Ground attack on units - not very useful?

[jarraya]

I am using ground attack missions set to prioritise units. I have total air superiority. At one point I have 600 bombers, a mix of level bombers and fighter bombers with 250kg and 500kg bombs flying three to four days a week attacking a single, isolated city hex (Venice). The result is usually no damage, with occasional destruction of a few men and maybe one or two guns. Even the interruptions are very low. Additionally, it does nothing to reduce fort levels in the hex.
Am I doing something wrong? I can't imagine a sustained bombing campaign of this magnitude over three or four turns would do so little damage, but maybe that's just the case?
Appreciate thoughts from the experienced!

[cfulbright]

1. Do you have your own ground units next to Venice or are you some distance away?
2. Have to used Interdict Recon on Venice the days before you bomb?
3. Try 1,000lb bombs.

Cities and fortresses protect units from damage, but you still should be seeing some.

Cary

[jarraya]

1. Yes, I have two divisions constantly attacking the city as well (+30k men), engineers and artillery too.
2. Have not used interdict recon, will try that.
3. I've used every type of ordinance available, from rockets to 1000lb.

I do see some damage, but we are talking single digits men and one or two guns. BTW, the enemy has 30k+ men in the city! Obviously we've destroyed every tourist attracting in the city by now but the Germans must be hiding somewhere I can't find them.

ORIGINAL: cfulbright

1. Do you have your own ground units next to Venice or are you some distance away?
2. Have to used Interdict Recon on Venice the days before you bomb?
3. Try 1,000lb bombs.

Cities and fortresses protect units from damage, but you still should be seeing some.

Cary

[cfulbright]

Jarraya,

Can you please post a screenshot of the air directive like this?

Cary

[GloriousRuse]

That seems un-naturally low. Ground attack tends to produce a lot more disruption than straight destruction, but that is extreme. It may be a case of AD settings, but I would also ask the following:

1) How are the formations looking on fatigue and morale? If you’re having problems here you’ll get a lot of aborts that never reach the target.

2) Are you working at extreme range?

3) Are you getting shot down en route?

[jarraya]

I went back and looked at an old save. In the end I managed to dislodge them by just throwing more arty and engineers at it and losing a heap of men in the process.

Back to the bombing, the amount of damages increased some when I did the Recon missions with Interdiction priority, but still not significant. Disruption was more than destruction, however not a significant increase there either.

In reply to the below:

1) Fatige not a problem, I only fly them if under 30%. Morale only fly if 70% or greater. I still get at least 400 planes in the air. I loaded them all with the heaviest bombs I could.
2) Not extreme range. In fact, very close as I hold all of Italy at the moment and my bases are in the middle of the coutry.
3) No shoot downs. My only losses are operational and less than 10 per sortie. There are no enemy fighters.

Thanks for the support.

ORIGINAL: GloriousRuse

That seems un-naturally low. Ground attack tends to produce a lot more disruption than straight destruction, but that is extreme. It may be a case of AD settings, but I would also ask the following:

1) How are the formations looking on fatigue and morale? If you’re having problems here you’ll get a lot of aborts that never reach the target.

2) Are you working at extreme range?

3) Are you getting shot down en route?

[jarraya]

Here's a typical result (this is WITH recon as recommended earlier).

[jarraya]

And looking at the detail, it just feels like the result is too low for such a number of bombers:

[GloriousRuse]

1: Don't mix interdiction and unit GA ADs. That way madness lies. And using level bombers for interdiction won't generate much. Better to use these all as unit, and hit units every day you fly. Stack a separate FB based interdiction on the hex if you want it.

2: You're bombing from 21k for ground attack. That's going to do very little - recall that at altitudes like that, strategic bombers were routinely missing entire industrial complexes.

3: 4 Engine bombers particularly struggle to do more than disrupt - accuracy come sin to it I think - and your mission set there has a lot of four engine aircraft involved.

[cfulbright]

The fundamental problem is #1 below. You're not bombing the units.

1. It looks like you've set the target to Interdiction rather than Unit. Change it to Unit.
2. Set the "Req AC" to 471 and 30, so you make sure all the planes fly.
3. Don't mix FB's and LB's in the same AD, as GloriousRuse pointed out.
4. If there's not much AA in the hex, fly the LB's at 6K' and the FB's at 11K'.
5. Only fly days 3/5/7, and recon on days 1/2/4/6.

Cary

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: jarraya

...
In reply to the below:

1) Fatige not a problem, I only fly them if under 30%. Morale only fly if 70% or greater. I still get at least 400 planes in the air. I loaded them all with the heaviest bombs I could.
...

this is a far too high setting. Rest at 15 or you will pick up lots of operational losses. That will then lower unit morale making it even less useful.

[jarraya]

Thank you all for the advice. Will try all the suggestions above and let you know how it went.