43 Grand Campaign AAR - Allies

[TaggedYa]

Turner and I are doing the Grand Campaign and are both going to do an AAR here. Hopefully we can liven up the place.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 1

Not much to say about the planning for turn 1. I moved 1000+ aircraft to forward bases and reassigned 2000 more so there wasn't much to work with.

For the first turn the weather in the west suked. Not that high a density but turn on clouds and there were 2 solid belts running SW to NE. They were only an hour and a half apart so everything had to go into that gap.

I sent a 3 squadron Tiffy raid to one of the fuel sites in the Ruhr just to get his planes up. I sent a 2 squadron med bomber raid to a RR in southern Italy to see what he would do about it.

I also sent out about 100 recon flights.

Night has Bomber Command hitting Braunschweig, Magdeburg, Dessau, and Leipzig. The attacks are timed for 5 minuets after moonrise so the accuracy will be high. I am not looking for terror points, (way to early for them to be useful) but to take out the RRs.

[TaggedYa]

A little on my thinking for this game. Well maybe a lot! [:D]

Turners last (and only) PBEM game ended when his opponent couldn't deal with Ta152Cs in early 44. My initial reaction to this was that if his opponent was so passive Turner could put 40+ production to research then he should have lost.

Then I though about it a little and looked at how research works and decided that it was possible to do it with only 20 production and you can start a couple of months into the game after you have converted to FW190 production. This lets you build up your stock of 109s to convert the school units and the minors. Then keep the 40 per day FW production and turn your DB engine and Bf109 frames to Ta152s and still get them by April of 44.

So I proposed as a house rule that research has to follow type order and left it to Turner what that order would be. There will at the least be FW190Ds produced before Ta 152 research starts. Other changes are in the works.

That said: In discussions when the TS version first came out it was stated that the purpose of the research rules was to keep the Allies from sitting on their hands for the first 200 days and then crushing the Germans with their massive numbers after the Germans stopped getting good replacement pilots. It is thus my intention to be anything but passive.

My strategy is thus going to be high intensity operations to knock out the German engine production by killing engine plants where I can reach them. If I can't reach a plant I will target the RRs and Ports that provide the raw materials and carry away the finished engines to the AFacs.

As 12th AF and Med Air command can not get out of Avalanche targeting no matter how much they bomb I am going to try a strategy of killing AA with them. The Germans actually have a somewhat limited AA production. It can be disrupted effectively by knocking out the armament plants and the transport that serves them. Most of this is in the Ruhr well withing range of escorted raids.

There are a lot of AA on the map but a constant drain by otherwise useless Med area forces may cause him to strip targets that are currently out of range and not be able to reequip them when I can start hitting them. When 2TAC goes into Overlord targeting on 1 Jan. they also will have little else they can do that is meaningful and might as well kill AA on coast troops.

I have also been wondering what the effect of medium bombers at 10k or 11k would be on light rail flack if it specifically was the target. I know they automatically replace like the troops do. I will need to test this.

And last but not least, I plan on using fuel storage and synfuel plants for my distraction raids and decoys. The game keeps stockpiles of everything so to be able to run him out of fuel towards the end I need to cut his production and destroy his stockpiles whenever possible. I know from playing the Germans that fuel storage sites can have 100K sorties worth of fuel and it is destroyed if the site is 51% damaged. TAs and jets suck lots of fuel.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 1

Losses:
Night Bomber 26
Recon 12
Fighter 4
Fighter Bomber 5

Allied Ready 4374 (3426) Total Assigned AC 7800
Strat Bombing 2731
Terror 85289
Axis Ready 2212 (2012) Total Assigned AC 4233
Industry output 46269

Targets: Type: Damage: Capacity:
St Pol Sur Mer Rail 68 2
Holten RhurBenzen AG Fuel 82 7
Hezebrouk Rail 22 3
Flushing Port 60 2
Dunkirk Port 61 1

AA Guns known destroyed:
37mm x 2

Night Bombers hit:
Braunschweig
Magdeburg
Dessau
Leipzig
Savona

And as an added bonus from the random number gods, a lost squadron from 205 group wandered over the port at Genoa and laid a direct hit on them. That was 6 miles from 205 groups target.

There is no recon for the night targets yet but analysis of industry data and bomb targeting (at least one direct hit in the rail yard area of all targets) suggest strongly that all have been knocked out ( 50%+ damage ).

Industry data indicate he should have 18 to 21 less engines turn 2 than turn 1.

He hit the recon birds hard. It is hard to tell without the replay but I think he targeted every recon plane.

I did my recon in waves timed to the clouds and out of combat areas so as not to cause the bug where 20 groups of axis AC all decide to chase a recon plane that they can't catch. With him targeting all of them I will have to protect them by flying above the fights and let him chase me.

All in all a good first day.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 2 planning:

Recon shows 300+ aircraft on 4 fields in southern Italy.
That seems like 10 Squadrons of Italians left hanging out to dry. Maybe as bait. There are a very large amount of Light AA at all of them but 0 heavy. I don't want to spend 2 weeks getting my recon chased down by Italians so I decided to make an attempt to take them off the table in one move.

Then a medium bomber raid to Bari to get everyone up in the air. It has a large layered escort all the way in and out. There are several sweeps along the bad guys RTB paths and near the bases. Then when the Bari raid is almost home and the Italians should be on the ground for fuel and ammo the 12th AF liberators will hit them at 11,000. Med Air is also doing some just over light AA airfield pounding. I have one strafing raid with p47Ds against 64 light AA to see how bad it will be. If it kills a reasonable amount of AC and some AA I will keep strafing.

In the West I have one big raid package going across aimed north of the Rhur cities. Hopefully it will look like I am going deep to Kassel. I need to know if he is going to use his night fighters in the daytime. I hope so, it would make Bomber Commands life a lot easier, but if so I will need to deal with it.

Before they get out of escort range they turn back and follow the same track back. I have fighter sweeps along the track and escorts to cover the trip back. About even with Shippol the package breaks in 6 pieces and bombs Amsterdam Rail, Utrecht rail, the oil storage, and Amsterdam Folker. I hope to get a big fur-ball in the area from the coast to a little past Deelan. If it sucks his night fighters and bomber destroyers in where I can thin them a little it will be a good day.

There is one fighter sweep early to see if I can hit his coastal airfields before he can get up. I really want to push him back a little. It provides cover for a Tiffy raid to an industrial target (I forget witch).

I have a screen shot for the Italian raids but forgot to take one in the west. Now to see if I can get it in here.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 2

Code: Select all

 Targets:                    Type:     Damage:   Capacity:
    Bari                     AF          71         4
    Crotone                  AF          67         4
    Fabrizia                 AF          94         4
    Littoria                 Rail        71         2
    Amsterdam-Fokker         CFAC        78         6
    Amatex                   OilS        93         1
    Amsterdam                Rail        73         3
    Municipal Petroleum      OilS        57         4
    Utrecht                  Rail        90         2
    Belge-Electrochemie      CHEM       100         3
    Le Trait                 Port       100         2
 
 
    
 AA Guns known destroyed:
    AAMG  x 2
    20mm Quad  x1
    
 Night Bombers hit:
    Didn't fly
 

[TaggedYa]

A good turn for sure. Hit all targets for good damage and killed 2 for one. Only lost 9 B17s.

Killed 110 engines.

I got to see the movie clear through even though this turn had a lot more activity than turn 1. I don't know what is causing the crash during the movie but it doesn't seem to be memory.

The movie doesn't have messages for ground kills or for AA kills from ground attacks. That is going to make it hard to tell if I am getting anywhere with my strafing attacks. I killed 22 on the ground this turn but don't know which attacks worked and which didn't.

One interesting thing happened. I had 2 fighter sweeps that were supposed to fly up the line of the bombers at 32000 feet to try to catch his night fighters ( he didn't launch any ) and bomber destroyers. When they passed Deelan 2 of the 3 decided to strafe Deelan. It had a lot of AA and they got shot up fairly bad but the ones that didn't go home stayed over the base and killed a half dozen FW190s as the were landing. Then they had a dogfight with some more and traded a few kills. Mustang Is could not possibly get 9 kills against a Sqd of FW190s in a fair fight. I am wondering if it is worth the damaged planes (most were damaged not killed) to get the landing freebees. In any case they will be out for a while regaining moral.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 3 planning:

Italy has 50% clouds but there are some open areas and I want to keep the pressure on so:

Recon shows he has 12 fighters on a field (at the brown arrow) with no AA so some spit 5s are going in on the deck first thing. Nothing else is going until they get there so as not to alert anyone.

There are two real raids. 12AF is taking 3 groups of B24s to hit rail yards at the red circle, and the mediums are going to Toranto for the rail there.

The FBs and Fighters that can carry bombs are going for targets along the coast but probably will not do much through the clouds. After the big raids go in single squadrons of Mediums will try to find the empty fields at 11000 to make sure he can't come back. He kept 80 fighters at Bari and 60 at Toranto so med airs Bostons will try to put some more hurt on them but will have to deal with the cloud. Hopefully he will come up to play.

The raids up to Genoa and Savona are just recon to see what the night bombers did. I had already plotted them when I remembered to take the screen shot.

No night raids tonight in the south.

[TaggedYa]

Turn 3 planning:

The West is going to be interesting today. I did the big raid yesterday so I figured on a lite day today but looked out the window and it is a glorious clear day with narri a cloud in the sky all the way to Poland. Needless to say the concept "lite day" went right out the window.

So; today the large cars are going "downtown". The main attraction for the day is 12 groups of B17s going to Stuttgart. 2 groups will bomb the Rail Yards while 5 groups each bomb Daimler Benz Flugmoteren and DB Sindelfingen. With a little luck (like not bombing the nonexistent jet factory north west of town) he will have 18 less engines for the next 40 days.

To try to get them out of the gate with the least muss and fuss the mediums of 9AF and 2Tac are going out ahead on about the same track then swinging north east where they will hit 5 airfields he flew from yesterday. Hopefully that will get the units from those fields and the ones North East of the Ruhr committed before he figures out the big raid is coming.

The FBs are hitting Rail Yards from Brest to Paris to tie up any units he has in France. A Sqd of Boston IIIs is hitting the only unit I know of at Patterborn NE of Paris.

He kept the fighters at Deelan so there is a 400ft dawn wake up call there. I got lots of spit Vs and not a lot to do with them as he is pulling back as fast as he can on both fronts so might as well trade them for some FWs.

Leeuwarden on the Dutch coast has night fighters (well 45 fighters and all I have seen is NJGs) and no heavy AA so one Sqd of Mediums (all I could spare) is going there, without escort) after the big raid starts. I figure once he is sure the B17s are going long he will not be chasing recon or single sqd raids anymore.

The strings of boxes are the night raids where every unit with H2S or Gee or high exp and moral is hitting a rail yard or port along the Rhine-Main junction. The strings of boxes are the elint planes along the path.

It is probably going to cost me as the bombers are out of escort for more than an hour but if they get the engines it will be worth it.

[nelmsm1]

I'll be interested in seeing the results of this days work, especially the Forts going to Stuttgart.

[npsergio]

Very interesting reading!
Just curious about the altitude that you choose for the forts...
Will you fly over the AA range, or not?

Regards

[TaggedYa]

First the losses:

I lost 24 B26s and 12 B17s. You don't want to work for the 9th AF under my command.
Seriously if I have to loose a bomber B26s is what I would want to loose. I have lots of them and I get lots more. 9th AF adds very little to my capability to hurt the Axis. In 250 turns it will be useful but not so much now with limited strength and very limited escort. They did what they could, bait the bad guys into a furball where someone else's escorts could deal with them.

I was very happy with the B17 losses but I don't really know what happened as the movie crashed just after the destruction of Junkers Jumo Jet. That's right, one raid hit JJJ instead of Daimler Benz. They trashed it but that dosn't help me any except they got a moral boost. All the B17 groups that went to Stuttgart came back with more moral than they left with except 2. For some reason one group absorbed 7 of the 12 losses. They also bombed the wrong target (they hit the wrong Rail Yard) and missed (8 damage).

We did get DB Sindelfingen. 83% damage means they will pack up and move. That's 10 per day for 40 days.

[JeffroK]

An observation, my B26 seem to suffer heavy losses regardless of escort numbers and tactics.
Dont know what the stats are, have others seen the same??

[TaggedYa]

Now what we did:

Code: Select all

 In Italy:
    Toranto             Rail       75
    Grottaglie           AF        Miss
    Bari                 AF        131  (71 service left)
    Leverano             AF        Miss
    Vibo Valentia        AF        Miss
    Sapri               Rail       57
    Battapaglia         Rail       51
    Potenza             Rail       Miss
    
    Vasta               Rail       94  }  This is the 12AF raid
    Sulmona             Rail       99  }  into the hole in the 
    Termoli             Rail       58  }  clouds
    
    Lecce                AF        Miss
    Pomigliano d'Arco   EFac       abort (fighters were intercepted)
    Crotone              AF        66  Had damage before
 

Went about as expected. The fighter attacks did supriesingly well but the mediums couldn't find anything to bomb.

The bad guys put a lot of planes in the air, the escorts delt with them. The bad guys didn't get a day to recover. Vasta and Sulmona are out for 40 days so they will be Med Airs problem by the time they come back. Termoli will need some more loving sometime before the invasion.

All in all an acceptable day in Italy.

In the west: Do I really want to type all this???

Code: Select all

    Deelan               AF        ???  I got 8 on the ground for the turn
    St. Trond            AF        Miss
    St. Trond LAA       Flak       Miss  What, you bums can't aim with 200
                                         bad guys on your butt and 80 flak
 					Guns shooting at you  your fired
 					oh never mind your dead. 
    733th L/E Flak      Flak       Miss  See Above
    Gladbach             AF         47
    Volkel               AF        Miss
    Krefeld              AF        Miss
    Stutgartt           Rail       Miss  Hit Unterturkhime instead for 8 damage
    Daimler Genz        EFac       Miss  Hit Junkers Jumo Jet Ghost for 59
    DB Sindelfingen     EFac        84     --- Its toast ---
    Varies              Rail        60
    Noisy-Le Sec        Rail        33
    Romainville         Rail        64
    St. Denis           Rail        43 
    La Chapelle         Rail        60
    Hispano-Suiza       EFac       100    Will never make another engine ever :-)
    Quimper             Rail        58
    Avranches           Rail        82
    Juvincourt           AF         Miss
    Mantes              Rail        Abort Intercepted  Got 2 for 2
    Caen                Rail        82
    344th inf.          Trp         13    Don't know what I killed to do 13% damage.
    Leeuwarden           AF         10
 

The low level early raid to Deelan got there unnoticed but he flew morning patrols. One of them hit the raid on the way home. It wasn't pretty.

The deversion medium raids basically wiffed it. Total damage for 7 raids was 47 at Gladbach. The escorts did a fair job but the odds were pretty bad for the first 10 minuits. After they got back into the full coverage they gave as good as they got. Give them a few medals and an atta-boy.

The heavys got to Stuttgart with little problem but the northern group hit the jet factory that will not be here for 400 days. I kinda expected it but didn't have the resorces to bull right up the middle to Nimo and Bussing Nag. Hell, they have to be killed sooner or later. I just wonder how many trips to JJJ I will need to make to get Damiler Benz.

The attacks into France were spectacular. Everyone got a piece of their target and losses were very light. Lot of RED out there for turn 3.

[TaggedYa]

@npsergio
The Forts are at 27,665 they would be at 27,500 but a max altitude medium raid set the 665 part and I didn't bother to change it. At 27,000 you are safe from 88mm guns and that is most of what he has to work with. Your raids do NOT stay exactly where you tell them so I give them a little extra to avoid errors.

The higher you fly the more problems you have. Harder to hit the target and more mechanical aborts. I don't see it often but sometimes you loose planes to mechanical problems. So I don't see a lot of profit in going any higher.

ORIGINAL: JeffK

An observation, my B26 seem to suffer heavy losses regardless of escort numbers and tactics.
Dont know what the stats are, have others seen the same??

As compared to what? The B26 is actually quite survivable for a Medium bomber. It's biggest asset though is speed. It can get from where it is to somewhere safe a lot quicker than the big heavies but it just doesn't take the punishment that a B17 can. It also doesn't have the guns for defense. I usually don't want to get them into a fight at all. It has a massive behind and below blind spot. If the bad guys are free to use bounce tactics it is going to hurt. A LOT. If you have to send them into the thick of it they need escort and at least one close Squadron. That will keep the majority of the bad guys out of your blind spots. Or you can do what I did this turn which is hang them out to dry and accept the losses.

Lets see, what was this post about. (Pizza came)

Oh yea, Air Superiority; anyone know how air superiority is computed in the Matrix version. It used to be Allied ready AC divided by Axis ready AC but that can't be right here.

[nelmsm1]

Maybe it is if he is converting a lot of squadrons from Me-109s to Fw190's.

[Creeper]

Thanks TaggedYa for your work to write this AAR!
Greetings!

[TaggedYa]

Hi Creeper. Glad to see you are still around.

[TaggedYa]

Hi guys. Turner lost a couple of posts, the common thread lost several and we lost 2 turns in here. I am currently planning turn 6, the last post I see is after turn 3 but before planning for turn 4. So a quick summery of 4 and 5.

turn 4; The long range escorts (mostly Mustang Is) were tired from the Stuttgart run. I didn't want to just sit as the bombers actually had higher moral after the trip than before. So I did a short run inside the range of spit Vs to try to trade them for FWs. That didn't work real good as he didn't bite. He only flew the close stuff.

In Italy I flew more AF suppression and Rail Yard missions. 12 AF went to the rail north of Rome. Escort was heavy opposition was lite casualtys were nil and the bomber boys whiffed it (one 8% one 40% both will need hit again before Avalanche). Elsewhere in Italy the mediums took out some more AFs the fighters took out some more rail yards. Potenza sluffed off their third raid without significant damage.

Losses were lite and even at 41 Allied and 39 German.

Turn 5; Didn't happen. The weather gods were angry. All weather was >90%. The bad guys who I was working so hard to grind into the ground got a day off. Expletive deleted!!! [:@] [:@]

[TaggedYa]

Turn 6 planning: England

From England I'm going to the Ruhr for a little fuel. Hitting 4 fuel and the Port and Rail. Every raid is a bit short as I forgot to distribute the last of the Heavies. I had set up all the raids with basic groups and figured I would spread out the leftovers once I was sure where all I was going. Thought of it just as I saved off the turn. Everything is well escorted without taxing the long range stuff. 9th AF B26s are hitting the 1 point fuel plant timed to drag there Spit 8s through the line of stragglers and dogfights both to and from the target.

He has placed 7 Heavy rail flak on the rail yards across the Ruhr so I will have to bomb out the individual industrys there. Not really a problem as it gives me targets that don't tax my escorts. On that note I am going to have to go to Bremen soon. He has a real hard on for my Recon so I don't have great info but it looks like I only have about 4 or 5 turns to knock down his sub factories or I will end up in mandatory sub pen bombing. I hate that as it tends to screw up your tempo.

The Tiffys are hitting the 3 Chem north of Ghent fairly early (about 7:15). They couldn't go earlier because of cloud. A little later they will hit the oil storage at Rotterdam. The Hurrys are hitting infantry. The first group of Hurrys has been hitting the static infantry each day so far. They kill a few guns and some artillery and get a plane or 2 damaged each run. The interesting thing is that their moral and experiance is going up fast. I would expect the exp. to go up when not loosing anyone but usually ground attack is hell on moral.

A couple of raids to a Port and Rail are happening off left of the map. He will probably launch against them but will never catch them.

One to watch is the area around Charlaroy. I have a half dozen fighter sweeps doing relays to block the AF there. He has a hundred fighters there with a Light Rail Flak. I damaged the AF in the turn 4 raids but he is still there so it might not be as badly hurt as my map shows. I have tried to stay far enough away to not strafe or attack landing planes. Not because I think there is any reason not to but because I don't want to lose a bunch of planes to the rail flack.