European Theatres of Operations

[82ndtrooper]

well here is a screen shot of one of my last bombing attacks. its typical of my overall losses. I sent in plenty of escorts and bombers and got creamed by a defending force 1/3 my size.

[82ndtrooper]

here is the report for that attack

[82ndtrooper]

as you can see I lost 16 planes and he lost 3. My fighters outnumbered him 2 to 1
the only reason more hurricanes didn't get killed is I was almost out of them by this attack. I had about 5 or 6 spitfires in this attack also.

but this is what I have experienced on every attack and defense.  I just get destroyed.
I finally had to pull the RAF back before it was wiped out of existence.

Now I am not complaining and this is a fair comparison to what happened historically in the first year of the war. And like I said I haven't lost a single spitfire.  But I do believe that the hurricanes are a little more fragile then their stats show. If I play the allies again I will make twice as many spitfires and half as many hurricanes to start with. Out of 35 to 40 hurricanes about 6 survived.  

I hope as I tech the planes up things even out a little because I cant afford 5 to 1 losses on air strikes and bomber raids.

I wonder if I should try just sending in smaller waves of fighters first to engage the defenders and then send in the bombers? Maybe I am taking such heavy losses because I am sending them all in together , I just don't know.

[GrumpyMel]

That is surprising. I've played 2 test games against myself so far up through the fall of Paris. In the first one (same version as you're playing). The RAF was winning against the Luftwaffe with a mix of 50% Spits and 50% Hawkers.

In the second one, the RAF had been loosing... though not nearly as badly as you had been.... up until the last turn or two. However, as the Allies...I went for Aircraft Level II Tech...and once I got the Spit V's and Typhoons... things have turned around rather dramaticaly in the last couple turns.... though I definately was running into problems before then.

I will note though, that I raised Britains War Footing every opportunity I had... so by the time France heated up...they were pretty much on par with the Germans. I also made sure not to fly with low readiness.... and I tried to fly some "safe" missions with fresh pilots so they got a little experience first before tossing them against the Luftwaffe.

As a result...there were a couple turns during the fight when I didn't fly combat missions or run intercept in order to give these forces a chance to better recover.

When I put up French or Minor aircraft, with thier low war footings (In the new version I couldn't afford to raise these much and raise the UK at the same time...which is exactly the result I was hoping for)... thier planes got roundly creamed whenever they flew against opposition...but that's pretty much as it should be.

I'm not adverse to raising the Hawkers stat's a little if they are underperforming... as they should be a decent plane... even if overmatched by the 109-E. Although I'm not entirely convinced the stats are the problem at this point.

Maybe I'll try to put together an "air combat simulator" version of the scenerio...just to test out plane performance to see that it is where ut is supposed to be.

I'll note that Bombur appears to have upgraded to the 109-F's though (Aircraft Tech II). Which would put your Hawkers even deeper in the hole then they would be against the 109-E's.... maybe that's a good part of what's going on as well. If he's got 109-F's and especialy FW-190A's out there right now.. I would expect the Hawkers to be running into problems... though possibly not as much as they seem to be from your results.

What's the UK's war footing if you don't mind my asking...and what sort of experience/readiness do the planes you are sending up have?

These could be playing into the results as well.

[82ndtrooper]

UK's war footing is 99% and has been for 4 turns. France is at 57%.

this is what I did.
I used Canada's production to supplement my naval forces.
I used England's production to build an air force and raised its war footing as rapidly as I could.
I stripped units from the existing French armies to make a nice mobile Armor force to counter attack with.
then I used Frances production to replace and reinforce the armies. This gave me an experienced mobile force and allowed my reinforcements and fresh units to go into dug in positions.
This also allowed my air force to consist of planes that had the highest war footing 90% British with only the starting french planes.

the air force in France at the time the Germans invaded the low countries consisted roughly of 2 squadrons with 1 spitfire and 4 Hurricanes each. 4 squadrons of 6 hurricanes each. 3 squadrons of 5 Blackburn skua dive bombers  and each starting french fighter group had 2 or 3 hurricanes added to them.
I also had about four squadrons of mixed spitfires and hurricanes and two dive bomber squadrons in reserve in England. Plus the planes in 4 carrier air groups.

the basic plan such as it was, was to field a strong air force of mainly hurricanes as it was historically and once the invasion of France started to switch production in England to building land forces and to withdraw the surviving air force back to England when France fell.

The Air war has been so disastrous that I have had to continue building planes in England to replace my losses.  But the land war has gone much better with the Belgium forces holding the germans in the lowlands and the french forces have yet to be touched.

right now I am building Glosters with the french just to keep his bombing raids from going unopposed while I rebuild my air force in England with spitfires. For all intents and purposes the Germans have air supremacy in western Europe ATM.

Initially my experience for my air force was as high as it could have been but with having to replace such huge losses you can imagine how that effected the experience level.

The Hurricanes that where grouped with the single spitfires took minimal losses it was the hurricanes that had no spitfires with them that took such high losses. Things could/might have been different if I had put a spitfire in each squadron.

Right now I have lost all confidence in the Hurricanes and have to replace them especially on my Carriers. I wanted to use the hurricanes as my workhorse like it was historically but they just havent performed well enough to do that.

I have all the turns saved Grumpy and will gladly send them to you with my password so you can take a look and mess around with it if you would like.

[GrumpyMel]

Thanks...I'll setup a simulator version of the scenerio and run some tests with Hurricanes and 109s with identical war-footings and experience in order to get a better idea of whether the performance is where it should be.

It's possible the Hurricanes might need some tweaking, as the results shouldn't be quite as lopsided as you are describing. My results weren't quite as bad...but luck can always be a factor... with the combat simulater function on...it'll even that out (think it runs each combat through 100 iterations to get the avg result)... and I can get a better picture of what typical results to expect.

[GrumpyMel]

Ok so I put together a combat simulator test and I think it provides enough evidence to support the Hurricane was underperforming slightly from where it should have been. It wasn't all that far off, but a slight boost was justified...so that will make it into the next version.

In case you are interested here are the results

10 Hawkers vs 10 109-E's... War Footing and Exp equal
UK Attacker = 3.475 Hawkers Lost, 1.395 BF-109-E's
GE Attacker = 3.44 Hawkers Lost, 2.185 BF-109-E's

7 Hawkers & 3 Spits vs 10 109-E's
UK Attacker = 2.41 Hawkers Lost & .75 Spits, 1.88 BF-109-E's
Ge Attacerk = 2.15 Hawkers Lost & .655 Spis , 2.765 BF-109-E's

10 Spits vs 10 109-E's
UK Attacker = 2.535 Spits Lost , 2.825 BF-109-E's
Ge Attacker = 1.895 Spits Lost , 3.135 BF-109-E's


After modifications
10 Hawkers(modified) vs 10 109-E's... exp and footing equal
UK Attacker = 3.295 Hawkers Lost, 1.73 BF-109-E's
Ge Attacker = 2.835 Hawkers Lost, 2.565 BF-109-E's

That should bring things closer to the planes actual abilities. Note that if War Footing or Exp are not equal...these can have a significant effect on the combat odds. I expect that the Luftwaffe will likely have an exp edge at the start of the battle for France...as they will have had opportunity to gain some "easy" air experience in Poland.

[82ndtrooper]

ok sounds and looks good.
they didn't need much just something to help their survivability.

[82ndtrooper]

the axis advance is bogged down against the Belgium army still. I would think about reducing its strength IF the axis had to advance through Benelux but they dont, this scenario is very flexible on when and who the Germans can declare war on.
So I suggest a few more games and see what happens.

this is the very first test game and neither side has any clue what to expect.

[82ndtrooper]

well winter has hit and I pulled the Belgium army back into France. They held a long time but took a beating.

because of the disastrous results of the air war I was never able to build any kind of land forces in England and since my forces in France have held for longer than I expected I moved my strongest army from France to England so when France does fall I will have a army there to defend from invasion.

My defenses in France are only a hard shell with nothing behind it and once the axis achieves a breakthrough they will crumble.
it was never my goal to hold France forever.

[82ndtrooper]

the Maginot line

as you can see my defenses have no depth

[82ndtrooper]

the army I moved to England

[82ndtrooper]

and Scotland
I am moving the surviving dutch army up there to build a defensive force around.

[82ndtrooper]

I have finally upgraded my air-force to tech II and in north Africa I am starting to upgrade my planes. I found out that I am very close to having as many units there as I can supply since I can only produce enough supply to upgrade 2 or three planes a turn. So I will have to stop building anything but the most vital units.

The change Grumpy made to the price of the increase war footing cards is going to have a huge impact on the game and should really help the axis player take France much easier. In this game as the west I was able to increase my war footing to rapidly and make a much larger air-force than I should have been able too.
I have left Frances war footing at 57% and wont raise it until France is taken.
I will instead work on raising the neutrality of the USA.

I did make some air units that consisted of 3 spitfires and 3 hawker hurricanes each  and my results where much better. the hurricanes did not take such huge loses when combined with the spitfires.

The whole problem for the axis in France is that he did not realize how shallow my defenses really where and because of that he never really tried to make a breakthrough. He has brought up a lot of artillery and will eventually destroy me with that and I can not stop it. But it will be a whole year before he finally wins western Europe and that will have allowed me to make England impenetrable.

Plus the Belgians where surprisingly strong and had a lot of rivers to defend behind and he didn't seem to have enough engineers to bridge them and breakthrough. I know that I was surprised at their strength so i can imagine Bombur was shocked.

with low war footing the armies can defend well but they do not perform well at all attacking. Speed was important for the axis and I think if he had smashed into me without regard for losses he would have had France a couple months ago. Especially if he had done this when he had air supremacy.

I am just analyzing what has caused the axis such difficulties in taking France because this is a new scenario and a test game. Remember that both of us had no idea what was coming and I think that this fact made it harder on the attacker than it is on me as the defender.
once again the changes made to the war footing cards will make a big difference especially in the size of the west air-force. So i think that the slight increase in the hurricanes survivability coupled with the decrease in production will most likely be a good change.

[GrumpyMel]

Interesting results. I'm surprised France and the Low Countries held as well as it did. In both my test games France and the Low Countries fell within a few months...though not without a fight.

In my test game of the version you are playing, I had Paris by then end of Sept...In the test game of the updated version, I had it by end of July.

I think the key for the Germans in that Operation is to be agressive and make sure you have some forces with good mobility. Also, make the most you can of the first turn of invasion, when the Belgian and Dutch armies are on thier own...and haven't had a chance to adjust thier positions.

The Belgian Army looks very strong (and that was historicaly what they had mobilized at the time of the invasion) due to it's size...but when you realize the impact that it's low war footing has on it's fighting abilities coupled with the fact that about half of it is comprised of reservists (i.e. militia)... it's really much more of a paper tiger.

The Axis player should be able to over-run them pretty handily by concentrating his attacks on the key points (mostly bridges) he needs to take...and then getting mobile forces into those breaches to exploit.

However, if he's slow on the initiative and allows the Allies to blow the bridges and fortify on the river lines...with stronger French and British forces to back them up and shut-down any breaches... then the Belgians hadicaps are going to be minimized... and you could be looking at a replay of the Great War all over again.

Did the Axis try to attack through the Ardennes at all at Sedan? Or even through the Maginot?


Note: The changes I made definately should help the Axis take France more quickly. The War Footing costs will prevent the Allies from being able to build up thier defences and increase the combat efficiency of thier troops (as well as Producation Capacity) at the same time. The change to Winter should also help out quite a bit...as the lower readiness penalties means the Axis doesn't need to produce as much supply to feed thier large army through the Winter. Also it allows them to recover to full readiness more quickly in the Spring...meaning they can go over to the offensive earlier.

Anyway, I'll be interested to see the results of this in the game you are playing against Rufus and how they compare.

[Bombur]

The poor performance of the Germans is largely my fault. I failed to bring enough engineers and also to establish decisive air superiority. I almost panicked when the Allied tried an attack across the Maginot Line. I also started my attack latter (it was hard to recover from winter). Depending on the rules of USSR activation I will be in deep trouble next year. My idea is to conquer France after the winter and then reorganize my army and wait for the allied counteroffensive. I don´t think Barbarossa will be possible...)

[82ndtrooper]

in the air war there are three stages.
1. contested = where both sides are fighting for control.
2. air superiority = where one side has control but the other side can still do attacks but takes heavy losses to do it.
3. air supremacy = where one side is so powerful the other side doesn't dare send any attacks against it.

You had actually achieved air supremacy for about 4 turns. I had pulled the entire RAF out of France because you had smashed it. The problem is that I had raised englands war footing to 99% and was building nothing but planes. So i was able to rapidly replace my losses and I replaced them with spitfires.
then I sent them back and did that air trap on you over Belgium. I caught you doing a bombing raid and heavily damaged your bombers and killed a few fighters but you killed just as many of my fighters.  that air fight was every single plane I had including 10 fighters from my carriers. prior to that fight all that was in France was the newly made french gloster gladiators and you where destroying them as fast as i could make them.
In the latest version where the raise war footing cards are 75PP instead of 50pp  this wont happen. once Germany destroys the defending air-force the west wont be able to replace them so quickly.

Also on the political front the Allies are furious at the french for not moving forward to help defend Belgium. The french High command in their arrogance absolutely refused. They believe that they have the most powerful army in the world and that the Germans would never dare to actually attack France. The Belgium army command has asked England for Sanctuary because they refuse to help France and the RAF is tired of dying while the french sit drinking wine and eating cheese. It is believed that the French think that the Germans will stop and ask for peace once they have conquered the low countries.
In England Winston Churchill has become Prime Minister and his anger at France is apparent to all.

The turmoil in the French command is represented by De Gaul moving his army to England on the pretense of redeploying to North Africa to defend the French Colonies. It is very possible that France will soon find itself without Allies and a fractured army.

[82ndtrooper]

its early march and nothing has really changed. the winter turns completely shut down the game for the most part. The Belgians have withdrawn to the UK and the RAF is only defending the west coast of France near the channel. The french Air force will have to defend the rest if it can.

The french High Command is starting to panic since the expected peace overtures from Germany have not come and the continued artillery bombardments against the french defensive lines are taking a large toll on the men.

[82ndtrooper]

grumpy
A unit that would be nice to see in this scenario is the armored train. maybe let it carry 10 and have a few more hit points with greater range but no transcap. It wouldn't need any combat values of its own it could just use the units it was carrying.
 I believe all European countries in WWII used them including Germany and giving the large scope of this map they would come in very handy to help keep supply lines open.

[82ndtrooper]

not much has changed . massive artillery units hammer the french lines but no break through yet