Overstacking AF

[Chris21wen]

Despite having played this game from the start I'm still not sure about overstacking and AF. Not the rules, I understand them and I know overstacking is unavoudable but do the advantages of not overstacking outweight the disadvantages of doing so, or is it the other way round? Thoughts please.

[Sardaukar]

Well, there is Administrative over-stacking which causes mainly strikes to fragment and how many planes can be launched.

Physical over-stacking increases casualties (a lot) when AF is attacked, also affects how many planes go for strike and slows repair of planes.

So, in sense "Is it beneficial to overstack", it depends. If you want e.g. massive CAP, then yes.

[Yaab]

Fragmenting a strike is bad, since your fragment will face all flak in destination hex. If you watch combat animation closely, you will notice that flak losses are mostly inccured by small fragment groups. For example, enemy has 15 heavy AA guns. You have 30 bombers and 3 stragglers. Your main strike suffers no AA loses (15 AA guns vs 30 bombers), while stragglers lose 1 bomber and 2 damaged (15 AA guns versus 3 bombers).

Also, overstacking + flying bombers in bad weather (Rain, Thunderstorms) = even more fragments.

[Sardaukar]

I think Ops losses increase too with physical over-stacking.