Air war: worth it or a bad joke ?

[gladiatt]

the air forces are supposed to win the war. How ?

First of all, air reco always always always give a 0 in recon value.

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Here too

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the air interdiction on airfield ? A pity

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bombing ennemies forces ? A joke.

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Once more ? Always a joke, even with 70 bombers.

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And once more. 70 bombers flying, tiring the crew and spending fuel for ....nothing.

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OK so let's bomb the industry.
At night ? Useless.

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still useless :

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trying dayly. But with no escort, it's Schweinfurt every day. Too costly.

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and the results ? useless.

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Coming back. Still no escort, can't hope to get through.

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The result is as useless as before.

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Coming back at night: the defenders are still laughing at the results.

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it is impossible to stop the raids during the week to stop the bleeding of the air forces.
Another blow.

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results ????? Not worth the raid.

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So, how is it possible to reduce the german industry in less than a century? How to smash the land forces ? How to have recon ?
Are the efforts worth the cost ?
It seem to me a bad joke.
Cant stand it.

[loki100]

suggest having a look at the various AARs and posts/threads on how to manage the air war. Lots of ways to get very effective results.

[cato12]

Sounds like you need to spend more time learning how the air war component of the game works. You can definitely get results but as ive said, time needs to spent learning it.

[Harrybanana]

gladiatt, the air war is not a joke; but it is not easy to learn that is for sure. Some comments and suggestions based on your above screenshots:

1. Non-Strategic Recon requires 12+ recon aircraft in each mission to be effective. In your first screenshot above you are only using 4 aircraft. Also getting good recon in anything but clear terrain hexes in clear weather is also difficult even if using 12+ recon aircraft.

2. You want to make sure that the altitude at which you are conducting the recon matches the cameras type (low, medium or high)that your recon aircraft are equipped with. If you are using low level cameras fly at 12,000' (but expect flak losses), if medium level camera fly at 24.000'; if high level camera fly at 36,000'.

3. Strategic recon does not require as many aircraft per mission (4 is good). I'm unsure if the recon aircraft in your second screenshot is flying strategic recon or regular recon. If strategic recon than you don't really care what the Air Recon Value is (that is for enemy units) all you care about is that you did recon the hex so that your assessment of damage to enemy industry is probably (but not always) reasonably accurate. If you were performing regular recon, than 4 aircraft trying to recon a heavy urban hex is guaranteed to be pretty useless. Even with lots of recon aircraft flying several missions per week against a heavy urban hex your air recon levels will probably be pretty low.

4.With respect to your 3rd screenshot, level bombers are pretty useless at interdiction. You need to use FBs for that. But in the early part of the game the Allies don't get many FBs that are trained as bombers; which is why you want to take some of your FBs that are trained as fighters and train them as bombers.

5. I'm unsure why your unit bombing attacks were so useless with out more information. What altitude were you flying at? What loadout was being used (if you know)? If you click on the detail tabs you may find that while you haven't destroyed any units you have disrupted quite a few. In any event, my experience is that medium bombers aren't particularly good at Unit bombing either.

6. Night Bombing is only good within a certain area of the map which should be shaded darker when you plot your SB Missions. I could be wrong but I think Bremerhaven is just outside that range.

7. Always escort your day Bombers if possible. Hamburg is well within the reach of your P38 escorts. If the program says it is outside their range you may have to change their loadout to give them drop tanks.

8. Don't trust the Combat Report to give you accurate information about your bombing results, it lies!! The Combat report may tell you that you have done 69% damage to a particular factory when in fact you have only done 2%. Or it may tell you that you have done 1% when in fact you have done 20%. The only way you can get semi-accurate information about factory damage is by doing strategic recon. However, I can tell you that the bombing damage caused by damaged planes is much less than the bombing damage caused by undamaged planes. Oh yeah, what altitude were you bombing at? With 8th AF you probably want to bomb at an altitude of 25,000 to 27,000"

9. Once you get a handle on the basics of the airwar you will probably want to start micro-managing things a bit more. For example, in my experience it is better to bomb a target (or several targets within a certain radius) 10 times with 50 bombers in each mission; rather than just once with 500 bombers.

Stick with it, you will learn. But it takes time.

Oh yeah, I can't leave you without putting in a plug for my AAR for beginners called "Decisively Beating the AI".

[gladiatt]

ORIGINAL: cato12

Sounds like you need to spend more time learning how the air war component of the game works. You can definitely get results but as ive said, time needs to spent learning it.

Sure, i have to learn, but there something i can't understand:

the AI is supposed to create Air Directive.
So, if
1) the Air Directive of the AI are worth it, why are my results so low ?
2) the Air Directive are to be edited, why bother with an AI to create some AD ?
And if the player must create it's own Air Directive, the system should be more human-friendly...

[gladiatt]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

gladiatt, the air war is not a joke; but it is not easy to learn that is for sure. Some comments and suggestions based on your above screenshots:

1. Non-Strategic Recon requires 12+ recon aircraft in each mission to be effective. In your first screenshot above you are only using 4 aircraft. Also getting good recon in anything but clear terrain hexes in clear weather is also difficult even if using 12+ recon aircraft.

2. You want to make sure that the altitude at which you are conducting the recon matches the cameras type (low, medium or high)that your recon aircraft are equipped with. If you are using low level cameras fly at 12,000' (but expect flak losses), if medium level camera fly at 24.000'; if high level camera fly at 36,000'.

3. Strategic recon does not require as many aircraft per mission (4 is good). I'm unsure if the recon aircraft in your second screenshot is flying strategic recon or regular recon. If strategic recon than you don't really care what the Air Recon Value is (that is for enemy units) all you care about is that you did recon the hex so that your assessment of damage to enemy industry is probably (but not always) reasonably accurate. If you were performing regular recon, than 4 aircraft trying to recon a heavy urban hex is guaranteed to be pretty useless. Even with lots of recon aircraft flying several missions per week against a heavy urban hex your air recon levels will probably be pretty low.

4.With respect to your 3rd screenshot, level bombers are pretty useless at interdiction. You need to use FBs for that. But in the early part of the game the Allies don't get many FBs that are trained as bombers; which is why you want to take some of your FBs that are trained as fighters and train them as bombers.

5. I'm unsure why your unit bombing attacks were so useless with out more information. What altitude were you flying at? What loadout was being used (if you know)? If you click on the detail tabs you may find that while you haven't destroyed any units you have disrupted quite a few. In any event, my experience is that medium bombers aren't particularly good at Unit bombing either.

6. Night Bombing is only good within a certain area of the map which should be shaded darker when you plot your SB Missions. I could be wrong but I think Bremerhaven is just outside that range.

7. Always escort your day Bombers if possible. Hamburg is well within the reach of your P38 escorts. If the program says it is outside their range you may have to change their loadout to give them drop tanks.

8. Don't trust the Combat Report to give you accurate information about your bombing results, it lies!! The Combat report may tell you that you have done 69% damage to a particular factory when in fact you have only done 2%. Or it may tell you that you have done 1% when in fact you have done 20%. The only way you can get semi-accurate information about factory damage is by doing strategic recon. However, I can tell you that the bombing damage caused by damaged planes is much less than the bombing damage caused by undamaged planes. Oh yeah, what altitude were you bombing at? With 8th AF you probably want to bomb at an altitude of 25,000 to 27,000"

9. Once you get a handle on the basics of the airwar you will probably want to start micro-managing things a bit more. For example, in my experience it is better to bomb a target (or several targets within a certain radius) 10 times with 50 bombers in each mission; rather than just once with 500 bombers.

Stick with it, you will learn. But it takes time.

Oh yeah, I can't leave you without putting in a plug for my AAR for beginners called "Decisively Beating the AI".

A big thank Harrybanana for your precise answer.

About the air recon ( 1 & 2 ) , i don't know why the recons are by 4 planes units rather than a 12 planes reco. I don't even know how to change this. And how to give an altitude for the recon ? This i don't know either.
But thanks for the hint.

About the bombing of troops (4 ) : it is in Sicily, and it seems there are not a lot of airpower to assist the allied ground forces, and not much choice. But it's seems very weak ?

About the bombing of industry ( 6 &7 & 8) i can't even manage to find the bases of my escorts. I've found a few P-47 Groups (but they are probably short ranged, comparing to a P-38; i know it because it was the same in WitP [;)] ) . But where to find P-38 ? This i still don't know.

Anyway thanks for your reply, and i will read carefully your AAR for beginners (even if english is not my main language, i will give a try).
Not sure aniway to keep with the game because its seem much more complex than what i was used to.

But thanks once more.