Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Seminole
Probably not.
You're sitting in rough terrain and he likely only has the Schmalz PzG Bde in Messina with a routed and non-routed Italian sidekicks.
The ZOC movement costs to cut you off and attack would likely preclude getting back into Messina.
I bet he sits tight and waits for you to force him out.

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

I'd go with this, he can't create a situation for a rout, pushing you back will cost him fatigue, so I'd suspect he'll sit tight.

More broadly think you are right to emphasis the mindset of caution and only moving when your air power can really support your ground operations. What is not clear is whether such a methodical approach may end up grinding the Germans down so you can cut loose or if its too conservative a strategy? But given the disasters in a few other AARs of taking chances and over-extending, think you have made the right choice.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

Week long turns might make me crazy!

Can you just set the strikes for one day, not three? Seems for big Rhur valley industry that is well guarded this might be good policy, just in case. Also it means he still has to guard it, but you can then set a bunch of other missions at higher frequency elsewhere.

Do you notice larger bomber concentrations having more combined protection, or is there a threshold where it doesn't really matter?

Do you feel you have enough recon assets to really get a view of at least the main area you're concentrating on?

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ORIGINAL: Helpless

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For example in my AI game I just sent a deep strike into Germany to hit a V-weapons factory. On the way there I suffer multiple intercepts losing a lot of planes (40+). But due to the week long turn I had specified the strike to go on for 3 days...so I suffer the losses for 2 more raids.

One way to setup reaction to such events is to set minimum AC requirement for the AD, so it would cancel next days strikes in case of heavy losses.

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ORIGINAL: soeren01

If you have problems hitting something with Bomber Command night attacks, try staying within oboe range.

17.3.4.1. OBOE Radar Targeting System
OBOE ground radar allows better night bombing of
factory targets when bombing within 27 hexes of any of
the following four locations 58,183 – 76, 182 – 87,180 –
90,170. This capability exists during for the entire game.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meklore61

I'm not sure that slow and methodical will work either. If you can't build up some positive vp's in '43, you can't afford to attack when you land in France, and your losing men just being shipped thru friendly sea lanes. Your absolutely correct about WA air power, and no invasion should land without it. The axis air force has more than enough planes to ruin a halfassed invasion, and the WA cannot afford to screw up, so go all in or don't go.

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Its a black day for Bomber Command when 169 bombers fail to return. We do inflict some damage though so its not totally in vain.

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ORIGINAL: Helpless

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Its a black day for Bomber Command when 169 bombers fail to return. We do inflict some damage though so its not totally in vain.

Could you post air losses details for the night raid to Bremenhaven? Thanks.

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Ah, its actually a daylight raid.

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ORIGINAL: Helpless

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Ah, its actually a daylight raid.

Oh.. got scared of such NF performance, which is boosted a bit in coming patch.

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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Joc, nice AAR as usual

Looks like you learned the hard way, as I did, but daylight bombing with no escorts over areas of Germany covered by fighters is a bad idea.

One thing Pelton is learning the hard way vs. Baelfin is that Corsica and Sardinia and traps for the Germans, so when Italy flips, you should be able to walk-in.

Good luck!

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

The air war against Germany requires patience, you will never win the war in 1 turn, but as you have found out you cant put a serious dent in the Allied efforts.
Hold back the deep raids by 8AF until you can escort them.

You have a long war to fight, keep slogging away and work out what strategies & tactics will work.

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

I think, especially against a player, you need to be creative. Look for where the fighter intercepts are, plan for 1 turn to go round that (north and south). Vary the pattern of raids. For the longer range ones don't ignore the merits of a one day really big raid (at worst, all those fighters are then left looking rather isolated for the other 6 days).

While over time, I reckon that HI (and to a lesser extent fuel/oil) is the best target to wreck the German economy, that won't pay off in 1943, you need the additional stress on German capacity of the late 43/44 Soviet offensives. As such, you can probably not fuss too much over HI till the autumn of 1943

I'm not sure about any of this, nor how what works vs AI stands up in MP, but the air war seems to be a huge exercise in linear programming and even if you do it by heuristics its worth thinking that way. And mixing stuff up, do the same raid every week (says he who tends to do this to the Ruhr), you'll get much the same results.

As set up, the air game is effective rock-paper-scissors, with both sides trying to find the ideal set up

quote:

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin
Turn 8-9ish
U-boat VP losses are out of control.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meklore61

Are plotting your own course to the targets? You can avoid a great deal of flak and intercepts by flying over the North Sea and then turning into the targets. Use Shift-o to see where and what flak your facing, and JeffK is right, don't fly unescorted. Your losses will be unsustainable, but that doesn't mean you can get Danzig and the other U-Boat pens. Just make sure your bombers have partial escorts, and plot a course where they escort you thru the fighter cover. Once you get to a certain point in Germany, the fighter cover drops off, so you need escorts to that point.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meklore61
Use Fighter Command and 2nd RAF Tactical to recon air fields on the approaches to to your targets and use your FB's to take out fighter's within range and on your bomber approaches. Bomber Cmd can't reach much past Wilhelmshaven, and you won't have many escorts for them. Take all your night fighters from Fighter Command, and your other English based Air Commands, and put them into bomber command as escorts. Change their load outs so they have the fuel to escort them into Germany, and put cannons on them with fuel if you can. Also change out all your P40's and P47's in 8th AF. Get the P38's and P51's in as escorts as soon as you can. Make your raid altitudes low enough for all the planes in Bomber Command to fly the mission, and stagger the days that you fly, and not the altitudes your flying. You want one big raid, instead of two or three medium raids at different altitudes. Also make sure your not dropping incendiaries on Sub Pens, check your bomber loads. You can minimize your losses, but it takes a little work to accomplish but it's do able. I can't stress this enough, but RECON! Strategic Recon is your best friend, and don't fly Recon unescorted either. Those 8th AF Recon planes are vital for a good bombing campaign. Split your recon flights up so that you can fly recon for Bomber Command also.

The Strategic Bombing Campaign can't be won easily, and you have to be thinking a few months ahead. It's all about the long haul, and don't play into his strengths, play into your own strengths and be patient.

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ORIGINAL: loki100

knowing something of Pelton's approach (from WiTE), he tends to be very single minded about what he has decided is the key variable(s) ... and since he is a good player he is often right.

But that either means he has found a game breaking approach [1] or there are responses. Baelfin may be onto something. Knowing that allied players are going for U-boats, I'd suspect he will have set up his fighters and flak with that in mind. If so, writing off that line of VPs may be a good strategy. Also given he is tending to strip France to reinforce Italy, I'd not ignore his rail yards. Not only does that reduce his rail capacity, it also will seriously increase the (movement) costs he'll face when he returns stuff to France?

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ORIGINAL: loki100
edit - re fighters, don't forget to think about swapping them to use long range fuel tanks, that'll help contest air superiority in some areas where he might be hitting your bombers?

[1] I *think* this is going to be harder in WiTW as there are few if any key mechanisms that sit outside the core rule set, the worst in WiTE is its version of supply prioritisation where the magic supply fairy added extra supply to HQs (which wasn't deducted from the overall stock). Add to this the little known ability of Ju-88s/He-111s etc to act as flying petrol stations has always made logistics in WiTE open to abuse (partially closed in the latest patches)

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

I think, especially against a player, you need to be creative. Look for where the fighter intercepts are, plan for 1 turn to go round that (north and south). Vary the pattern of raids. For the longer range ones don't ignore the merits of a one day really big raid (at worst, all those fighters are then left looking rather isolated for the other 6 days).

While over time, I reckon that HI (and to a lesser extent fuel/oil) is the best target to wreck the German economy, that won't pay off in 1943, you need the additional stress on German capacity of the late 43/44 Soviet offensives. As such, you can probably not fuss too much over HI till the autumn of 1943

I'm not sure about any of this, nor how what works vs AI stands up in MP, but the air war seems to be a huge exercise in linear programming and even if you do it by heuristics its worth thinking that way. And mixing stuff up, do the same raid every week (says he who tends to do this to the Ruhr), you'll get much the same results.

As set up, the air game is effective rock-paper-scissors, with both sides trying to find the ideal set up

Good thoughts. The problem is that (from my limited experience) the U-boat penalties are too harsh. These massive penalties pretty much anchors the WA player to hit U-boats during 43 or suffer a massive VP hit. But this also have the drawback of allowing the Axis player to focus most of his AA and fighter defenses around U-boat targets. This increases losses to beyond what the WA can sustain. As an example both my B17 and P38 pools are now empty. Despite that I havn´t knocked enough U-boats out to avoid a negative VP drain.

Personally I feel I lack any kind of freedom (or creativity) to choose targets myself. I simply HAVE to target the U-boats. I´m not sure I like that from a game perspective. Historically accurate or not in the end the game has to be fun. And its not much fun when the only option (as it seems from my POV) is to throw everything you have at a certain location where you opponent know you will come.

Granted this is only from one game and a very skilled opponent. Will be interesting to see how Baelfiin ends up. Especially since he seem to have ignored the U-boats up to turn 9.

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ORIGINAL: Baelfiin
Turn 8-9ish
U-boat VP losses are out of control.

Quite a different approach from mine. And he may have been able to counter the VP loss from U-boats with positive VPs coming in from hitting MAN/HI in other parts of Germany.

I love figuring stuff like this out. Eventually I will.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin

You also can score bomb points from hitting fuel/oil targets outside of Germany. The thing about going deep into Germany after the Uboats is that by the time you get there you have had a chance to be intercepted by every fighter in Germany. In my game with Pelton I got my head handed to me early and I had to make a conscious decision to NOT go after Uboats and just deal with the VP loss until September ish when the b17g's come online and I had enough p38 and p51 built up.
If the Luftwaffe is concentrated in northern Germany, try blasting the fuel and oil in Belgium and France.
If you decide to go after a uboat target, only go with 8th air force at 31k plus. Make sure you are going only once per day for however many days you bomb for that turn. And then make sure to max out requested aircraft for the raid, and put a minimum of 96 required.

BTW I don't think the VP's losses for U-boats are too harsh, good German players are not going to make it easy to go after them without losses.

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ORIGINAL: JocMeister

quote:

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin

You also can score bomb points from hitting fuel/oil targets outside of Germany. The thing about going deep into Germany after the Uboats is that by the time you get there you have had a chance to be intercepted by every fighter in Germany. In my game with Pelton I got my head handed to me early and I had to make a conscious decision to NOT go after Uboats and just deal with the VP loss until September ish when the b17g's come online and I had enough p38 and p51 built up.
If the Luftwaffe is concentrated in northern Germany, try blasting the fuel and oil in Belgium and France.
If you decide to go after a uboat target, only go with 8th air force at 31k plus. Make sure you are going only once per day for however many days you bomb for that turn. And then make sure to max out requested aircraft for the raid, and put a minimum of 96 required.

BTW I don't think the VP's losses for U-boats are too harsh, good German players are not going to make it easy to go after them without losses.

Well, I havn´t been going deep into Germany. I´ve been hitting the U-boat factories around Hamburg. That means I can make 95% of the trip over the North sea minimizing losses. It also means P38 can escort all the way. My thinking was that it would minimize losses to sustainable levels. I was wrong.

I´ll try to up the altitude to 31k and see if losses drop a bit. I feel I have to keep going for the U-boats now or the losses have been in vain. I´m in too deep to back down now.

Obviously you made a different choice and I´m can´t wait to compare results. I hope you will continue to update your AAR?

I think they may be too harsh in the sense that it might force the allied player to go after the U-boats regardless of losses. Obviously I have nothing more then a gut feeling to back that up. I think your game might be a good indicator on if I´m right or not. I HOPE I´m wrong because clearly there should be other options.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meklore61

I'm playing Pelton also, but we are only on turn 4. I'm only losing 300 or so planes a turn over the entire western front, and right now it's about a 3 to 1 loss ration which I can sustain and he can't. He has his air force protecting his Uboats, and for now his fighters are not in range to attack, but don't use your P38s for anything but escorting. I'm not understanding why your pools are so low, but you get a huge infusion of planes late in 43 and I don't know what your cut off for morale to fly is, but you can reduce operational losses by not flying every day and putting groups on rest if they fall below 50 to 60 morale. 8th AF can take out sub pens in a city in just a few days of bombing. I took out all the sub pens in Hamburg on turn two with 3 days of bombing. 20 uboats and 20 armor factories destroyed. According to recon.

I only asked if you plotted paths because the ai loves to plot courses thru a lot of flak, and your smart to plot your own paths. Make sure you check your air battles over Germany. See where his planes are and where he's intercepting you and at what altitudes. Change up your altitudes every few turns because a big difference in altitude can decrease his interceptions.