Matrix Games Forums

Posted: **Sat Jan 10, 2015 1:31 pm**

Newbie playing Road to Leningrad. Working through the excellent Operational Boot Camp tutorial, but struggling to destroy anywhere near the # of air units that is documented in the tutorial. Tutorial ~450 Soviet air losses, My games ~100 Soviet air losses.

I know that his tutorial was built off of an earlier version, wondering if the programming was changed so that achieving 400+ air units destroyed no longer possible.

Or (more likely), I am mucking something up and need to go back and revisit something I am doing

Thanks

Posted: **Sat Jan 10, 2015 4:30 pm**

I'm not sure what is the "standard" good Luftwaffe score now. It is true that the original version of the game gave the LW a better first turn. Some things to try: make sure each enemy base is reconned. Set % to fly very low in the air doctine screen (for first and/or early turns only). Also, in addition to enemy losses directly from the bombing, as you move your ground units in turn 1 they will displace airbases and damaged planes -- there will be many -- will be lost. I just tried the bombing phase in RtL and got a bit less than 300 Red planes destroyed; that count would increase, probably to over 400, when the bases get displaced.

Posted: **Tue Jan 20, 2015 11:54 pm**

Thanks for the advise - I will try out your suggestions

Posted: **Wed Jan 21, 2015 4:56 am**

You sure you're on 'easy'?

Posted: **Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:31 pm**

While not the best player (or even close lol) under the 8.01 beta I started a new RtL scenario. My first turn The Russians lost 246 AC. By turn 8 the AC losses were up to 986. This was on Normal.

When I followed the RtL tutorial http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2649216 under 8.01 by turn 3 the Russians had lost 701 AC

So hopefully this can give you some numbers to shoot for.

If you do not do as well as I did then maybe we can play a game [:D]

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 3:11 am**

[:)]

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 6:22 am**

The letality of first turn bombimgs has chnaged a lot with patches. Nowadays (WITH 1.11) is far lower than one or two patches ago, but several tips will increase the performance of your units:

1. For the first turn only, set the minimum % of aircraft to fly at 5%. Then change the escorts to be at 100%.
2. Your best units for bombimg are the Stuka ones, altough I am not sure if in the RtL scenario you get any. If you do, move them to the border. That way they will be able to bomb much farther. Do the same for all your airbase units. Use your Stuka to bomb all airbases in range of them. Use Junkers and Heinkels to bomb airbases where Stukas cant go due to range.
3. First of all Recon all the airports unitl you get to see what it is in them. Some have just a handful of planes or none at all. Dont bother to bomb those.
4. For best results you need to carefully micro the bombing units. Click an airport while holding the Shift key (or it was Ctrl?) to get a window where you can choose which air groups will take part in the bombing. In my experience, it is better to bomb with fewer units thaln with lots of them, but others might say different.
5. Start bombing the more populous airbases. Once they are down to a few dozens aircrafts, change to a different, more numerous airbase.
6. Have in mind that destroying soviet recon airplanes is the best you can do, as soviets have very few recon airplanes and their production is very low (except for the crappy U2s).

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 11:09 am**

Just to add on to No Idea's posting"

When this game first came out it was quite possible to wipe out the entire Soviet air force. In the campaign game players could kill 10,000 aircraft. The first change to rule 16.3.1 was in 1.05.42 with a constraint of 50% of the FIRST miles flown to participate in a DAYLIGHT airbase attack. The next change was soon after in 1.05.53 to limit a DAYLIGHT airfield attack to the FIRST 1/3 miles flown. (2012)

So the optimization of bombing airfields is very nuanced .. in fact letting the AI attack can have better results than a player because of these nuances.

That said ...

A very key rule is 16.1.3 "Air Mission Staging Bases. The air groups will fly to a staging base and then to a target with the staging base extending the overall range of the planes while reducing miles flown (Very important due to rule 16.3.1). So one has to use staging bases. A staging base is simply a base closer to the target than the base holding all the planes you want to use. But wait! Why not just move an airbase closer to the target? That is much more simple ...

When you move an airbase full of planes 3 bad things happen ..

1) Fuel is used up in the movement .. planes use fuel to fly
2) Miles flown go up with the movement .. it is assumed that the planes fly to the new destination
3) Not to add to the plithora of details but moving things full of things in this game uses trucks .. you need trucks .. just remember that ..

So not good to move airbases full of things .. have to reduce miles flown -- particuarly the FIRST miles flown

One other constraint .. a mission can consist of only one fliegergroup (My Axis bias here Soviet has an equalvalent)
So the intial base, and staging base have to be from the same FLG

Also ... the airbases that belong to Army and pz groups are for RECON only so moving a army group base will not help you bomb airbases

Now how to clean out an airbase so you can move it to the front line with minimal truck use ..
Air transport planes from a base with few aircraft to another base from the same FLG . Now with that base empty you move it closer to the front lines where you will limit your miles flown.

We have bases with bombers and fighters and we have moved a staging base closer to the front line in clear terrain. Now one can shift right click over the target and get a list of aircraft .. the AI is not so smart in picking optimal staging bases .. so first left click an optimal staging base .. then over the target shift right click .. click the appropriate planes for the mission.

Now another nuance ..the list will only pick the first 14 air groups .. you might not want those planes for that particular target. So ..should you be Daylight bombing ...switch groups you do not want to fly to night. Now the list picker thingy will exclude those planes.

One other important nuance of this game .. you will eventually want to fly aircraft from bases closer to the front lines. It behooves the player not to just roll everything up closer as stated above. But those forward staging bases can be placed next to a rail head in clear terrain and planes flown forward. Then the bases in the back become staging bases while those forward bases become the holders of terror ...

Now you asked "why cant I use a templete or guide and achieve the same results .. " As you can see there are lots of nuances and there are rules changes since these templetes have come out ..I have just touched upon three very important concepts that these "guides" do not mention.

I suggest to read AAR's .. especally the newer ones.. Here is my AAR tm.asp?m=4360475 look at posts #11 and #20-26 for pictures showing an optimazation of air power. The picture in post #11 shows just how far airpower can project using a staging base ...

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 1:51 pm**

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

Just to add on to No Idea's posting"

When this game first came out it was quite possible to wipe out the entire Soviet air force. In the campaign game players could kill 10,000 aircraft. The first change to rule 16.3.1 was in 1.05.42 with a constraint of 50% of the FIRST miles flown to participate in a DAYLIGHT airbase attack. The next change was soon after in 1.05.53 to limit a DAYLIGHT airfield attack to the FIRST 1/3 miles flown. (2012)

So the optimization of bombing airfields is very nuanced .. in fact letting the AI attack can have better results than a player because of these nuances.

That said ...

A very key rule is 16.1.3 "Air Mission Staging Bases. The air groups will fly to a staging base and then to a target with the staging base extending the overall range of the planes while reducing miles flown (Very important due to rule 16.3.1). So one has to use staging bases. A staging base is simply a base closer to the target than the base holding all the planes you want to use. But wait! Why not just move an airbase closer to the target? That is much more simple ...

When you move an airbase full of planes 3 bad things happen ..

1) Fuel is used up in the movement .. planes use fuel to fly
2) Miles flown go up with the movement .. it is assumed that the planes fly to the new destination
3) Not to add to the plithora of details but moving things full of things in this game uses trucks .. you need trucks .. just remember that ..

So not good to move airbases full of things .. have to reduce miles flown -- particuarly the FIRST miles flown

One other constraint .. a mission can consist of only one fliegergroup (My Axis bias here Soviet has an equalvalent)
So the intial base, and staging base have to be from the same FLG

Also ... the airbases that belong to Army and pz groups are for RECON only so moving a army group base will not help you bomb airbases

Now how to clean out an airbase so you can move it to the front line with minimal truck use ..
Air transport planes from a base with few aircraft to another base from the same FLG . Now with that base empty you move it closer to the front lines where you will limit your miles flown.

We have bases with bombers and fighters and we have moved a staging base closer to the front line in clear terrain. Now one can shift right click over the target and get a list of aircraft .. the AI is not so smart in picking optimal staging bases .. so first left click an optimal staging base .. then over the target shift right click .. click the appropriate planes for the mission.

Now another nuance ..the list will only pick the first 14 air groups .. you might not want those planes for that particular target. So ..should you be Daylight bombing ...switch groups you do not want to fly to night. Now the list picker thingy will exclude those planes.

One other important nuance of this game .. you will eventually want to fly aircraft from bases closer to the front lines. It behooves the player not to just roll everything up closer as stated above. But those forward staging bases can be placed next to a rail head in clear terrain and planes flown forward. Then the bases in the back become staging bases while those forward bases become the holders of terror ...

Now you asked "why cant I use a templete or guide and achieve the same results .. " As you can see there are lots of nuances and there are rules changes since these templetes have come out ..I have just touched upon three very important concepts that these "guides" do not mention.

I suggest to read AAR's .. especally the newer ones.. Here is my AAR tm.asp?m=4360475 look at posts #11 and #20-26 for pictures showing an optimazation of air power. The picture in post #11 shows just how far airpower can project using a staging base ...

Great post. one question: do a forward staging base reduces the amount of miles flown per weekof air groups that come from rearguard bases, or it just extends the range? Another one, is there any bonus for having your airbases in range of their HQs?

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 2:46 pm**

I am not sure of the HQ question .. from what I read in the forums here .. there is no advantage from fuel? or supply? The HQ's can contribute AA Su as an example for flak in defense ..I invite others to comment
I do know this from Morvel:

Initiative, administrative and air rolls for airbase units (type 5) are allowed to be performed only by leaders of "air HQs" only (Soviet Air Armies, German Fliegerkorps and Luftflottes, etc.). In the previous versions of the game this caused German "army" air bases to fail those rolls automatically. In the current version such air bases are eligible for a "last chance" roll.

So it looks like the major airbases with planes attached need a major luftflotte HQ nearby ..

From 16.1.3 it specifically states that miles flown is from base to staging base to target .. and all miles flown accumulated. In fact I just made a mistake and clicked on the wrong staging base and added 10% miles flown [8|][:-]
So using staging bases extends total range at a cost of miles flown ..

There is another trade off .. get bases close to the front lines and the enemy might come to visit so there is an optimal placement of in supply, on a railhead, in clear terrain, at a distance with acceptable risk of airbase being bombed and using a staging base to extend range ...

Also in my original post I did not emphasize another constraint ..and it is a big one .. only 2 air attacks per turn per hex ( this is changed in V1.08.08 & 1.08.09). (In fact the air rules are significantly changed from the manual between 1.03 and 1.09) That does not include Ground combats and air interdictions that the AI performs automatically ..
Thus combine the 33% rule with the 2 attacks per hex rule and staging bases ... getting the bragged about air kills turn 1 is a choreographed event that includes the Rumanians (That I do not understand completely yet) of using air frames initially to smash the stuff close while conserving miles flown, and then using staging bases later in the turn to smash IL-4's deep in the battle space

( my first attempt at this was a disaster against sparkley tits so I would practice against the AI first [:'(] )

I can say I started to understand what Telemecus was teaching on turn 2 of the 2x3 game and was able to as shown in that AAR hit Soviet airbases that they thought were safe.. and extend airpower for the ground war to attack bad terrain ..[8D]

BTW) The use of Stuka's in the new version ..there is a dive bomber airframe class that I see works the same but just sets apart from level bombers ..

Posted: **Sun Jan 07, 2018 8:14 pm**

Question: How are staging bases selected when using ground support during combat?

Posted: **Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:51 am**

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
Question: How are staging bases selected when using ground support during combat?

It is a very good question I have been working on for a while - but not with much success. There is nothing documented in the manual or elsewhere as far as I can see. The only two observations I can make are

i) There seems to be some sort of "centre of gravity" choice where they pick a staging base closest to the largest contingent of planes in that mission. So I have seen examples where the most efficient would have been bombers flying up to a forward staging base with a fighter and flying on to the target. Instead the AI flies the fighter backwards to all the bombers and then flies from that as a staging base to the target.
ii) It seems to have a preference for segmenting flights into two shorter stages even if overall that means more miles flown.

Anyone who has gone further than this and understands more on how it is done - and hence how we can place airbases to optimise this - would be much appreciated!

Worth mentioning also air interception cannot use staging bases.

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