Bombing Ground Units Question

[comte]

Do you guys manually bomb ground units or do you turn Ground Support on automatic and let the AI do it? Also is there any use for setting planes on night missions?

[Huw Jones]

Night missions: for transports for the Partisans.

Manually bomb ground units: at the beginning of the turn if Russian, if German after fuel/supply drops.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Aces8

Do you guys manually bomb ground units or do you turn Ground Support on automatic and let the AI do it? Also is there any use for setting planes on night missions?

Never let the AI do it.

Two ways for a manual attack
Without toggling the shift key. Any available AG with the same Air command will be used.
Toggling the shift key. Allows you too manually select the AGs.

Partisan supply and for the Soviets night bombing of anything using the U-2VS. I mainly use them to attack ABs but will bomb ground units if no ABs in range.

For your daylight AGs if you bomb first, carry out ground attacks second you will find your AGs are still available to carry out any airfield attacks.

[jwolf]

Note that bombing ground units is different from ground support.

[comte]

ORIGINAL: jwolf

Note that bombing ground units is different from ground support.

So I should leave Ground Support on?

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Aces8

ORIGINAL: jwolf

Note that bombing ground units is different from ground support.

So I should leave Ground Support on?

Yes

[comte]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: Aces8

ORIGINAL: jwolf

Note that bombing ground units is different from ground support.

So I should leave Ground Support on?

Yes

Yeah I guess I should have phrased my question differently. Is it worth it to directly bomb ground units or should I just rely on ground support to do the job?

[morvael]

Ground support helps winning battles. Direct bomb is limited in numbers (once per turn per group as its first mission) and thus in effect, should be considered harassment only, increasing attrition (especially useful for Soviets with their hordes of expendable U-2 night bombers). Germans should concentrate on maintaining air superiority and aiding units in combat.

[sven6345789]

ORIGINAL: morvael

...Germans should concentrate on maintaining air superiority and aiding units in combat.

Does it make sense attacking russian airfields after the first turn?

[morvael]

I will try it it my next game, as some problems concerning bombing airfield were fixed in latest patches favouring the Germans. But I can't guarantee the effect. From Soviet side losses were like 4:1 in airfield bombing, but this was acceptable ratio and Luftwaffe was soon obliterated.

[micheljq]

Strange that Luftwaffe can be obliterated. What if if they add AA and put the air groups in light forest?

Michel.

[morvael]

One could try this tactics I guess, but AA can't be added to airbases, so you have to add them to Air HQs and keep them close. They should help a bit, especially if you'll use those big units from cities in the west. A lot of AP have to be spent on that though.

I hope to limit AB bombing in .04, just like other bombing missions.

[rainman2015]

So, the Germans then should not bomb ground units manually (in addition to AI ground support), as it is not effective enough to be worth it?

[rainman2015]

Also, i know that there is a problem with the Soviets bombing the hell out of German airbases as the game goes on and attrition to the Luftwaffe (even with the Soviets losing a lot more) wrecks the Luftwaffe (thus the no more than 3 airfield attacks per turn house rules), but...

After turn 1, in which i destroyed about 4500 Soviet planes with airbase attacks (mostly JU-87s doing the damage), should i continue bombing these massive Soviet airbases that i am seeing on turn 4 of the campaign game and just keep airbase hammering at least 1 or 2 per turn early on as the Germans?

I have been afraid to try it since the Soviets are fully awake now and there are LOTS of fighters at these bases, plus i am wanting the Luftwaffe fully available for all my more and more difficult ground attacks in ground support, so haven't done any German attacks of Soviet airfields since turn 1.

Thanks!
Randy

[morvael]

IMHO Germans bombing Soviet units is not worth it. What will these few hundred men per turn do to stop the Red monster? Especially if traded for a dozen of planes? From the opposite side such tradeoff looks good, but not from the German perspective. Of course this is if you house-rule out bombing FBDs and HQs for too easy kills among support squads and support units. This is purely my personal POV, others may say different things.

I think it's good to bomb those airfields where you know there is a lot of planes in the first 1-2 months of the offensive. Not worth to attack nearly empty air bases. Again, purely my personal opinion, but I think it's the best way to slow down Soviet air force rebuild. The costs will be rising though, at some point only ground support and defending own airbases and air supply plus recon will remain to the Germans as viable options.

[rainman2015]

Thanks Morvael! [&o]

Randy

[loki100]

one trick my previous PBEM opponent did was not to bomb Soviet airfields as such but to send in large fighter sweeps to try and make the Soviets fight on the quieter turns. Way to do this is to manually select the formations for a bombing attack and deselect any bombers.

It cost me a lot of planes for relatively low German losses, but even so I wasn't convinced it was worth the effort apart from to build up morale in German fighter squadrons.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: loki100

one trick my previous PBEM opponent did was not to bomb Soviet airfields as such but to send in large fighter sweeps to try and make the Soviets fight on the quieter turns. Way to do this is to manually select the formations for a bombing attack and deselect any bombers.

It cost me a lot of planes for relatively low German losses, but even so I wasn't convinced it was worth the effort apart from to build up morale in German fighter squadrons.

You can do that with recon to, unfortunately for me and the Soviet fighter jocks.

[morvael]

Stop intercepts. I think doctrine screen allows to set it (and it does not affect ground support, but I would have to verify).

[Mehring]

Stop intercepts and enemy bombs fields again. Rock paper scissors.