Matrix Games Forums

So, after playing a lot of WitW scenarios in the past couple years, I decided to really take the campaign game plunge vs. the AI. I'm in late September of '43, and so far, I am doing OK. The Italians are still fighting, even though they got invaded a couple weeks ago

One of the things I did was decide that I needed a satellite air HQ to protect all those vital oil/fuel facilities down near Ploesti. So I railed Jagd Corps I down there to let Luftflotte Reich concentrate on the air war in Germany. I also set up about 200 planes of varying nationalities in the airfields around Ploesti.

The setup of this was fine. I introduced smaller units into the airfields that weren't first occupied/operational down there. Then I added larger units once supplies and support squads started attaching themselves to the newly occupied airfields. I checked all the airfields to make sure they have a good supply priority setting. I checked the Bucharest depot to make sure it has a relatively high priority setting (2, in this case). I looked right before posting this and the Bucharest depot has over 12K each of fuel and supplies. And I have the Jagd Corps I HQ sitting in Bucharest. I even changed the HQ on the local German AA units to Jagd Corps I.

However, I am seeing the air units in the Ploesti area starting to decay. I switched out the local veteran German ME-109 gruppe to FW-190s a couple turns ago, and now it is down to 35 planes. Other local squadrons are the same, showing the dreaded "8 planes operational, 4 damaged/in reserve". This would be fine, except that the Allies haven't set up their airfields in Italy yet and I don't think the wings of an Allied plane have darkened the skies of Yugoslavia yet, much less gone near Romania.

So is the issue that a Jagd Corps can only supply something like 150 planes, maybe 200? The supply situation at the airfields should be fine. I just checked the airfields, and a couple of them have about 80% of the aviation support squads they should have, but most of them are fine. And fuel, general supply, regular support squads, ammo--all that is where it should be or a little higher than needed. Even the Ploesti airfield, where that gruppe of FW-190s seems to be decaying, is not only fine for all the supplies, but has MORE aviation support squads than required.

Any ideas?

What supply level is the I Jagd Korps at? I always seem to have a problem getting the Bucharest AB filled up to full TOE. It has been on max TOE for the whole campaign and it still reads 47% TOE even though the Rumanians don't have shortages. What level is the depot at Bucharest at? And what level of experience have you set as a max for the I Jagd Korps?

My guess is that XHoel nailed it with the question of what level of Supply Priority is I Jagd Korps. Default in the game often is level 2. I set all HQ's that I expect to use in the game to 4.

Also, though this probably isn't the primary cause, check to make sure you don't have training turned on for your air commands. I always set this to 0, because I find otherwise I'm losing planes and inexperienced pilots doing unintended training.

Cary

I was at supply priority 4 for the Jagd Corps I HQ. I increased that to level 2. I turned off training too, so hopefully that helps with some of the squadrons.

NO! Level 4 is the highest. Level 2 is lower.

Cary

What cfulbright said about the training is probably what is causing the attrition. Also make sure to check that your airbases are not overloaded and have enough Air Support elements to support the aircraft on them. If they have less Air Support than they need, you fill find many air groups that have aircraft in reserve.