Is this a night time raid ?

[Stelteck]

Hi.
I'am testing currently trying nightbombing with patch 1.09.01. I know it do not work very well in this patch.

But the result is really surprising :

I have close results with better bombers such as P2



Is this really a night bombing run ? I would have expected no damage to the ennemy airfield, and few operational looses and AA/damage to soviet aviation.
But all bombers intercepted ? And 4 german planes shot ? [:'(]

The efficiency of daylight german fighter in night interception is really, really good. It really looks like daylight air fight.

[BrianG]

are you sure this was a night raid?

I mean: wow

[M60A3TTS]

Remember that this is an un-escorted raid, there are no friendly fighter night escort mission to keep the bad guys from eating your lunch. Night bombing an airfield is about as useful as the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, i.e. nil.

[Stelteck]

The first time i saw the results, i was thinking i did a mystake and sent a daytime raid. But it is a night time raid.
I tested night airfield raid several times with differents planes and always got a variation of this result.

[morvael]

Intercepts work at night.
Intercepts from an airbase that is in a hex that is the target of bombing have little restrictions, and can send any number of planes in the air.
Previously people were unable to protect from night raids, because they had to select night missions yes/no (whereas the active player could switch it at will).
Night missions go without escorts.
Results in such conditions are easy to determine.
Use U2-VS to harass frontline troops, not airbases.

[Stelteck]

Thanks for the explanation.
I understand the purpose, but it do not look very realistic.
Night air raid would rather be quite not effective but quite safe.

And i do not like very much having to do 100+ small raid on front line units per turn to harrass the ennemy. (I actually do not do it in my game, as it is too boring).
I would rather have few decisive raids (Big damage/high risk) than tons of "small damage/low risk" one.

That's why i'm looking to target airfield instead of front line units. But i did not find a way yet.
Currently i only found "low damage/high risk".

[morvael]

Unfortunately the "small damage/low risk" is the historical way and it works.

[Stelteck]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Unfortunately the "small damage/low risk" is the historical way and it works.

I know, but it is so much mouse clicks. Finally the automatic WITW air system may be not bad [:'(]

Speaking of automatic, maybe i may try to use the AI automatic ground attack for night raid. Will do some testing. I may limit all level bomber to night raid only and use only tactical for daylight support. It may work. (Crossing fingers).

[morvael]

I don't know if automated AI air missions except from recon are still enabled.
If you put only U2-VS on night mode it should be possible to make those raids with automated selection, so by just clicking the target hex once. With manual air group selection (and airbase selection to optimize distance) it may indeed take a lot of time.

[Stelteck]

The problem of airbase selection is that the airbase is unselected after each raid.
You have to reselect it each time. Tons of click.

If it was not the case, it would be possible (with combat report set to 0) to exaust the raid ability of an airfield by just selected it, then performing a one click raid like for air recon.