Air Doctrine Comparison Chart

[bitmode]

Can pilots get promoted through the three levels? I seem to get messages saying an ace was promoted, but I cannot find the ace. I suspect a current ace got promoted in those times, but I can never be sure.

They can't get promoted through the levels but it looks like multiple aces can get attached to one air wing when they spawn:

(but only the one shown on the wing confers bonuses)

 

[Harin]

They can't get promoted through the levels but it looks like multiple aces can get attached to one air wing when they spawn:
View attachment 582833
(but only the one shown on the wing confers bonuses)

Wow, that was an unexpected answer. That means there are a few more aces than I realized. I will have to be more alert and disperse those aces to where they can be useful.

Thanks so much @bitmode!

 

[Kryndude]

Just how big is this bonus is, in reality of the game?

Isn't one of those techs actually useful and should be researched?

Upon testing, it seems air support has a cap of 25%. If you research both ground support doctrines in BS and get 40% ground support, air support goes up to 25 x 1.4 = 35%. Which means the doctrine, at max air support, gives 10% additional attack and breakthrough/defense bonus. Air superiority, in comparison, has a cap of 35%, and if you research all air superiority doctrines in BS it goes up to 35 x 1.3 = 45.5%.

In short, ground support 40% = attack/breakthrough/defense 10% and air superiority 30% = enemy defense -15.5% at max, meaning you get less depending on your air dominance.

 

[Kryndude]

@bitmode According to your new wiki description, XXX Mission Efficiency buffs air and naval attack but not ground attack. Can you confirm this? If this is true then Air Support Mission Efficiency is only useful when supporting in a contested air zone against enemy fighters and doesn't directly help you do more damage against enemy land units.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Air superiority, in comparison, has a cap of 35%, and if you research all air superiority doctrines in BS it goes up to 35 x 1.3 = 45.5%.

In some battles it's just as you say.
But in others it's 38.50% without doctrines and goes up to 49.00% with all of battlefield support.

Seems there is a +3.5% modifier somewhere, but I can't find it. (It's not an ace.)



Edit:
It's 35.00% in forest and 38.50% in plains.
Could it be the "-10% enemy air support" of the forrest terrain that influences enemy air superiority ???

 

[Kryndude]

It's 35.00% in forest and 38.50% in plains.
Could it be the "-10% enemy air support" of the forrest terrain that influences enemy air superiority ???

Nice, good catch, I did indeed test it in a forest province. But why 38.5? That's such an odd number. Maybe there's something else that's affecting it?

 

[Cavalry]

Could it be the "-10% enemy air support" of the forrest terrain that influences enemy air superiority ???

Wiki example say that it is -10% number of CAS to attack in forest.

 

[Kryndude]

Wiki example say that it is -10% number of CAS to attack in forest.

CAS gives your troops AIR SUPPORT, having air superiority gives enemy troops ENEMY AIR SUPPORT. If you hover over the terrain image in the province window, it says ENEMY AIR SUPPORT - 10%.

Yes, terminology in HOI4 is absolutely horrible. The worst among games I've ever played. Great game tho, don't get me wrong.

 

[bitmode]

@bitmode According to your new wiki description, XXX Mission Efficiency buffs air and naval attack but not ground attack.

The old version said the same thing (edit: nevermind, in my head it says "air attack" and "air defense", but "attack" could also be read as "ground attack"):

Air support mission efficiency bonuses increase the attack, defense and agility of the wing.

As far as I can tell very few things modify the ground damage; basically just the ground_attack_factor of an ace and the current weather.

 

[Cavalry]

CAS gives your troops AIR SUPPORT, having air superiority gives enemy troops ENEMY AIR SUPPORT. If you hover over the terrain image in the province window, it says ENEMY AIR SUPPORT - 10%.

Yes I see it but the wiki example say otherwise and it looks like the wiki is right:

Example: One forest land battle takes place in the air region. The enemy frontage, from the landbased divisions, is 20 which allows 3x20*(1-0.1) = 54 planes on the CAS mission to join the battle. CAS wings will join the battle to fill up to 54 planes.

Air missions - Hearts of Iron 4 Wiki

hoi4.paradoxwikis.com

It seem that the air support modifiers on land divisions is only apply to the division that has combat with the enemy division that actually received CAS attack, and may vary depend on the actually CAS damage? The more damage the CAS make, the bigger air support modifiers?

 

[Kryndude]

Problem is we're seeing actual drop in air superiority effects that match the terrain penalty. And the wiki's talking about Close Air Support not Air Superiority (which is also labeled as Enemy Air Support in combat tooltip, terrain tooltip says Enemy Air Support). It might be that terrain affects both modifiers, in which case Enemy Air Support from terrain is not the Enemy Air Support shown in land combat tooltip. Another term with two different meanings.

 

[myzael]

Problem is we're seeing actual drop in air superiority effects that match the terrain penalty. And the wiki's talking about Close Air Support not Air Superiority (which is also labeled as Enemy Air Support in combat tooltip, terrain tooltip says Enemy Air Support). It might be that terrain affects both modifiers, in which case Enemy Air Support from terrain is not the Enemy Air Support shown in land combat tooltip. Another terminology with two different meanings.

Terrain has enemy_army_bonus_air_superiority_factor, which I'd guess combines both CAS and air superiority.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Did another small test but now I'm more confused than before.

• Without any doctrine
• 4x100 CAS
• 4x100 Fighter
• Only 1 fight at a time
• No AA (at least I haven't seen the symbol in the battle screen. Is that enough?)

Here the results:

Terrain	Enemy Defense ("Enemy air superiority")	My attack and BT ("Air support")	Number of CAS in battle
Mountains	-35.00%	+25.00%	54
Forrest	-35.00%	+25.00%	86
Plains	-38.50%	+25.00%	48
Hills	-36.70%	+25.00%	114

But the 25.00% weren't static but flickering around beeing most time on 22.30% and only sometimes blinking up to 25.00%

I thought the Number of CAS in battle has something to do with combat width? Couldn't see any connection.

Maybe my test setup was not good (just loaded a savegame) and made me get flawed results. But I don't know what could have been wrong...

 

[Secret Master]

You'll want to do some kind of controlled test if you want to measure that value.

AA guns interfere with the impact of air superiority, so you'll want to test it with pure INF divisions with a ton of width in a battle (multiple axes of attack plenty of ORG so the planes can join in multiple times) and you probably want to cheat in a few thousand planes of both types so that there are plenty of aircraft in the air region.

Oh, and pour yourself a refreshing beverage before doing all of this. It might take awhile to get it right.