View Full Version : air force pointers
hi all. been coming to this forum quite a bit to get some pointers- and i havent been disappointed yet. this place is awesome.
i've just started playing CoW, and i have a lot to learn about how to use my air forces. i've played a couple of if WP-NATO scenarios (playing NATO), and i've also given kursk a try as the german player.
i pretty much expected NATO's airforce to have a tough time early on against the WP, but i was really surprised at how russia is kicking my butt at kursk.
in my kursk campaign, i concentrated right from the beginning at trying to HAMMER russia's airfields with airfield attacks. i've put every plane on air superiority/ignore losses and i loaded up everything for concentrated attacks on 2-3 airfields at a time. i figured my frontline units could do without some combat support early on, until i could maybe wipe out russia's airforce and then get air superiority. i seem to have had some OK results on my airfield attacks, but many of my planes seem to need to reorg. for what seems like an eternity, while red planes seem to be hitting units in the vanguard of my attacking formations with impunity, despite the hits i'm dealing out to their airfields. what am i doing wrong?
-should i kinda let things go on "autopilot" early on, keeping a few extra planes on air superiority while letting my good bombers support attacks automatically, or is there a better way for me to take the fight to the red air force?
i'm finding mastering air/artillery support one of the toughest (and most fascinating) aspects of this game. any help would be appreciated.
try setting all fighters on AS and attack every airfield with just one bomber squad. If the fighters are in range they will support the bombing raid and thereby fly more missions than they would with specific attack orders.
i had considered that, then i heard somewhere that there was something about just letting fighters escort automatically that reduced their effectiveness. is that true?
what i started to do early on was include my fighters in the airfield attack itself. does that mean they move with the bombers and escort them specifically, or does that mean they concentrate more on strafing, and not so much on protecting the bombers?
and what about limit/ignore losses. what is the best way to handle that? thanks for the advice.
i guess the same question goes for artillery, should i dig them in and let them go automatically, or should i use them directly in attacks?
For airforces:
Back in the earlier incarnations of TOAW it was possible to wipe out your enemies airforce if you got the first strike. Almost without exception. Thats been changed now where its still possible but in some scenarios completely wiping out your opponents airforce is just not going to happen.
That being said, I personally found the best tactic to be attacks with single bomber units (only because they have limited or no value in the air superiority role) to attack a stacked airfield and let the escorting fighters do the rest.
Bombing an airfield actually kills very few planes. The big kills get racked up when those fighters move to intercept your incoming planes and your escorting fighters engage them.
You can't actually "directly" target fighters to escort certain attacks. Setting fighter units to bomb enemy airfields, at least in my experience, is worthless (unless you have nothing else to initiate the attack with). Its the escorts fighting the enemy planes that seems to do the damage.
Now in respect to your artillery question - direct attack or dig in? This applies to combat support air missions too.
If you directly assault, you do full damage but only get 1 attack per tactical phase (eg each time you hit end turn).
If you dig them in or set them on tactical/local reserve (or in the case of aircraft use combat support) they will support all combats in range at 50% strength. This can really drain readiness/supply quickly, especially with a lot of combats going on each turn.
Its more of personal preference and playstyle to do this. I know a lot of people don't want to micromanage their airforces and artillery so they just set them to auto=support and that works. I personally almost always use direct fire (unless I have limited artillery and feel the need to spread out the support). But I've always found the best way to force decisive results in TOAW is to cocnentrate firepower firepower and more firepower. So I typically always use targetted attacks, unless there are so many units that it becomes too tedious.
I find its much more effective, but that's just me. It also has the advantage of being easier to maintain a degree of strength in your support forces for when you really need them. On the defensive of course, I typially always dig in arty just because you can't be there when your opponent makes his attacks so to get any use out of them on the defensive they need to be dug in.
Now, if you just want to drain a bunch of enemy units in the same area with light probing attacks then it obviously then becomes a useful time to have your artillery/airsupport attack them all, even at 50% strength.
Hope that helps.
its pretty disappointing to hear that direct attack on airfields don't do a lot of damage. that strikes me as flying in the face of history- hammering planes on the ground and wiping out airforces early on has happened more than a few times in history. the israelis in '67 and the germans in '41 against russia are probably the two best examples.
are these "first strike" advantages modelled somehow in the game for first air battles in a war? i guess we would certainly expect that by '43 at kursk, the russians would have been a whole lot better at preventing planes from getting smoked on the ground by the luftwaffe by surprise, but its still a bit disappointing to hear that direct airfield attacks don't seem to accomplish a whole lot.
still interested to hear how folks handle loss tolerances with air forces. i've been putting mine on "ignore", does that appear to be the best way?
Originally posted by koreaboy
its pretty disappointing to hear that direct attack on airfields don't do a lot of damage. that strikes me as flying in the face of history- hammering planes on the ground and wiping out airforces early on has happened more than a few times in history. the israelis in '67 and the germans in '41 against russia are probably the two best examples.
They used to do a lot. But the aircraft now take off to defend their airfield. I don't know if reorganization status changes that even.
are these "first strike" advantages modelled somehow in the game for first air battles in a war? i guess we would certainly expect that by '43 at kursk, the russians would have been a whole lot better at preventing planes from getting smoked on the ground by the luftwaffe by surprise, but its still a bit disappointing to hear that direct airfield attacks don't seem to accomplish a whole lot.
There is airshock for the purposes of "surprise". It is like the ground shock modifier in the game. Basically all it does is multiply the strength (something of a misnomer but good enough) of each air unit of that side by the air shock value, so modelling surprise assaults is not a problem.
It's just that the way it was before was conducive to ruining air combat by making pretty much every scenario a race to see who could annihilate the others air force first. In reality annihilation of complete airforces did not happen often. Now air superiority can actually be fought over rather than one side losing its air force X turns into the scenario. Air shock handles all the special need cases where you need to model surprise.
still interested to hear how folks handle loss tolerances with air forces. i've been putting mine on "ignore", does that appear to be the best way?
In general, and just from my observations here, it seems like the common usage by most people is to use ignore losses if you enjoy a significant air superiority advantage and minimize losses if you don't.
I usually follow that for fighters but i keep my bombers on ignore losses unless they are bombing a bridge or making a bombardment attack (eg no ground action with the air attack, because it will burn 3 tactical rounds on ignore losses if you do).
bombing a bridge??! that sounds neat. how do i do that with my planes?
Menschenfresser
21 Jul 03, 12:31
Same as the "airfield attack" option. Left click on a road or rail which crosses a river...you'll see the option to attack the bridge with the % chance that you will destroy it.
In many scens it is practically impossible to destroy bridges if your bombers only get a 3-10% chance of success.
I'm not sure how the % chance is calculated. Try several bridges with the same unit...some bridges will might only be 6% while others give you near 20%. Not sure why that is.
Originally posted by koreaboy
its pretty disappointing to hear that direct attack on airfields don't do a lot of damage. that strikes me as flying in the face of history- hammering planes on the ground and wiping out airforces early on has happened more than a few times in history. the israelis in '67 and the germans in '41 against russia are probably the two best examples.
A couple points - modern air units can and will destroy units on the ground in bombing runs. Not so much with WWII equipment.
Secondly, the amount of carnage that can go down even using WWII aircraft in an airfield attack can far exceed the amount of planes that were on the ground to begin with. Don't underestimate the importance of striking off these air support battles if you have AS!
still interested to hear how folks handle loss tolerances with air forces. i've been putting mine on "ignore", does that appear to be the best way?
Depends. If committed to a direct attack, you use one combat phase for each degree of loss tolerence. Therefore, on min losses (only in direct attacks, mind, not on combat support) you use up 1 round, on ignore losses you use 3 rounds. (Same goes for arty, but again, only in direct support!)
Also - do your planes reconstitute? Are you heavily outnumbered in the air? Do you have overwhelming air superiority (AS)? These all need to be considered.
Originally posted by MikeJ
I usually follow that for fighters but i keep my bombers on ignore losses unless they are bombing a bridge or making a bombardment attack (eg no ground action with the air attack, because it will burn 3 tactical rounds on ignore losses if you do).
As above, it'll burn 3 phases if it's directly committed to the land battle. The only time it doesn't seem to do this every time is if you have positive shock, so keep this in mind as well. That would be a good time to push it a little especially if you have modern air, or vast amounts of air.
Originally posted by Menschenfresser
I'm not sure how the % chance is calculated. Try several bridges with the same unit...some bridges will might only be 6% while others give you near 20%. Not sure why that is.
Toggle the weather on and off. You'll see.
Originally posted by Mantis
As above, it'll burn 3 phases if it's directly committed to the land battle. The only time it doesn't seem to do this every time is if you have positive shock, so keep this in mind as well. That would be a good time to push it a little especially if you have modern air, or vast amounts of air.
Er, actually a minor point but if its committed to a land battle the loss tolerance of the air unit has no bearing on rounds used (at least I'm 99.999% sure of this, though am possibly wrong).
Its the frontline units that takes precedent. The same applies for artillery and of that I'm 100% sure.
Originally posted by MikeJ
Er, actually a minor point but if its committed to a land battle the loss tolerance of the air unit has no bearing on rounds used (at least I'm 99.999% sure of this, though am possibly wrong).
Its the frontline units that takes precedent. The same applies for artillery and of that I'm 100% sure.
Agreed. In EA I was bridge bombing with my RAF bombers at ignore losses and every bridge bombing run burned only 10% of the turn.
I]Er, actually a minor point but if its committed to a land battle the loss tolerance of the air unit has no bearing on rounds used (at least I'm 99.999% sure of this, though am possibly wrong). [/I]
You are absolutely correct- units on bombardment- whether battles, ships, airfoelds or bridges will only use one combat round on their own regardless of loss setting. If in doubt test it- open 2 weeks in normandy and give it a rip
In bombardment attacks in a battle it is the units in contact that wil decide how long the combat goes- artillery will drop out when the last normal unit drops out
Cheers
Richard
Nononono. You're making my point. There is positive shock in that scenario, so the rounds don't work. You get freebies. For an example of just how that works, go search out the thread where I got 28 combat rounds in, and you'll see what I mean. James shares a theory with us that goes a long way towards describing this effect.
And yes, actually, if arty OR bombers are committed to directly participate in a land battle, they will eat as many phases as their loss tolerance settings.
Originally posted by Kraut
Agreed. In EA I was bridge bombing with my RAF bombers at ignore losses and every bridge bombing run burned only 10% of the turn.
That's because these aren't committed to directly participate in a land battle. These types of attacks that you describe have nothing to do with loss tolerance. The phases eaten are only for direct participation.
hmmm. you seem to be a little more optimistic about airfield attacks than others, mantis. maybe i'll keep at it.
my experience to this point is limited to playing the kursk scenario against the comp. a couple of times. on the second try, i tried the one bomber on a hex with a whole bunch of fighters on AS tactic, and that seemed to be more effective than sending everything directly on to a hex.
trouble was, after the first round, my planes in the south of the salient seemed to take FOREVER to reorg. while the ones in the north seemed to be much more durable. couldnt figure out why.
About eating the phases - I must admit that sometimes it doesn't always work to code.
Originally posted by koreaboy
hmmm. you seem to be a little more optimistic about airfield attacks than others, mantis. maybe i'll keep at it.
my experience to this point is limited to playing the kursk scenario against the comp. a couple of times. on the second try, i tried the one bomber on a hex with a whole bunch of fighters on AS tactic, and that seemed to be more effective than sending everything directly on to a hex.
trouble was, after the first round, my planes in the south of the salient seemed to take FOREVER to reorg. while the ones in the north seemed to be much more durable. couldnt figure out why.
You'll notice much better results in this if you have either modern equipment (will actually give you good chance of wiping the units on the ground, or strong local air superiority, in which case you'll do much better against the supporting fighters.
I don't do alot of these attacks myself, but they have their place. In the Blitzkrieg scenario, as a quick example, I nailed an airfield of Tiberius' in the very first round, and (since we were using modern equipment) I was able to evaporate 2 of his 3 air units based there, as well as paste the hell out of his fighters that sparked air battles with the fighters I had in the area on AS.
In WWII battles, I don't do very much of this at all.
Originally posted by koreaboy
hmmm. you seem to be a little more optimistic about airfield attacks than others, mantis. maybe i'll keep at it.
my experience to this point is limited to playing the kursk scenario against the comp. a couple of times. on the second try, i tried the one bomber on a hex with a whole bunch of fighters on AS tactic, and that seemed to be more effective than sending everything directly on to a hex.
trouble was, after the first round, my planes in the south of the salient seemed to take FOREVER to reorg. while the ones in the north seemed to be much more durable. couldnt figure out why.
I suggest you limit the number of airfield attacks you make. Eg don't send one bomber to hit every airfield in range. Just pick one (or maybe more, depending on how far apart the airfields you're hitting are) and let all AS concentrate on that.
The way AS works (or seems to, roughly speaking) is that if you have 6 planes on AS and hit 3 airfields (assume all airfields are in range of all AS fighters) then you will get something like 2 AS for each airfield attack, or 4-2-0 or 3-2-1 or some combination of 6 per tactical phase (each time you hit end turn).
For efficiency you really want to have all 6 AS fighters converge on one airfield to get maximum local superiority and the best kill ratios. And if you expect to evaporate Russian air units you need to be able to kill at good ratios repeatedly (meaning using your fighters less so they aren't in reorg the next turn).
You can still evaporate air units and its done allthe time. You just have to keep hammering away at the same air units.
If you want a good example of this, load up Fulda 55 and play as the Soviets.
You start with massive aerial superiority and the US air forces arrived in a staggered pattern. It is possible to wipe out completely (or at least most of it) the US air forces in this scenario. You probably won't have recon to see the US air units but they're all in the "off-map airfields" (separate from the main map) and if you take a bomber unit and move it over those hexes the cursor will change to a targetting cursor to indicate there are enemy warplanes there you can't see.
Fulda 55 will give you a perfect, small scenario to practice with and test whatever kind of air attcks you'd like to.
vBulletin® v3.7.4, Copyright ©2000-2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.