Me Again 2

[BK6583]

The air game - again. I'm almost ready to dive into the '41 campaign game as the Germans. I read a post that said I should manually target SU air bases as opposed to relying on the AI - claims were made on this post of over 4,000 SU aircraft destroyed on the first turn! Do I need to attack SU air bases manually? If so - HOW!

[EwaldvonKleist]

How basic is your question? Do you only ask for tips to kill as many planes as possible or do you not know how to bomb an airbase?

[BlueAndGray]

From a noob who has recently waded through some of this himself (although my 1st campaign was 1944 as the Axis so there are different ways to utilize airpower):

Assuming this is a basic question, then just click Bomb Airfield (F7) from the top of the screen and then you can either just right-click the enemy airfield (enemy units with the infinity symbol) and let the computer select air groups to attack or you can click F7 and then SHIFT right-click and select units if you feel the target needs more (or less if you want fewer units) punishment from additional aircraft.

Advanced tactics would include transferring your aircraft to airbases closer to the front line (and therefore closer to enemy airbases) which will allow you to get additional sorties in from your attacking aircraft since you can drastically shorten the distance required for each sortie if you are closer to your targets. This will in turn allow you to fly more attacks per air group per turn since shorter sorties (distance) will allow for more sorties. Transfer your aircraft using the Air Transfer Mode (F10) function. Click F10, then select (left-click) the airfield to transfer from, select an Air Group from that airfield by clicking the sort of invisible checkbox to the left of each air group and then right-click on the airfield you want to transfer to. The way the game is setup, it is MUCH more efficient to use air transfer rather than actually move your airbases. After the 1st turn it won't matter as much.

From there just practice to see what works best for you. Also, it is very important that you figure out the air doctrine screen. If it is set incorrectly you will have issues. Read and then re-read the air doctrine sections in the manual and then do some trial and error.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Some more tips for turn one bombing, copy and paste from my post from another thread:

Just some tips for Airfield bombing I found out myself.
0) The AI is not that good at bombing. It is much better to do it yourself.
1) Turn ground support off and do your ground attacks until you can't move anymore without displacing an enemy airbase. Your ground troops don't need the help, but your bombers save flown miles. More important, the enemy airforce which is not yet destroyed shows up and is easy prey for your fighters (ensure they are in range) which gain cheap experience on this way. Turn fighter intercept up, to around 150% or so (This strategy is not mine, but from Ketza).
2) The miles flown limit for airbase bombing is 1/3 of the maximum miles. So bomb airbases closer to the front first. Once the airgroup reaches 29-32%, bomb the bases far away. On this way you can reach up to 40% flown after the last mission.
3) Airgroup transfer is cheaper in miles than airbase moving. Therefore you should use the following tactic: Bomb with the forward located airgroups until they have flown more than 33%. Than move the airbase to the front. After this, transfer the rear area airgroups to this base, so the way to the enemy is not that far. Air transfer will only use 1% or so.
4) Manually select the staging base (you know how to do this?). On this way you can select the closest base and save miles. The AI sometimes sends bombers from the Lvov Area to Odessa when Romanian Airbases are only a few hexes away!!!
5) Make sure you do not concentrate your airgroups too much, because the supply of a single airbase is limited. If no fuel or ammunition is left, the airgroups don't fly anymore, even though they have flown less than 33% of their miles.
6)From my experience, bombers are more juicy targets for ground bombing than fighter.s.
7) Reduce % required to fly to 0-5%. We want our airforce to give everything on turn 1!
8) Don't forget to reduce the TOEs of not fully used airbases. I do not yet know whether this changes something, but we don't want our men sitting around idle.
9) Get the enemy airbases to detection level 5 before attacking through recon. This increases the hit chance.

I am no pro though and I have only played Road to Minsk and the first 4 turns of Road to Dnepropetrovsk so far.
Feel free to correct me.

[Farfarer61]

Try not bombing any airfields at all on T1, of course am I am trouble for suggesting this.

[charlie0311]

Not in trouble with me. I think the LW is better used for aiding the ground attacks.

Lots of those kills are "damaged" and will escape to National Reserve. The abs that are overrun lose the damaged planes.

Very recent experience v a super player has shown, I did no ab attacks, that the Red AF attacking with many 100's of planes per sortie did virtually nothing.

Now I can be the one in "trouble". Yummy!!

[sillyflower]

One of the strengths of this forum is that those who give bad advice are not chastised -tho' sometimes I think Charlie might enjoy it

You need to bomb the Red A/F on T1 or you will regret it fairly soon if the soviet player knows how to use that gift because bombing does much to improve the morale and experience of L/W units and has the opposite effects on the enemy units.

[charlie0311]

For those who actually read what I wrote, note again, I said LW is better used (for bombing ground targets) to aid the ground attacks, not "not used".

See CR, note high morale/exp of LW. More will come as the summer campaign proceeds.

My gift is the Reds may keep the crappy airplanes.

Further perusal, I think that's a word, will show quite a bit of wear and tear (damaged planes) already on the LW. Maybe a good idea, but only if it comes from my pal, not to wear your guys and stuff out too much.

It is pretty fun to blow away all those Reds planes, really neat that generous players have provided extensive guides and links, etc, the game is really too much trouble for most guys to take the time to figure out.

[EwaldvonKleist]

@charlie: But will you get the same levels of experience and morale with ground bombing on turn 1 like with airfield bombing? And can you trash the soviet morale in the same way? (This is not a rhethorical question, but a real one!)
My understanding so far was like this:
Trash the soviet airforce on turn 1 as much as possible. It is not about killing obsolete planes but to reduce the enemy morale/experience while improving the own (which both depend on the number of killed planes? Most ground attacks do not need the air support.
As a consequence, the soviet airforce is far less capable to intercept your unit bombing in the following turns. Therefore, you do not need fighter escort and do not need to move the short range fighters to the front, therefore saving trucks. The bombers can fly the long distance from the railhead to the most important bombing targets, where they will meet few demoralized soviet fighters.

This was my experience from the Me vs AI Road to Dnepropetrovsk scenario. Maybe playing a human player will require bomber escort again.

[charlie0311]

Hi Ed,

Ok, 1) Same levels of exp? I don't know. Already good enough and will get better is my "point".
2) If you don't bomb the Red AF, then no loss of morale for this reason, still lose the air battles as they try to intercept your ground support and unit bombing. I would guess overall less of a hit to Red AF morale.
3) Yes, most ground attacks do not need air support, less true now than in the past. Lvov pocket has become a more difficult proposition. My own personal style is to take Lvov and begin the reduction of the Lvov pocket even before it is formed ( all the units you rout T1 in the coming Lvov pocket stay in the geography of the pocket, the ones that don't recover their morale will surrender before axis t2. This requires a substantial diversion of force that many players use for making the pocket first. I can do both, kinda anyway, bombing the stubborn (high morale/cv) Red units in the South makes it a little easier, especially true of the low morale ones that you want to rout.
4) Red AF is ineffective, demoralized or not, besides the morale recovers quickly at NR, exp not so much, I ALWAYS provide proper escort, all missions on manual. Yes sometimes the ai will send unescorted bombers on ground support, nothing I can do about this. Even crappy planes and crappy pilots can wipe this out, so put Red AF out there, mostly fighters.
5) Trucks, not a problem moving your abs forward per losing trucks. Operating in bad weather is the big truck killer. Doing lots of escorting and keeping the abs forward does use up most of the fighter miles so you won't be able to intercept Red bombing missions very well, my opinion is they can't do much of anything anyway, I don't even bother to send the flak along, somebody starts hurting me in 41 with Red AF I will change my methods.

As you must have noticed by now, lots of wild variations in the combats department, and pretty hard to be really sure about anything. Joel has said that it WAD (as designed).

In the "for what is worth" department, you can use the numeric keys to slow down or speed up the combat resolution window and watch everything that happens.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

But will you get the same levels of experience and morale with ground bombing on turn 1 like with airfield bombing? And can you trash the soviet morale in the same way? (This is not a rhethorical question, but a real one!)

On turn 1 you can destroy 4000 enemy planes by only using Ju-87 and Romanian bombers. What else do you need? I don't see any benefit in destroying more planes. It simply makes no difference. Ground attacks, on the other hand, are totally overlooked by most players. They can make a huge difference, especially for the Germans in 41. For example in my game against Stef I didn't use a single bomber to transport supplies to mobile units. I only used them for ground attack and ground support.

[56ajax]

Well it is fun to pound the Red Air Force into dust, and this will lower morale dramatically, but the Soviets have so many spare air frames it is like you are doing them a favour. My experience is that the only Soviet aircraft that do do damage early in the game are IL2 and Su2 so make sure you hit those hard and probably Recon and Long Range that can supply the partisans.