RE: The early air war

RE: The early air war (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> The War Room

Message

morvael -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 9:06:18 AM)
Recycling to reserve with the free +5 morale gain (which allows for the experience to follow) is perhaps too good. And only one side is able to use it extensively.

Stelteck -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 9:11:22 AM)
The Air war is a game inside the game. Maybe the first question to ask is : Does it matter much ? Did the air war could have a significant impact on ground combat ? I do not know. Maybe we shall gather data about it first. I know for example that we all use to bomb twice a target before engaging ground combat. But i suspect that this action may only raise target fatigue to maybe 5%, leading to a decrease of combat efficiency of 1.5%. [:'(] I know also that currently we can strategicaly bomb tank factories, leading to decrease of T-34 or PzIII production. But does it matter much ? Do we lack medium tanks ? Not soviet side. And german side i'am not sūre. Counting only casualties, with intensive tactical bombing, you can kill 2000 german per turn maybe. 200 000 in 100 turns, probably less as a lot will return (only disabled). Does it matter 200 000 in 100 turn ? I do not know. There is a lot of thing like that. I do not know. What i know is there is a lot of rumor about how the game is working and what is important, and it would be a surprise if they are all true. Air recon is efficient at least [:'(] (Ha, i forgot interdiction. Interdiction is really, really annoying and can ruin your day). Forgive me, my intention is not to make all the people who love the air war depressed and sad. But i hope we could gather data to better understand the air part of the game. Maybe we could create some scenario testing ? I never opened the scenario editor. Maybe i should.

tyronec -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 10:46:17 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HardLuck Take a step back and look how you two (Dinglir & Tyronic) handled your German Air Force and ask how you could have done things different. I know the answer having been there and done that. I just took advantage of what you two left open. You seem to be under the impression that my comments are a reaction to our game. This is not the case, my experience of Soviet air dominance in '42 comes from playing the Soviet side and having large fleets of ILs and LBs free to bomb Axis units and air bases at will from early '42. In our game you were restricting Luftwaffe bombing by having large numbers of fighter air bases close to the front so I was conducting an air offensive again them. We don't know how that was going to work out because you terminated the game at T8 but I certainly do not accept that I was losing the air war. Interesting post on air force numbers (if it is accurate): http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/eastern-front-aircraft-strength-and.html One number that seems surprising is that the Luftwaffe had a growing ground attack fleet even late into the war and my understanding is that they were still effective. Clearly their fighters could do little to stop the Soviet bombers and ILs by '43.

Nix77 -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 12:33:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck Maybe the first question to ask is : Does it matter much ? Did the air war could have a significant impact on ground combat ? I do not know. Maybe we shall gather data about it first. Quoting the manual: quote: Disruption: Disrupted ground elements can no longer fire and they will not contribute their combat value to any future overall CV computations. Bombing Soviet forces with a strong concentration of Stukas can disrupt 25-50% of the Soviet ground elements before the battle. As an example, in one game 300 Stukas were concentrated to bomb the defenders of an urban hex. With two runs, 5000 out of 30000 Soviets were disrupted. That's a direct hit of 5-10% to the CV, and that was in an urban hex with L2 forts. Taking into account these facts, I'd say that the air war really does matter. In my Soviet MP game on turn 21, the best 34 FB/F air groups (one page on the commander's report) have all over 70XP. Best groups have above 80XP. Tac & Level Bombers have a bit lower XP, averaging about 10 points lower than the fighters, but morale has been on the rise with several groups having over 80 morale. I have been extremely aggressive in the air, sometimes even too aggressive. The losses have climbed to over 13000 lost, of which 4000 were on the ground. I have actively been cleaning the pools of old airframes which may be partly the reason for the high losses. I also haven't been paying that much attention to fatigue since I don't care that much about the losses, I'm more interested in creating casualties for the Germans in the air & ground and just exhausting the Luftwaffe by making numerous sorties every turn. I'd definitely say that the Soviet pilots seem to gain XP and morale too rapidly. I actively use the reserve rotation as a tool to raise morale, so usually there are no groups flying with low morale (under 45). With Germans, you definitely need to be more careful with the air war. I recall losing countless bombers as the Germans by not paying attention to the fuel and ammo levels of my escorting Messerschmitts. Soviets usually have so many fighters and also airbases to support them so supply isn't much of a problem. I'm also perfectly OK with losing the older level bombers or Sturmoviks (depending on the factory situation) since there will be plenty of them produced to replace the casualties every round. I think if the pilot XP gain would be slightly lowered the more casualties the air groups suffer, even the Soviet player would need to do some thinking when using the Red Air Forces. Reserve rotation morale gain reduction might be in order too, reserve should logically operate more as tool to reduce fatigue and recover airframe losses more quickly? EDIT: Disruption is converted to fatigue before new combat, so the effect of ground bombing to the CV is 1/3rd of the disruption. Still a considerable factor! The aircraft do disrupt in ground support phase also with a direct 1:1 disruptive effect, so air superiority basically gets a multiplying factor to a concentrated attack.

Nix77 -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 12:49:25 PM)
Ok I didn't take into account at first before my last edits the fact that disruption is "cleared" and transformed to fatigue before each new combat. But still I'd say air war really matters. An example: ground bombings disrupt 3000 men out of 10000. In the next combat, this is effectively 10% reduction to CV. The superior airforce operates aggressively in the area, exhausting the defenders with air superiority missions. When the actual attack commences, there's a big chance that the attacker's ground support can operate almost without any interception, which leads to maybe another 1000-2000 men disrupted. That's 20-30% reduction to the CV, simply by using air superiority. WitE air system is a bit fiddly and doesn't give that many tools to effectively defend "out of turn" if the opponent has enough air assets available to mess your pool of defending fighters. This in my opinion works heavily against the Germans since the Luftwaffe is working with more limited resources.

HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 1:05:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tyronec My experience of Soviet air dominance in '42 comes from playing the Soviet side and having large fleets of ILs and LBs free to bomb Axis units and air bases at will from early '42 Interesting, so your opinion/words above for Soviet Air Dominance is the mass production of TAC and Level bombers not to do with anything the Soviet player does. quote: ORIGINAL tyronec but I certainly do not accept that I was losing the air war. GREAT! So your words seems to be supporting what I said in the other post I made that the Germans can do what is necessary to not lose in the Air when a Soviet does what I was doing :) At least that is what I am getting from this comment :) But of course you believe that air dominance comes from the mass production of TAC and Level bombers so it really doesnt matter what a Soviet does anyway as stated above. So my point still stands that the Germans can do what is necessary to keep the Soviets at bay. This witch hunt to FURTHER delimit the Soviet Air Force should not be done to the Soviet side that is already struggling in a one sided ground war that current patches give to the German player.

HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 1:21:20 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: morvael Recycling to reserve with the free +5 morale gain (which allows for the experience to follow) is perhaps too good. And only one side is able to use it extensively. If you are going to do this just limit the amount of squadrons that go to reserve (i.e. 5 squadrons) instead of having the MASS capability to send to Reserve. But again this isn't the solution imho since many Germans need to look at how they are handling their airforce instead of just saying the Soviets are too strong. It is the "cry" wolf syndrome that has caused the current patch to favor the Germans in the ground war at the moment, please dont carry this over to the Air war side of things.

Nix77 -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 1:32:31 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain quote: ORIGINAL: morvael Recycling to reserve with the free +5 morale gain (which allows for the experience to follow) is perhaps too good. And only one side is able to use it extensively. If you are going to do this just limit the amount of squadrons that go to reserve (i.e. 5 squadrons) instead of having the MASS capability to send to Reserve. But again this isn't the solution imho since many Germans need to look at how they are handling their airforce instead of just saying the Soviets are too strong. It is the "cry" wolf syndrome that has caused the current patch to favor the Germans in the ground war at the moment, please dont carry this over to the Air war side of things. The Germans definitely currently have the tools to keep the Soviet Air Force at bay if you know what you're doing. By controlling where you fly and making sure you're not exhausting the Luftwaffe, you can have local air superiority in selected key locations, which should usually be enough for the German advance in '41-'42. Problem is that with the WitE air war system, it's extremely difficult to control how your air groups are flying "out of turn". With a larger air force, the Soviet player can locally exhaust the Luftwaffe, not by winning or destroying planes but by just accumulating miles to their fighters by sacrificing cheap planes (while gathering XP), and then operate almost freely. I'm not sure if there's a need to balance out anything, I just think that the air war system is quite difficult to handle, and it's more so for the Germans. I'm currently playing the Soviets as my only game, so no pro-Axis bias here :)

Telemecus -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 2:10:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck Maybe the first question to ask is : Does it matter much ? Did the air war could have a significant impact on ground combat ?.. Counting only casualties...Does it matter ...? I do not know. My answer is definitely yes, sort of. I think it is comparable to cavalry in ancient warfare. Not the most powerful unit, but you could get a lot of them to where you needed them when you needed them. The odds of winning the battle are tipped to whoever had the most. So while the impact of the air force is not great, it is frequently the little extra that tips slight losses into slight wins. Aircraft maybe do not make the losses, but they do take the ground. quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck I know for example that we all use to bomb twice a target before engaging ground combat. But i suspect that this action may only raise target fatigue to maybe 5%, leading to a decrease of combat efficiency of 1.5%. [:'(] My own hunch is that may be using the air force this way makes it less effective. Better to jack up ground support in air doctrine and let it be allocated as efficiently as possible that way to the close call battles? At the margin in close calls even small effects are disproportionately significant. Added to this Nix77 makes other points on the superiority of ground support. And for Stelteck that would mean even less air force micromanagement necessary [;)] quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck I know also that currently we can strategicaly bomb tank factories, leading to decrease of T-34 or PzIII production. But does it matter much ? Do we lack medium tanks ? Not soviet side. And german side i'am not sūre. If you are choking medium tank factory expansion so that you lose 80% to 90% of your production across the war I think possibly yes - but you need to wait for the later game to be sure. Would any experienced soviet player really want T-34 numbers decimated? quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck Forgive me, my intention is not to make all the people who love the air war depressed and sad. I think they are good and fair questions so no forgiveness necessary. The one thing I would like to persuade non fly boys of is that there is an interesting strategic part of the air war. It is more abstract rather than positional. But anyone who plays the Soviet side and is in to attrition rates and ToEs should have no problem with that. The problem is the initial interface which presents a lot of boring repetitive checks that are needed if you are not to have a catastrophe. I literally have my own pre-flight check list. But once you get past this, or if it is designed out by the developers, there is a whole strategic side which I am sure every player of WitE would actually be interested in. quote: ORIGINAL: tyronec my experience of Soviet air dominance in '42 comes from playing the Soviet side and having large fleets of ILs and LBs free to bomb Axis units and air bases at will from early '42. In our game you were restricting Luftwaffe bombing by having large numbers of fighter air bases close to the front so I was conducting an air offensive again them... One number that seems surprising is that the Luftwaffe had a growing ground attack fleet even late into the war and my understanding is that they were still effective. Clearly their fighters could do little to stop the Soviet bombers and ILs by '43. If you read the manual properly it is quite possible to keep all bombers out of fighter range of the opposing side while still conducting air missions. I could write pages on the best places to put airbases, and how to place them in an attack or defence posture, whether to do a zonal defence or not etc. But these things never get written about.

Nix77 -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 2:25:36 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus I could write pages on the best places to put airbases, and how to place them in an attack or defence posture, whether to do a zonal defence or not etc. But these things never get written about. Wouldn't mind if you did write these pages you talk about... ;)

Telemecus -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 2:33:31 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Nix77 quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus I could write pages on the best places to put airbases, and how to place them in an attack or defence posture, whether to do a zonal defence or not etc. But these things never get written about. Wouldn't mind if you did write these pages you talk about... ;) Ah wonderful! To be honest I thought no one was interested! I was going to write some of it in the end of the Axis EightMP Team Game AAR on the assumption that no one was. Crackaces made a suggestion that they would like to incorporate all advanced air tactics which are not really documented anywhere into a single document - rather like the Walloc evacuation guide or other such things, and hopefully it will be updated. I suspect that it may be better structured that way than scattered and then lost in forum posts. Does that sound like a worthwhile project?

EwaldvonKleist -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 2:46:45 PM)
I am interested as well. Always happy to learn more dirty air war tricks to complete my own collection :)

HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 2:53:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus quote: ORIGINAL: Nix77 quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus I could write pages on the best places to put airbases, and how to place them in an attack or defence posture, whether to do a zonal defence or not etc. But these things never get written about. Wouldn't mind if you did write these pages you talk about... ;) Ah wonderful! To be honest I thought no one was interested! I was going to write some of it in the end of the Axis EightMP Team Game AAR on the assumption that no one was. Crackaces made a suggestion that they would like to incorporate all advanced air tactics which are not really documented anywhere into a single document - rather like the Walloc evacuation guide or other such things, and hopefully it will be updated. I suspect that it may be better structured that way than scattered and then lost in forum posts. Does that sound like a worthwhile project? I concur, this is a wonderful endeavour & thank you in advance for your time spent on this.

Nix77 -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 4:52:37 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus quote: ORIGINAL: Nix77 quote: ORIGINAL: Telemecus I could write pages on the best places to put airbases, and how to place them in an attack or defence posture, whether to do a zonal defence or not etc. But these things never get written about. Wouldn't mind if you did write these pages you talk about... ;) Ah wonderful! To be honest I thought no one was interested! I was going to write some of it in the end of the Axis EightMP Team Game AAR on the assumption that no one was. Crackaces made a suggestion that they would like to incorporate all advanced air tactics which are not really documented anywhere into a single document - rather like the Walloc evacuation guide or other such things, and hopefully it will be updated. I suspect that it may be better structured that way than scattered and then lost in forum posts. Does that sound like a worthwhile project? Definitely a worthwhile project!

Stelteck -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 5:14:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Nix77 Ok I didn't take into account at first before my last edits the fact that disruption is "cleared" and transformed to fatigue before each new combat. But still I'd say air war really matters. An example: ground bombings disrupt 3000 men out of 10000. In the next combat, this is effectively 10% reduction to CV. The superior airforce operates aggressively in the area, exhausting the defenders with air superiority missions. When the actual attack commences, there's a big chance that the attacker's ground support can operate almost without any interception, which leads to maybe another 1000-2000 men disrupted. That's 20-30% reduction to the CV, simply by using air superiority. You are right, but did the air force will disrupt 3000 men out of 10000 ? I think more probable that the air force will disrupt something more closer to 300 men out of 10000. So the impact is not the same.

EwaldvonKleist -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 5:27:40 PM)
The air war matters. The air Force will disrupt a considerable amount of men. German level bombers attacking an unfortified soviet unit in clear terrain typically disrupt 4000 men per attack. Soviet tac bos doing spam ground bombing kill hundreds of guns per turn.

tyronec -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 6:39:16 PM)
So here is my take on the air war, am not that experienced so no doubt there are better ways to do things. Telemechus if you are going to write a guide please feel free to use any of it. Soviet: Concentrate massed fighters in perhaps two or three critical areas about 10 hexes behind the front line. The biplanes slightly forward and some of the better fighters a few hexes further back but close enough to give air cover. All in stacks of three air bases. Level bombers just behind the furthest away fighters. Have one empty airbase for each front at the front line. Have further empty airbases in the area. Then depending on where the Axis airbases end up do a combination of the following: Fighter sweeps to draw out the Luftwaffe fighters to maximum range. Bomb airbases with mass fighter support if they are within range. Night bombing of airbases. Unsupported bombing of airbases if fighter defence is depleted. Bomb ground units. Concentrate where the odds are best in your favour, so if the Luftwaffe is too strong in one area then transfer aircraft to where you can do some damage and fill up the empty bases from the reserve. If you are weak in an area then pull them back further to avoid combat. Ground support OFF (for '41). The biplanes and SBs are very expendable. When you get to turn 9 start mass building more air bases. Some Fighters, lots of TACs, a few LBs (not too many) and some TRs and Recon. Rotate all units with low morale (50- ?) to the reserve. Axis: Should be able to get 5,500+ kills T1, using the TACs to take out everything within range and the LBs for the further away stuff. Both the TACs and LB will need to advance into captured terrain to achieve this and the LBs do some rebasing. The Romanians should get everything around Odessa leaving AGS He111s so have a go at Sevastapol. T2 is rest time, plus downgrade some units to the old He111s, JU86s and Me109s. More can be done in a few turns when the units that will be leaving arrive. T3 onwards. It all depends on what STAVKA does. Pick on any groups of airbases where you can deplete the fighter cover and get free bombing of their air bases. The sequence is: Fighter sweeps to draw their fighters out to maximum range. Bomb the fighter bases (MIGs etc. first) using good fighter cover. You want about 2:1 fighter ratio so the bombers get through. Use the JU88s first as they are most expendable and do only moderate damage. If you can exhaust their fighters them maybe the He111s can get through for some free bombing runs. Don't use the 110s. Some moves in the TACs may get into the action. Should be able to achieve kill ratios of 5:1 or better. After air base bombing (assuming Soviet fighters have been cleared) set fighters to Night and do your ground support bombing. If the soviet air defence is still active then only bomb where there is no fighter cover - your fighters cannot afford the fatigue to do ground bombing cover.. Ground support is OFF unless there is no fighter cover. An alternative tactic would be to have Ground support ON and engage the soviets air force during ground combat. I haven't used this approach from the Axis side so cannot comment. Watch fatigue levels. Fighters shouldn't be doing more than about half a dozen combats a turn, perhaps less. Don't use any aircraft that start the turn with fatigue over 20. Watch fuel levels. Don't overload your bases and keep them within 10 hexes of the railhead. Make sure the fighters have fuel at the end of the turn. Positioning. Aside from T1 there is no point in advancing too far to get more attacks in as you are limited by fatigue. I suspect about 15-20 hexes to the target is fine. End of turn you need the fighters covering the bomber bases and Me110s as rear cover. If STAVKA is strong in an area then keep the Luftwaffe back so they will not be drawn into air combat to cover land forces at the front. You have a few spare air bases, use them to rebase fighters so you can make a strong offensive in critical areas. It generally doesn't work to rebase bombers to empty bases as they won't get enough provisioning. I generally keep the LBs on railways. Don't move air bases any more than necessary, it causes fatigue (though not as much as combat). IMO the the Luftwaffe can attain air dominance in '41 over at least some areas of the front and provide moderate ground support. Have only played two games where both players attempted aggressive air tactics and neither of them went past '41 but my expectation would be that STAVKA would get the upper hand by early '42.

HardLuckYetAgain -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 6:55:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tyronec So here is my take on the air war, am not that experienced so no doubt there are better ways to do things. Telemechus if you are going to write a guide please feel free to use any of it. Soviet: Concentrate massed fighters in perhaps two or three critical areas about 10 hexes behind the front line. The biplanes slightly forward and some of the better fighters a few hexes further back but close enough to give air cover. All in stacks of three air bases. Level bombers just behind the furthest away fighters. Have one empty airbase for each front at the front line. Have further empty airbases in the area. Then depending on where the Axis airbases end up do a combination of the following: Fighter sweeps to draw out the Luftwaffe fighters to maximum range. Bomb airbases with mass fighter support if they are within range. Night bombing of airbases. Unsupported bombing of airbases if fighter defence is depleted. Bomb ground units. Concentrate where the odds are best in your favour, so if the Luftwaffe is too strong in one area then transfer aircraft to where you can do some damage and fill up the empty bases from the reserve. If you are weak in an area then pull them back further to avoid combat. Ground support OFF (for '41). The biplanes and SBs are very expendable. When you get to turn 9 start mass building more air bases. Some Fighters, lots of TACs, a few LBs (not too many) and some TRs and Recon. Rotate all units with low morale (50- ?) to the reserve. Axis: Should be able to get 5,500+ kills T1, using the TACs to take out everything within range and the LBs for the further away stuff. Both the TACs and LB will need to advance into captured terrain to achieve this and the LBs do some rebasing. The Romanians should get everything around Odessa leaving AGS He111s so have a go at Sevastapol. T2 is rest time, plus downgrade some units to the old He111s, JU86s and Me109s. More can be done in a few turns when the units that will be leaving arrive. T3 onwards. It all depends on what STAVKA does. Pick on any groups of airbases where you can deplete the fighter cover and get free bombing of their air bases. The sequence is: Fighter sweeps to draw their fighters out to maximum range. Bomb the fighter bases (MIGs etc. first) using good fighter cover. You want about 2:1 fighter ratio so the bombers get through. Use the JU88s first as they are most expendable and do only moderate damage. If you can exhaust their fighters them maybe the He111s can get through for some free bombing runs. Don't use the 110s. Some moves in the TACs may get into the action. Should be able to achieve kill ratios of 5:1 or better. After air base bombing (assuming Soviet fighters have been cleared) set fighters to Night and do your ground support bombing. If the soviet air defence is still active then only bomb where there is no fighter cover - your fighters cannot afford the fatigue to do ground bombing cover.. Ground support is OFF unless there is no fighter cover. An alternative tactic would be to have Ground support ON and engage the soviets air force during ground combat. I haven't used this approach from the Axis side so cannot comment. Watch fatigue levels. Fighters shouldn't be doing more than about half a dozen combats a turn, perhaps less. Don't use any aircraft that start the turn with fatigue over 20. Watch fuel levels. Don't overload your bases and keep them within 10 hexes of the railhead. Make sure the fighters have fuel at the end of the turn. Positioning. Aside from T1 there is no point in advancing too far to get more attacks in as you are limited by fatigue. I suspect about 15-20 hexes to the target is fine. End of turn you need the fighters covering the bomber bases and Me110s as rear cover. If STAVKA is strong in an area then keep the Luftwaffe back so they will not be drawn into air combat to cover land forces at the front. You have a few spare air bases, use them to rebase fighters so you can make a strong offensive in critical areas. It generally doesn't work to rebase bombers to empty bases as they won't get enough provisioning. I generally keep the LBs on railways. Don't move air bases any more than necessary, it causes fatigue (though not as much as combat). IMO the the Luftwaffe can attain air dominance in '41 over at least some areas of the front and provide moderate ground support. Have only played two games where both players attempted aggressive air tactics and neither of them went past '41 but my expectation would be that STAVKA would get the upper hand by early '42. This is a good write up. There are things I do different but we all do things different. It lays a good foundations for others to build on & I'm sure the final product will be nice when Telemecus finishes :)

Telemecus -> RE: The early air war (11/6/2017 6:57:18 PM)
This is my favourite bit - people who play team games with me will know why [:)] quote: ORIGINAL tyronec Have one empty airbase for each front at the front line.

56ajax -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 1:13:21 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: morvael Recycling to reserve with the free +5 morale gain (which allows for the experience to follow) is perhaps too good. And only one side is able to use it extensively. I am not as fanatical as some but if morale drops below 30 back they go. Also if they become depleted then in reserve hopefully they will get restocked.

Kantti -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 7:42:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck quote: ORIGINAL: Nix77 Ok I didn't take into account at first before my last edits the fact that disruption is "cleared" and transformed to fatigue before each new combat. But still I'd say air war really matters. An example: ground bombings disrupt 3000 men out of 10000. In the next combat, this is effectively 10% reduction to CV. The superior airforce operates aggressively in the area, exhausting the defenders with air superiority missions. When the actual attack commences, there's a big chance that the attacker's ground support can operate almost without any interception, which leads to maybe another 1000-2000 men disrupted. That's 20-30% reduction to the CV, simply by using air superiority. You are right, but did the air force will disrupt 3000 men out of 10000 ? I think more probable that the air force will disrupt something more closer to 300 men out of 10000. So the impact is not the same. Hi, I think that Nix is here referring to my server game against PMM13 (no AAR here, only in one Finnish gaming forum) where I just took Tula in Novermber snow offensive after extensive bombing. There I indeed disrupted over 5000 men with 2 bombing runs (150 stukas per run) and it seemed to make a difference along air support during the battle. What comes to 3000 vs 300, I have been regularly doing massive bombing runs on frontline stacks that I am planning to go through to ensure that they go down with first try. I have concentrated both AGC and AGN air assets near Moskow in autumn 1941 and was constantly getting 2500-5000 soviets disrupted PER bombing run when attacking on open (+fort) with 100+ bombers (preferably Stukas) and depending if there were 1,2 or 3 soviet divisions stacked. I felt it played important part in crushing Soviet frontline and at least it encouraged me to go forward with some attacks where odds weren't initially in my favor.

tyronec -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 8:18:15 AM)
I don't fully understand how ground bombing works. The manual states "Disruption from combat is converted into fatigue before any new combat, and is also converted at the very start of the logistics phase, so units will always begin a turn with zero disruption." Does this mean that if a unit is bombed twice then the disruption from the first bombing is converted to fatigue before the second ? If this is the case then ground bombing before an attack is not going to be that effective compared to air support in a ground attack. Another question relates to how many troops are being bombed. I have always assumed that damage is dependent on the strike force and is mitigated by terrain/entrenchment. So bombing a brigade in clear terrain will cause the same damage as bombing 3 divisions in the same and so will be proportionally more effective. Is this correct or does the density of the target matter (as is the case under some circumstances in WITW with interdiction) ?

Kantti -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 8:27:21 AM)
Good questions Tyronec! I have been just doing air-thingies because they feel right. I have had impression that bombing 3 units will cause more casualties than bombing 1 unit, BUT I have never done any in-depth analysis of statistics to confirm this so I might be totally off the target here. As of side note and related to flak-discussion elsewhere here, those two massive bombing runs targeting Tula cost me 1 shot down Stuka even though there were ****loads of AA shooting during those sorties.

Stelteck -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 8:49:14 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kantti What comes to 3000 vs 300, I have been regularly doing massive bombing runs on frontline stacks that I am planning to go through to ensure that they go down with first try. I have concentrated both AGC and AGN air assets near Moskow in autumn 1941 and was constantly getting 2500-5000 soviets disrupted PER bombing run when attacking on open (+fort) with 100+ bombers (preferably Stukas) and depending if there were 1,2 or 3 soviet divisions stacked. I felt it played important part in crushing Soviet frontline and at least it encouraged me to go forward with some attacks where odds weren't initially in my favor. Do you have screen of such results ? I'am interested.

Kantti -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 9:20:42 AM)
I don't have screenies from previous turns at hand but here are results from this rounds (23) ground bombing, including those two urban bombing runs discussed earlier. https://i.imgur.com/XGiQVfg.jpg (sorry for large image, you might want to paste that link into browser and look it directly from imgur site) I have gut feeling that bombing in snow is less effective (and my airforce is kinda worn out at this stage) and I have in last summer months achieved even a tad better results with large scale bombing of ground units. As it is snow turn and I am starting to move to winter quarters I didn't do so many attacks so that explains only 6 bombing runs. To compare I checked some Soviet bombing runs and with 70-100 bombers they caused around 400 disrupted Germans on open ground without forts.

Stelteck -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 9:53:49 AM)
Thank you for the results. Impressive indeed. (Although 2500 men disrupted other a force of 30000 will be converted to 8% fatigue increase after the raid). It is normal that weather affect the efficiency of the air force.

Kantti -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 10:24:11 AM)
Also wanting to add that all the bombarded hexes had fort level 2. In the summer results were even more impressive when I caught Soviet stacks on the run. Now they had whole mud season worth of time to put their shovels into a good use. EDIT: also that fatigue added takes some pressure away from need to make soaking attacks to increase fatigue. In Tula odds were finally 2.8:1 after my CV almost tripled and even Soviet defensive CV increased so every bit of fatigue was needed.

Telemecus -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 10:27:58 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Stelteck Thank you for the results. Impressive indeed. (Although 2500 men disrupted other a force of 30000 will be converted to 8% fatigue increase after the raid). It is normal that weather affect the efficiency of the air force. May be worth looking at your own results from bombing with almost exactly the same planes in the same quantities over Moscow in the EightMP team game you are playing now?

RforRush -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 10:42:09 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kantti https://i.imgur.com/XGiQVfg.jpg Wow, German planes are really OP.

Telemecus -> RE: The early air war (11/7/2017 10:50:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: RforRush quote: ORIGINAL: Kantti https://i.imgur.com/XGiQVfg.jpg Wow, German planes are really OP. Remember in Kantti's game, and in Stelteck's which is almost identical although they have not noticed ( [:D] ) , you have hundreds of stukas flying unopposed for a week. In the last turn Stelteck dropped two to three thousand tonnes of munitions by tac bombers in the area. They could create that kind of damage and disruption, but that is abnormal. Normal is that stukas do have to run the gauntlet of Soviet interceptors which, even if they do not shoot down stukas, do enough at least to distract them while aiming for their targets - and results are lower.

Page: << < prev 1 [2] 3 4 5 next > >>

Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

0.71875