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Firewire9452 -> RE: Not bad turn 1 air (4/1/2021 5:13:24 AM)
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After a few days of practice, I was able to move from 2400 kills w/ 300 casualties to 4000 kills and 140 casualties. I suspect this could be improved by harvesting a few more bomber air bases in the marsh. After 5-10 tests of the same ADs, the outcomes have varied from 200 casualties/3700 kills to 130 casualties/4050 kills.
Without going into all the details, it's really important to kill close fighter bases in the first phase of air execution (very high priority); mid range fighter bases in the second phase (high priority); and then harvest bomber/recon bases in the third phase (normal priority). In AGN, that means the fighter bases running from Kaunas to Kedainiai to Siaulia to Liepaja in tier 1, Riga and Daugavpils in tier 2, and then bomber bases in T3. Riga and Daugavpils sometimes launch their fighters and destroy unescorted bombers, and might not be worth it. In AGC, this means all the fighter bases W of the line running through Brest, Orany, and Kaunas in the first tier of runs, fighter bases E of that line and Berezino in the second tier, and then harvesting the bomber/recon bases in tier 3. In AGS, this means tier 1 covers all fighter bases W of the line connecting Kovel, Lutsk, Dubno, Brody, Kurovichi, Stanislav, Kolomiya, Chernovtsy, Beltsy, Kishinev, and Bolgrad; tier 2 covers all fighters bases east of that line connecting where the Yuzhny Bug canal hits the Black Sea to Zhitomir, and tier 3 harvests all the recon/bomber bases W of that line. In AGS, this means grouping a few bases in a single AD SW of Lvov, near Brody, and near Ivangorod (not optimal since it's fighters and recon; there might be a better grouping) because you'll hit 30 ADs. Also, I've found that moving Alytus to AGN and moving Kovel to AGC helps free resources in AGS, where there are more planes to harvest.
Loadout matters a lot. Non-fighters should have the maximum number of bombs. This has a substantial impact on planes destroyed. I haven't experimented with equipping fighters with 50kg bombs, which might help free bomber mileage for further runs or by reducing operational losses.
Altitude matters some. I experimented in the RTL scenario rerunning air execution at different altitudes. It looked like 6000 was marginally better than 5000 or 7000 (but that might be random dice rolls). The manual says that below 5000 feet heavily increases operational losses, but avoids flak. Since operational losses are 12 times flak losses on T1, I avoided flying below 5000. I also checked 10,000 and 15,000. I noticed a significant decline (10-20%) in kills, but didn't notice a significant chance in friendly casualties. If anything, operational losses might have been a bit higher. The manual says that bomb accuracy decreases with altitude, so I'd avoid these higher altitudes on T1.
I bombed only on D1, and twice for Bialystok, Alytus and Odessa. I might remove the double bomb on Alytus.
I haven't attempted to bomb near Kiev or the line from the Lepel-Ulla-Orsha triangle through Mogilev-Bykhov. There appear to be approximately 310 and 450 planes, respectively, in those areas. Similarly, Kacha (adjacent to Sevastopol) has 120 planes on a single hex. I'm worried that the operational losses, the risk of additional air combat without escorts, and extra fatigue on the LW will not be worth it for T2.
I believe that I can optimize this more by looking at the supplies and capacity of air bases closest to the front and moving bombers up, if there is spare capacity and supplies/ammo/fuel and frontline bases. This would reduce mileage flown by the bombers, which seems to be the main driver behind operational losses. But I haven't tried this. I haven't found anything in the manual about whether rebasing on a turn reduces combat effectiveness (like movement for ground units or changing leaders).
PS: The main X-factor in results is Odessa. Sometimes Odessa's planes activate and destroy another 40-50 bombers and reduce your kills by another 120. Those dead bombers can't bomb other fields later, which reduces later kills in lower priority runs. I've tried to address this by making Odessa very high priority instead of high priority. I'm not sure whether this helps, or I just got 3 random dice rolls that were favorable. I'm working on a solution, but haven't found one yet. I use Sculeni (205, 201) as the staging base, which means Odessa is just outside fighter range, even with drop tanks. I've tried rebasing IV. Fliegerkorps, JG 77 to bases closer to Sculeni, but they lack supply. I suspect there's a way to move fighters, add drop tanks, and put Odessa first on the h priority list to guarantee fighter escorts, but I haven't found it yet. It would probably improve the consistent of these numbers quite a bit.
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