Achieving Air Superiority? Without all the Micromanagement?

[unmerged(144541)]

Hey Everyone,
This is my first time posting anything, have been reading quite a bit of material on this forum for some time now but just have not put my two cents in yet. I have been playing HoI for over two years now and did not realize that this forum was so dedicated to the game and the intracracies of set game.

I recently started a game as Germany 44' Godderdammerung. Have done very well. Kicked US out of Normandy after a brilliant encircling manuever around Paris. Stopped the Red Army before the winter hit and actually made some ground back. Totally destroyed the British in the boot of Italy, but this is where it got real interesting. US FINISHED off Japan before the winter of 44' and suddenly the amount of air power the Allies could throw at me was astounding. I tried to achieve atleast local air superiority (like over Normandy and Pas de Calais). I would achieve this, but only for a week or so. Then I would have to rebase to resupply and reorganize. I even tried scrambling my interceptors and fighters based on a one week "on" and one week "off" basis and the damage was still considerable. I have 25 interceptor squadrons and 12 fighter squadrons at my disposal. Anyone have any air strategies?


P.S. After the US finished off Japan, they began trying to systematically take out my Axis allies. The waited until late June 45' to begin this startegy however, of course after I had all ready launched Barbarossa II. So I did not have sufficient forces to stop 25+ size amphibious landings in Northern Greece. It took me a month or so but eventually captured that landing party. However the US was able to annex Bulgaria. Just as I was mopping up in the Balkans, the Damn British landed in southern France with 15 divisions. Took them out as well after a few weeks. Then the US launched another 25+ invasion in the Balkans and was able to annex Croatia before I was able to stop them. By this time I was having issues with reorganization and resupply. As all this was happening the British were stacking divisions in Sicily. So I pulled back to the Gothic Line to let the British come out so to destory the super stack, but that spurred the US to launch yet another invasion in southern France. And thats where I am right now, its Jan 46' and its been one the best games I have played as Germany.

But yes back to the air superority issues. I really want to launch an Air blitizkrieg against the Allies. Just want to keep the damage and resupply to the lowest?

 

[unmerged(28592)]

Well, havent played that scenario myself, so don't know how useful this advice is due to the build times.

Anyway, here goes.

Build radar and AA, especially where your airfields are.
The AI seems to like to strat bomb radar and AA, so at least that would take off some of the bomb planes pressure.
For preventing the fighters and tactical bombers, try to concentrate your fighters in one area at a time (All of them), hopefully you will be able to shoot down quite a lot of planes.
So all the planes to one area, and when need for repairing and reorganising arises, all planes on the ground.
This is based on the experience that 24 planes fighting 4-8 planes is likely to shoot down 1-3 planes, while not loosing any.

Don't forget to have a minister for interceptor and fighter bonuses as well.

 

[inselkammer]

since its 46 could it be that you havent buildt a lot of new figthers ? why ? you have enough IC and your army shoud be big enough to let you concentrate on airpower. with 20 figthers more you should be able to break their superiority piece by piece, while having enough replacements to exchange the badly damaged divisions with fresh ones so you can keep up the pressure.

btw, that game sounds great, are you using any mod ? my götterdämmerung became a pretty regular germany game after the situations in north south and east were solved or stabilized. but i still remember the fear before pushing the pause button.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

Thanks for the advice. I have built Radar and AA but mainly in Normandy where the US, Britain and Canada are really concentrating. I tried to use all planes at once in one area and was only able to achieve air superiority for about a week maybe two before my planes became under risk themselves. I then tried to put half of all my interceptors and fighters up on week and the other half the week after that. So every squadron would recieve one week combat and one week rest. But still have not been able to achieve total air superiority. The only reason is that whenever I need to move divisions in Northern France for whatever reason, they are bombed through the ground by the Allies and I am sick of replacing garrison divisions on the western front when I am concentrating elsewhere, especially in SU and Italy.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

since its 46 could it be that you havent buildt a lot of new figthers ? why ? you have enough IC and your army shoud be big enough to let you concentrate on airpower. with 20 figthers more you should be able to break their superiority piece by piece, while having enough replacements to exchange the badly damaged divisions with fresh ones so you can keep up the pressure.

btw, that game sounds great, are you using any mod ? my götterdämmerung became a pretty regular germany game after the situations in north south and east were solved or stabilized. but i still remember the fear before pushing the pause button.

Hey inselkammer,

I am not actually using any mods, I think. I believe my version is 1.3 (that might be a mod but I am not sure, I am not that updated on mods). I have built only fighters, about 8 squadrons by now and still building 12 more. All planes are a improved turbojet and have all fighter doctrines researched. My ground forces are fine right now, unless something cataclysmic happens.

This has not been a regular Germany Game so far, According to my intelligence, the US had 250 infantry division when I started the scenario, the intelligence is now at 64 divisions. But I have a funny feeling that alot of them are in China and Japan and are not accounted for.

It took me three and a half hours before I thought I was good to press the unpause button, only to press it again within an hour of the game! lol literally ten seconds maybe!!!

 

[unmerged(144541)]

Oh one other thing that I forgot to mention earlier. How come you can only attach escort fighter brigades to strategic bomber squadrons and not TAC's or NAV's? Is that a bug or is it supposed to be that way? I have looked through the manual and on the forum and have not seen anything about this issue

 

[unmerged(28592)]

Oh one other thing that I forgot to mention earlier. How come you can only attach escort fighter brigades to strategic bomber squadrons and not TAC's or NAV's? Is that a bug or is it supposed to be that way? I have looked through the manual and on the forum and have not seen anything about this issue

That sounds like a bug. You should be able to attach Escorts to NAV and TAC bombers too.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

Yeah thats what I thought as well tomazkid. Do you know anyway of fixing that? or am I going to have to live with it! lol :wacko:

 

[twcAxeman]

I use one tactic to crush the allies air superiority.

Spam TONS Of interceptors and place in northern france, once you have about 48 air units set them all to air superiority over the ENGLISH CHANNEL.

This way they intercept out at sea and if you keep them in mega stacks it stops enemy air units from getting through to any region in France. Then just put 24 or so Air Units to guard the Southeastern North Sea.

This of course is used with 1936 grand campagin, in 1944 its probably wise to just split up allied aircraft into smaller groups then respond.

 

[PB-DK]

well air superiority is a tough nut to crack in the 44 scenario, but when i usually do A.S. i prefere to concentrate my forces within one region and maybe to one or two area's like the channel which is a good choke point except you wont be getting any aid from your radar stations. but if you pull back over france you also spread out the possible points of attack the allies can make...

i prefere to keep my figther&interceptor wings flying air superiority at around 80-95%. this usually means they only get one shot at combat before they ground themselves for repair, which could be to your advantage since they will be repaired quickly and can come back up within a week. should any of your fighters be damaged more than 50% then reassign them to a 'repair wing' so your frontline fighter wings can get back up quickly.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

Thats a really good idea PB-DK, I never thought of having their organization set at a higher level, so when they do come in to combat they either retreat quick if it is a losing battle or inflict some damage before they themselves are damaged too much. And because the only get damaged a little bit ( in comparision to what has been happening where my whole air force is grounded in France) I can get the back up in the air faster. I have tried it and it as worked so far, been gaining better air superiority every week, I am still taking damage but not as much as my airforce was before. THANKS.

oh by the way, do you know how to fix the problem of not being able to attach fighter escorts to TAC's and NAV's?

 

[unmerged(27886)]

The problem with not being able to attach ESC brigades may be due to the plane you are trying to brigade being in a non-annexed territory.

Try this. Rebase the TAC or NAV to Essen. Then try and attach the brigade.

 

[unmerged(144541)]

Yeah thats what I had originally thought. I have tried to pull back my TAC's to one of my provinces and it still didn't work. Can only attach to SB. Its really knowing.