AI - Italy - Luftwaffe not Fighting

[GeneralDad]

Started playing after a few years off - Italy scenario for a starter as WA - winning big.
Perhaps the AI LW should fight more? Weeks of essentially zero air to air losses does not seem right.
Sure the AI LW is likely to lose a lot of planes - but - the AI ground line is collapsing yet the LW do nothing.
I have a way too much of a free hand in the air.

Given how long the air combat losses have been so low, what in the AI just stops them from fighting, even when some, or any, help on the ground is sorely needed? I broke thru in the NE with UK forces, eventually turned west and took Rome from both directions. Trapping Axis units in the process. Yet, the LW is silent as the threat to a major objective mounts.

I cannot imagine a week of decent weather where the real LW took the week off in the real war & contested nothing of importance with fighters.

Is there a mod in the editor that will make the AI LW try harder?

Gen. Dad

[jarraya]

I found that after turn 7 or 8 you have practically total air dominance, with the exception of some naval patrols.

[GeneralDad]

Frustrated by Allied A/Ds that don't fly even with good morale; and a LW that does not fight back enough...
I am going to try this:

Write out the leader CSV from the Editor.
Write a Python script to up initiative, admin, air and moral for air leaders (air > land leadership score.)
Won't increase anything to above 8. Try upping the values by 1 for both sides; play with it more or with other approaches if needed.
Load it back into the editor and save the mod. Play the scenario (Will use Italy)

We will see what the effect is.
Gen Dad.

[GloriousRuse]

That seems...like a lot of effort.

If your own ADs aren’t flying, it is almost 99.9% of the time because you have a setting triggered in there that isn’t having them fly. Weather, range, target types, load. I don’t think I’ve ever had an AD not fly when those factors were covered. GS can be deceptive because while X planes may be in the directive, that doesn’t mean X planes are in range of the battle - you can have Tactical Airforce aircraft in Africa theoretically flying GS for an Army near Rome - they just won’t actually be able to.

As for the LW, likely because Italy doesn’t get a lot of LW toys to begin with. You can try bumping AI settings up and see what effect that has, but outside of the GC the Italian LW is limited to history - and there’s not much there.

[GeneralDad]

GloriousRuse, Thanks for your reply.

I do check for Weather, range, & load. Target types are always available in the zone; but me getting better at recon may be helping to get stuff to fly.

I have had problems with:
An apparently legal ground attack directive that did not fly; but did so when switched to city bombing.
Mixing British and US bombers in a city bombing directive. One of them goes for a beer. Splitting the directive fixed it. None of my mod attempts below will fix this; but maybe it is improving for me by finding out about hard-to-find rules of engagement.

Mostly my complaint is the Axis not fighting harder in the air. I tried a mod to fix this, but I think it went too far. Too much LW, too many Axis tries at unescorted bombing, no real damage suffered by the Allies and a lot of Axis air losses. I may try a gentler mod. The mod is simple in the editor, write out the csv files; python scripts are easy, reload the csv. Maybe I should move this to the mods section of the forum.

I feel that zero to near zero air-to-air losses on both sides for numerous good weather weeks is unrealistic.

[GloriousRuse]

Re: ADs. There is a little “no fly” info box at the bottom. It is greatly helpful in identifying why certain elements won’t make it. However, you can still get in trouble around the edges - Wellingtons with 4K lb bombs might technically have the range until one small in week event means they don’t, or they run out of miles, or their airbase is under supplied. As for legal ground attacks - if you only targeted say, railyards, and then it didn’t work but did in city mode...that’s a bug worth reporting. But it could be something simpler, like bad recon giving a false picture of damage that then scrubbed the mission. Or any number of other AD canceling conditions (tried to fly on D2, minimum weather poor, but the path clips a terrible weather hex...).

As for Italian LW. It’s just not there to fight you with the historical set. Your losses are probably going to be flak based, with the odd GS counter. As of mid ‘43, Zitadelle has stripped the Italian Theater LW, and it only got worse. By spring of ‘44 there are less than 150 fighters (Paper strength) providing coverage to the whole theater. By the end of ‘44, less than 50. The AI may be playing cagey, but it typically doesn’t mind bleeding the LW - it probably just doesn’t have much to play with. If you want to give it the freedom to move stuff around, try the GC. Then it might move additional firepower into Italy.

[GeneralDad]

GloriousRuse, Thanks, supply and path issues I had not considered.

I have solved my no fly issues; the last one was not putting US and UK bombers in the same A/D for Strat AF in the Med. Mixing fighters works fine.

Gen. Dad