All those allied AA

[AlessandroT]

Hi all there.
Playing as Allies in grand campaign vs CHA AI.
What to do with all the AA, US AA auto weapons and other AA SU? I feel that they really exceed my needs of AA.
In November 1944 I have a LOT of them still parked in SHAEF with no use.
Should I disband them? How do you use them?

Any tip appreciated,
Thank you!!

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: AlessandroT

Hi all there.
Playing as Allies in grand campaign vs CHA AI.
What to do with all the AA, US AA auto weapons and other AA SU? I feel that they really exceed my needs of AA.
In November 1944 I have a LOT of them still parked in SHAEF with no use.
Should I disband them? How do you use them?

Any tip appreciated,
Thank you!!

Like all support units they do no good in your main HQ, spread most around the frontline HQs or possible Divs. depending upon you style of play.

[cfulbright]

If you're running low on American (unlikely) or British (more likely) manpower, you can disband AA units to free up manpower of that nationality. It does cost admin points. Make sure you check "Active Pools" rather than "All Pools" in the Production screen to see the true state of affairs.

You can get some of the same effect by setting TOE on AA units to 50% (the lowest you can set), but I've found that those units will only drift down to ~93% of TOE.

In all the grand campaigns I've played as the Allies over the past eight years, I hardly have seen hardly any Axis losses to flak - although I believe most Allied losses to flak get logged as "Operational" - I assume they crash sometime on the way home after being hit - so it's hard to know for sure.

Cary

[loki100]

there is a little bit of a difference vs AI or in MP.

By late 44 vs AI as above disband all the non-US AA to free out the manpower, esp British and the smaller national pools. The US stuff has residual value. In effect by then the LW will be finished so less need for in-unit AA.

In MP, even into 1945, the LW can be a pain on particular sectors, so keeping the AA to both cover key depots and protect front line units is useful. I got taught this lesson the hard way by Glorious Ruse and ended up placing a lot of AA on key locations (usually attached to a HQ and deployed at the depot etc)

Cary is right, flak is rarely much of a direct killer, but damaged planes tend to crash (so get recorded as operational losses)

[AlessandroT]

Thank you all for the help!