What to bomb pre-invasion? Ports? RR?

[Grotius]

It's November 1943 in my campaign game, and I'm starting to look ahead to my invasion of France. I have heavy rain everywhere except Normandy and Brittany this turn, and I'm thinking, hmm, maybe I should bomb ports and railyards there, instead of more "strategic" targets in bad weather. Is that a good idea? I should damage ports pre-invasion to degrade Axis sea-interdiction capabilities, right? But is it too early for that?

So, any general advice on what to bomb before the invasion of Europe?

[Jajusha]

2 sides to your question.

On the immediate, VP side of things, you want to bomb V-bomb sites on France (Calais has a couple juicy ones) once you get into 44.
On the invasion side, i see no reason to bomb the ports 6 months before, as northern france isn't shipping anything, and you wont try to contest the coast. The disruption you cause in the rail and supply network won't be worth the planes you lose imo, as they will also get repaired fairly quick.

Maybe try to set the min weather for the bombings to FAIR and keep trying the hit manpower and HI in german territory?

[Tazak]

I normally use the UK based tactical wing and fighter command to go after airfields and railyards but with med or low settings, then in april '44 ramp them up to high to really start laying the ground work.

Then I've found about 1-2 weeks before your invasion date switch 8th air force to railyard's and airfield raids while switching your tactical wings to interdiction attacks. When you go to launch your invasion you want every aircraft possible on interdiction duty out to about 100-150km from your beachheads.

Post invasion depending on the ground situation you can switch 8th airforce back to deep bombing raids or join forces with the tactical wing to smash the german defenders.

Leave bomber command on strategic bombing as their next to useless at night doing anything else and daylight raids are deadly for them. This also helps slow any VP loss from switching out strategic targets to invasion targets.

[Grotius]

Thanks for the replies! Just the sort of advice I was looking for. Thanks.