Aircraft taking part in battles.

[xhoel]

Why are my fighters taking part in battles? I have set strict Air Superiority Directives in Italy as the Germans and they work just fine for me. Yet every once and again my fighters will decide to help ground units even though GS is turned off. This is quite frustraiting as I just opened my turn to see that I have lost 40 fighters (that were doing something that they weren't supposed to). Is there a way to fix this? I can post screenshots if you need them.
Cheers,
Xhoel

[cfulbright]

Xhoel,

If your AS bounding box overlaps with where your GS missions take place, and the enemy sends fighters to intercept your ground attackers, your AS will intervene.

Cary

[xhoel]

Hello cfulbright,

That is not the case. Take a look. This is my AS directive and the marked place is where the ground battle took place. The planes that are running ground attack are only running interdiction and didn't pull any fighters when I run them. Running the AS I lost 20 FBs, while shooting down 122 enemy aircraft, which are losses I'm willing to take. Yet I lost another 45 FBs supporting ground units :/

[cfulbright]

Xhoel,

I can't figure it out from the screenshot. I'd need to look at the save file.

By the way, I'm confused by the directions of your air missions. You're playing the Germans, yet you seem to be flying from South to North in Italy, not just for Air Superiority, but for Recon. Did the Allies land in the far north of Italy? You have ground unit display turned off, so I can't tell from your screenshot what's goin gon.

Cary

[xhoel]

cfulbright,

Its a server multiplayer game against Gunnulf, and I'm not sure how I can send you the save file. The Allies have a beachhead at Grosseto but I have managed to hold them off there. The Rieti Air Base is being used for my air directives. Other than that I'm still holding a line south of Rome. It is just very frustraiting when you spend a lot of turns trying to bring the Luftwaffe up to strength and after tailoring everything in the air directive to lose so many planes because the AI decided its a good idea to intercept 200 plane raids. Sorry for the rant and thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

[cfulbright]

Xhoel,

No need to apologize.

As you guessed, it's hard to look at this without being able to see the save game.

Have you looked to see which air units are doing the GS and getting shot down, and then look at what air directive(s) they're assigned?

Cary

[xhoel]

When the battle took place, I had no Tac Bombers or LB set to GS so no bomber planes of mine took part in the ground battles. The planes that did take part in it where the FB that I had assigned to run the AS directive. Problem is my AS directive doesnt overlap with the place where combat took place. Could this be a bug?

Best regards,
Xhoel

[cfulbright]

Xhoel,

Do you have an active GS air directive, but set to Auto air group assignments?

Cary

[xhoel]

Negative.
I had 2 GA Air Directives both with manually assigned groups. They run interdiction very smoothly and I didnt suffer any plane losses. No GS air directive is currently on, and GS is also off. I really don't know what could have caused the weird behaviour. I guess what I want to know is how to avoid this happening another time?

[xhoel]

Anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[RedLancer]

Nothing I suspect - here's what I think may be happening. The battle is causing your opponent to commit aircraft. This is in turn invoking the automatic intercept by aircraft based within range. It is those aircraft that are getting shot down. If you have a save that is repeatable then try setting the aircraft based close by to Rest and see what happens.

[xhoel]

Hello Red Lancer,

That's what I thought too but the only fighter I don't have on rest mode are fighters that I have manually assigned to the Air Superiority Directive but that directive doesn't fly over said battle hex. I can't replicate it unfortunately as it is a Server game. Is there a way to prevent my planes for undertaking such suicide missions?

[RedLancer]

It sounds like you are mixing up two separate missions - Superiority is a controllable and active AD. I am talking about automatic defensive intercept. This is passive and completely automatic.

As I understand the system then aircraft that have unused movement from their ADs can fly intercept too. It doesn't matter on the AD Box because intercept is a totally separate routine and you cannot prevent the aircraft from flying if they are active and an intercept is possible.

There are some tricks you can play. In what phase are you flying the air superiority? If it is your air phase then at the end of your air phase set them to rest and then turn them back on again before you run your air phase on the next turn. If you are flying in your opponents air phase then only turn them on before you end your turn and turn them off when you get them back. In this case there is a chance they'll fly if a battle is initiated by your opponent.

[xhoel]

Hello Red Lancer.

I am aware that they are both two different missions I just thought that if an air group was manually assigned to a AS directive it wouldn't be available for intercepting planes outside the AS box.

I am running the directive on the enemy phase. My question would be: how can i prevent these fighters from joining such interceptions outside the AS box? Are there any tricks? The reason I ask this is because as the Germans you simply cannot afford to rely on automatic interception as the Allies fly sorties with upwards 200 planes and the Ai decides it is a good idea to intercept this kind of sortie with a mere 12-20 fighters.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.
Best regards,
Xhoel

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: xhoel

Hello Red Lancer.

... Are there any tricks? The reason I ask this is because as the Germans you simply cannot afford to rely on automatic interception as the Allies fly sorties with upwards 200 planes and the Ai decides it is a good idea to intercept this kind of sortie with a mere 12-20 fighters.

....

Ok, my usual advice is not to alter the default % to fly rules - reason is this can often lead to odd results with less activity. But with the axis in areas the allies dominate you need to do one of two things:

a) go away (I'm being serious here, opt out, look for a secondary theatre where you can get parity/superiority. Come 1944 you simply can't go head to head

b) ok, its a critical sector. Set the % to fly up to 200 or 300. What you are doing with this is saying to the AI - 'you think you only need 20 planes, I think you need 40 to 60', it basically stops small groups of planes engaging. Now be aware that sometimes this will stop any engagement but that is the trade off you will have to accept

c) set morale to fly fairly high, combined with (b) this will stop battered formations joining in

BUT

b+c will seriously reduce the amount of AS (either the mission or auto-intercept) you fly. You make a choice here.

Finally

take off any fuel tanks, this will stop your fighters wandering off to look for trouble (they can't reach) and may mean that the chosen AS simply uses up their mileage for that turn.

But, seriously, don't ignore (a). One key to using the Luftwaffe is you need to go in with lots of planes where your opponent is weak. The Allies have a lot of planes, so part of the game is to find weak spots. Pull out of Italy, they will reduce their AS/escorts, return with all you can spare, pull out again. Its the same over the Reich, keep moving your fighters around, sooner or later you are going to really catch out a bomber raid (remember damage=low morale=planes resting). The gamble is that sooner or later you are going to work head on into a well place allied AS [;)].

[xhoel]

Hey loki,

Thanks for joining in on the discussion and offering your advice.
In regard to your points:

a) I am currently playing the Battleground 43-45 scenario so that advice although helpful in the GC doesn't really apply here.
b) My fly percentage is at 300 so I'm guessing we share the same philosophy when it comes to that.
c) I only run high morale groups and always in big stacks, attacking the Allied bombing runs that are the weakest. I have found this to be a very effective approach as it maximises Allies losses and minimises my own. I tend to rest all other air groups.
d) I have no fighters carrying Drop Tanks.

I have not done a GC Campaign against a human player yet, but I will keep your advice in mind for future battles.
Thanks for sharing though, much appriciated.

Best regards,
Xhoel

[LiquidSky]

Aircraft will take part in a mission for several reasons.

First off...if you told them to. This is pretty obvious so I will move on....

Air Superiority missions. Note that the target hex doesnt have to be in this box....if the path the enemy planes take crosses through this box....they can fly and attack.

Defensive interception. This is not a mission. Any fighter squadron sitting on an airfield, not resting can intercept a mission that flies anywhere near it. A good way to notice this is against the strat bombing missions....you can see the line the bombers flew on by looking at the combat report. At some range you started intercepting...then when they got to a point it was too far away...it stopped.

All of this is under your control. You don't have to fly a mission. Planes on Rest will not fly. Don't use Air Superiority if you can't afford the attrition. Air superiority is a big red flag waving saying c'mon! Lets do this thing.

Planes on Air Superiority are not as likely to defensively intercept outside their box. I would have said never, but others have said that it is possible, and I cant remember. I do know as the Germans I would never ever ever fly an air superiority mission. A damaged bomber will not bomb. I am not trying to win the air war. Just damage enough bombers so my engineers can fix what got through. And keep my fighter squadrons as intact as possible for as long as possible.

Some simple advice as the Germans. Keep your squadrons bunched. Keep them far enough back to avoid fights with allied fighters...best to go after unescorted bombers. The cities that they can reach with escorts.....fill with Flak.

Oh...Italy is kind of a fun area for the Germans....they can have more planes in theatre due to having more airfields then the allies....they can physically fit more planes on the front. It won't last but for a while you can give the allied players some headaches although you have to be careful...they can replace all those planes/pilots you destroy. You can't.

The most important stat to watch is how many pilots you gained...vrs how many you lost each turn.

[xhoel]

Hey Liquid Sky,

thanks for the advice, I'll keep them in mind. Sorry for the late reply, I had not seen your post. Keep an eye on Gunnulf in your GC, he is quite a skilled WA player

Cheers,
Xhoel