Player Air Mission Observations

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PMCN
Posts: 625
Joined: Fri Sep 08, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Germany

Player Air Mission Observations

Post by PMCN »

I first want to say this is from the Soviet perspective so the Axis may face other issues. These are things I've observed under v1.0 and v1.01. Still waiting on the v1.02 official patch.

What I have seen and what doesn't appear to be in the manual is:

1. If some level bombers from an airbase fly a player mission then all other level bomber groups at that base get 1% fly so you can't use them on another mission.

2. If some planes fly a night mission then other groups set to night mission also get 1% fly.

3. I don't know if this is the case but it seems if you fly a player directed air mission then the likelyhood of air support goes down. This is not clear and frankly my air support has been pathetic in general with only a few planes showing up usually. This seems true even if say 1 plane actually flys the player directed air mission.

4. Fighters don't seem to do well defending their own air field. Mind you the soviets don't have the sophisticated radar's the allies had so this is possibly historically accurate.

5. It appears that air units that get bombed on the ground suffer a serious morale loss, but I'm not sure. I saw several units with 19 morale after air strikes though.

6. I've seen air groups accumulate huge numbers of damaged planes. One I-153 group has 40 or so damaged planes, a TB-3 group has over 50 damaged planes. I don't know what happens in these cases for things like movement or return to national reserve.

7. The recon flights seem oddly selected as I often see the planes flying quite a distance from their base to make the recon run even though there is a group of recon planes that is much closer to the front. The largest chunk of the AI turn for me is the AI recon flights, possibly because I have combat detail 4 selected. I would like to suggest that the recon flights be always set to detail 0 or 1 with a short pause (unless people are realy interested in watching these things...I can make supper and clean the house while the AI does its 9-million recons) regardless of the player's other combat settings.

This leads to some consiquences for the player trying to rebuild/use the VVS, at least in my view.

1. Don't mix NBAP short range U2's with long range BAPs set to night missions at the same air base.

2. Don't mix night and day mission BAPs on an air base, specialize the base for night missions if that is your plan.

3. Night bombing of air fields seems to work, but it is not a dramatic process. For this I often use the planes in the Long Range Air Command groups. It does however attrit the LW plane groups and I think it is worth while doing.

4. Night bombing of units seems to reduce their supply level (I notice the color changes down one grade) so as a harrasment tactic it seems good. I would not use level bombers for this the U2VS does the same job and is cheaper to replace. I have no idea if this has any real measurable effect on the unit next turn though.

5. Hitting airfields that have no organic fighter cover and are isolated (such as the LW field supporting the troops in Romania) during the day can after a few weeks really hurt them.

6. Night resupply missions with level bombers can be extremely costly. I have had SB2 groups more than decimated by them.

7. The computer only started to send supplies to the partisans when I got my U2(trans) out to my VVS air bases. They also seem to have a lot longer range then you would expect.

8. Day bombing of units seems to be largely in-effective and at least in 41 I'm not sure if it is worth it or not, I have seen my units accumulating ground kills though so something is happening. But since it might reduce your ground support in combat I limit it to hits on Pz divisions mainly.

9. I am not sure how long a unit that comes out of the reserve sits on the ground. I transfered some IL-2's to an airbase and they did not fly in the next german turn but I don't know how the heck the air support is allocated anyway so maybe this means nothing.

10. Early on I saw some german night fighters but they vanished after turn 2 or so. Not sure what is up there. I have a number of I-153 groups set to night fighting.

11. I see comments where people want a radius on the group. The trouble with this is that I don't know if they stage during ground support, so if they do that then it is meaningless to have the range circle since the actual range varies from that depending on which base they stage through. It would still be handy for things like the U2VS NBAPs but for a lot of the other planes I'm not sure.

12. I have no idea if the PVO IAD bases actually perform fighter cover missions against air strikes on my bases.

13. I have a serious issue with not enough air bases, I had to transfer the 3 BAK to the Reserve Front to get them some air support as the Reserve Air Command actually has no bases and is not part of the Reserve Front. I assume from the manual more bases will be added over time. I think I've seen other bases show up, but it is not in the event log. A request: please put this in the event log! It would be useful to know which base showed up, attached to which Air Command and where it is.

14. Off the OOB screen an Air OBB screen would be good especialy one that lists the groups in the national reserve. Yes I can get the data from the Commanders Report but it is hard to read so a larger font easier to look at version would be nice to have.

15. I have never seen a bomber group set to night missions provide ground support so factor this in when allocating planes to night and day missions.

I use exclusively manual air unit selection but I let the computer pick the staging base.

Anyway, comments are welcome. I am hoping that any replies can help de-mystify the situation for me and others. My main comment is watch the organization of the air bases a lot more than I have been, next week I have to do some air transfers first thing to get the bases back to some sort of working level.

Sorry for using the list format here, I hope it doesn't come across as rude as that is not intended it is just to help organize my thoughts.
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