BrianG v. HYLA (no hard luck)

[BrianG]

and then more reserve activations. Makes a direct push here very hard.

Still a win for the Germans.

[BrianG]

Last attack down south.

[BrianG]

Final positions down south. He is very strong just north of Rostov.

I continue to gather forces for larger blow.

[BrianG]

You can count a huge number of routs this past turn

[BrianG]

north and tank shown in highlight. I have a few more to relocate. Not all will go south as I think the middle will be tested by the Russians.

I need those forces at Leningrad freed up asap.

[BrianG]

south tanks highlighted view.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: BrianG

This has been my air settings for the recent turns:

Feel free to comment?

I see the percentage required to fly is set at 0% which I think is the best default - it avoids the problem of fighters sitting on the ground and not flying when they are bombed etc. The next problem is when you do have a good opponent they know exactly how to take advantage of that. One counter to 0% to fly of an opponent is then fighter sweeping/fatiguing the enemies fighters to death. Indeed the reason why many put percentage required to fly higher is they think that is the way to avoid it.

You are facing a very good opponent who has done this before. And the counter would be to start thinking of restricting some fighters from fighter sweeps (e.g. moving their airbases back or restricting range to not intercept (many?) fighter sweeps). There is the alternative of increasing percentage required to fly then, but only if you are really sure you have enough fighters in the right places that they will never be wholely grounded when you need them.

But then I looked at your air losses and it was only 12 single seat fighters - which is very good indeed. And not too many fighter bombers so it is not substituting FBs for them. I know in a previous post you said you had a shortage of fighters to fill your fighter groups - but I see screenshots still indicating you have enough to run decent missions without all turning to catastrophes. The occasional one is inevitable in every turn. So that means they are not being fighter swept or fatigued to death?

There are still quite a few screens of bombers flying ground support alone and facing fighters. So that might indicate you need to decrease ground support escort as you want to have more missions with fewer fighters, rather than less missions with many and a tail with none. Although escort does already look low. You could increase interception to compensate?

These are just impressions from the AAR screenshots - you will have a better overview overall of what is happening in the air across the turn.

I would also say your recon losses are way too low - but others might tell you not to go there ...

[Dinglir]

With regards to air strategy:

What you need to do strategically is keeping the Luftwaffe as a fighting force that can support your attacks. If I remember your current situation correctly, you have suffered some heavy losses in the air, while the Soviets have built a rather huge airforce. The Soviets also vastly outproduce you at this point. Consequently, you can not afford to get involved in a war of attrition against the Soviets. The good news are that you don't have to, as you'll be doing the attacking for a while to come.

I would advice the following:

1) All airforces are set to a Group Range of 30 at the end of your turn. This will mean they will fly to protect their own airfields but nothing else. You need to make sure you do not have airfields with bombers stacked alone. You can place the airfields adjacent and set range to 60.

2) German aircraft has a decent range, so I would place the airfields some distance from the front (say 8-12 hexes), and preferably in cities or forest. Use staging bases out in front to get the fighters flying against their target. Remember to move the staging bases around to limit your aircraft from Soviet AA fire. Level bomber airfields can go even further back than this.

3) Stop any attempts to attack Soviet airfields. The Soviets have a vast number of arcraft and can easily sustain losses. If you get it wrong, you'll lose aircraft you can ill afford to lose.

4) Use your strategic recon to find out if and where the Soviets are flying interception. If they are flying heavy interception, use those strategic recon to tire the Soviets by flying a lot of recon missions against targets that will see the Soviets fly a good distance.

5) Decide if you wish to tire out the Soviet fighters further with ground bombing attacks drawing long range Soviet responses. If you do, use Ju-88's for this, possibly with a screen of fighters. Be careful not to fatigue your own fighters any more than they will be back at fatigue 5 or so come next turn. Beware that you need to keep fighters available for ground support later on in the turn.

6) For pre attack ground bombing preparations, use your He-111's. Assist them with fighters you do not need for ground support.

7) For ground attacks, consider doing a few non-critical attacks first with nothing but fighter coverage in order to tire out the Soviet fighters. I would use relatively small groups of aircraft for this (one Gruppe or so pr attack). Be carefull not to fly 120 fighters as cover in a mission that will see no Soviets flying. The purpose of all this is to tire the Soviet fighters, not to shoot them down.

8) For your critical ground attacks, you need to keep those soviets away from your own dive bombers. It seems the Soviets are keen on using large numbers of fighters and few bombers during your turn, so you may not need to pay much attention to their bombers. Again, you aim is not to shoot down Soviets but to keep your bombers safe for minimal fighter losses of your own.

9) With airfields in the rear protected by your fighters, send most AA units forward to the Corps that will be hit by the Soviet Bombers during the Soviet turn.

10) ALWAYS manually select each unit to fly in any mission (except possibly recon, where I usually just enable the type I wish to fly and disable the other).

11) Be VERY carefull to maintain the integrity of your airforce. It will bleed away, but you need to delay that for as long as possible, while also getting some use of it while you have it.

Adjust all of the above as you go along, making sure to adapt to HardLuck's strategy.

I'll be rooting for you. I believe it is time HardLuck takes a loss....

[EwaldvonKleist]

@air settings: IMO Axis air force is for ground bombing/ground support for your Schwerpunkt of operations. You use it for secondary fronts and for defensive battles and that spreads the effect thin, causes unnecessary fatigue and massive losses. So ground support default setting should be "off".

[BrianG]

@air settings: IMO Axis air force is for ground bombing/ground support for your Schwerpunkt of operations. You use it for secondary fronts and for defensive battles and that spreads the effect thin, causes unnecessary fatigue and massive losses. So ground support default setting should be "off".

its mostly off and sometimes on. also some turns hyla air defense seems lacking so I may do a few more 'on'.

His air bomber losses have been heavy and I think he really must be training up a large number in reserve.

I am moving air assets south but it is slow process. If he sees new air assets, he usually attacks the airbase right away.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: BrianG
I am moving air assets south but it is slow process. If he sees new air assets, he usually attacks the airbase right away.

Why is the process slow? Is it lack of airbases south? Lack of fuel and supply in the airbases in the south? The range is too far for air transfer?

[BrianG]

Why is the process slow? Is it lack of airbases south? Lack of fuel and supply in the airbases in the south? The range is too far for air transfer?

Lack of knowledge about best method to move them south. Move them via the airbase moved? No - seems really a big hit to fatigue. Or air transfer but range is issue and I forget and fly missions. Or move to reserve which seems like a waste of 2 turns.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: BrianG

Why is the process slow? Is it lack of airbases south? Lack of fuel and supply in the airbases in the south? The range is too far for air transfer?

Lack of knowledge about best method to move them south. Move them via the airbase moved? No - seems really a big hit to fatigue. Or air transfer but range is issue and I forget and fly missions. Or move to reserve which seems like a waste of 2 turns.

You can use the auto commit system to fly them in and out of reserve in the same turn. They arrive with 100% miles flown (they fly normally in your opponents action phase) - you lose your half of the turn only rather than 2 turns?

[BrianG]

Open south

Russians launch heavy attack against rr junction hindering supply to forward tanks

[BrianG]

air losses since last turn

[BrianG]

OOB

Not looking good.

[BrianG]

Attack on Leningrad area commences immediately

[BrianG]

Also, I now start to see more German kia than Russian kia even in victories

[BrianG]

I finish off the pocket and send tanks East towards Stalingrad.

[BrianG]

Final Sveboda bend