Air attacks softing up ground assault

[HITMAN202]

How many fighters/bombers are needed in each attack to weaken morale ??? Pelton said 15 are just as effective than 300. Are 5 just as good as 15 ????

[Farfarer61]

I look for at least some troop kills, and a soft factor change. If the target is in a fort, you need to go in heavy. In the open, 2escorts, 3 bombers. Don't let teh AI do it as sometimes bombers-only wil be sent with horrendous casualties.

[randallw]

The manual says that an interdiction attack drops the target's morale, but I do not recall seeing that ground attack or ground support missions do it. Could be misremembering though.

[mmarquo]

Yes, do not ever let the AI do it as it will find enough enemy fighters to slaughter unescorted bombers; and if it says nothing is in range it is most often not true; click on airbases and you will generally find some planes in range.

[Peltonx]

I turn on supply soft factor. Bomb hex until supply has been dropped several lvls. Fatigue is also big and basicly folows the supply issue.

another thing that needs to be "fixed" with the air war.

5 planes should not have the same effect as 50 or 150.

The kills mean nothing, a stack of low supply ect rifle corps is just as easly pushed around as a stack of panzers.

All because of a few bombers.

Other tactic that is great to use, but mostly as Russian is tank brigde spam attacks. You can do this a german, but with limited units you only have 4 or 5 you can use.

Still comes in handy during 43/44 when your tring to hold the Wall. A few 10 plane bombing runs followed by 2 to 3 hastey attacks and that uber 50+ CV rifle corp stack gets pushed back be a single infantry division. heheheh

I did not learn these exploits on my own, but have coped them from Russian players.

Fixes for micro spam bombing and hastey fatigue attacks are what I was hoping would be in 1.06, but I am guessing they can't be coded out or they would have by now.

Pelton

[Flaviusx]

Tank brigade spam attacks = free morale for the other side.

This game doesn't reward soak off attacks. If you can't get it done on the first shot, it's probably not worth doing.

The bombing cheese is effective, however, but will burn out the Luftwaffe if pressed too hard. The real cure for this is massive fighter cover. If I saw one of you silly panzer balls coming at me Pelton, I'd detail no less than two full air armies packed with fighters to fly massive CAP over the area. You'll run out of air miles before I do.

[Baelfiin]

hehe now I see why you are sending in the 2 plane bomb runs before you attack me Flav =p

[Flaviusx]

Just 3 runs at a time, Scott. [;)] It's cheese, but not too cheesy.

The real cheese is when somebody does this a dozen times in a row. This also makes the defender waste a lot of ammunition.

You'll see a lot less of this from me once ground support starts working. I don't like wasting the air miles at that point. Ground support is much more effective. In 1941...this is just about the only game in town for the Red Air Force, unfortunately.

[Farfarer61]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Just 3 runs at a time, Scott. [;)] It's cheese, but not too cheesy.

The real cheese is when somebody does this a dozen times in a row. This also makes the defender waste a lot of ammunition.

You'll see a lot less of this from me once ground support starts working. I don't like wasting the air miles at that point. Ground support is much more effective. In 1941...this is just about the only game in town for the Red Air Force, unfortunately.

As Sov my record is 25 Cheese-Bomb Ground attacks againsts a single 2 unit stack. I had screwed up, had 2 GTA-equivalents isolated and could take zero risk in the attempt to de-isolate. I think I lost about 500 bombers. I sent in everything regardless of no escort. I still only got a 3.2 to 1 combat result as I recall, but it was enough.

[Flaviusx]

25 attacks is some serious Kraft Cheese, lol.

But it did cost you 500 bombers.

[Baelfiin]

 the game actually limits how many planes it will let fly on a single run ( different air armies dont play well together) so I don't see a problem with mass ground striking.  They don't do it for free when there are defending fighters around.  Sending a bizzilion 2 plane raids to artificially reduce supply, spam attacks are another animal.

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Tank brigade spam attacks = free morale for the other side.

This game doesn't reward soak off attacks. If you can't get it done on the first shot, it's probably not worth doing.

The bombing cheese is effective, however, but will burn out the Luftwaffe if pressed too hard. The real cure for this is massive fighter cover. If I saw one of you silly panzer balls coming at me Pelton, I'd detail no less than two full air armies packed with fighters to fly massive CAP over the area. You'll run out of air miles before I do.

The game 100% rewards soak attacks as per TDV clear blizzard offence that can pocket 50+ german divisions every time.

Exploiting the blizzard is a cake walk as no one will ever look into it as it is a russian exploit. Thankfully only a handfull of crafty russian players after my own heart have figured out how to crush anyone during 1.05 or 1.05 blizzards.

The logistics and combat system is clearly under powered for what is being asked of it. Its still the best and I am happy to keep playing, but your not fooling anyone by making claims that have already been proven wrong months ago in game.

Spam attacking with tank brigades and planes works during blizzard I have seen it 2 times, Once the German player losses 30+ division the game is over. The massive loss of trucks is made up for by mid summer, long before the German army can recover.

Instead of always saying no to everything play TDV.

He is clearly the best russian player by far.

He 100% understands the loop holes in the system. I understand them, but as the german player you can't exploit them as you just dont have the units to waste. Its simple math, the pay off is not in one turn.

Its basicly like Jamians grinding and during winter its full effects are not felt until Mid-January. Then the wheels fall off. Pocket infantry not mech units.

Anyways it works I have seen it first hand, say whatever you like. I will speak from first hand exp and you can ?

Pelton

[Flaviusx]

Pelton, if you had taken some time to post in detail what TDV is doing and what you did, it'd be easier for us to evaluate all this and determine if it is indeed a game wrecker.

I'm going to be honest here and say that I think your own blizzard defense might have something to do with it. But either way, we need the data.

James doesn't do soak off attacks. I'm quite sure he would in fact agree with what I'm saying here. He grinds: but he makes sure his attacks work, the first time around. Merely throwing units in soak of attacks just drives up the target's morale. It may indeed eventually get you to retreat that particular unit, but it's self defeating from the morale standpoint done on a large scale.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Merely throwing units in soak of attacks just drives up the target's morale. It may indeed eventually get you to retreat that particular unit, but it's self defeating from the morale standpoint done on a large scale.

Agreed. Although there are always exceptions to the rule, in general, I feel that soak-off attacks are self-defeating in the larger scheme of things. Occasionally, there might be that one hex that just has to give in order to rescue an army, or force a bridgehead, or some other turn critical situation. However, using this technique as a general course of action will wreck your own army's morale, and boost your enemy's. Also, by driving up your loss tallies, you make it harder to get promotions to your generals, and guards status for your units and armies.

[Peltonx]

Its all about Morale as it is what wite is all about.

Tank brigades do the dirty work they do not get the wins.

2 or 3 attacks with a tank unit, a rifle or cav unit attacks and gets the win and builds morale. I have explained this several times alrdy in other threads but here we go again.

1. Basicly attacks are made all along front pinning with zoc some infantry units. Tank brigades make the first few attacks and an infantry division or several get the easy win/retreat. Again an easy morale boost for the unit you want to get the morale boost.
2. Generally it will take several turns to pocket the first few divisions.
3. The pocketed units get destoryed and come back the next turn sucking up 90% of replacements. This weakens the front line units. This has been going on now for 4ish turns. A few holes were made and cav units push through.
4. The next turn attacks are made first with 30 to 40 tank brigades, who gives a rats ass what there morale is, its about MP's during blizzard. Once these attacks have been made several rifle divisions get the easy wins. The cav units push through. The German can't really do much at this point. Replacements have been sucked up filling in destoryed units and loses are very high at front from 100+ battles.
Sure some German units have higher then noraml morale, but loses put the toe below 50% atleast.

Basicly by mid January the only option is to run, but as Flaviusx and Jamian alrdy know cav units are faster then infantry. So every turn units can be pocketed by zoc, then over run the following turn.

I have been able in both games to never lose a single mech unit, but the infantry are doomed or atleast 30 to 50.

By the end of febuary russian truck numbers are really low, but will recover quicker then the Germans.

Its really kinda simple to figure it out and requires about 2 hrs of work to see how it works.

I have played through more blizzards then anyone I know and have NP vs most. Its easy retreat 2 hexs a turn ect ect hear peeps cry a river how its unhistorical ect ect. Even read a few posts from Flaviusx wanting some fix to stop this so he can kill more.

The fact is someone a little more on the ball then Flaviusx has figured a way to still get 30 - 50+ pocketed german units during blizzard and he doen't need a patch to handy cap the German player he does it based on how the game engine is designed and drives a tank through the loop holes. Kinda like the retarded 1 para unit dropped 600 miles behind the lines can stop supplies to 350,000 men. If that was a German exploit it would have been fixed before 1.06 was released.

Take a few hrs boys and play vs each other. You don't need a bunch of data from games when you can do it yourself.

Once the cat is out of the bag many will do it as myself and MT exploited the HQ build ups and rail system.

Yes sure its cheesey, but it is that way by design.

Like 1v1=2v1 was by design and cheesy, but redesigned to make for a less cheesy game. The more cheese that is removed the better product wite will become.

[mmarquo]

"The pocketed units get destoryed and come back the next turn sucking up 90% of replacements"

Axis players who know the rules know how to avoid this from happenng when needed.

Marquo `

[Flaviusx]

Pelton, a couple of things I have noticed about your blizzard defense:

1. You do not use terrain. You prefer these geometrically precise lines. I think that's causing you problems. Actually, that's not just with blizzard, it's what you do generally on the defense. (You are also overbuilding forts imo.)

2. You pull out too much mech. TVD is obviously taking advantage of that. He's throwing a mobile army against an essentially leg infantry force. German blizzard play has fallen into a stereotyped pattern where they just want to take a pass on the blizzard, send off all their mobile units for R&R until spring, and skip ahead to March Madness (now March Mildness.) There's ways to punish the German who does that, TVD has figured out one way, I have my own ideas, and they don't involve tank brigade cheese which in my estimation is going to hurt you in the long run when you need to make tank corps. And you'll be doing so with a bunch of guys with 0-30 records or whatever after flailing away with spam soak off attacks. Ouch.

3. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you are probably not making much use of reserve stance. Ironically, this is a problem a lot of Soviet players have as well.

All that said, if TVD is gaming things that severely then perhaps it needs to be looked at. But we need the data.

For the record: I don't think that a blizzard that consistently results in 50 dead Axis divisions is balanced. If this is really going on, it needs to be addressed. But in order to address it we need an actual AAR that details this very premature destruction of AGC.

[randallw]

Pelton's mass blizzard death is the only one i've seen in the AARs; it doesn't look to me that Tullus' strategy has become common knowledge.

[Flaviusx]

Randall, I haven't seen anything in any AAR, just a lot of handwaving and after the fact stuff and theorizing. I need data. I want to see what happened and how and if there's a possible response to it or if it's the kind of cheese that needs a fix.

If soak off attacks are actually that good, and not merely a result of player error, then it's a genuine issue.

[randallw]

I believe Tullis' tactics were heavier on cavalry and not so much on Lemming tank brigade attacks.