Glitches / issues with Eagle Day

[Cyborg]

I believe I have found some good areas for a future patch.

It seems to be very difficult for level bomombers generally, no matter how numerous, to inflict damage on RAF airfields. In one game I hit Filton twice with over a hundred bombers a time, yet it is still registering zero damage.
Me 110s in particular seem very ineffective against airfields when used as bombers, yet in reality they were very effective
Me 110s cannot be used for fighter sweeps whereas in reality they were
Bombing a target more than once in the same day seems to have no additional affect
It seems to be almost impossible for an ME109 to shoot down a Spitfire
In the case of heavily escorted formations, RAF fighters seems to be able to get staright through to the bombers despite the layers of fighers above them
Night fighters cannot be switched to day operation
Given the number of RAF planes that fly into them, the German player should have the option to instruct his planes not to attack balloons
Fighters programed to strafe particular airfields go wandering off on their own and attack things like railyards.
The metropolitan areas on the map do not display as it says in the manual. there are no indivdual squares, and they do not appear as different colours.
German bombers should have the facility NOT to concentrate on railyards during daylight raids but to focus on area damage. Why not also a facility to switch to carrying only incendiaries?
Recce missions would be able to distinguish between night fighers and day fighters. Mission results should show type as well sa number of aircraft.

[Fifty Dollar Jones]

This is my first post on these forums,but I am a little familiar with some aspects of what you are talking about.I'm not sure that what I have to say can help,but one point in particular may be the at the root of your confusion about the damage to airfields.

I can't tell you much about the BoB as aggressor as I am playing that as Allied.I am somewhere around 14sept1940 in that one.I haven't played it in about 6 months though.I am however the aggressor in the BTR 700 day campaign,and I'm only a week in on it (in game time).I haven't set it up in about 2 or 3 months.As I tend to micro-manage all aspects of that operation,I have learned a fairly good bit about it in that relatively short time.

I plan on writing about the first week on the After action reports section of the forum sometime,but that is for later.

Right now I hope I can help you by saying that running a successful recon mission about 10-30 minutes after the Time-over-Target will give me a better damage assessment.Remember that this information may still be flawed but it gives you a better chance of having as reliable information as there is going to be.It's not a glitch by the way,it seems that they have designed the information to be slightly-to-very vague on purpose.Your sides information is generally correct,but as for information about the enemy,your HQ will take it's "best guess" based on the most recent information.Remember that your recon ships will take photos of five (5) different targets each.If you manually set your waypoints to ensure that the flight paths cross those specific targets that you wish,which is very time-consuming,you may pick and choose which targets your recon ships will photograph.

Recon is not a sideshow...it is the foundation of your operation.I often have to reign myself in so as not to overtax my recon pilots.I'll run extra missions at odd intervals if the weather is bad in the hopes that the weather front moves on by the time the second recon sortie arrives.I fly pre-flight and post-flight recon missions to most of my targets for Heavy bombers.

It might help that I am working a specific angle in the early part of the war(knock out most of the radar in France and the Low Countries during week one ,and then establish an air corridor to the Rohr and Rhine Industrial areas.Those I will work over during the winter and early spring while hoarding my newer bombers for an overwhelming onslaught all summer long in '44).I am pasting Southern Italy and have worked those airfields over pretty hard,and I have found that while the bombers do OK at tilling the field and destroying service capacity,I much prefer to put a fighter CAP ( "Fighter Sweep" with "Patrol" set over the target) over the enemy field and shoot them up while they take off and land. And like most people I'm not above a little terror bombing here and there,but it is not my main goal.But again those are for the long reports,which I hope to write before too long.

Unfortunately,my time is being chewed up by football,and playing the Battleground Civil War series by e-mail with a friend.(we have completed Wilson's Creek ,where I lost -I only play US - and we are on turn 46 of 49 on the First Battle of Bull Run,where I am just short of a Minor Victory,but it will probably end up as a Draw because it just got dark ingame).We are going to take some time off before Shiloh.But I just bought Battles in Italy (Decisive Battles of WWII series) and I just finished the rules so today or tomorrow I shall be hitting Sicily with Ol' Monty and Blood and Guts.

EDIT - to add that as the RAF in BoB , I have found that my airfields repair pretty quickly.I only have minor shuffling around to do because of that.Also by this time (mid sept '40) I have shot down a lot of jerry planes,around 1200-1500 I think....but it's been awhile.

Good Luck.I hope this helps another rookie,even though you seem to be flying for the bad guys. [:-]

[otisabuser2]

Hi Cyborg,

if you check out the threads here, there is lots of advice on the best altitudes for bombings and escorts. To get the best out of bombing , we are told that it helps to have recent recon of the target. Best damage assesment is also often gained by post-bombing recon. Some icons do not turn to red, etc until the striking raid has landed. Otherwise you may need to bomb from lower alt ? The game defaults to 20k. Half that provides much better results.

A few 110s scattering a handful of small bombs are not going to do much lasting damage to the structures that actually matter. They raided Manston, but this had to be often repeated.

The 110 was doing weird things when it could sweep. Removing the ability was the lesser of two evils.

To get the 109 to shoot down the Spitfires, you need to play around with altitudes. Several very good threads on here of how to layer your high escorts above the "bait" bombers. A higher gap means a better bounce on the Spits, while too high a gap means the escorts don't get there in time. Play around with just one raid and note which group in your layered escorts get the kills. Watch the raid with the squares turned on. Note the areas where the swarms of blue planes leave the fight. These show you where you need to have a sweep planned to hit these vulnerable retiring and damaged Spits. Bear in mind that on the first day of a campaign, both sides start of rested. Plan a day of repeated raids so that the RAF pilots end up exhausted after repeated take offs, combats and landings then hit them with some fresh fighters later in the day. Think about slipping in a raid to crater their runways while they are airbourne, then watch them crash on return.

Escort issues ? It looks like the escorts follow the raid, which means they are often lagging a square behind. RAF coming from ahead will find the bombers ahead of the escorts. Things work OK when the raid is retiring and the escorts are defending the rear. One way to make sure less fighters get through your screen of escorts may be to push a seperate fighter sweep through in front of your raids ?

Night fighters have an hour delay to launch during the day. Agreed, it would be nice to be able to switch units between day and night, but could prove complicated to implement.

I would also like to be able to switch off balloon attacks. Also straffing airfields and railroads. Some option screen for each type as in the defenders doctrine screen ?

If you switch to urban map view, those target icons switch off. The urban areas are shown inside red circles as little grey squares. Those grey squares go brighter yellow with damage and red if on fire.