What I've Learned about Luftwaffe

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the West >> What I've Learned about Luftwaffe

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What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/7/2015 11:57:23 PM

cmunson

Posts: 6238
Joined: 9/15/2007
From: Austin, Texas
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Curious what others are doing. But here are my thoughts on using Luftwaffe in the 43 Campaign.

1. Don't use it. It is late September in the 43 Campaign and I finally launched my first air directive when Allies invaded by Taranto. I deploy fighters in Germany and Holland to counter bombing and a few in Brest as they shoot down a lot of Allied naval patrol aircraft with little loss. That's it. I don't even use ground support AD's as Germans.

2. Take all air HQ's off of naval patrol (by default unused aircraft will fly naval patrol unless you set them not to on the air directive screen). This saves enormous wear and tear on your bombers and crews that the Germans can ill afford and any gain is fleeting. If I strongly suspected an invasion I might do a specific naval AD to counter.

3. Save your bombers for that maybe 2x to 3x time in a game where Allies invade at edge of fighter cover or if you absolutely need to break out of pocket, create a pocket, etc. Germans stop making bombers in mid 1944 so if you waste them you won't have any come the winter of 44/45.

4. As bombers get more numerous, have longer range and better escorts, pull your fighters further back into Germany.

By having a healthy bomber fleet Germans inflicted over 10k casualties in one turn on Allies by Taranto and put some good interdiction on them to boot. Here are some of the attacks. BTW, FW190 G's and F's are great ground attack aircraft.

Attachment (1)

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Chris

Post #: 1

RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/8/2015 2:44:40 PM

decourcy2

Posts: 516
Joined: 1/29/2015
Status: offline

Those are some impressive unit attacks for the Germans!

The thing I noticed is that any idea that Hitler had absolute power goes out the window when you look at German aircraft production. It was like Nappy complaining when people said he had absolute power and he then talked about the corrupt regional officials that were the same ones the bourbons used and he could not get rid of.

In Hitler's case it was the albatross called Bf/Messerschmidt; their power was immense within the state and thus in this game you are saddled with the 109. No legs at all! And then number two in power was Junkers. Ju88's are nice in some ways but again no legs!

There is just no excuse for those two planes being almost everything you get in 43 - 45 period.

(in reply to cmunson)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/8/2015 6:37:41 PM

Seminole

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Joined: 7/28/2011
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quote:

Curious what others are doing. But here are my thoughts on using Luftwaffe in the 43 Campaign.

Only played the '43 campaign as deep as December, but here's what I've taken to doing:

Turn 2 (first German turn) I re-org the Luftwaffe.
Luftwaffe Reich gets the transports, while I & II Jagd and II and IX Flieger Corps get recon air groups. At five apiece you should be able to put recon as discretely as you desire.
I push the FBs and NFs into Luftflotte III, while the LBs go into Luftflotte II.
Italian LW Cmd gets the good Italian FBs, the Italian TACB, as well as the German TACB and any Bf 110G-2s or Me 410s that I retrain as bombers at the outset.

I intend to experiment some with Meklore's method of stacking commands for intercept activation, but I want to do so after I've had a chance to replace the crappy lower level air commanders.

I use the LBs for naval interdiction ADs. It's a little hard to judge because weather is also a factor now in my games, but it appears the .37 changes have scaled back the Luftwaffe's ability to create aerial naval blockades. TFs seem to be more disruptive than they were in the past. Not complaining about the change, just noting it appears to be having the desired effect.
I've also occasionally had good luck using German LBs to hit Allied airfields, but this seems to only succeed where air cover is ignored by the Allied player.
You can get good interdiction numbers from the Luftwaffe, but you just lack the air groups to sustain anything. Even if the planes survive you get so many shot up that morale plummets and have to pull the group offline or they will get waxed. So I've used them to cover a withdrawal over clear terrain (forcing the enemy through the interdiction only to get counterattacked and forced back through it is fun!), or to make an attack that has a chance to create and overstack and route a unit off a beachhead, but otherwise I hide them.

(in reply to decourcy2)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/9/2015 12:33:33 PM

Naughteous Maximus

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From: Los Angeles, California
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I found out that you really can't fight the Allies offensively at all with the Luftwaffe. I sent my entire bomber/ground support units to the eastern front with some fighter groups included. They come in handy slowing the Russians down. I used all my night fighters for Reich air defense as did I use the remaining fighter groups. I concentrated flak units in production heavy cities. I also sent all transport aircraft to the east. By shipping most of my Luftwaffe to the east, I managed to keep the Russians back about 5 hexes further back than historical.

(in reply to Seminole)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/9/2015 6:11:10 PM

Kronolog

Posts: 139
Joined: 3/23/2011
From: Sweden
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Naughteous Maximus

I found out that you really can't fight the Allies offensively at all with the Luftwaffe. I sent my entire bomber/ground support units to the eastern front with some fighter groups included. They come in handy slowing the Russians down. I used all my night fighters for Reich air defense as did I use the remaining fighter groups. I concentrated flak units in production heavy cities. I also sent all transport aircraft to the east. By shipping most of my Luftwaffe to the east, I managed to keep the Russians back about 5 hexes further back than historical.

Sending level bombers and transports to the eastern front is indeed very effective, as it increases the morale of the land units there, giving a noticeable boost to the Total Combat Value in the EF-box.

< Message edited by Kronolog -- 6/9/2015 7:11:49 PM >

(in reply to Naughteous Maximus)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/11/2015 2:07:32 AM

cmunson

Posts: 6238
Joined: 9/15/2007
From: Austin, Texas
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quote:

Sending level bombers and transports to the eastern front is indeed very effective, as it increases the morale of the land units there, giving a noticeable boost to the Total Combat Value in the EF-box.

I've been using this tactic since beta days. Now that it's out I'm afraid they'll want to "tweak" it. But really, why would Germans need transports on western front anyway? They should be in Russia where all the pockets were.

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Chris

(in reply to Kronolog)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/11/2015 2:27:45 AM

Joel Billings

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Joined: 9/20/2000
From: Santa Rosa, CA
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We already did tweak it.

Just before release (in the 1.0 readme notes) a change was made that forced you to have a higher percentage of fighters on the eastern front or you don't get as much out of all the bombers/transports.

The ratio of German fighters (F, FB, NF) to other German aircraft on the East Front will have an impact on aircraft losses. The lower the number of fighters to other a/c, the higher the a/c losses that can be expected.

No plans to tweak it further, so send those units east if you want to. With the recent changes coming in the next public beta version EF box units use more fuel and supplies. So it's possible that sending units to the east front will mean you'll use up some more fuel (can't say for sure as Gary didn't tell me how he calculates the east front fuel usage).

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(in reply to cmunson)

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RE: What I've Learned about Luftwaffe - 6/11/2015 3:15:39 AM

cmunson

Posts: 6238
Joined: 9/15/2007
From: Austin, Texas
Status: offline

Joel, I had seen something on the tweak for fighter transfers but thought it only affected transfers out of EF so I should have read closer.

Once the Luftwaffe pilot situation gets bad though I usually send some low experience/moral fighter units to EF anyway so that is probably why I didn't notice a difference in my go east transport strategy. Luftwaffe gets a lot of reinforcements and then you have the group expansion to boot and you are just wasting production by putting 35 experience level pilots in units. Half will crash without firing a shot in anger.

You have to wonder if Germans could have had Allied levels of pilot training if the Allies would have been forced at some point to halt bombing campaign. Sometimes I rest LW for a few turns and let flak do the work. When LW roars back they can shoot down 700 planes a week and flak/ops losses will get 300 more. Of course, that is for 1 turn. The 200 pilots the Germans lose that week are six weeks worth of training.

I had thought maybe WitW would not have me obsessively replaying campaign games like I did in WitE (where you have much more of an offensive and counter-offensive situation) but the nuances of the air game add a whole new dynamic for players.

As always appreciate the well thought out games from 2x3.

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Chris

(in reply to Joel Billings)

Post #: 8