i plan to test air-naval combat sooner or later, its just there is still so much to learn from air-land and air-air combat that is really hard to get everything
. Im going to at least place this guideo n my signature
.
Air Mechanics/Combat/Mission "Quick" Guide.
- Thread starter sterrius
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i plan to test air-naval combat sooner or later, its just there is still so much to learn from air-land and air-air combat that is really hard to get everything
. Im going to at least place this guideo n my signature
.
Wow! If only every facet of this game was explained as well as this, I could finally spend more time playing the game. Right now I spend more time looking for the answers to my questions, than I spend playing the game.
I rate this guide a 10 out of 10. If this is your "basic" guide, I can't even imagine how good your fully complete guide will be. Amazing job. Thanks for taking the time.
I rate this guide a 10 out of 10. If this is your "basic" guide, I can't even imagine how good your fully complete guide will be. Amazing job. Thanks for taking the time.
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I call it basic because im yet to figure out a lot of things. For example naval bombers and strategic bombing that i completely ignored because its almost impossible to get sobe reliable data and repeat the test until im sure of it.
Oh and i did some screenshots from my wings in a test run that im going to use to make some examples later.
This was a test run with UK at 36. So i was with Technology Advantage (Fighter II with UK is crazy easy to get in 1938) and on top of that i increased the fighters ability.
Used 250 Wing size. 2 on Each french region. Had some fighters to spare for britain defense.
The german bombers don´t liked that at all. 5 kills to 1 in 30 days. (6/deaths day vs 34,8/day).
No matter if i can or can´t keep up the deaths (i was making 5/day).
The germans can´t and will run out of planes first.
All the kills where german tactical or strategic bombers. (No fights on the maginot line during the month).
I was not even using Heavy fighters because i lacked the 1940 version. Otherwise i bet it would have been even worse. (i kind of had to try that now too see for myself).
Here are the bonus i used to make this possible with fighters.
Bonus each fighter have.
- Speed I (Variant).
+10% Detection (Doctrine).
+20% Air superiority mission. (Doctrine)
+10% Agility / +10% Speed (Chief of air force)
+3% Air superiority Attack / +3% Air superiority Defense / +3% Air superiority agility (High Command).
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Really great analysis. This probably should be stuck so it won't keep dropping down the list.
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Can you clarify one thing please regarding CAS ground attack and Strength damage:
Let's say I have a division that is made up of one Infantry battalion and one light armor battalion for a total of 25+2 = 27 Strength/HP. This represents 1500 men and 60 tanks.
Assuming no modifiers a single (1936) CAS plane will do 10 * 0.1 * 0.5 = 0.5 Strength damage, right?
My question is how is this 0.3 split amongst the two battalions? Will each deplete 0.15 (meaning 0.25/2 * 60 = 7.5 tanks will get blown up) or will the 0.3 strength damage be split evenly amongst the 27 division strength (meaning only 0.5/27 * 60 = 1.11 tanks will get blown up)? Either way it seems one CAS plane can blow up at least one tank!
If the latter, then embedding armor into high infantry divisions will make your expensive equipment much more resilient (e.g. one armor battalion amongst 6 infantry battalions would only lose 0.5/152 * 60 = 0.2 tanks per CAS attack run).
On the other hand it sounds like armor only divisions are complete sitting ducks for CAS attack. A single battalion armor only division would suffer a massive 0.5/2 * 60 = 15 tank loss per CAS attack per plane! It is well known that tanks are vulnerable to air attacks but that still sounds ridiculously high ...
Let's say I have a division that is made up of one Infantry battalion and one light armor battalion for a total of 25+2 = 27 Strength/HP. This represents 1500 men and 60 tanks.
Assuming no modifiers a single (1936) CAS plane will do 10 * 0.1 * 0.5 = 0.5 Strength damage, right?
My question is how is this 0.3 split amongst the two battalions? Will each deplete 0.15 (meaning 0.25/2 * 60 = 7.5 tanks will get blown up) or will the 0.3 strength damage be split evenly amongst the 27 division strength (meaning only 0.5/27 * 60 = 1.11 tanks will get blown up)? Either way it seems one CAS plane can blow up at least one tank!
If the latter, then embedding armor into high infantry divisions will make your expensive equipment much more resilient (e.g. one armor battalion amongst 6 infantry battalions would only lose 0.5/152 * 60 = 0.2 tanks per CAS attack run).
On the other hand it sounds like armor only divisions are complete sitting ducks for CAS attack. A single battalion armor only division would suffer a massive 0.5/2 * 60 = 15 tank loss per CAS attack per plane! It is well known that tanks are vulnerable to air attacks but that still sounds ridiculously high ...
So I've done the math on 1944 fighters vs heavy fighters vs CAS and it seems like heavy fighters have about equal stats vs fighters (HF have more air attack after modifiers, but about the same less defense after modifiers), and the same is true of HF vs CAS and LF vs CAS (due to huge agil difference between CAS and HF). So since both fighters are roughly equal vs CAS and vs each other, is there a point to building heavy fighters other than increased range?
Also I made a huge assumption that a proportional increase in attack is cancelled by a proportional increase in defense, but in previous HOI games each point of attack always > each point of defense, so if they aren't equal then 1944 HF should still beat 1944 LF in a straight up 1v1.
Also I made a huge assumption that a proportional increase in attack is cancelled by a proportional increase in defense, but in previous HOI games each point of attack always > each point of defense, so if they aren't equal then 1944 HF should still beat 1944 LF in a straight up 1v1.
Question about escort... Do the H.Fighters need to be in the same wing as the S. Bombers or is it enough to send them as two separate wings.
What I recall I can only place one type of aircraft inside a wing, but I´m not sure
What I recall I can only place one type of aircraft inside a wing, but I´m not sure
They can be in separate wings. You can't even combine two different types of planes in one wing anyway.
I did some more math on LF and HF vs bombers and it appears LF gets destroyed by strat bombers 1v1 while HF can put up a fight. Seems like LF spam is the way to go in MP games because strat bombers seem useless while CAS seems very strong.
I did some more math on LF and HF vs bombers and it appears LF gets destroyed by strat bombers 1v1 while HF can put up a fight. Seems like LF spam is the way to go in MP games because strat bombers seem useless while CAS seems very strong.
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Just a note Sterrius, I just read this post and I checked the reddit and the game files and its true. In short, the AI does not research new aircraft models among other things because the AI weights for actually doing new model research is very low. Thus all the AI will produce are the 1936 model planes and their variants until the game ends. So your jet fighters will still be fighting planes from the start of the war. However this might also be the cause of some of the air combat discrepancies as if I'm right, 2 1936 fighters can still overwhelm 1 1940 and possibly a 1944 one? Since the AI only produces the old models, their overall production will increase over time so it really boils down to quantity vs quality.
it depends. When you put everything against the Fighter II you can hope to survive.
This guide have kind of MP in focus as well. Because if you can win against a player you can win against the AI easily.
For example. Go germany 1939 scenario and pick germany.
Germany have only fighter I. 1200 fighters and placed everything on the french border.
UK and France have fighter II. They usually send 400-600 planes day and suffered around 20-40% penalty on air coverage.
I did used different combinations of Wing size but the results where more or less the same. I Played 1 month war starting and pausing at the same hour.
I Used wings of 38 , 100, 300, 600 and 1000.
In full defense, with air coverage and all other advantages on my side i was barely holding it with 0.9 Fighters loss to kill 1 Fighter of them. We both lost around 700-1000 planes month depending on my wing size and operation.
High casualities and i would lose the skys for 4 months until i can start putting some Fighter II of my own on the skys.
So even on the best terms a 1936 plane have problems to kill a fighter II and the difference in cost is not that big to make much of a difference.
Maybe on a theater that heavily penalizes the opponent air coverage we could, maybe, win with a 1936 fighter. Mostly maybe with a four to 1 ratio.
I also did a play 36-39 with england and had fighter II. Used 200 Wing size to have 3 wings on the german border. (total 600 planes).
I usually killed around 4 bombers to each fighter. I did upgraded that fighter II with a industry, doctrine etc but the difference was too big to be only that.
About wings.
100 - 300 Worked way better than the others. Most likely because they have enough wings to hold on their on and reinforce if needed. I don´t know the size of the AI wings and that makes it hard to know why both wings performed similar results.
38-600-1000 size wings had Huge problems.
38 wings while they can reinforce they quickly reach the Wing cap and you will face lots of 2v1 against you.
600 size and 1000 size faced the problem they could not engage multiple wings at same time, so they killed a lot less.
Also they got more losses. Most likely because they where being intercepted more times and faced more battles when they return home already damaged without any wing being able to help them out.
So While Big Wing is generally when alone they are actually worse. You need a minimum amount of wings to create multiple battles instead of a big one.
PS: For fun i put all the 120 H. Fighters germany had and did one test making them interception of bombers on night with the fighters only on the day. The number of bombers dead went up a lot and they do really pay for themselves easily. The problem is that the number is too low and of course they where all dead by the end of the month.
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A typo I guess. air_accidents = +1% I guess.
Edited that little mistake XD.
Good to know and later i will add to the guide. Using this as base you can always know how many wings the AI have in a region and act against it.
It also explain why the 100 wings performed well on my test. The AI clearly will have problems to have 3+ wings in a 39 start and is not able to push the wing size advantage for having only 2 wings. Later on it will become harder for a 100wing if you allow the AI to expand its air force.
If the wing limit is 6 worst scenario i would face 600 enemy planes vs 400 of mine.
If its 8 its 600 x 600 as i have 12 wings (1200 planes) vs his 2 wings (600 planes).
With air coverage only a fraction of the enemy planes will participate in the battle.
From observation (vs AI), its safe to advice players to go for Wing Advantage first. Using around 150 aircraft for each wing.
Later go for wing size advantage until you reach 300-400 planes.
A good way to know how many planes/wings you need is to use the AIR Situation screen.
Above the place where you assign planes you will see 4 icons indicating how much planes you and your enemy have on the region. Also radar coverage.
Avoid battles if you are facing 2v1 numbers on total of planes.
Press wing advantage if you're even.
After you have the same/better amount of squads you go for the kill increasing the numbers of your squads.
Strategic Bombers get a interesting dillema. They don´t benefit of multiple wings but they benefit from small numbers.
Smaller wings are better as you can overwhelm the maximum number of missions a enemy wing can do per/day.
But you're also more vulnerable.
Bigger wings are safer but they will have a large portion of bombers detected and you should be better sending a escort to even the fight.
I would go squad size of 100 without escort.
upgrading very slow to 300-400 later on as i get air advantage and start to trust my escorts to go there and do their job.
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So unless we don't know that exactly. There is no way to figure out what is the best squadsize (to fight at least the AI).
Also it seems to be allways depending on the enemy you facing.
You also forgot that smaller wings did 'produce' more aces (I guess). With makes smaller wings a bit better even when facing a huge 'stack'.
So unless we don't know that exactly. There is no way to figure out what is the best squadsize (to fight at least the AI).
Also it seems to be allways depending on the enemy you facing.
You also forgot that smaller wings did 'produce' more aces (I guess). With makes smaller wings a bit better even when facing a huge 'stack'.
You kind of have a picture counting how many enemy planes are flying that particular air zone in the air zone screen. Its there together with radar coverage, AA etc.
But its just too much micro, specially multiplayer. You can do it in one region or two. Not on USSR for example that have multiple fronts.
Just make a good wing size. (200-400) and pump planes until you have air superiority.
About aces most major will swin in them if they start placing dozens of squads everywhere.
If you gather all of them into one region they can become really powerful
Alone they are not much because they only influence one wing. (And if its a small one its a drop in the ocean).
Is it different situations that we have max 6 or 8 air wings engagements? If so what is it. Or is that you're still uncertain whether it is 6 or 8 max air wings combats?
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