Organizing the Soviet Air Forces

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East 2 >> The War Room >> Organizing the Soviet Air Forces

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Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/13/2021 4:11:56 PM

Nix77

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We can expand the discussion from the headline, but I'll start with a few questions:

(1) How "dangerous" is disbanding airgroups from the VVS? There's a huge number of them, but disbanded airgroups don't seem to reappear? Is there a sweet spot on number of airgroups to aim at?

(2) Is there any way to prevent an airgroup from getting any aircraft replacements?

Post #: 1

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/13/2021 11:10:45 PM

HardLuckYetAgain

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Nix77

We can expand the discussion from the headline, but I'll start with a few questions:

(1) How "dangerous" is disbanding airgroups from the VVS? There's a huge number of them, but disbanded airgroups don't seem to reappear? Is there a sweet spot on number of airgroups to aim at?

(2) Is there any way to prevent an airgroup from getting any aircraft replacements?

I believe many may not know the questions to number (1). After my fiasco with disbanding Corps HQ for the Soviets these are some very legitimate questions. The piece of information that could help this a great deal is what are all the incoming Soviet Airgroups that will be received throughout the years of conflict. Then a good knowledge of what to keep and what to get rid of could be made.

for number 2 just put them on "restricted". That should keep them from getting pilots & planes. At least that is what it says in the manual.

16.7.1.
RES(Restricted)
Will not be allocated replacement planes or
pilots.

(in reply to Nix77)

Post #: 2

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 4:34:44 AM

Nix77

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Damn, I thought that was only for pilot allocation :D

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Post #: 3

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 8:16:33 AM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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re disbanding.

the reinforcement/arrival schedule is set out in the reinforcement chart - both for AG and AOG. Basically you stop getting AG from mid-43.

the pattern over the war is complex, not helped by the air groups resizing from 60-20-30-40 depending on unit type (see 16.4.8). Also up to mid-43 you tend to have plane shortages compared to your AG capacity, by the end of the war you can easily have too many planes for what you can use up.

But, in turn, you can't deploy that much to the map due to air base capacity and supply problems.

On the other hand from 42-44 you need a large reserve as you are constantly rotating air groups that run to low exp - as the Soviets once this happens get them off the map, they will never gain experience in combat as they die too fast - so you need to be able to replace.

on this subject, don't disband low exp just arrived air groups. See the note at the base of 16.7.1 - these are then treated as trained (even if they have exp of 30) as they come out of an air group and will be allocated to your TPI formations (thus lowering the exp of the very units you are trying to nurse to above average exp).

In my beta AAR, I disbanded too much (I think), should have made more use of the restricted status to hold the air group as a shell but equally come the late war there was no way could I make use of everything I had left.

What I would repeat is to keep the U2 formations till mid-43, let them gain morale and experience by a mix of niggly attacks and the reserve, then get rid of most/all - that will give you a very useful dump of trained tac bomber pilots at the time when the Sturmoviks come into their own (but also take horrendous losses).

You can safely get rid of recon groups as you end up with no more than 2-3 such formations for each of your main fronts.

I can give you saves from my beta test if that would help you to look at some of these issues for yourself

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Post #: 4

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 9:35:26 AM

sven6345789

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There is no need to disband airgroups. Send them to reserve and set them on restricted so that they do not get planes.

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Letter from a U.S. Marine,November 1943

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Post #: 5

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 1:35:28 PM

Nix77

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quote:

I can give you saves from my beta test if that would help you to look at some of these issues for yourself

Loki, I'd really appreciate a couple of saves from the later stages of you long Soviet campaign! The group resizing can be a problem, and I was expecting that but it's a bit difficult to measure beforehand.

quote:

on this subject, don't disband low exp just arrived air groups. See the note at the base of 16.7.1 - these are then treated as trained (even if they have exp of 30) as they come out of an air group and will be allocated to your TPI formations (thus lowering the exp of the very units you are trying to nurse to above average exp).

This is an important point, I guess it's on the manual also? This pilot pool diluting really discourages disbanding air groups.

quote:

ORIGINAL: sven6345789

There is no need to disband airgroups. Send them to reserve and set them on restricted so that they do not get planes.

In the start of the campaign, if you want to be active in the air, you really need those planes to be up and running fast, so I'd say then you absolutely will need to disband groups, since there's no method to remove the planes from an airgroup. Disbanding low xp formations is the only way to get the planes quickly to the pool. At the start all of the Polikarpov pools are completely empty and the airgroups are starving for more aircraft.

I'm not however convinced this is the right strategy since they'll probably all get shot down anyway, no matter what skill level they are.

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Post #: 6

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 2:43:44 PM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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here is a rough sample, if there are specific turns you want then I can do that but it'll give you some feel for the later game issues, not least how much I have in the pools without AGs to pick them up and also maybe how much I disbanded earlier on.

its a wetransfer link - will expire in a week

https://we.tl/t-ow67DiAQZf

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Post #: 7

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 3:26:40 PM

Nix77

Posts: 561
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quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

here is a rough sample, if there are specific turns you want then I can do that but it'll give you some feel for the later game issues, not least how much I have in the pools without AGs to pick them up and also maybe how much I disbanded earlier on.

its a wetransfer link - will expire in a week

https://we.tl/t-ow67DiAQZf

Thanks!

If you don't mind, I'd be interested in couple more turns too, just to investigate how the Red Army & VVS evolves :)

Turn 12: Sep'41, 20 plane squadrons
Turn 35: First Winter, guards etc.
Then maybe T50, T75, T100 and T125 just to get some comparison material. If that's OK to you?

PS. The WeTransfer files don't seem to work. It loads "Getting Your Files" for a while and then states that the transfer has expired...

EDIT: forget the PS, needed to login for it to work! :)

< Message edited by Nix77 -- 4/14/2021 3:33:46 PM >

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Post #: 8

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 3:51:45 PM

Nix77

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From: Finland
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Are the LBAP/NBAP TacB groups converted to ShAP at some point? I count only 60+ ShAP groups from the starting line-up + reinforcements, but the VVS seems have close to 100 Shturmovik groups in 1944?

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Post #: 9

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 4:39:10 PM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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if I recall some do convert, also a few of the SADs are held in the game (ahistoric but you need them up June 42) and I think they all converted - ignore that, referring to AOGs

its really not easy to track but if I recall I made a fair few FB formations into bomber and some then renamed as ShaP, rather than stay as IAP

heres the other save batch:

https://we.tl/t-DcMnw089TX

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Post #: 10

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 6:36:17 PM

Nix77

Posts: 561
Joined: 10/2/2016
From: Finland
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

if I recall some do convert, also a few of the SADs are held in the game (ahistoric but you need them up June 42) and I think they all converted - ignore that, referring to AOGs

its really not easy to track but if I recall I made a fair few FB formations into bomber and some then renamed as ShaP, rather than stay as IAP

heres the other save batch:

https://we.tl/t-DcMnw089TX

Thank you so much for the saves!

(in reply to loki100)

Post #: 11

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 8:36:07 PM

sw30

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Questions for the Beginning, T1:

1) Are there any use for Transports in the beginning? It seems like just throwing good men after dead men. After a couple of tries, I just straight up send them to reserve.
2) Same question with Recons, what's the point? You rarely actually detect anything, and the amount of Recon planes lost per tidbit gathered (that you can't do anything about anyways) seems not worth the number of pilots lost.
3) Are there uses for the LR Commands 1-4 BAKs? each land HQ can only have 1 air HQ set it as a FHQ, so I can't do ground support for NW Front with 1 BAK, for example. Currently, I have it set so that LR Command is basically a holder for reforming/damaged groups that I want to keep on map and assign the DBADs to the Front Air HQs for ground support. I tried setting them to interdict. It didn't go well....
4) Leningrad front does not help in any way with the NF TB right? so all active air and combat units should be heading south on T1?
5) Also, other than the islands out west of the Baltic Sea, is there any reason for the Baltic sea airforce to exist? Black Sea Air HQ at least has Odessa to support.

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Post #: 12

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 8:57:27 PM

loki100

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1 - they become useful in July when dropping 500 tons of freight removes the isolation penalty for cut off units
2 - you have to get used to low level knowledge, but it can be useful even just to see where there are clusters of counters
3 - bomb railyards, really makes a mess of the axis logistics system, but in a HtH game expect to find places like Minsk well defended, they are also good for GA-unit missions
4 - a strong commitment at Leningrad can be very useful to protect the city, its likely an axis player will deploy the LW to help out on their side
5 - Cutting off Talinin can be useful as it is a good port to supply operations towards Leningrad, but in general, yes, better in the Black Sea region

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Post #: 13

RE: Organizing the Soviet Air Forces - 4/14/2021 9:22:10 PM

Dreamslayer

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Convertion of Soviet air-groups like 2/65 IAP or separate air-squadrons. Is it works same way as in WitE 1? I can't find anything about it in the manual.

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Post #: 14