Strategic bombing - Testing

[Helpless]

Thanks for sharing your test results.

The biggest concern they raised is a higher than expected factory damaged percentage for high alt bombing. I'll check them out. Can you upload a save before air execution?

Flak losses doesn't look too off, but most efficient altitude for the heavy flak could be shifted toward lower altitudes a bit. I'll double check it.

As for fighters, it would be good if you could point out on the exact air group which is in your opinion is not reacting.

Thanks.

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Having really tested this in many ways during the play testing I can tell you that there may be some more tweaks necessary but overall the loss percentages are pretty close to historical.
Ok. One thing though, I notice that if the Axis do manage to intercept the fatality rate is very high. On the first turn of the 1943 I ordered airbase strikes in Northern France and Belgium and managed to destroy more then 350 aircraft, 200 of which on the ground (mostly night fighters). Axis pilot losses were about 150 (with 0 nightfighter pilot losses) so that means that almost every pilot that was shot down or crash landed died...

Play a Head to Head game with you on both sides. As the Axis move around the flak so that you can make some no flak, light flak, medium flak, and heavy flak targets. Remember that accuracy and damage is also dependent upon the industrial target you are attacking so keep that the same. Going after fuel and oil targets tend to do much greater damage on the whole, factories which produce other items tend to gain less damage. Something about the target itself being a large explosion just waiting to happen.Fair enough

You should find that the flak levels not only affect the losses but also the accuracy of the bombing. Altitudes over 20K are only vulnerable to heavy flak (88mm+ I think). There is a lot less flak units in that category. The heavy flak also tends to have a lower rate of fire so flak thins out drastically above 20K.Are you sure? Which FLAK types are shooting at 15k that are not shooting at 21k?

If you want the Axis fighters to intercept well, place them on Air Superiority missions over the targets are along the flight path. Keep the area of the air directive fairly small - five or less - to greatly improve the chances of interception.You see, this is an issue in my opinion. That is an artificial way of increasing intercepts where in reality (we are looking at a day/weekly level) response was based on sighting, radar detection and interpreting the raid routes.. The job the British did so well during the BoB

And play with Fog of War off so you can get accurate accounts on both sides because your intel lies! I am

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

Thanks for sharing your test results.

The biggest concern they raised is a higher than expected factory damaged percentage for high alt bombing. I'll check them out. Can you upload a save before air execution?

Flak losses doesn't look too off, but most efficient altitude for the heavy flak could be shifted toward lower altitudes a bit. I'll double check it.

As for fighters, it would be good if you could point out on the exact air group which is in your opinion is not reacting.

Thanks.

Ok, I should be able to reproduce the results and your air system makes it easy to set up! (This is a compliment)

[KenchiSulla]

I'll upload test 1 and 2 to the tech support forum. All raids were executed at 21k feet. Test 2 has the best results regarding passive fighters (fighter groups sitting 30 miles to the South of the target, ignoring unescorted raids)

EDIT, I won't be able to comment / respond for the rest of the day. Got a family thing happening - I'll probably check in again late evening / tommorow

[MechFO]

I invested a few hours and played at the first turn of the 43-45 campaign with air details set to medium as the Axis (took 4 hours, also due to long wait times between missions and the system seems to hang with air drops, had to exit those manually).

Daylight flak definitely needs to be looked at. The AI launched several big unescorted daylight raids on Hamburg, Kiel and places nearby. Around 150-200, mainly B17/24 with a few B26, the heigh was unknown, it would be nice to have it on the combat report somewhere. Hamburg especially was attacked twice and has a heavy concentration of flak. In the flak phase of an attack, the only flak messages shown were 2-3 about Spitfire Vb, Vc or IX being damaged, even though none were in the raid. This happened every single time. Not a single bomber was damaged by flak during the entire week.

Nightime flak seems to be more normal, with 4-5 bombers lost and several damaged out of a force of 300.


Fighter intercepts:

Fighter losses seems very high against unescorted raids with exchanges sometimes as high as 1 vs 1 (109G6 vs. B17), with 1 vs. 2 seeming to be the norm. Conversely, escorts don't always seem to attack the interceptors. This seems to be due to any attack of bombers on fighters virtually being a guaranteed kill.

The damage mechanic in air combat seems to be all about whether the 4x damage multiplier is applied or not. If applied even low calibre guns inflict heavy damage, if not, even cannons hardly do anything. IMO this pretty much ignores the inherently much larger destructive effect of the 20mm-30mm calibre cannons vs. MG.


Last but not least, the training mechanic needs to be looked at. 1 phase of training results in about 20% loss of air frames, every single plane damaged, and of those damaged, half are over 50% damage, with a third above 70%. This seems to be very extreme.

[Update]

Here is a link for pretty good study on German FLAK.
Flak:German Anti-aircraft Defenses 1914-1945
Edward B. Westermann
University Press of Kansas

http://www.openisbn.com/isbn/0700614206/

[jzardos]

So should I be waiting for a patch before playing a campaign game as axis? These test results around daylight bomber are very alarming to me as an axis player. Not sure or care what others think, cause I know historically they don't sound correct. Have read enough books and can plaster this post with data showing difference. But that won't be helpful. I'll try and run some tests too. Is there a patch scheduled this month?

thanks

[Erik Rutins]

There will be an update in December, but I think it's worth noting that we've played through multiple campaigns from both sides during testing, including testing focused on the air game and found it balanced. I would have no reservations about playing through a full campaign with the 1.00 release.

[cmunson]

Pavel, isn't bomb damage reported usually higher than the actual number with FOW? That is my experience anyway.

[sfbaytf]

Here's my first turn loss report for the Intro Air Campaign-Normal Difficulty no Fog of War

[Helpless]

Pavel, isn't bomb damage reported usually higher than the actual number with FOW? That is my experience anyway.

Chris, yes, this is the case. But in some cases it can get very high real damaged after one raid.

[jzardos]

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

Here's my first turn loss report for the Intro Air Campaign-Normal Difficulty no Fog of War

sfbaytf, think you were incredibly lucky or I was incredibly unlucky? My loses on first turn campaign were ~200 Axis to 100 allies.

[jzardos]

Not sure how / why it was so bad for me an axis. Anybody know why variance so crazy between first turns? Settings all normal too.

[sfbaytf]

What difficulty are you playing at...oops looks like you re at normal too...

[sfbaytf]

here is second turns losses...what was the weather like? It was raining turn 1

[sfbaytf]

Opened up the Grand Campaign game and cleared out the Air Directives and set the 8th Air Force to maximum effort against Schweinfurt on first turn. Here are the results.

[sfbaytf]

Here are the directives.

[carlkay58]

Here is my current air losses screen from a 43 Campaign on turn 11:

EDIT: The difficulty is Challenging Axis AI (110 vs 90). The losses are heavier than historical because I tend to punish my airforce - a lot of air missions and heavy usage.

Note the Axis have 582 a/c destroyed on the ground and have about one third to air combat losses of the Allies. That is because I have unescorted bombers going deep into Germany and some out the back of Germany into Poland vs Uboat factories.

[MechFO]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Here is my current air losses screen from a 43 Campaign on turn 11:

EDIT: The difficulty is Challenging Axis AI (110 vs 90). The losses are heavier than historical because I tend to punish my airforce - a lot of air missions and heavy usage.

Note the Axis have 582 a/c destroyed on the ground and have about one third to air combat losses of the Allies. That is because I have unescorted bombers going deep into Germany and some out the back of Germany into Poland vs Uboat factories.

Can one find out where on the map these losses are taking place? The losses of the air battles displayed by the air battle button can only account for a small fraction of the total losses showing up in the air losses screen. Operational losses doesn't account for the difference either.

[carlkay58]

First off these are the total losses for the first 10 turns of my game. Each turn you can check the combats that happened in the last turn by hitting the F11 and that will show you all of the ground and air combats that have occurred. Toggle F11 again and it filters to ground only, again and you see the air combats.

For 10 turns of losses the air losses are all over the place. Although the majority of the Axis a/c lost on the ground have been in France. I have been conserving my tactical air forces (the BR 2nd Tac Air Force and the 9th USAAF) this game, usually I can have between 1500 and 2000 destroyed Axis a/c on the ground by now. I take large losses on the tactical aircraft doing so - to both flak and air combat. It is easy for the Axis to intercept your mission when it is the airbase your fighters are based in!

I also tend to lose a lot of Allied bombers from 8th USAAF that are flying unescorted. There just are not enough P-51s and P-38s in 43 to do some good escorts of the deep air missions.