Air forces in the battle planner

[Sharp163]

Hi!

This was brought up in the thread Darkest Hour for HOI4, but I thought it was such an important feature that it deserved its own thread.

Perhaps my least favorite part of the previous games in the series was reassigning air forces region by region as the front advanced. It was tedious and easy to forget about, and certainly not the way it happened in real life.

My question is, can air forces be integrated into the battle planner, and just told to "follow the front"? I can understand if navies have to be assigned to regions, as that makes more sense... But air forces should be able to advance on their own in accordance with the movements of the armies they're following!

If this is already a feature in the game, then fantastic!

If not though, then I think it would be a nice addition. Thank you!

 

[LordOfWar16]

No, because the developers dont want plain automation in the game anymore. Even the technicly automated stuff requires your input. The Airzones are rather large (france only consists of 2 for example), so it isnt really that big of a deal.

It should be noted that in the earlier World War Wednesday Streams it was kinda tedious to find and move airwings, but that changed quiet alot in the latest episodes and got much better.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I'd like to be able to assign air forces to cover the operations of particular generals, or particular arrows within a plan. Doesn't seem to be the case though. There are going for broad regions at this point. I'm not aware of a way to, for instance, focus CAS on an armored spearhead.

 

[LordOfWar16]

I'd like to be able to assign air forces to cover the operations of particular generals, or particular arrows within a plan. Doesn't seem to be the case though. There are going for broad regions at this point. I'm not aware of a way to, for instance, focus CAS on an armored spearhead.

They will of course try to do the most logical thing. Close Air Support will most likely support your troops in battle, rather than randomly attacking enemy units at the other end of the front. Planes can and will enter and exist running battles and do strafing runs etc on the enemy. Air Superiority itself will also help the troops on the ground in the entire airzone aswell.

One thing that could possibly work is adding the existing priority system to army groups for air support with High, Normal and Low priority, but i dont know how well or if it would work properly.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

They will of course try to do the most logical thing. Close Air Support will most likely support your troops in battle, rather than randomly attacking enemy units at the other end of the front. Planes can and will enter and exist running battles and do strafing runs etc on the enemy. Air Superiority itself will also help the troops on the ground in the entire airzone aswell.

Yes, but in a situation like Sedan, I want the air support to help me win at the point of breakthrough. Or maybe I am confident of being able to break through and want blunt a counter-attack against this flank.

One thing that could possibly work is adding the existing priority system to army groups for air support with High, Normal and Low priority, but i dont know how well or if it would work properly.

That would be a fairly straightforward way of doing it. I'd still prefer being able to assign to armies so that I don't need to re-assign air assets once the attack force crosses a line on the map.

 

[LordOfWar16]

That would be a fairly straightforward way of doing it. I'd still prefer being able to assign to armies so that I don't need to re-assign air assets once the attack force crosses a line on the map.

In that case you would need to reassign your airwings to different armies all the time tho and still redeploy them to different airfields.

The priority system would probably actually fit best, even when it comes to realism. Overall, the airforce, atleast in germany, was independant from the army, meaning that generals and officers had to request air support. That could be reflected by said priority system, giving only some degree of controll over it but not 100%, which i kinda like. It is not like a division or corp had exclusive rights to an set airwing overall. It wouldnt add the tedious micromanagement the devs want to avoid and still give you the right degree of controll.