air units combat strength

[damezzi]

I never really understood how the values in air units are used. I searched the manual but couldn't find how the artillery value is used. Is it used for bombardment while anti-personnel and anti-armor for combat support, interdiction? If so, how can I measure the effectiveness of my air units against armored and un-armored equipment when bombarding? Or is artillery the main combat value for any mission, while anti-armor and anti-personnel represents the proportions regarding armored and un-armored kills?

[damezzi]

I thought that was a very easy question to answer, but maybe my english has made things difficult.
I just want to know what is the use of the artillery value in air units. I always use the anti-armor and anti-personnel strengths as reference when planning.

[larryfulkerson]

I really have no idea how the artillery value is used by the aircraft units.  I just use the air defense and air to air values in evaluating the airplanes.  Now I see I need to delve deeper into the values used in bombardment, well done dude.

[sPzAbt653]

The manual does say this :

- Artillery – This is the unit’s Bombardment Strength. It includes that portion of the Anti-Personnel Strength that the unit can use in Bombardment Missions or in Combat Support. These Strengths are simply the sums of the total Strengths in each category for all equipment assigned to the unit, multiplied by the unit’s Morale scaled to fit the game displays.

I'm not sure that this clarifies things, so I have posted this screen shot. In this case, I would use this air unit to bombard a soft target, but not a strictly armored target. Because although the 'artillery' value is 7, the anti-armor value is '0'. So the '7' value, for this unit, would only have an effect against personnel, or 'soft' targets. This is my interpretation as a player, I have no knowledge of how the values are programmed into the game.

[damezzi]

In this case the values match, but sometimes the artillery value is greater than the anti-personnel.
I knew this passage of the manual, but it isn't clear for me. How effective would be a bombardment against armored and against unarmored equipment if a unit has AA 4 AP 6 and Artillery 7, for example. There is such a unit in kasserine.

[sPzAbt653]

In your 4-6-7 example, I would still take that to mean that 4+6=7 for this equation. The portion of the combined strengths that would be used in a Bombardment or Combat Support mission. Obviously still more effective against unarmored targets as the AP value is still greater than the AA value. But more effective than my example of 0+7=7. The best way to judge effectiveness would be to catch an armored unit in a hex by itself, and bombard it. See what the results are. You may lose more planes due to CAP/Air Superiority than what it's worth.

Everybody has different strategies, but I usually only use my planes on a straight bombardment against a hex with big stacking penalties. Otherwise, the planes seem to be better suited to other missions. Some scenarios may differ, though.

[damezzi]

As I understand, you mean that the artillery value shows the actual bombardment strength, while anti-armor and anti-personnel would indicate the proportion. Using my example (4-6-7), 7 would be the bombardment value with a greater capacity (1/3) of killing unarmored equipment.
That makes sense, but what made it obscure to me was the omission of the manual with respect to anti-armor strength.
"It includes that portion of the Anti-Personnel Strength that the unit can use in Bombardment Missions or in Combat Support."
I will, nevertheless, try to figure it out by experience.
Thanks.