Matrix Games Forums

Hi everyone. Just bought the game and wanted to introduce myself. I've been playing wargames for awhile. For matrix titles, I have WITP, WITP-AE, SPWAW, TAOW, and Forge of Freedom. WITP-AE is my main game. I love these kinds of games, but I'm not really a grog. I don't know how many dry points or wet points each fighter type has (or even that they existed until I read this forum), if fact, I'm quite happy if I know the plane has 1, 2 or 4 engines without googling it =)

Right now I'm trying the one day tutorial from the manual. I just wanted to say that I actually like this manual. I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I like the structure of having those "The purpose of doing X is..." sections at the end of each part.

Are there any other online resources like strategy guides or newbie docs for this game? I've read through some AARs and the war room. But I'm afraid I need more basics. Right now I'm just playing the one day scenario over and over again as the Germans trying different stuff. Here are some of my burning questions.

I haven't looked at all of the AAR yet, but is there one where some expert does the 1 day scenario and shows how they would plan their missions if it were a longer scenario?

• What ratio of fighters to bombers? Should they have the same escort orders (close or high?)
• For different kinds of bombing targets (radar, AFs, industry) how many units do I generally need to do decent damage? I've been sending all the bombers of a given unit and have been using 1 fighter group per bomber group for escort.
• What are the various height band cutoffs for fighters and bombers and what are some of the important trade-offs in taking out a site like a radar site? Should I go in low or high?
• What are some mission profiles or groupings? Like if I want to take out an AF, how much effort should I expend on sweeps and taking out radar and stuff like that?

Hi Graymane, welcome in, and glad you are enjoying it so far

other then poking around the forum and looking at what is there, you can also always ask, most of us will be around the area, and can try and explain something (hassle is, we don't all agree, but at least then you get different ideas)

ahhhhhhh

most of your questions, tend to fall into that , well, depends

how many fighters ?

enough to protect the raid, so, that is a depends, is the first raid in, the last raid, in the middle, is it going deep, or is it hitting the coast and turning back, is it expected to run into a lot of the enemy, or will it be lightly attacked, or attacked at all (of course, most choices like that, you tend to be wrong in what you expect to happen)

if you do something like what I call a starburst raid (where a number of raids all fly along the same path, close to the same time, and break off into a starburst pattern once they get close to the targets) you can be a little fancy with the fighters, as all of the bombers should be close, the fighters for one raid, will have a chance to protect bombers from another raid (you hope)

early on, for the VIIIth Airforce, you only going to have a couple of FG's and a few English Squadrons for fighters, so the choice of how many, will be moot, later in the war, you will have lots and lots of fighters (if you still have enough bombers left)

ahhhh, again, depends, if the first BG/BS hits, you only need one !, but then the hassle is, the first unit doesn't always hit, or doesn't alway do a lot of damage, most times, it seems like, if you send 300 bombers to a target, the first one will nail it, if you send 90 bombers, they all will miss (not to mention, if the target has a cloud over it or not)

most times for me, I tend to go with a raid packet idea, the raid needs to be large enough to do the damage and to protect itself (30 bombers to Berlin, is not going to work too well, 500 bombers to Dunkirk, is going to be over kill)

for me, 150-180 Heavy bombers will nail most of the targets, if they get there and they hit it, now some of the bigger targets, you will want more (the Big BB sites, the Big Oil/Fuel sites) the big Area targets are going to a number of raids, and some, number of numbers of raids

Radar, one or two Squadrons, of FB's will normally do a good job (but they repair fast)

alts

again, depends, but FB's should be around 12-13 K or so, so they can peel off and dive on the target, light and med bombers, 8-12 K is a good alt, as long as the target is not defended by more then a few Heavy AA guns

going in low, gets you a much better chance to hit something, going in low, also lets the enemy hit you back (hassle there is, you never going to really get above the Heavy AA, and the higher you go, the less chance you have of getting a hit, US Heavies have the Norten bomb sight, so get a bonus at alt, give the English the B-17, and they don't get the bomb sight)

now the fighters are tricker, the 47 and 51 are very good up high, the early 38 is bad above 18 K, but the later models get better, most of the other US fighters, are poor at anything over med Alt (39-40-A-36)

the Spits, look at the name, LF means low level wing, engine gearing, HF means high level wing and gearing, F or nothing, means normal (hassle here is, a HF Spit, may still be better then a good low level LW plane, at low levels, and a LF Spit may still be better then a LW plane at Alt, go more with how you feel, or what you need, then what the plane may be able to do)

and again, ahhhh, depends, most times, on something like that, it depends on what you got going on, no mission, is in a vacum, other raids going on, will have some kind of effect on it, some times to the good, and sometimes to the bad, radar, do you need it shut down, to cover the raid coming in, or do you want the radar running, so it can see what is going on, is that the only base in the area with planes on it, can others come in to help defend, but for sweeps on the base itself, most times, the first sweep in (first unit in a sweep if more then one) may get off cheap and surprise the defenders, but large sweeps, or a lot of sweeps, the defender will be alert and ready for action, so...., 3 FG's may get slaughtered trying to hit a alert base, while one FG may get in and get out with only light damage

but, the way I think, I use my weak sisters, for sweeps over bases, my good units, are too important to me, to lose there pilots sweeping what may be a flak trap

but again, depends on how you feel or play

Graymane,

In addition to HS comments, I would suggest setting up an AI vs AI scenario and watching what they do. From there you get a "base" of what works and doesn't work - let the AI teach you both. The AI raid planning is not bad to learn from, although it doesn't do a good job of dog-legging around areas of Flak en route to the primary target. Once you have a base understanding then you can make the important decisions of the real number of escorts you need, the raid altitude, the actual number of bombers needed, etc.

Nick

Hi guys, thanks a bunch for the comments. I am now looking at how the AI does it. I just have it plan my missions, then I look at them and then cancel them. Also, I realize that my questions are too broad. In lieu of that, I've started an AAR instead so the questions are more specific to that AAR.

Graymane,

Check up on the After Action Reports and War Room sections of this forum. Lots of great stuff by players in there.

Also you can browse through the many pages of this forum where you can find many many great discussions that will go on to explain a lot of how things work and what doesnt work.

I would really recommend doing what Nicholas said. I am currently doing that for the first time after playing this game for years and I am seeing some very interesting things.

Good Luck and Enjoy !!

Later,
KayBay [8D]