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How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters?

 
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How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 4:08:55 PM   
pcasey

 

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One of the fairly common things I do in WITPAE is to try to shut down enemy airbases.

The bog standard approach is just to mass up medium bombers (and potentially heavies if playing as the allies) and bomb the airfield.

Assuming you have enough bombers and enough fighters, that initial strike is going to take a *lot* of casualties against a well defended base but you can shut it down and then subsequently keep it suppressed with a smaller commitment of bombers to keep the rubble bouncing.

The question though is how best to minimize the losses on that initial strike.

Obvious answer #1 is to escort my strike with lots of my own fighters, but that doesn't work well since fighters on escort get massacred by fighters on CAP (not sure why the game engine models it this strongly but it does).

Less obvious answer #2 is to use high altitude sweepers over a few days to attrit the defending fighters, which works, but takes time and is easily countered by a defender who just rotates newer fighters in, or one who moves their own fighters out and then correctly guesses the day of your own mass strike and moves his/her own fighters back into CAP on that day (messy).

What are more experienced players here doing to reduce well defended airbases?
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RE: How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 4:57:20 PM   
RangerJoe


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Joined: 11/16/2015
From: My Mother, although my Father had some small part.
Status: offline 		Bombard with a lot of Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers. Capturing the base works pretty well also.

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RE: How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 4:57:23 PM   
Gridley380


Posts: 464
Joined: 12/20/2011
Status: offline 		You can also do naval bombardments of the airfield - assuming it is a coastal hex and you have enough ships to bombard with. :-)

I have heard a number of times that fighter bombers at low altitude can do a good job, but I haven't found a noticeable improvement over using level bombers. Of course I view FB's as more expendable than most LB's, so I still use them anyway.

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RE: How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 6:13:35 PM   
GetAssista

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: pcasey
What are more experienced players here doing to reduce well defended airbases?

When the base is coastal the optimal solution is always naval bombardments, then sustained bombing. Mines/CDs are not enough to effectively deter bombardments.

When the base is non-coastal it first depends on whether your opponent is AI or human.
AI base closures are not really important and not worth your air losses IMO. In most scenarios, AI has lots of stuff, good pilots and some combat bonuses. It is easier to capture the base or just bypass it, AI can't leverage his bases effectively.

Against human (or playing fairly against AI), attriting high altitude sweeps help to eventually make him try and dodge the losses by removing the CAP (or put AI squadrons in night/training mode), then you do massed bombing runs. Japan does this exclusively in 41/42 (using mainly Zeros) while it still has tech/pilot superiority. Allies use this for 43 and onwards with preferably p-47s (p-38s will do in a pinch midwar, latewar there are many fast & durable fighters).
4Es work wonders when massed, it is a good strategy to always try and concentrate them from all over the map. It is an accepted truth for the JFBs that any base can be closed in one turn if Allies employ 4Es correctly through the war

Good sustained recon over the target goes without saying.

< Message edited by GetAssista -- 9/5/2019 6:28:52 PM >

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RE: How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 8:18:47 PM   
Ian R

 

Posts: 3420
Joined: 8/1/2000
From: Cammeraygal Country
Status: offline 		If you can't send some old BBs or CAs to shoot up the airstrip, then try this as the allies (this is in late 42/43)

- base your bombers close together, preferably on one base, with their Air HQ on the main base and in command range of all. [Alfred confirmed in a recent thread that there are checks related to air group HQ assignments in the strike process. Exactly what, he didn't say, but there are some hints in the change logs for the patches that point to it affecting strike co-ordination.]

- P38s on high altitude sweeps to fatigue the CAP and knock some down; P47s are good later on.

- 4Es at 20,000 ft+ above the bulk of the flak - the cap has to climb to them and arrives in dribs and drabs, and B17s in particular will knock some down, although your bombs won't do as much damage from up there.

- If you can get some single engine fighters in range have them escort the 4Es, but you need high rest % for those groups or they will fly fatigued, and do poorly as a result. E.G. if the IJ player sends Zeros from Rabaul escorting strikes on Guadalcanal, F4F CAP there does reasonably well against them with semi-competent pilots.

- Eventually go lower and shut the base down. The mouse-over is untrustworthy on damage levels, but if it says 70-85 it needs some follow up.

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RE: How Best to Attrit Defending Fighters? - 9/5/2019 10:55:12 PM   
RangerJoe


Posts: 13450
Joined: 11/16/2015
From: My Mother, although my Father had some small part.
Status: offline 		The best coordination between escorting fighters and bombers is to have them at the same base and the same altitude.

_____________________________

Seek peace but keep your gun handy.

I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!

“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).”
― Julia Child


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