Air Exploit?

[Michael T]

I have read the odd post that refers to this so called 'air exploit'. I am not familiar with it. But I believe it involves the Soviets bombing the Luftwaffe out of the game in 42. Can some knowledgable players please enlighten us as to its modus operandi and its effects. Can it be countered? Is a fix required?

[ComradeP]

Although I'm not using the term myself, if it indeed indicates the ability of the VVS to wreck the Luftwaffe, it refers to the VVS launching large numbers of air base bombing missions that the Luftwaffe can't hope to counter, because fighter groups become tired after a while and AA isn't particularly effective.

It's very difficult for the Luftwaffe to hit Soviet air bases at a good loss ratio, although there are certainly situations where it can be done.

For the VVS, destroying a handful of planes for every couple of air base bombing missions whilst losing dozens is a rate of attrition that they can sustain perfectly, it's more difficult for the Luftwaffe. The primary problem isn't necessarily the number of destroyed aircraft, as German aircraft production's pretty decent, but the loss of morale and experience by the targeted air groups, which in turn will result in higher losses, starting a downward spiral that the Axis player can't halt.

[Michael T]

Do the devs and playtesters see this as a problem to be fixed? Or are we players supposed to invent our own tactics to prevent/mitigate it?

[Scook_99]

There is a whole lot of quiet on this, so I think they are taking a look-see and gathering data before coming up with ideas or changes.

EDIT: Not to mention, the all the other things to look at 1st, continual testing, and bug fixes on everything before this. I would say it could be a problem, but maybe one that the Soviets didn't do, as in continual bombing of German air fields round the clock.

[Michael T]

I would love to see a list of things that 'they' are looking at.

[Peltonx]

Yes basicly they use by-planes an general junk to "tire" the fighters out then bomb the crap out of the fighter bases. It takes until about the summer of 42. Once your fighters are down to a few hundred then they simply bomb the bomber bases and you got zero for planes by 43.

A few guys have upped the fighter intercept to 150 or higher and this seems to help, but no ones played long enough to see if it helps in the long run.

An exploit is 100% withen the rules, your just exploiting the weaker rules that help your side. Its not cheatting, just taking full advantage or some game imbalances. This is normal for any game and they generally get nerfed early on after a game goes gold.

Mybee there is some way the GHc can over come this that most of us have yet to figure out and its not an exploit.

Time will tell.

Pelton

[Michael T]

Just an idea but what if you deploy your Luftwaffe further back to the rear. I think generally the German aircraft have a better range. Perhaps you could remain within range of the front line but out of range of the Soviet planes. Whats the range of these bi-planes? It might force Ivan to deploy so far forward he risks getting his airfields over run.

[Michael T]

It appears a U-2 has a range of about 9 hexes. A Bf 109 about 19. Shouldn't be too hard to avoid the bi-planes.

[Scook_99]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

I would love to see a list of things that 'they' are looking at.

tm.asp?m=2840730

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Just an idea but what if you deploy your Luftwaffe further back to the rear. I think generally the German aircraft have a better range. Perhaps you could remain within range of the front line but out of range of the Soviet planes. Whats the range of these bi-planes? It might force Ivan to deploy so far forward he risks getting his airfields over run.

That should help, as well.

To counter this tactic in my game with Speedy, here's what I'm doing with some degree of success. We'll see how it works long-term.

Keep your air assets concentrated. Try not to have airbases all over. Keep them clumped in a few adjacent hexes, on rail lines. This way, they get better replacements, are mutually supporting, and the attacking air units will likely have to fly over multiple flak concentrations.

Generally stack your units with two Airbases, and one HQ.

One of the Airbases, fighter-heavy, the other bomber-heavy. The HQ should have extra AA SUs attached. Strip some from your Korps/Army HQs if necessary. If the Soviet player is going heavy on airfield attacks, he won't have as much left to cause your land force too much grief, and you can rely on the divisional AA assets for protection against Ground Support. By splitting the two airbases between fighters and bombers, you don't give the Soviets any fighter rich targets to pick on, and split the losses between fighters and bombers. The Germans have/accumulate huge numbers of bombers in their pools and if you lose some of those on the attacks, it isn't too much of a problem. They'll get replaced easily enough. Primarily, what you need to do is track the fighter losses.

Keep a close eye on your pool levels. If some of your fighter groups are getting too low on replacements, then temporarily outfit the groups with older airframes that you may have in abundance. In order to better micromanage this, you might have to set all your air goups to only do manual upgrading. This will necessarily add a high degree of micromanagement to the game, but you can be reasonably certain that if your opponent is attempting this tactic, he is also going through a lot of micro, as well.

[Sabre21]

I try to always stack my airbases with ground units that are in light wooded or city hexes. It makes it pretty tough to find them. If your opponent can't detect them, they can't be bombed. At least if they do attack the ground unit will provide AA support.

[Scook_99]

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

I try to always stack my airbases with ground units that are in light wooded or city hexes. It makes it pretty tough to find them. If your opponent can't detect them, they can't be bombed. At least if they do attack the ground unit will provide AA support.

I like that, but generally I can only come up with HQ units to stack with. Light woods I use all the time.

Some things I do: move intercept above 100 and drop require to fly to 0. If I am getting the worse end, move back the flyboys on rails and let them sit out of action until they recover. In mud and blizzard, my standard practice is to move back my Luftwaffe, as I don't find much use in bad weather for them. It seems to help preserve my planes and pilots into 1944.

edit: Soviet recon AC don't seem to be produced in high quantities, so if you can find Soviet airbases in 1941-42, I try to bomb them into oblivion. If they can't fly recon, they can't find your air. It isn't working out so well, but I am going to keep playing with this.

[jomni]

I just thought of something.  Doesn't the game use the staging base concept.
So you can put all your Air Bases in the rear except for one empty base in the front.
Is this a valid tactic? I don't personally do this by the way.

[WarHunter]

My soviet PBEM opponent decided to target the Finn air force for destruction. May 1942 this is all that is left of it.
We slugged it out through the Blizzard, mud, snow and clear weather. Finally all that was left to do was send the survivors back to the reserve.

[heliodorus04]

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

I try to always stack my airbases with ground units that are in light wooded or city hexes. It makes it pretty tough to find them. If your opponent can't detect them, they can't be bombed. At least if they do attack the ground unit will provide AA support.

Doesn't this fall apart immediately if your opponent decides to look at the map in "Bomb Airfield" mode? Then they're magically highlighted in red, assuming he has done reasonable recon earlier in the turn.

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: WarHunter

My soviet PBEM opponent decided to target the Finn air force for destruction. May 1942 this is all that is left of it.
We slugged it out through the Blizzard, mud, snow and clear weather. Finally all that was left to do was send the survivors back to the reserve.

Do you have a before picture?

[JAMiAM]

Honestly, trying to hide your airbases is an exercise in futility. The engine spots them easier than all other targets, and even in bad terrain it will allow higher detection levels (all the way up to 10) to be achieved. Unless the woods are on the rail lines, there's really no point to it, IMO.

[WarHunter]

This is turn 36, When the flower of the Finnish Air force was in full bloom.
Turn 48 was the previous post and the aftermath of concentrated bombing.

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Just an idea but what if you deploy your Luftwaffe further back to the rear. I think generally the German aircraft have a better range. Perhaps you could remain within range of the front line but out of range of the Soviet planes. Whats the range of these bi-planes? It might force Ivan to deploy so far forward he risks getting his airfields over run.

That should help, as well.

To counter this tactic in my game with Speedy, here's what I'm doing with some degree of success. We'll see how it works long-term.

Keep your air assets concentrated. Try not to have airbases all over. Keep them clumped in a few adjacent hexes, on rail lines. This way, they get better replacements, are mutually supporting, and the attacking air units will likely have to fly over multiple flak concentrations.

Generally stack your units with two Airbases, and one HQ.

One of the Airbases, fighter-heavy, the other bomber-heavy. The HQ should have extra AA SUs attached. Strip some from your Korps/Army HQs if necessary. If the Soviet player is going heavy on airfield attacks, he won't have as much left to cause your land force too much grief, and you can rely on the divisional AA assets for protection against Ground Support. By splitting the two airbases between fighters and bombers, you don't give the Soviets any fighter rich targets to pick on, and split the losses between fighters and bombers. The Germans have/accumulate huge numbers of bombers in their pools and if you lose some of those on the attacks, it isn't too much of a problem. They'll get replaced easily enough. Primarily, what you need to do is track the fighter losses.

Keep a close eye on your pool levels. If some of your fighter groups are getting too low on replacements, then temporarily outfit the groups with older airframes that you may have in abundance. In order to better micromanage this, you might have to set all your air goups to only do manual upgrading. This will necessarily add a high degree of micromanagement to the game, but you can be reasonably certain that if your opponent is attempting this tactic, he is also going through a lot of micro, as well.

It will be interesting to see how things develop. I'm still fairly confident you'll have no real LW to speak of by the end of 42. Don't forget you have a buffer of 5 months additional plane production before I started the air campaign. You'll have seen what happened to Keke's LW over 6 weeks in our on going 43 campaign. Let's see how this pans out though.....time will tell [:)]

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: WarHunter
This is turn 36, When the flower of the Finnish Air force was in full bloom.
Turn 48 was the previous post and the aftermath of concentrated bombing.

Holy Hell! From 353 ready aircraft down to 75. I saw the Finns managed to kill 207 planes between those shots, but is that even one turn's worth of Soviet aircraft production?