Allied Bombing Woes

[KWG]

Daylight raid on Hamburg in '43 producing around 80%damage to uboots. With only a loss of 2 B17s.


After enduring high losses, more often than not, i think ive found out why.

To be continued.....

[KWG]

Getting night bombing losses down also.

[whoofe]

whats the secret?

[LiquidSky]

Well..the only thing different that I can see is he is only bombing on one day....DAY 6 for the Yanks, and DAY 3 for the Tommies.

I don't see any recon happening unless it is being done by RAF.

Hmm...curious that the air battle at night between 336 German fighters and 24 fighters guarding his bombers was so abysmal.

[KWG]

no more "Hellburg" while going after the uboots.

instead of deciding on target types and bombing within a area I do pinpoint bombing. i pick the exact city with the target i want to bomb.

i bomb a certain city only one day in the week then I bomb another one. been giving Bomber Command and the 8th 2 targets a week each.
Recon(day before)... bomb.... recon(day after)



noticed this during beta test, however i changed thinking and pursued other tactics .


dont know if this helps..also getting creative with my waypoints. heading one way then tight turn toward target .

whatever iam doing there is a reduction in my losses, without decreasing bomb damage, over all.

[KWG]

General der Jagdflieger Galland says my theory looks "promising".

[Baelfiin]

That's a lot of dead bombers KWG. With the reduced pools you wont be able to sustain that. Unless I am missing something here

[LiquidSky]

Damage from Flak seems to be just from how many planes hit a target. I did an experiment where I wanted to see how much damage units left in rail mode would take.

I hit 3 panzer divisions parked in a town hex with flak. They were left on trains.

I lost 874 bombers hitting it with the May 1944 airforce (as many planes as I could fly).

I did reduce the TOE of the panzer divisions to around 50% but the cost in planes was way to high.

I used just auto settings with units as the only priority.

[JocMeister]

I´ve lost between 300-500 planes per turn in my full campaign. Pools havn´t been an issue so far.

Once autumn/winter hits your planes will fly more seldom and the pools will build up very quickly.

[Balou]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I´ve lost between 300-500 planes per turn in my full campaign. Pools havn´t been an issue so far.

Once autumn/winter hits your planes will fly more seldom and the pools will build up very quickly.

You sure ? I just went thru the figures for Allied LBs. One starts with roughly 8900+ LBs of all sorts (LBs already in airgroups + LBs in pools) which looks impressive at first sight. However replacement (AC production) is 250 LBs per week from then on, and barely 200 for the heavies that have a sufficient range (+ payload) for strat bombing.

[marion61]

Don't fly them everyday, and when winter comes and bad weather sets in, you may not want to fly. The worse the weather the more operational losses you have. Just manage your air groups and even with the reduced levels, it shouldn't be too bad. I'm in Sept. 44 in one game and 8th AF alone has 2300 bombers. When you see pilots with high fatigue or low morale rest them a turn. The higher your morale when you fly, reduces your bomber losses significantly. I won't fly them during normal operations below 70 morale. If I'm supporting an invasion I'll fly them as low as 20. If you get low, just let them rest a turn or two and make sure you keep pilots in them.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Balou

You sure ? I just went thru the figures for Allied LBs. One starts with roughly 8900+ LBs of all sorts (LBs already in airgroups + LBs in pools) which looks impressive at first sight. However replacement (AC production) is 250 LBs per week from then on, and barely 200 for the heavies that have a sufficient range (+ payload) for strat bombing.

I havn´t looked too closely at the production figures TBH. Granted there has been a lull in the bombing campaign the last 4-6 turns due to bad weather so my pools have grown during the time. Currently on T34. Bomber command is doing only day light raids.

Currently in the pool:

- 1800 B17s
- 250 B24s
- 1200 Lancasters
- 900 Halifaxes
- 1200 Liberators

When bombing I seldom loose under 500 planes per turn. Granted not all losses are heavies though as I´m using 2nd RAF and Tactical AF pretty aggressively (AI game).

[Balou]

Can you do me a favor and have a look at the figure for Lancasters in your airgroups and the number of losses ? Thanks. Because I am rather a logistics guy trying to understand the maths behind warfare.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Balou

Can you do me a favor and have a look at the figure for Lancasters in your airgroups and the number of losses ? Thanks. Because I am rather a logistics guy trying to understand the maths behind warfare.

To date (T41) I´ve lost 1950 Lancs. 750 are operational in air groups.

1000 in the pool + 300 "Specials".

[Balou]

You are roughly 500 overbudget on Lancasters (not counting the Specials). You've lost 1950, produced ~1500 so far (T1-T41). With 1000 in pool and at the current loss rate, Lancaster pool will be empty by T120 (and there is no T120). Thanks for sharing.

[Denniss]

The 300 specials is a bug (data issue) that will be fixe in a later update, just like the additional 600 Halifax II you get from the very same data issue.
Are you using your Lancs night-only or on daytime too?
the high Lanc pool may originate from a too high pool in the release version (which has been cut down) + production of the new and now-called B.III has been increased.

[Balou]

Don't know what version JocMeister was referring to. As for me, I took the figures from 1.00.11b

[KWG]

My losses back down. I hoped i would eventually get a week with high losses, player option wise there should be no one thing that dominates all.

"I lost 874 bombers hitting it with the May 1944 airforce (as many planes as I could fly)."

That would have been a battle to have seen.


replacement wise
My losses are not this high every week. And bad weather helps since i dont fly much in bad weather.





"To date (T41) I´ve lost 1950 Lancs. 750 are operational in air groups".


T31 155 Lancasters lost, 9 LanSpecials lost

pool
Lan.I 509
Lan. III 1260
Lan.Sp. 300

[JocMeister]

Don´t know what version I started under. Might have been the release one. Currently playing with the BETA.