Ground support

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EwaldvonKleist
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Ground support

Post by EwaldvonKleist »

Curious how useful people find ground support.
In my games I have given up flying ground support for the following reasons:
1) AI is dumb. Uses aircraft from far away. Also sends bombers without escort.
2) Precious aircraft and aircraft miles are used for in many cases indecisive battles
3) For whatever reason allot of fighters react to ground support missions, causing massive losses which in turn wrecks the airgroup morale/exp. If your planes don't fly, the enemy fighter sweeps are in vain.
4) Looking at the battle reports, the air force does damage, but not overly much.
5) Selective manual bombing can be quite efficient, and ressources for ground bombing have to be diverted to leave something for ground support.
6) It can be exploited by the enemy to weaken the airforce prior to airfield attack by luring them into allot ground support missions.

Is there any reason I miss to leave ground support activated, especially during the enemy turn?
Stelteck
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RE: Ground support

Post by Stelteck »

It is difficult to evaluate the efficiency of ground support, although we have about it far more information than we have for some others aspects of the game (such as the efficiency of artillery support units, which we have no clue).

There is a lot of mechanism in the game that are difficult to evaluate. But it is a help in battle and sometimes you need every help you can. But of course you can perfectly decide that you have something else to do with your planes.

I can only provide some hints from my own experience :

- Ground support during enemy turn is more efficient than ground bombing during your turn to influence combat, because the first one use disruption, and the second use fatigue.
If a raid disrupt 6% of enemy units, with ground support it is a 6% reduction of enemy CV.
With ground bombing it is a 6% fatigue increase wich mean 2% reduction of enemy CV.

- I do not mix the aviation that will react during ennemy turn (for soviet, attached to front HQ), with the aviation that i will use for offensive purpose during my turn (for soviet, attached to long range HQ, attached to stavka). So the aviation that react is fresh, not used and it is limiting AI selection mistake.

- All level bombers are quite bad at providing tactical support or bombing ennemy troops. You need tactical bombers for that. If you are playing soviet, the IL-2 is the plane to go but you will probably have none in 1941 due to industry transfert. So your only production is UVS but they are surprisingly good at doing damage. I use them as main tactical bomber in 1941 as conventional aircraft. (I skipped night bombing as not usefull enough for the micromanagement needed).

- Interdiction is really, really good. It can destroy a planned movement which can have very severe consequences. Doing some research about how optimizing interdiction could be very usefull.

- if you are playing soviet, you can afford to loose a lot of planes.

- Careful with air doctrine. Sometimes bigger is not better. For example i highly suspect that soviet air force have big air coordination penalty in 1941/1942.
I have some experience from WITP-AE here where similar mecanism are at play and i think i can draw a little parallel, although it is not documented in WITE.
The more squadrons you are sending, the higher you have the chance to fail coordination between squadrons and have odd results such as unescorted bombers, no bombers, or things like that.
It is also difficult to send many planes at the same time.
Unescorted bombers for example are not always bad AI selection, but also bad luck in air raid coordination.

For example, if you have air doctrine 100% escort / 100 % ground support you may have 60 fighters escorting 60 bombers in a raid.
If you put 100% escort / 200% ground support you will not have 120 fighters escorting 120 bombers, but maybe 80 fighters escorting 80 bombers, with higher chance of strange results.
If you put 200% escort / 100% ground support, wishing to avoid bomber looses by massive escort, you may have 90 fighters but only 30/40 bombers in a raid, making the ground support mission far less effective due to lack of bombers.

In fact, more bombers are sent if i lower the size of the escort......
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EwaldvonKleist
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RE: Ground support

Post by EwaldvonKleist »

Hi Stelteck, thanks for your input, its very valuable.

1) Ground support vs. ground bombing effect: Thanks allot, I did not know this!
2) Mixing aviation: In 1941 I feel always short of airgroups and aircraft, therefore I have to make difficult choices. I fear that the VVS cannot provide all out airfield bombing, bombing of all German units in clear hexagons without fortifications and ground support at the same time. So I suppose you have to chose 2 out of three. If I choose 1 and 2, there will be no airgroups left for 3.
3) Interdiction: My opponent did fly allot of interdiction attacks and it was one factor of many that killed his air force. In turn, Soviets interdicting Germans might be killing in late war but I have no exp there. The problem again is that it is AI controlled and an enemy player can use it to its advantage.
4) Losses: True, Soviets can take losses, but it delays the exp and morale gain. If the tacbos never take losses they become exp. and mrl monsters.
5) Air settings: High escort settings lowering the number of sent bombers is my impression as well. Thanks for your comments on that part!

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Stelteck
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RE: Ground support

Post by Stelteck »

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Hi Stelteck, thanks for your input, its very valuable.

1) Ground support vs. ground bombing effect: Thanks allot, I did not know this!

It is due to the fact that after a battle or a raid, disrupted units are converted to fatigue but they are no more disrupted.

So if you bomb an enemy during your turn, if you disrupt 6% of a unit, when the raid is completed, it will be converted in 6% fatigue increase and it is fatigue that will carry on in the next attack.

100% fatigue is a 33% reduction of combat CV, according to rule book.
(While 100% disruption is 100% reduction of combat CV).
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Telemecus
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RE: Ground support

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: Stelteck
- I do not mix the aviation that will react during ennemy turn (for soviet, attached to front HQ), with the aviation that i will use for offensive purpose during my turn (for soviet, attached to long range HQ, attached to stavka). So the aviation that react is fresh, not used and it is limiting AI selection mistake.

I use night settings a lot during the game to control which airgroups I do or do not want to do automatic air missions. I know it sounds like a lot of micromanagement but if you get used to it it is only a few clicks to call up a commanders report airgroups tab, filter your airgroups, and change their night settings as required. In effect switching to nights means they are not used for ground support etc.

So you can assure yourself the AI will only choose nearby groups during your turn. And you do not need to switch their command to do it.
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morvael
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RE: Ground support

Post by morvael »

I never had problems with not enough fighter cover and slaughtered bombers, except when misclicking on a manually launched mission.

What I do, is I mix bombers with fighters in every base, and make sure airbases are where they can work properly with the ground troops. I also observe how many fighters escort enemy bombers in various missions (incl. ground support) to make sure my escort settings are adequate (I wouldn't want to send not enough fighters to cover my bombers, if my enemy takes a lot - a lot of "free roaming" fighters means a lot of bombers lost).

And from my AIvAI tests that I do for checking whether a patch works, I have noticed late war German Fw 190 tac bombers are taking horrible casualties. Could never find out why is that.
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RE: Ground support

Post by morvael »

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist
1) AI is dumb. Uses aircraft from far away. Also sends bombers without escort.
2) Precious aircraft and aircraft miles are used for in many cases indecisive battles
3) For whatever reason allot of fighters react to ground support missions, causing massive losses which in turn wrecks the airgroup morale/exp. If your planes don't fly, the enemy fighter sweeps are in vain.
4) Looking at the battle reports, the air force does damage, but not overly much.
5) Selective manual bombing can be quite efficient, and ressources for ground bombing have to be diverted to leave something for ground support.
6) It can be exploited by the enemy to weaken the airforce prior to airfield attack by luring them into allot ground support missions.

1) This is often the case if your airbases are too far away from the front. This can be also circumvented when manually launching missions by selecting the staging base first. Otherwise the AI likes to propose using aircraft from far away. And since fighters have shorter range than bombers, it means no cover and large losses.
2) Not really, the AI tries to use quite accurate alt-CV ratio at start of combat in order not to support battles which can only go one way. But there is margin in which it's allowed to send aircraft, and it will send more towards bigger battles.
3) This depends on escort settings etc, number of escorts is always derived from the numbers of non-fighters sent.
4) See the number of kills of various tactical bomber air groups by the end of war. Also, disruption is very important effect, especially if you will fight multiple times for the same hex (enemy CV will go down faster). I made some tests and strong bombing runs before attack, allowed me to cross a major river, which was impossible without bombing first.
5) Yes, but it depends wheter someone is a fan of micromanagement. I'm not so I use aircraft mostly for ground support, and make ground attacks when an important battle takes place.
6) I'm afraid this is unavoidable because of the IGoYouGo model and having the AI in control of the opposing airforce during player's turn.
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RE: Ground support

Post by morvael »

As the Soviets I do a lot of rotation, so that average morale goes up every turn. My rule is to send every unit with morale under 60 to reserve, and keep 4-5 air bases under Moscow Air Command (with good general) for further rotation for those units with very low morale. Every move to reserve gives some morale points. Then, fresh units are sent to replace those gone from the front. At every given time there may be perhaps 50-80 groups in reserve or on training airfields.
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RE: Ground support

Post by HardLuckYetAgain »

ORIGINAL: Stelteck



- Interdiction is really, really good. It can destroy a planned movement which can have very severe consequences. Doing some research about how optimizing interdiction could be very usefull.

- if you are playing soviet, you can afford to loose a lot of planes.

- Careful with air doctrine. Sometimes bigger is not better. For example i highly suspect that soviet air force have big air coordination penalty in 1941/1942.

I love ya Stelteck but i have to disagree with you on Interdiction 100% :) Interdiction is the key to unhinging a German players airforce. As a German player fly interdiction at your own pearl. Now once the Soviet have firm control of the Air over at least 2/3's of the battlefield I then turn it on for the Soviets which really has sinister results then :)

Also the Soviet player has to be smart on how they use their planes at the start, yes they can loose a great deal of planes but you are looking for experience for making a better air force all missions should be keyed toward this. Just like the ground forces go from 1.0 to 2.0 so does the Air force imho. Normally I try and have 16 squadrons of Guard Tact bombers before the Winter offense and at least 4 squadrons of Fighters/Fighter bombers based on my opponent along with 4-6 guard airbases. So far I have been able to do this with the Tact bombers & bases but fighters are a bit harder.

Your last statement I will post a screenshot of an air battle in one of my games. Yes, I lost the one hex west of Pskov, yes I lost a ton of airframes. But I did get 5 kills (a pyrrhic victory) but I'm showing the amount of my Airfoce that joined the battle here. I didn't have a problem getting a ton of air frames in the air. It is all about % to fly, supply, leadership, and location of your airbases(and other things too). (plus not bombing every living thing that has a swastika on it on the map) Here is the photo.





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RE: Ground support

Post by HardLuckYetAgain »

ORIGINAL: morvael

As the Soviets I do a lot of rotation, so that average morale goes up every turn. My rule is to send every unit with morale under 60 to reserve, and keep 4-5 air bases under Moscow Air Command (with good general) for further rotation for those units with very low morale. Every move to reserve gives some morale points. Then, fresh units are sent to replace those gone from the front. At every given time there may be perhaps 50-80 groups in reserve or on training airfields.

This is a "MUST" do for Soviets. I do it ever turn for every aircraft under 55. (I even do it for the Germans but on a much much much smaller scale, lol)
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RE: Ground support

Post by heliodorus04 »

Why do my Germans have 400 fighters in the East and over 1,200 airframes piling up in Germany?
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RE: Ground support

Post by Dinglir »

I believe there is certainly a rationale behind rotating the Soviet airforces. However, I do not believe in using a fixed morale threshhold for doing this. As Air forces are rotated, they are unable to take part in air operations.

Depending on how the Axis uses his airforces you might well want a huge numerical superiority in the air war during a turn. If you have that, you can tire out his pilots by cycling through the Air Groups you use for various attacks. In my experience, a heavily fatigued expert Air Group fights no better than a well rested novice Air Group.

As for using ground support during combat, I am all for it. I remember my game versus Pelton, I did some Soviet attacks only to be intercepted by the Luftwaffe Ju87's and having a high report level, I could just sit there while his stukas literally killed 1000's of my attacking force. I consider the Tactical bombers a fast moving Support unit capable of supporting multiple combats at once.

I have more problems with ground bombing before the attack. Here, I usually try to go with an attack by level bombers and/or tactical bombers (always supported by fighters). The results here a less formidable, in my opinion, but you really need to use your level bombers for something.

As for controlling which Air groups that fly by setting them to fly nights is not something I would recommend for anything but the bombers if you're playing the Axis. If you set your fighters for nightflying, the other side could draw them into dog fights at night, leading to higher operational losses.

In any case, I do not think there is one "Best way" to do anything in this game. There are two sides to the game, and the way to win is to adapt your methods to the other players actions. So keep an open mind, and adapt to circumstances.
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EwaldvonKleist
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RE: Ground support

Post by EwaldvonKleist »

Thanks all for your comments!
@Hardluck:
It is all about % to fly, supply, leadership, and location of your airbases(and other things too)
Some comments on "the other things" might be interesting :)
@morvael: I agree, apart from some "depends on the circumstances" things. Ground bombing before attack is an I WIN button.
@Dinglir: Your guides on Soviet and Axis planes are very helpful, along with your in detail descriptions of your air strategy. I think we have somewhat different approaches here: You emphasize the impact of ground support in battle, while I prefer to use the airfoce to attrit the GErman army by ground bombing to make up for the too low losses.
From turn 10-15 in GC 1941 my tac bos alone kill 3000 men and 200+ guns per turn. Assuming growing morale/exp/numbers I see no reason why this shouldn't double or triple. Not using ground support allows me to do only favourable attacks.
On the other hand, if I play Germans, I prefer to use the airforce for winning battles as well.
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RE: Ground support

Post by HardLuckYetAgain »

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Thanks all for your comments!
@Hardluck:
It is all about % to fly, supply, leadership, and location of your airbases(and other things too)
Some comments on "the other things" might be interesting :)
@morvael: I agree, apart from some "depends on the circumstances" things. Ground bombing before attack is an I WIN button.
@Dinglir: Your guides on Soviet and Axis planes are very helpful, along with your in detail descriptions of your air strategy. I think we have somewhat different approaches here: You emphasize the impact of ground support in battle, while I prefer to use the airfoce to attrit the GErman army by ground bombing to make up for the too low losses.
From turn 10-15 in GC 1941 my tac bos alone kill 3000 men and 200+ guns per turn. Assuming growing morale/exp/numbers I see no reason why this shouldn't double or triple. Not using ground support allows me to do only favourable attacks.
On the other hand, if I play Germans, I prefer to use the airforce for winning battles as well.

Through the Air is a key to turning the direction west. The sooner you command the Air the better. I concur with you EwaldvonKleist, attriting the German ground forces with your airforce is top priority. So many of the Soviet players I have played go after the German PZ/Mot units. That is all fine and great and I understand why people do it. BUT when I am playing the Soviets I play the numbers game. I'm looking for "men" killed and to do that I attack Infantry units (always first priority). I'm getting a much greater number of men killed when bombing infantry units than PZ/Mot with Tac bombers. So to me that serves two purposes, Getting Guard Tact squadrons & chipping away at German manpower pool. (and I don't mean using the "worthless" U-2's for bombing either, I always gift those to the Germans. Some find value in them but imho they are just not worth it. Concentrate on the real killers ;) Just my 2 cents and that is about all it is worth)

on the "other things" I will more than likely talk about in my AAR post.
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Stelteck
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RE: Ground support

Post by Stelteck »

What is funny is while U-2VS are the worst tactical bomber, being the worst tactical bomber means that you are still superior to do damage to all level bomber.

In 1941, as tactical you have :

- IL-2 : the best of the best. Unfortunately, if you transfer in emergency the IL-2 production the first year, you may not have any production of IL-2 until spring 1942. Of course Hardluck and other masters never do that because they never have to transfer in emergency some production, but having no IL-2 in 1941 is not rare. In my current multi game for example, i had to choose between the T-34 factory at karkov and the IL-2 factories. I choosed the T-34. I think now it was a bad choice because i have too much T-34 and not enough TOE to use them. (While it is easy to create new squadron to use extra planes, it is not easy to do the same for T-34. Separate tank bataillon use far more light tanks than T-34)[8|]

- I-153BS, hardly better than U-2VS and with no production at all. Still very usefull. But no production so you will not go far with them.

- SU-2 : Good plane but with very little production and so you will not fill your rank with it and they will have marginal use.

So, if you do not manage to do a perfect transfert (or did not have to transfert because good defense) of the IL-2 factories, you soon discover that the U-2VS are your best planes left in 1941 to do damage to enemy troops as normal tactical bomber. They are better to all level bombers i tested.

On paper, level bombers like PE-2, A-20, small&nimble twin engine bombers should be effective in tactical role, but in the game because they are considered as level bombers, they have terrible precision and do not kill a lot of things.

Of course, as soon as IL-2 factories will be repaired and at good production, U-2VS could be removed, or still used in secondary roles according to doctrine & will.

U-2VS are bad planes but you may have no choice but to use them as level bombers are even worse.

Ps: I'am speaking of the use of U-2VS as normal tactical bomber, used in ground bombing and ground support, escorted by fighters. It is not special "night raid units" or things like that.
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RE: Ground support

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: Dinglir
As for controlling which Air groups that fly by setting them to fly nights is not something I would recommend for anything but the bombers if you're playing the Axis. If you set your fighters for nightflying, the other side could draw them into dog fights at night, leading to higher operational losses.

I was thinking of something much more granular as in for each combat during your action phase. What are your night settings for the whole of your opponents action phase is a different matter.
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Dinglir
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RE: Ground support

Post by Dinglir »

Ewald: I have been a little unclear - if playing the Soviets, you should bomb the **** out of the German infantry, on that HardLuck and I agree completely. It's just HOW you should do it we disagree on.

I know I'm flogging a dead horse here, but saying that U-2VS is worthless is just plain wrong (in my opinion).

Let us comapre the bombing capacity of the IL-2 to the U-2VS.

The IL-2 will drop four 100KG bombs, eight RS-82 rockets and fire it's 20mm shVAK Cannon at its target, while the U-2VS will drop a mere two 100kg bombs and two 50kg bombs on the enemy. Looking at detailed reports, I find that the RS-82 never hits anything and the 20mm Cannon is worthless against infantry, so let us equate those to the 50kg bombs of the U-2VS (that's VERY generous to the IL-2), and we're left with four 100KG bombs for the IL-2 and two for the U-2VS.

But here's the thing: The U-2VS uses only 680 Ammo and 90 fuel for each attack, while the IL-2 uses 1140 Ammo and 1036 fuel. So there should be little doubt that a bomb load delivered by U-2VS is cheaper for your logistics system than if it was delivered by the IL-2. Actually, if you stack 9 Air Groups of U-2VS on an airfield within two hexes of the front and start bombing, in good weather and having placed the airfield on a railroad, you can often run 12 or 14 attacks every turn, turn after turn after turn. Try doing that with IL-2's...

The U-2VS is a virtual energizer bunny.

Finally, the U-2VS have a reliability of five, meaning that it performs perfectly in poor weather or at night. If the Axis fly interception against it, they will often find themselves losing out due to operational losses.

However, if you dislike the idea of micromanaging the airforce, the U-2VS is just about the most boring plane to ever fly with.

So my advice is basically this: Use your U-2VS to bomb the German infantry and use your IL-2 to attack the Armor and especially for ground support during combat. Just don't bother if the Germans have a fortification level above two.
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EwaldvonKleist
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RE: Ground support

Post by EwaldvonKleist »

@Dinglir: My take is that all tac air ressources should go to manual ground bombing until their is an excess (except for key battles, like breaking an encirclement). If I understand you correctly, you prefer a balanced approach which has both tac air ground support and tac air ground bombing. Using surplus level bombers for ground support is something I like to do as well.

I 100% agree with your take on the U2VS. Its probably the most cost efficient weapon in the arsenal of the Red Army. Bombing the Germans with U2VS and watching their artillery to be destroyed is one of the most satisfying things in WitE.

Again thanks for your explanations, I read them very attentively.

@Hardluck: Not slavishly focussing on bombing of mech is something I do as well, the way to go is choosing the lowest defensive modifier hexagons and focus on them.
Another thing to watch is the enemy AA gun distribution, most players focus on protecting mech I think, making them a lower priority for me.

@Telemecus: I use the night settings for deactivating airgroups exactly the same way.


Question: Is there any advantage in having a guards air group (GShaP)? Is there something like a default pilot quality (such a setting can be found in the editor)???
Whats the point of getting guards airbases? Less movement cost over enemy terrrain (who cares?) and less attrition, any other things?


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Telemecus
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RE: Ground support

Post by Telemecus »

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist
Less movement cost over enemy terrrain (who cares?)

I do a lot - but based on discussions in other threads I think I am alone on that.

There was another thread where I think they discussed advantages in flak ToE later when a guards airbase.
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RE: Ground support

Post by HardLuckYetAgain »

ORIGINAL: Dinglir


I know I'm flogging a dead horse here, but saying that U-2VS is worthless is just plain wrong (in my opinion).



Two schools of thought, nothing wrong with that at all. I respect that with very valid points. Just that U-2's just don't have space in "my" Soviet 2.0 Airforce thus to "me" they are worthless :) My opponents can rejoice at early Xmas presents as shown in the the photo below as an example.

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