Following a discussion taking place in another thread, I'm opening this one to share some tips on how to manually make an effective first Air phase opening for the Axis player during the 1941 Campaign Scenario.
The original thread is this one on the AAR section Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow Axis (HLYA) vs Guctony (Soviet) where the Axis player started with a particularly interesting bombing of the Soviet Airforce (VVS) resulting in an excellent Damage/Losses ratio for the Axis.
So, I've compiled the results into this table for further discussion:
Now, how to get this result with manual settings is not very hard to do as it's only using 33 Air Directives (see below); the complexity was rather about finding the right settings, implying many tests, balancing different bombing strategy outcomes, and finally finding the good targets to strike on the map.
In fact, there is many ways to open the air war as an Axis player depending on what they think it's worth paying in terms of losses in order to achieve certain results (more Soviet pilots KIA, getting rid of Bombers, or Fighters, or focusing on Geographical forces, preserving airfields to be reused soon, etc.)
The first point open to discussion, considering the game mechanism: Is it really worth the trouble to invest some time into the manual settings of the Air War instead of just letting the AI taking care of it for the player?
The best way to answer this question is to check at the results from the auto execution of Air Directives during the first Air Phase:
Excepted the number of airframe lost, many times higher for ~20% less damage to the Soviet, the main issue with AI is the ammount of sorties used (and ressources consummed).
Including recon, the AI will constantly fly over 6,000 sorties during the first Air Phase causing a lot of operational losses (40-50% of the total); this is due to the fact that Air Groups are overused to the limit of their miles or to the point that those Groups won't have enough ready aircraft to fly anymore.
Thank you so much for putting this together Metaphore. I would like to see this morph into a discussion on how to further enhance the bombing on the first turn and even into the later turns. If you are having issues or a grand new idea for the first turn bombing this is the place to post or ask. Metaphore has a good foundation here lets build upon it. Again, thank you Metaphore.
The next issue with auto Air Directives is that they are set generically at Luftflotte level, which is far from optimal. Consequently, we'll have a lot of Fighter sorties on top of the Bomber ones, and of course, fighter losses. Nonetheless, it doesn't prevent Soviet interceptions of unescorted bombers resulting in seriously badly hit bomber groups.
The second point open to discussion is: Is it really worth the trouble for an Axis player to bomb all those Soviet airfields while, anyway, they will commit en masse suicidal Ground Support during the Ground Phase and my mighty fighters will shot down plenty of them, causing even more pilots KIA".
That's why AlbertN told us above: "Presently I still consider more efficient to let the VVS lose pilots in abundance."
Presently, my opinion on this point has changed since the last patch because I was doing just that before: deleting all ADs, simply changing a few Air Doctrine settings and let the Bf 109 auto-intercept Soviet Defensive Ground Support each time it was triggered (any combat in range of Soviet Airforce, meaning any combat, up to the point they don't have enough to send). I only needed to rebase them, during the ground phase, as close as possible of my spearheads.
But the last patch nerfed it for various reasons:
- Since public Beta 1.01.09, which is close to become the current version, it's 40% less effective to shoot down Soviet aircraft this way (and kill crews) because less forces are committed to Defensive Ground Support.
- Some bomber raids are not triggering auto-intercept while, before, bombers were intercepted 100% of the time.
- Auto-intercept is not triggered if there isn't any bomber involved (no change here from previous build).
- Rebasing of Axis aircraft in enemy territory is bugged: ground support is lowered and fighter groups can't use their full force for auto-intercept.
So, I think it's really worth revisiting the Bombing of airfields which may cause as many crew losses while suffering overall less fighter losses.
Why 40% less effective?
The latest changes I've seen is that a pilot has 50% less chances of being lost IF the loss is operational.
I still think it would be more 'fair' that on T1 Soviet Air Units do not react or intercept at all. That way there is no Pilot Butchery.
But also there is not the random lottery of German bombers being intercepted because you are guaranteed that Soviet fighters won't fly to intercept. (That will lessen also some the micro of 'target all fighter airfields first').
It is more historical to to do the bombing, and there is no lottery of 'Oh, this lot of bombers going to obliterate that fighter-airfield' got intercepted beforehand. Then you have that fighter airfield still operational that is bound to intercept 2-3 more bombing raids; starting a domino effect.
Good question, but this is the result of testing:
Ground phase before, ~2,500 Soviet pilots KIA ; now : ~1,500 and a reduction of 33% of the size of the Air force commited by the Soviet. So I guess it's the result of AI Air Doctrine settings which were revised to lower level.
The latest changes I've seen is that a pilot has 50% less chances of being lost IF the loss is operational.
I still think it would be more 'fair' that on T1 Soviet Air Units do not react or intercept at all. That way there is no Pilot Butchery.
But also there is not the random lottery of German bombers being intercepted because you are guaranteed that Soviet fighters won't fly to intercept. (That will lessen also some the micro of 'target all fighter airfields first').
It is more historical to to do the bombing, and there is no lottery of 'Oh, this lot of bombers going to obliterate that fighter-airfield' got intercepted beforehand. Then you have that fighter airfield still operational that is bound to intercept 2-3 more bombing raids; starting a domino effect.
I think it is a decent tradeoff.
You'll need to read further as there is some tricks to avoid being intercepted at all, even while flying deep into Soviet territory accross many bases full of Soviet Fighters.
Let's talk about the Axis Airforce Strategy first.
Everyone seems to agree that the most important Air asset for the Axis is its tiny Fighter force. Preserving it from the start seems vital in order to survive as long as possible under the massive pressure applied by the VVS Ground Attack capabilities. Soviet Fighters look like canon fodder but, given the chance, they will take their toll on the small (then precious) German fighter force.
Consequently, anything for the German that might result in a lower fighter loss rate is good to take. Hence, if the initial airfield bombing during the Air Phase can wipe out as many Soviet fighters as possible (priority on modern ones), the German player will also suffer less fighter losses during the Ground Phase when its Bf 109 will auto-intercept Soviet Defensive Ground Support. Remember also that when they are constitued of only pure fighters (CAP mode), they won't be auto-intercepted at all.
On the other hand, there is also a case to be considered: to avoid bombing Soviet airfields harboring only bombers, because as long as the Soviet can send bombers during the ground phase, auto-intercepting them will still work but it will stop as soon as they ran out. Hence, the more bombers left for the Soviet, the more crew kills scored, which is probably also a strategy worth following for its long term effect on Soviet Pilots experience level. (I'm not sure here if there is a cap set on the number of inexperienced Pilots available to the Soviet pool, if someone can tell?)
HLYA results (first table posted) are showing that during the Ground Phase, Air to Air combat loss rate was 855 to 1. Maybe there is some luck on it, but losing only 4 Bf 109, including 3 operational losses this turn, is a result worth spending some time setting up manual Air Directives.
The following is my latest attempt at turn 1 bombing. I went for deeper targets in addition than I usually do in an attempt to destroy more Soviet bombers to hinder any GA attempts. I went for single missions on individual airfields with fighter bases at Very High priority and non-fighter bases at High priority. Altitude was 5000 and no escorts flown (saving fighters for shooting down Soviet GS missions on the turn). You can see that a few of the missions were intercepted which raised the losses but the operational losses are kept low.
Attachments
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Thank you for doing this. Personally, Axis 1st turn air on manual settings is worth the effort. I have been trying out HYLA's technique with various levels of success. He pointed out a tip of night bombing that I feel players should examine. Good stuff.
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
Whatever the Strategy followed by the Axis player, and it's usefull to think about it in order to select which Soviet airfield is going to be bombed, the tactical options at disposal will always imply some kind of trade-off between the kind of losses one might sustain and the ammount of damages that will be caused to the target.
Amongst those tactical options, here is some general consideration about what will matter when setting up those initial Air Directives:
Auto settings
I don't let the AI in charge of anything. I'll start with the Air Doctrine "Ground Attack" settings for one Luftflotte, change them to the most suited for the bulk of my ADs (detail below) and assign those settings to "ALL". Those settings are specifically set for the first turn and would have to be changed after this point. The next step would be to adjust the payload for each bomber type to what is best suited for striking a soft target (light bombs). I will also remove all the default fuel tanks. It's preferable to adjust it at group level only if more range is needed in order to reach some specific target.
During the AD making process, the same process will apply and nothing should be left on "auto" (unless irrelevant, like number of escort when there isn't any fighter assigned). I certainly don't want the AI to decide of the number of strike, nor which group would be assigned nor how many aircraft would be sent, because that's what matter the most after a couple of other things.
Groups and aircraft model
Beside range and payload, aircraft models don't have the same capabilities. Also, Groups flying the same model don't always share the same base. Consequently, Air Directive settings would have to be adjusted to reflect that. Then it's more important to set up those ADs Group by Group with the aircraft model in mind rather than their AOG dependency. Practically, I'm usually setting up a different Air Directive for each bomber group on the map even if more than one group equiped with the same aircraft model will be assigned to strike the same objective.
During the attack, whatever the numbers involved, the engine will resolve it by little groups of aircraft and the resulting strike effectiveness seems to be not impacted by the initial number of aircraft. Consequently, one AD sending 120 aircraft from several groups in one big strike would not score better effects than 4 ADs sending smaller strikes of 30 each.
One reason it might be needed to build some ADs at higher echelon level (AOG, Fliegerkorps, Luftflotte) is for fighter escort. By doing so, it's then possible to split a group of fighters between different ADs. Otherwise, no Group (bomber or fighter) already directly assigned to an AD can be used in another AD (it will cancel the previous one if reassigned). As I'm not building any escorted strike on turn 1, I'll stick to the rule of 1 AD = 1 Group.
The following is my latest attempt at turn 1 bombing. I went for deeper targets in addition than I usually do in an attempt to destroy more Soviet bombers to hinder any GA attempts. I went for single missions on individual airfields with fighter bases at Very High priority and non-fighter bases at High priority. Altitude was 5000 and no escorts flown (saving fighters for shooting down Soviet GS missions on the turn). You can see that a few of the missions were intercepted which raised the losses but the operational losses are kept low.
Hi carlKay,
Nice to see you posting here
Ouch! Bf 110 losses
If you kept this file, could you please show us your AD settings as it's interesting to see the number of sorties and how your ADs were build, please?
Thank you for doing this. Personally, Axis 1st turn air on manual settings is worth the effort. I have been trying out HYLA's technique with various levels of success. He pointed out a tip of night bombing that I feel players should examine. Good stuff.
Hi GibsonPete,
Thank you also for joining. I hope it will help to share the results of all this time invested in experiments on the Air War.
Q: What happens to pilots whose plane was destroyed/damaged and the airfield is captured? Are they evacuated the pilot pool or are KIA or captured.
Comment... I find I do not need to use Ju87's and Me110' for airfield attacks. I have enough level bombers to do the job. What I do is reduce the % from 20 to 12 in the GA directive menu.
So far I am very happy with implementing the suggestions of all concerned (metaphore, carlkay58, Loki and HYLA).
“Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
