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Note: I call the 12 or 10 or 2 (et cetera) groups of planes which are separately listed a "flight".

So.

I am not all that knowledgable when it comes to air war - especially Air-to-Air, so correct me if I am encountering the usual newbee issues which I likely will do with some easy way calculations I make. It is not supposed to be on point but to highlight an issue I have encountered and I'd like to have figured out.

This is about GS ADs for both sides.
I was thinking about ways on how to overcome enemy Fighter cover when one can not contest in quality or quantity.
In this I assume that I know the enemy's altitude for GS ADs (you can see this in the combat reports - it's set in the doctrines). Let's say it is set to the usual 9000ft.
If I now want to use my LBs in defensive GS with barely any/no fighters I can affort, my idea is to fly as high as I can to avoid -at least- the enemy GS Escorts. I expect to get some patrols/auto-intercepts contesting my planes but that's alright, also sometimes getting escorts to intercept would be totally fine.

But.

The issue is that the enemy escort planes are regularly (like 99%) intercepting the LBs! time and place: I know the GS result is supposed to be an average of many engagements over a longer period of the day(s), but if pretty much every "flight" of 12 planes gets intercepted by pretty much always enemy ESCORTs then this is a very unusual conincidence to me newbee. Since the escorts are flying (supposed to fly) with the enemy bombers - so they are not there at all times. The chance of both (or all the smaller ones) groups running into one another again and again and again is relatively small (isn't it?).

Speeds, Climb and times (newbee math):
The Hex is a 10mile Hex. So with a speed of 230mph you'd pass it in 10/(230/60)=2.61minutes.
If we triple this for here-there-paths and add some time to turn, let's say it is 8minutes over the Hex/target area.
If I now fly the LBs at ~28,000ft altitude and the enemy planes (ESCORTS) are at 9,000ft (the number we know from observing enemy GS) the fighters would need to climb 19,000ft to intercept my LBs.
With an climb rate of 2345 (MiG-3) we would expect it to take 19000/2345=8.1minutes.
If we would just use a random (tell me what else to use) 200mph horizontal speed during climb this would mean the planes cover a distance of about 8x(200/60)=26.67miles (whatever number used it is way more than 10miles).
Similarly, when the bomber would be ahead a random 2miles (but you would know where it is, and would already be on altitude) then, when using the cruise speeds and their difference of 263-230=33mph, we would need 2/33*60=3.64min to catch up (note that the bomber would pass a distance of 230/60*3.64=13.95miles during that time).

Now I could certainly think of issues, like using the cruise speeds and not the "speeds at altitude" in the math, but in any case the circumstance of pretty much 100% intercepts with ESCORTS at -19k altitude stands either way. So.
With this much of an hight advantage/difference.
And this math I made (may not be correct).
And with this many smaller missions/flights.

How can the escorts reach almost a 100% intercept rate?

Now, obviously without own fighters the escorts could fly freely - but they never know if there are enemy fighters inbound - and if they would, they would still need to know/find/climb/catch up to the LBs at the correct time of the day - every "flight"/time.

A further odditie:
The ESCORTS are regularly outperforming the PATROLS (which are already flying at the correct altitude), this also seems a bit weird to me. It may be related to how the test is set up (other Air Army, Airport situations, distance), so this is just a side note.


Note: I have tested editing planes (both, making the MiGs slower and the LBs faster), if one inputs extreme numbers things at some point switch but before that nothing seems to rly matter (at least not directly observable). So generally it seems to work but the altitude and the setup of AD altitudes seems to not matter at all when it comes to avoiding enemy fighters (unless one can fly above the fighter's max altitude).

Wiedrock wrote: Sat Jul 25, 2026 10:49 pm A further odditie:
The ESCORTS are regularly outperforming the PATROLS (which are already flying at the correct altitude), this also seems a bit weird to me. It may be related to how the test is set up (other Air Army, Airport situations, distance), so this is just a side note.

Now same Air Army, the result is the same, PATROL performs worse than ESCORT in shooting down enemy LBs despite having another objective and flying at higher altitudes to begin with. Even with better SKILL the patrols are worse. Furthermore, in case there's still hope that the Air leader rating has a roll to play. (Doubt.)

Putting the game mechanics aside and thinking in 'real world' terms. If you aren't flying your own fighters then there is nothing keeping the enemy escorts from leaving their bombers and going after yours. So essentially their mission can change from escort (which is unnecessary) to CAP - which they'll be flying at the altitude where your bombers are being observed. So rather than it being a situation where the escort fighters are zooming up from their own bomber altitude to yours it's more one where the initial escort flights are coming back reporting no enemy fighter activity, the patrol flights are reporting unescorted bombers flying at 28k and then the subsequent escort flights are flying straight up to that altitude to wait for your subsequent bombing raids rather than escorting their own bombers.

In a game operating at this scale geographically and time wise then a side that has the advantage both in numbers and in quality is going to have air superiority whatever the other side does. Your only hope as the Soviet player in the early game and the Axis player in the later game is to concentrate your numbers/quality in one place and force the opponent to either match your concentration (thus easing the pressure from the air elsewhere) or allow you to contest the air in the selected area on more even terms. Even then from an Axis perspective it is a losing proposition long term - it's just trying to find the slowest way to lose.

From memory a Leaders Air Rating does not impact on combat. A high Air rating ensure aircraft are not held in Reserve