Summer of '42: Beginner's Observations, Questions

[Q-Ball]

I am just beginning my first Summer '42 campaign, as Axis vs. AI. Having survived the winter in OK shape (I will remember to fortify better next time, and work harder to keep Panzers off the front lines), I just started a redux of "Case Blue". Some observations:

*Though the first couple turns were successful (325K bagged Soviets), Soviets seem MUCH more resilient than in '41. Before, hasty attacks easily cleaned-up all pocketed troops; now, even the pocketed ones hold-out through an attack or two. And front line units RARELY rout. Ivan does NOT run anymore!
*The Hungarians are OK, and the Romanians are helpful with rest and treated right. But the Italians are TERRIBLE! Lack of ardor for the Fascist cause?
*Various Questions:

1. I get the difference between REFIT and READY for drawing replacements; I am still confused why, for example, my Romanian Armor Div. on REFIT sitting right on the RR will not fill-out its TOE of light tanks. Am I missing something?

2. I am finding I lack enough German Corps HQ. Is this other's experience? Is it better to overload a German Corps HQ with a good leader, or attach Germans to a Romanian Corps with a crappy leader? (for example).

3. What do others do when 11th Army HQ goes away? This seems like it's going to be a commmand problem.

I am already attaching Infantry Corps to the Panzer Armies (just like the Germans did).

4. TOE Question: Both Hungarian Armor Divisions are available to me; yet, IIRC, only one at a time ever served deep into Russia. WAD? (They aren't fabulous, but like the Slovaks, anything motorized is useful!)

5. AIR WAR still mystifies me; I know to keep the airbases close to the front to minimize flying distances, but what results do you get from pulling various levers in the settings? Confusing.

[ComradeP]

1. I get the difference between REFIT and READY for drawing replacements; I am still confused why, for example, my Romanian Armor Div. on REFIT sitting right on the RR will not fill-out its TOE of light tanks. Am I missing something?

Maybe the Romanians are missing something: light tanks. Their own production is limited and they don't have much of a pool.

2. I am finding I lack enough German Corps HQ. Is this other's experience? Is it better to overload a German Corps HQ with a good leader, or attach Germans to a Romanian Corps with a crappy leader? (for example).

3. What do others do when 11th Army HQ goes away? This seems like it's going to be a commmand problem.

This will require you to attach units either directly to armies or minor Axis HQ's (which may or may not be a good idea depending on its leader and whether you attach the corps to a German army).

4. TOE Question: Both Hungarian Armor Divisions are available to me; yet, IIRC, only one at a time ever served deep into Russia. WAD? (They aren't fabulous, but like the Slovaks, anything motorized is useful!)

The other one should be frozen I believe, Brad posted about it on the developer forum.

5. AIR WAR still mystifies me; I know to keep the airbases close to the front to minimize flying distances, but what results do you get from pulling various levers in the settings? Confusing.

The main thing you influence is the amount of planes that fly. However, with the current state of the air war, you should mostly notice the effect on ground battles, not on air to air battles (as those are broken, like strategic bombing and air base bombing).

[gradenko2k]

1. I get the difference between REFIT and READY for drawing replacements; I am still confused why, for example, my Romanian Armor Div. on REFIT sitting right on the RR will not fill-out its TOE of light tanks. Am I missing something?

Two issues that come to mind are supply lines and production.

If your unit needs 100 tanks and you have 100 tanks ready for deployment, the unit might still not get all 100 tanks in a single turn if its supply situation is bad. Or rather, the amount of replacements you get is not directly based on supply, but since it's also measured based on the distance from the HQ and the railhead, bad supply usually means bad replacement rate.

Production is rather simple, if you have a single unit set on refit that needs 100 tanks, and everyone is on lower-priority ready, and it's sitting in good supply, you might still not get 100 tanks if you don't produce 100 tanks or don't have enough tanks in your pool.

5. AIR WAR still mystifies me; I know to keep the airbases close to the front to minimize flying distances, but what results do you get from pulling various levers in the settings? Confusing.

Percent Required to Fly - this basically says "How many planes do I need to be available before I'm allowed to fly a mission?"

If you set it to 50%, then any air unit that has less than half of its planes combat-ready will not fly any missions at all.

If you set this higher than 100%, this will pretty much prevent any missions from happening at all. Setting this to a low value such as 5% will cause your air units to fly more often, but it may also cause higher casualties in terms of "more planes to shoot down" and "operational/wear-and-tear losses from flying so many sorties on the same plane"

Air Mission Setting - this basically says "If I'm allowed to fly a mission based on the previous setting, how many planes should I send on the mission?"

For example, if your Bomb Airbase setting is set to 60%, then whenever your order an air unit to bomb an airfield, that unit will send 60% of its combat-ready planes to bomb the target.

If you set it to a high percentage, you'll obviously send more planes, although this may cause more casualties from enemy fire and operational losses, possibly to the point where the air unit's strength goes below your Percent Required to Fly

Air Mission Escort Setting - this is the same as the Air Mission Setting, except for fighters. That is, if you set Bomb Airbase Escort to 60%, then any fighter unit that gets selected to provide escort to an airbase bombing mission will send 60% of its available fighters.

Keep in mind that making the percentages for the escort and actual air mission equal will not guarantee the ratio of the escorts to the bombers/transports. If you have 100 bombers available and 50 fighters available, your Bomb Airbase Escorts percentage would have to be double your Bomb Airbase percentage in order to maintain a 1:1 ratio of bombers to escorts, such as 50% of the bombers and 100% of the fighters to get 50 planes of each type.

[heliodorus04]

Useful info, thank you.
Let me add a question building on what you've taught me just now:

If I'm using SHIFT to allocate air missions (which I do), and I see an air unit that has 27 ready planes (for example), and I know my ratio (for whatever type of mission it is) is 50%, I can count on 13 of those "ready" flying along that mission.  Is that correct?

Side question:
What determines the effectiveness of Recon in both finding a unit (when no sighting exists at the time) and improving the detection level (when sighting already exists).

From what I'm seeing, it's very hard to get detection above 5 without having a ground unit in contact (less so for airbases you recon).

Also about recon: Why do so few recon missions get shot down, despite pretty regular intercept missions by the Russians?

[gradenko2k]

If I'm using SHIFT to allocate air missions (which I do), and I see an air unit that has 27 ready planes (for example), and I know my ratio (for whatever type of mission it is) is 50%, I can count on 13 of those "ready" flying along that mission.  Is that correct?

I think that's accurate, yes. The Ready column on the Pick Air Units for Mission screen tells you the number of available planes, so the Air Mission setting should work as a multiplier on that number to determine how many will fly on the mission.

Percent Required to Fly, in this case, would determine if the unit would show on the Pick screen to begin with.

From what I'm seeing, it's very hard to get detection above 5 without having a ground unit in contact (less so for airbases you recon).

I'm not 100% on this, but I think DET levels for ground units are capped based on the proximity of your own ground units. That is, you can never get DET 10 on something that's behind enemy lines. Check the manual for details.

For Airbases, I read that they're an exception: You should always be able to fully recon any airbase regardless of location, given enough recon flights. I wouldn't know why you can't seem to increase your DET further for these.

Also about recon: Why do so few recon missions get shot down, despite pretty regular intercept missions by the Russians?

I don't know what causes this either, although I have noticed it too.

[ComradeP]

If I'm using SHIFT to allocate air missions (which I do), and I see an air unit that has 27 ready planes (for example), and I know my ratio (for whatever type of mission it is) is 50%, I can count on 13 of those "ready" flying along that mission. Is that correct?

In theory, yes, as 13 planes will try to fly a mission, but there's no guarantee that they will actually do so, as they might turn back or not arrive for various reasons.

Also about recon: Why do so few recon missions get shot down, despite pretty regular intercept missions by the Russians?

Air to air combat is currently broken, it's being looked at.