometimes I am right sometimes I am wrong (like disbanding Soviet Corps HQ's in one of my AAR's being totally wrong, still laughing on that one and a fun read ;-P ) By all means I am no expert in this game. I learn by experimentation and read manual later and try to get it out for others to try.

For bomb load I pick the loads with the most bombs and use them. I also will send a single bomber squadron to a single base on the majority of those bombing runs. But I know some posters to the forum that have spreadsheets and do the numbers in depth. Those posters are absolutely amazing in their detail!

Were the 2 interceptions long haul bombing runs or stukas?

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
Also, don't know who wrote it in another post but you can 100% have more than 32 Air Directives and they will all go off if done properly.

This limit seems to be set at 32 ADs by "Air Command", meaning that your 3 Luftflotten can theoretically go off with up to 96 ADs (but no more than 32 each) + Independant Allies Command ones. I've never verified it as it seems that 32 each is already more than enough.

Your result is very good indeed, one of the best possible I've seen with such a low attrition rate. Nonetheless, I would gladly trade 100+ more fighter losses in order to eliminate 3,000 Soviet crew instead of 539. Good luck now for taking out the mostly intact Bomber Force in the rear bases without an effective fighter cover.

[metaphore]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

It was actually a surprise to me when I found out that RECON missions automatically changed altitude for optimum camera usage. That removed a lot of micromanagement and careful RECON organization to optimize the RECON missions. All other missions take place at the altitude that you set in the mission directive. Dive bombers require a minimum of 8000 altitude to achieve dive bombing tactics. The rest of the aircraft fly level and true at the set altitude.

It's written in the manual (from memory, I don't know where) that Fighter-Bombers flying at 5,000+ ft (and higher?) will conduct their ground attack at 1,000 ft. I guess that I infered from that part that it would be the same for dive-bombers and that set altitude was not related to ground attack configuration. I've searched in the manual for the 8,000 ft bonus but couldn't find it either. For the rest, it makes sense for level bombing but not so for tactical bombers.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: metaphore

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain
Also, don't know who wrote it in another post but you can 100% have more than 32 Air Directives and they will all go off if done properly.

This limit seems to be set at 32 ADs by "Air Command", meaning that your 3 Luftflotten can theoretically go off with up to 96 ADs (but no more than 32 each) + Independant Allies Command ones. I've never verified it as it seems that 32 each is already more than enough.

Your result is very good indeed, one of the best possible I've seen with such a low attrition rate. Nonetheless, I would gladly trade 100+ more fighter losses in order to eliminate 3,000 Soviet crew instead of 539. Good luck now for taking out the mostly intact Bomber Force in the rear bases without an effective fighter cover.

@para #1 = Correct, 32 AD's per Air Command. Some may be confusing 32 Air Directives total across the board.

@para #2 = Correct on more Soviet pilots killed. Always a good thing You will get more Soviet pilot loses during your ground phase THUS saving your fighters from losses. So in essence what I have done is get rid of the aircraft on the ground and will further get more Soviet pilots during the ground phase while preserving German fighters from losses. Long term in the game having German fighters losses as low as possible the better your chances of eliminating Soviets in the Air. I haven't finished the turn but you can see I only lost 4 BF-109f-2s compared to 70ish fighters before. That to me is HUGE and in this game saving fighters is my #1 priority. (Before I wanted the pilot loses thus the interception routine)

[HardLuckYetAgain]

ORIGINAL: metaphore

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

It was actually a surprise to me when I found out that RECON missions automatically changed altitude for optimum camera usage. That removed a lot of micromanagement and careful RECON organization to optimize the RECON missions. All other missions take place at the altitude that you set in the mission directive. Dive bombers require a minimum of 8000 altitude to achieve dive bombing tactics. The rest of the aircraft fly level and true at the set altitude.

It's written in the manual (from memory, I don't know where) that Fighter-Bombers flying at 5,000+ ft (and higher?) will conduct their ground attack at 1,000 ft. I guess that I infered from that part that it would be the same for dive-bombers and that set altitude was not related to ground attack configuration. I've searched in the manual for the 8,000 ft bonus but couldn't find it either. For the rest, it makes sense for level bombing but not so for tactical bombers.

Ya on tactical bombing. That was great information that was presented for sure.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I should have the turn over to Guctony tonight or tomorrow along with my turn to Jubjub in the other game. Once I do that I will update this AAR.

Those air losses from above should be the end results in the Air. So just shy of 4,000 airframes and 1,270 Soviet pilots KIA for 41 German aircraft & 15 German pilots lost. To me this way has been better overall in the air. But that is just me.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

This game will follow Joel Billings post https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5078571 until the patch comes out.