AI Control and Air

[Aernil]

Here is the situation:
Its spring 1940, and my whole army stands at the border to the lowlands playing HPP.

OOB:
1 Theater ( O K W)
.... 1 Army Group (Heeresgruppe A)
....... 5 Armies (I.-V. Armee)
.......... 3 Infantry Corps (I.-III. AK)
.......... 1 Mot/Mech Corps (IV. MAK)
.......... 1 Panzer Corps (V. Pz)
4 Squadron MultiRole (each 4 wings)
3 Squadron CAS (each 4 wings)
2 Squadron TAC (each 4 wings)
2 Squadron INT (each 4 wings)

The whole OOB is designed to be controlled by the AI, which it does pretty good.

Now, the Problem seems to be, that the AI won't use the Air Force at all, except the occasional intercept with Fighters.
I also tried to assign the Squadrons to individual Armies, but to no good.
AI Control is on Theaterlevel, Blitzkrieg stance and Air Offensive.
Is there anything I might have missed or is the AI not capable to use air units?

[comsubpac]

My ai does use the airforce and it shouldn't matter which level you assign them to. all that matters is the stance.

[Aernil]

I have never seen my CAS or TACs bomb anything, despite always using Blitzkrieg and Air Offensive stances

Edit:
From 10.5.1940 - 19.6.1940 my AI controlled Air force engaged in exactly 3 ground attack, although the Theater wants an additional 8 TAC wings.
Also not a single attacking enemy plane was intercepted.

[Thanik]

1. You are sure that they have enough fuel and supplies? And no problem with organization,and strength (HPP use a little different supply and stances system).

2. You are sure that Theater HQ controlled by AI have correct colored provinces near low countries ,and marked objectives(like Amsterdam or sth)?

3. Ask on bug raport threat on HPP mod page. Maybe restoring some values from vanilla will help...

Alpha For the Motherland 3.05 using the CMP map: 2.6.61a.

[Aernil]

1.) Fuel and supplies are fine (even for HPP), Org and Str of all wings 100%
2.) Theater boundaries are well controlled. The Advance through Belgium works perfectly fine
3.) I am not sure stances can be modded that drastically

[Flayer92]

AI will use Air Intercept with the fighers (but you'll have to rebase them yourself if you want them to move up when the front advances), it will use Ground Attack with CAS and TAC, will also Strategic Bomb with TAC and STR, Naval Strike/Port Strike with NAV. It will occasionally do an Airborne Assault with transports but it will never use them for Air Supply misssions as far as I've seen (which would be very helpful). However, the AI doesn't seem to be aggressive enough in using its bombers.

[Emperor Hans]

AI will use Air Intercept with the fighers (but you'll have to rebase them yourself if you want them to move up when the front advances), it will use Ground Attack with CAS and TAC, will also Strategic Bomb with TAC and STRA, Naval Strike/Port Strike with NAV. It will occasionally do an Airborne Assault with transports but it will never use them for Air Supply misssions as far as I've seen (which would be very helpful). However, the AI doesn't seem to be aggressive enough in using its bombers.

This, the only time I see the AI using bombers is to support combat odds.

[basun]

Yea, it's too bad. I like to use bombers quite extensively and I don't use AI at all for my armies, but I would like AI to use it against me :P

[Aernil]

Once I split up the Squadrons from 4 to 2 wings per squadron, the AI startet to bomb more often (though Multi still arent on Air Superiority or Intercept).
I got to around 15-20 groundattacks from 10.5.1940 -16.6.1940.
Considering the available Air units and the size of my army I think thats not enough.
It seems manual control of Air force is the only viable option right now.

[Flayer92]

It will also always stick multiroles into transport wings if you have them (where they'll sit idle 99% of the time) or into naval bomber wings if you have no transports. Don't let the AI reorganize them if you want to avoid this.

In smaller countries and in majors fighting on one front, it's practical to command all air yourself as long as you have the game speed running low enough. You might want to have the AI watch the secondary fronts when you're not there if you're playing Germany after Barbarossa begins, the UK or the US when there are both Pacific and European theaters, or Japan if there's both mainland Asia and Pacific fronts.

Having the AI use Air Supply missions on its own could work wonders for Japan if it bogs down in China (and has them) or for Italy in Libya if its convoy lines are cut. When I played a game as Nationalist China, my offensivebogged down halfway through Manchukuo and could literally advance no further until I had a wing of transport planes finished left to deal supply them.

[Saltspring]

Oh it is important to know the AI does not know to use Multi-role fighters unless they are attached to other air wings.

[Flayer92]

German Fallschirmjager just parachuted into Singapore in my Japan game...don't know whether I should be impressed or facepalming right now.

[Saint-Exupéry]

What are the bonuses when Air units are attached to HQ-s?