HQ power and air units

[olivier34]

the air units are attach to army HQs. We can see that they get morale and combat % mod like any units. So it must be very important to keep those air units close to their HQ. I have moved my air assets without paying attention to that. They have fought with zero bonus most of the time. My fighters began to retreat or even panic and I could not understand why. I was just selecting my units (the Z button) and checking the readiness value (below 90...they don't fly).
Is that the explanation of why I have lost the air war in two months in my current game with Keunert ?

[Keunert]

that is definately not the reason because your opponent flew without HQ support all the time.

i guess the Axis should search & destroy soviet fighters early in the campaign. not only do axis planes have an advantage on base rides, soviet experience and morale is really low and most important: soviet air units suffer badly from command&controlpenalties during the first two months.

but the soviet player could easily react by flying them out of your reach...

i think it's strange that the air units get a bonus from a tank commander? i also think this provides an advantage to the Axis: you will have both HQ and planes near the front whereas the soviet player better places his fighters far behind the front, out of axis reach , this spreads the unit that much that you would need a lot of HQ far behind. but soviet front commands come with a lot of troops attached to them and they need to be near the frontline as long as there are no suitable commanders for manning new HQ.

[Bonners]

Well I've just started my first ever PBEM game and thanks to your AAR I'm prepared for this, like you I hadnt given it any thought until I read about it in your AAR.

We'll see what happens in my game but unless things are desperate I'm making it a basic rule to myself that my air units dont fly unless they are within HQ range in this game. Hadnt thought about readiness TBH, so that is something else to consider!

I have other questions/partial questions answered about air supply and interceptions. Would this be a good thread to discuss in or would you rather keep them seperate?

[Bonners]

As for Keunert's comments above, in my PBEM game we did something similar to you in that I made a house rule that the Soviet player could have free set up of his aircraft. Despite several recons I didnt find any or his aircraft on the first turn, although I did have some interception battles with them. Will have to see how things progress during the game. Remember that the Germans never really got the same level of air superiority as they did in 1941 though. I guess you could call it the difference between having tactical superiority and strategic superiority.

EDIT: Just for clarification, I still reckon that the Axis should do better than in Olivier's game though, so hopefully we'll learn stuff here.

[olivier34]

I have to find another explanation...
Keunert, you are right, it would be impossible for the soviet player to put his air assets within range of an army HQ and anyway, those air units should not be under the command of an army HQ. There should be luftflotte HQs (like in WITE).
Bonners, I don't have the info about the air forces of both sides in september 42. I have just check the Uranus scenario.
November 20th, 485 axis fighters in front of 1670 soviet ones in november (Dive bombers 235 / 465, level bombers 710 / 325). The soviets have the air superiority.
We have to ask Vic if those HQ bonus apply really to the air units.
Maybe I have ask my fighters to fly too many missions. that could explain my losses. (And the soviet AA, specially when the mission were near a soviet HQ has play a role too)

[olivier34]

You can ask your questions in this thread, hope someone will have the answers [;)]

[Bonners]

Cheers Olivier, I'll ask away.

Right then, air supply, what I've learnt so far and what I dont quite get so far (axis side only):

Make sure that your JU52 units only have 100 planes in them, otherwise they will suffer from penalties of being too big for the airfield.

Set your existing units to DISBAND until they get below a hundred.

In my current game on my first turn I've created all my new JU52 units on turn one (four of them) and set them all onto PRIORITY. Once they get up to a 100 planes I'll set them onto 50% which should hopefully keep them under a 100.

Always keep JU52 units attached to OKH as this is where they will deliver meaningful supply from (I'd like confirmation of this as still not 100% sure)

Unfortunately they will probably have to be out of HQ range as they'll need to be based further forward when you use them (probably in the Caucasus). Again, not sure on this one, need to properly test it.

How much supply do they deliver? Not sure and also not too sure how to tell (check each individual unit?).

Can they deliver supplies to units with yellow or blue status (or green status come to that). In my experience they can as I've seen the symbol on the unit change from yellow to green. Others reckon differently, it would be nice to have confirmation either way.

What I'm thinking of doing is going back to one of my old save games and running a test on all these questions and seeing if I can come up with some answers. Hopefully have chance over the weekend.

EDIT: Obiously the big question is HQ power and how that affects them, i.e. as Olivier asked up there, does it have any affect on aircraft.

[James Ward]

Is the HQ air bonus determined by where the air field is or where the target is?

[Isokron]

When I asked vic about this about a month ago he said that air units receives no bonuses from HQ. And if you go into the detail view of an actual airattack you will see that there is no bonus for hq even if the aircraft is stationed right on top of it. (I also tried attacking some aircrafts sitting ontop of their hq so no bonus for having a hq close to the battle either)

[olivier34]

where the airfield is. It has to be in the green zone of the radius of the commanding HQ.

[Bonners]

Cheers Isokron, that answers both queries about transport and combat. Which means we're back to Olivier's original question. If it is not HQ bonuses then what does affect how aircraft perform? Is it making sure that only aircraft with decent readiness are set to intercept or perform missions?

[Keunert]

readiness is very important, low readiness will result in poor performance and high losses. i only set sov fighters on interception with readiness abive 95%

[olivier34]

Thanks Isokron. I thought I had done a huge mistake not placing my air units near the HQs. Readiness is important but maybe the morale value has to be check to. If an air unit retreat, it lose some morale. This unit should get a good rest to recover a decent morale otherwise they may panic during the next fight. Some of my fighters did panic if I remember.

[Keunert]

^ Die Hühner von der Luftwaffe

[bobboyd]

I agree with the assessment that the German player should go after the Soviet air force right away. I did this in my current game and I really waxed the Soviet air force.

I have a question, what are the statistics on the air units? I look at a unit and see -50% in a blue box and a red box at the top of the unit. What is this indicating?

Bob

[LiquidSky]

-50% attack (blue) -50% defense (red)

This is due to bad weather.

There could be a -xx% on the bottom left in a brown box. This is due to over stacking.