BGI Interdiction

[Devonport]

I am really struggling with the air war in Battleground Italy (against the AI!).

I have two problems. One is that I struggle to get Coastal Command to fly more than one Naval Patrol Mission, it seems to set up the AD alright, but no additional missions are flown, just the first one. The same happens when I try to get Tactical Air to perform more than one AD of the same type. NO problem with Strategic Air on multiple bomb city missions. I use auto for group selection, and wonder if this is the problem?

Secondly I can never achieve the levels of interdiction (at sea or on land) that appear in many AARs. I set interdiction for small areas, and have recon on the same area to help, but rarely get more than level 1. This is very frustrating as taking Messina is almost impossible with no interdiction. It is not down to the skies being contested as it is easy to destroy the Axis air forces, and the only thing I can think of is the shortage of Fighter Bombers in any of the air forces. Any help would be appreciated.

[whoofe]

ORIGINAL: Devonport

I am really struggling with the air war in Battleground Italy (against the AI!).

I have two problems. One is that I struggle to get Coastal Command to fly more than one Naval Patrol Mission, it seems to set up the AD alright, but no additional missions are flown, just the first one. The same happens when I try to get Tactical Air to perform more than one AD of the same type. NO problem with Strategic Air on multiple bomb city missions. I use auto for group selection, and wonder if this is the problem?

Secondly I can never achieve the levels of interdiction (at sea or on land) that appear in many AARs. I set interdiction for small areas, and have recon on the same area to help, but rarely get more than level 1. This is very frustrating as taking Messina is almost impossible with no interdiction. It is not down to the skies being contested as it is easy to destroy the Axis air forces, and the only thing I can think of is the shortage of Fighter Bombers in any of the air forces. Any help would be appreciated.

I would imagine interdiction levels are a result of number of planes and sorties flown. so just choosing a hex for interdiction and then only choose a couple air groups and only flying them one day out of the week will result in a low interdiction #

also if you can get the FBs closer to the front lines so they are able to fly several sorties per day would also help. if they are using up all their mileage by flying to and from the target then they fly less sorties as a whole

[Harrybanana]

With respect to your problem getting Coastal Command and TAC Air to fly more than one mission, I think you are correct that this is because you use auto group selection. The problem is that each air group can only fly 1 mission each day. With auto selection I suspect what is happening is that the same Airgroups have been ordered to fly all the missions. So to fix this you have to manually select your airgroups to make sure that the this does not happen. Alternatively, you could stagger the days that each air directive flys; for example so that one flys on days 1 to 4 and the other days 5 to 7.

With respect to your interdiction problem, I again think you have the right answer. The problem is that the WA gets very few FBs at the beginning of this scenario and even fewer that are actually in range of Sicily. In my experience the LBs are not very good at laying down interdiction. To fix this you should rebase as many FBs as possible within range of the hexes you want to interdict. Also you can change the assignment of some of your FB-Fs (ie fighter-bombers flying as fighters) to FB*, which will cause them to fly as bombers. Also keep in mind that weather and terrain have a significant impact on interdiction levels.

[marion61]

As to your first problem, that's usually happens because you do have them on auto and if they are flying the same type AD, the one that is first on the list gets priority even if they are both set to vhigh. So basically your trying to use the same planes for two different AD's. In the options for AD creation, you can set your "requested ac" numbers for strike ac and escorts. Just don't run out of bombers and escorts setting them up and they will both fly. Or you can set one AD to fly on days 1-3-5, and the other to fly 2-4-6. It all depends on what your trying to accomplish and where your ac are flying in from.

Don't expect big numbers in Italy that you can have elsewhere. The Med air isn't large enough to get everything done and get huge interdiction numbers. 2nd is that they have to fly a lot further than in the North, and it's all about sorties, not how many planes you have. If you don't have the airfields, you can always make new ones or upgrade the smaller ones closer to the front.

Just remembered to mention. Set your Air Doctrines in the Air Doctrine screen, delete all the AD's you have right now, and set them up again. The new Air Doctrines will set your target priorities and other options for each type of AD and for each Air HQ.

Great minds think alike Harry!? lol

[Helpless]

The problem is that each air group can only fly 1 mission each day.

If range/morale allows it can fly more than one mission. Also depends how big these missions are and how big the group is.

[Devonport]

Thanks all for the responses. I will try manually allocating groups to each directive, and also the option of having them on different days under auto and see how it goes.

As far as using FBs as bombers goes, the retraining option obviously works as you probably don't need that many fighters but there is the 8 turn delay; what is the penalty for using them on bombing mission with fighter training?

Also, meklore61, I do redo the doctrines such as altitude, frequency etc, but haven't seen where to change target priorities in the doctrines fields, can you help?

Thanks

meklore61, found it now - will save me a lot of time thanks.

[marion61]

The bomber reduction is 80% effective if fighter trained. In the campaign game, you should take every typhoon and hurricane IV and set them to retraining in another air command and don't use them till your getting ready to invade from England. If the axis place interceptors on airfields close to England then I'd pelt them, but you'll want every typhoon and Hurricane IV during and after your invasion so I wouldn't waste a lot of time bombing with them till then. Just have them train.

When I set certain air directives, like for the 8th. If I have 1200 bombers and 400 fighters for escort, I take those numbers, and I want to strike at three cities. Just use your requested aircraft to set how many for each bomb run. If I hit those three cities once a day, I can either have 12/3=400 bombers and 133 fighters on each mission, or you can split them up further and hit all three cities with less planes twice a day. When you set the numbers just make sure how many planes your using and not having too many missions. So you can set up three AD to bomb city, assign 400 bombers and 133 fighters for requested for each. Or create as many AD's as you need and just make sure the numbers all jive at the end and that your days are not conflicting.

You don't need huge bomb runs to achieve good results. I rarely fly more than 200=400 planes on any missions, except for naval and ground attack.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

The problem is that each air group can only fly 1 mission each day.

If range/morale allows it can fly more than one mission. Also depends how big these missions are and how big the group is.

By "mission" I perhaps should have said Air Directive. I will have to test this Helpless. I thought that if a particular Air Group was assigned to fly more than one TAC or Recon AD on the same day that it would only fly the first AD on the list no matter what. I mean it might fly more than one raid per day with respect to that AD, but it would never fly any raids for the 2nd AD. Indeed my recollection is that if you manually assign an Air Group to a TAC or Recon AD, then it is no longer even available to manually assign to a 2nd AD. But for some reason with auto assignment it will assign the same Air Group to more than one AD. But I am posting this from work, so will have to check when I get home.

[Harrybanana]

After some testing it would appear that Helpless is more right than me (no big surprise there). If you use auto Air group selection it is possible in the right circumstances to have Recon and GA Airgroups fly raids in 2 different ADs on the same day. But be forewarned that priority will go to the first AD on the list. In other words it is only if after flying the 1st AD on a particular day that some Airgroups still have movement left that they will fly any raids for the 2nd AD.

I was right (I think) that when using manual Airgroup selection it does not appear to be possible to assign the same Airgroup to more than one AD. Does anyone know if there is a way to do this? Even if there is I would not recommend it.

[Seminole]

Also keep in mind that weather and terrain have a significant impact on interdiction levels.

And recon! Make sure you get good recon values on the hexes you want interdiction and you'll see a difference.

[Dante Fierro]

This has been one of the downsides to WiTW for me. I love the superb visuals of the map and ground units, and the level of detail rendered.

But to play the game successfully you simply cannot leave the Air game on auto-pilot. You really have to take manual control of it. And the air war ends up being an entire additional game - in some cases, even more involved than the ground war. But the irony is, you don't have the visual cues in the air game as you do with the ground units. Literally, the only Air units on the map that you actually see are air HQs. All the rest of the air game is conducted on separate textual tables and spreadsheets. It's weird tbh, and time consuming to boot.

Perhaps if the AI for air was reasonable and could be depended upon, this would not be so problematic. But the AI is not dependable. If you want to play a serious game, you have to abandon the AI - and manually control every detail, down to squadron assignments.

[Helpless]

But the irony is, you don't have the visual cues in the air game as you do with the ground units. Literally, the only Air units on the map that you actually see are air HQs.

Besides air hqs I could name:
- air fields with color coding
- transfer mode display with ability to filter various air commands
- ctrl-2 bars
- map live text display
(Personally I'm using CR a lot myself to manage air units)

So I disagree that there is only air HQs. There are many ways to "see" air units. I agree with the opinion that currently they are dispersed and we have task on the list to consolidate them in one place. It should be enhanced transfer mode display with ability to filter air groups on many criteria (on-map CR).

From other side the complexity of air force structure is driven by it's OOB. It is very hard to make it very simplistic without limiting current set of features. Any bright ideas how to make it more efficiently are very welcomed.

[decourcy2]

I would second air fields with color coding.

[Dante Fierro]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

But the irony is, you don't have the visual cues in the air game as you do with the ground units. Literally, the only Air units on the map that you actually see are air HQs.

Besides air hqs I could name:
- air fields with color coding
- transfer mode display with ability to filter various air commands
- ctrl-2 bars
- map live text display
(Personally I'm using CR a lot myself to manage air units)

So I disagree that there is only air HQs. There are many ways to "see" air units. I agree with the opinion that currently they are dispersed and we have task on the list to consolidate them in one place. It should be enhanced transfer mode display with ability to filter air groups on many criteria (on-map CR).

From other side the complexity of air force structure is driven by it's OOB. It is very hard to make it very simplistic without limiting current set of features. Any bright ideas how to make it more efficiently are very welcomed.

You can't even click on the hex the airfield is on to immediately access it. You have to click on a side panel. And if there are other ground units present on the hex, you can't even access the airfield via the normal side panel. You have to click on this tiny little airfield icon at the upper righthand part of the screen. Don't ask how long it took me to figure this out.

Other than the color visual cue of whether the airfield is empty or not, there are NO ACTUAL air counters in the game. All air is literally abstracted away into textual tables and lists. In order for you to know where your air units are - you either have to each turn, examine each airfield separately by mousing over or clicking on the airfield icon, or use other spreadsheet like panels like the Commander's Report Screen or the Maze like Air Directive Panels. Which again, is text driven.

It's like you're running your air campaign using a DOS operating system based on text only. You don't like in most wargames, have visual air units on the map that you pick up and move.

Even if you use the Air Transfer mode to get some kind of visual handle of where your aircraft is, the visual information on the map is generic - gives you no idea of the types of aircraft located on each hex.

Then, even if you have the stamina to go through all the text information, figure out the tables and how to assign squadrons to different kinds of typical tasks - you are provided next to no information on the aircraft themselves - even though you access a database like table of the aircraft, you have almost no background information on how certain aircraft were typically used in combat - such as what elevation they flew at, what kinds of armaments they typically used for certain kinds of missions. Etc. The manual provides very little information in this regard as well.

So every turn, you have to manually assign a large amount of squadrons using a DOS like textual-table interface, to missions - with aircraft you are provided stats with, but really have not the foggiest idea if its the best aircraft for the job or not - or even what elevation to fly the aircraft at or how much area or how many missions were typical. It's all a giant what-if? And that what-if gets even foggier with Interdiction.

Ideas to fix it? I don't know really. I like the ground game and supply and maps for it. But like I said before, the Air system is like a whole other game in itself, but without the visual cues you get normally with wargames or the visual cues you get with the ground units.

I think the AI was meant to allow players to remove some of the complexity of the air game system, but it just doesn't really work well. It unbalances the game (IMO) if you want to play it seriously. So you're left with micro-managing a very textually based system of Air directives/combat that is incredibly time consuming - and somewhat retrograde in visual interfaces.

I would probably first - have a much more visual air unit overlay in the game - i.e actual air units you use and can move (instead of just text tables). You could retrieve this overlay as a separate map - ie. see air units (squadrons) as opposed to ground. If there are a dozen squadron counters in a hex - so be it. But at least have air unit counters in the game that I can click on directly with my mouse on the map.

I would provide more information in the database for each air unit. How they were typically used in WWII, what their loadouts were for each kind of mission. Their typical elevation of flight and flight paths etc. I would provide more information on their effectiveness for recon or interdiction - instead of keeping the player in a fog on what they can do with their aircraft. Not everyone who plays wargames is an encyclopedic expert on World War II aircraft.

[Helpless]

If there are a dozen squadron counters in a hex - so be it.

Be what?

[Dante Fierro]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

If there are a dozen squadron counters in a hex - so be it.

Be what?

You know ... actual game counters that represent aircraft. Like in most wargames?

[comsolut]

[/quote]
But like I said before, the Air system is like a whole other game in itself, but without the visual cues you get normally with wargames or the visual cues you get with the ground units.

I think the AI was meant to allow players to remove some of the complexity of the air game system, but it just doesn't really work well. It unbalances the game (IMO) if you want to play it seriously. So you're left with micro-managing a very textually based system of Air directives/combat that is incredibly time consuming - and somewhat retrograde in visual interfaces.

I would probably first - have a much more visual air unit overlay in the game - i.e actual air units you use and can move (instead of just text tables). You could retrieve this overlay as a separate map - ie. see air units (squadrons) as opposed to ground. If there are a dozen squadron counters in a hex - so be it. But at least have air unit counters in the game that I can click on directly with my mouse on the map.

I would provide more information in the database for each air unit. How they were typically used in WWII, what their loadouts were for each kind of mission. Their typical elevation of flight and flight paths etc. I would provide more information on their effectiveness for recon or interdiction - instead of keeping the player in a fog on what they can do with their aircraft. Not everyone who plays wargames is an encyclopedic expert on World War II aircraft.

[/quote]

I feel your pain. And I agree Not everyone who plays wargames is an encyclopedic expert on World War II aircraft. I'm definitely challenged.

On the other hand, players that wanted a detailed game covering the air war in Europe, have had their dreams come true. A better UI and this would be a classic.

[Dante Fierro]

I feel your pain. And I agree Not everyone who plays wargames is an encyclopedic expert on World War II aircraft. I'm definitely challenged.

On the other hand, players that wanted a detailed game covering the air war in Europe, have had their dreams come true. A better UI and this would be a classic.

Agree. It's like a flawed masterpiece. I love the scope of it, the excellent historical detail, the amazing map, the ground/supply/combat detail. It's just the air game provides a text driven fairly convoluted interface that makes it more of a chore than enjoyable (for me) right now. The odd part is the lack of actual air units on the map. It's plain - odd.

The extra DB information for air units is more of a gripe on my part. Not necessary. But given the database nature of the air information panels - it seems like more information on each of the units could have been provided but were not. It's surprising, as you can easily tell a massive amount of work and attention to detail went into building the game including the manual. So why not have additional information on each of the air types?

I'm still happy with the purchase - and they did say they were planning to upgrade the UI for the air. That might help considerably.

[Helpless]

You know ... actual game counters that represent aircraft. Like in most wargames?

Hex in the game at most zoom in is 60x60 pixels. We fit 3 ground units there. Current max limits for the air units is 20. So in average you will have 3 pixel per unit on max zoom in. On max zoom out it is just 10 pixels. So this kind of display will create a super cluttered display, especially in the place like southern England.

Speaking of wargames, current system have its roots in BoB/BTR, UV, WITP. Neither had counters for the air units. Unless we don't count them as wargames.

Some time ago my son came and asked - "why they don't print enough money for everyone". Well, unfortunately not everything is so super simple.

We have just 2G of RAM for the 32bit app, 1024x724 pixels to fit and 24 hours a day to make a work.

[Dante Fierro]

ORIGINAL: Helpless

You know ... actual game counters that represent aircraft. Like in most wargames?

Hex in the game at most zoom in is 60x60 pixels. We fit 3 ground units there. Current max limits for the air units is 20. So in average you will have 3 pixel per unit on max zoom in. On max zoom out it is just 10 pixels. So this kind of display will create a super cluttered display, especially in the place like southern England.

Speaking of wargames, current system have its roots in BoB/BTR, UV, WITP. Neither had counters for the air units. Unless we don't count them as wargames.

Some time ago my son came and asked - "why they don't print enough money for everyone". Well, unfortunately not everything is so super simple.

We have just 2G of RAM for the 32bit app, 1024x724 pixels to fit and 24 hours a day to make a work.

Well unfortunately, reverting to a DOS based text system doesn't really work either.

My son could have told you this as well.