Air Missions

[Dinsdale]

Logistical Strike use should depend on your nation. As Germany, it's all about the speed, so I only use Logistical Strike to crack a tough nut.

Sure, though using the benefits and strength of an attack which is surely going to be rare is probably not the best advertisement for air power.

Also, your focus is wrong. Attacks should only be carried out as a means of obtaining a strategic objective in defeating the opposing nation. You do not want to defeat the enemy in detail, you want to beat the enemy nation.

In HOI they are just about one and the same. Except for France where most of their armies can be bypassed to trigger Vichy, a significant number of enemy divisions must be destroyed in order to be able to take and hold enough territory for conquest, unless you're playing a manpower-based nation such as USSR, where one could simply grind forward and destroy the enemy through attrition, encirclements are vital as they are the only method of reducing enemy numbers.

Don't fight unnecessary battles (and encircled troops that can't muster the strength to break out are unnecessary battles, and unnecessary provinces to pay the occupation TC drain on).

Particularly against Germany or USSR, it's suicidal not to destroy encircled units. Due to supply and SR anomalies, those units are dangerous and will eventually breakout. The TC loss through destruction and occupation will certainly be less than the TC cost of enough infantry to contain a 40-50 division pocket.

Secondly, due to the short campaigning window, not just in USSR, speed is the most vital resource in the game if you wish to preserve manpower and make advances necessary for the conquest of nations. Fighting USSR isn't only restricted to Germany

Certainly, excessive rebasing is an issue, and will degrade your efficiency. You need to plan your offensives, analyze what air infrastructure you have in place, and build up your infrastructure to support your air forces.

Of course, but 3 armour divisions, or 4 air wings will essentially be tied to the same portion of the front. Basing air strength on their re-use and mobility is a bit of a red-herring, unless you're offensives are 1-2 provinces wide and 1-3 provinces deep.

I build MANY airfields as Germany, both to set up interceptor/night fighter bases and to build up front line airfields for planned wars. 12 along the Polish border (4 in each of 3 provinces) for my CAS are an example I can think of right off the top of my head. These airfields along with those existing in Germany and Prussia allow air forces to operate over the whole of the Polish offensive without need to rebase. You can rebase some CAS to Lodz to give them a bit further reach if you need it, but usually by the time you're overextending your CAS reach, it's all academic from there on out anyhow.

You can take Poland and have air superiority/air missions, on all the vital provinces without building an airbase. The existing ones will cover the entire front necessary to take Warsaw and destroy the Polish army in Westen or Southern Poland.

Certainly, concentrated armor allows encirclement, but also takes time and is vulnerable. However, smaller armored forces concentrated with infantry support can achieve the same result, and be more successful with air power.

That's debateable, especially if your planned advance requires even 1 rebase (which it will if you intend deep penetration.)

In addition, since air power can harrass and keep retreating troops disorganized, follow on battles and continued operation are easier. You can only advance so far before you have to stop and reorganize. If you can keep battles just that much shorter, this can add an extra province or even two to your advance before you have to consolodate. You're going to lose a lot more org in an extra hour or so of battle than you will in days of movement.

If you plan your advance correctly, those retreating units will be harried by freshly arriving armour divisions. Encirclement is all about speed, hemming in the enemy and being able to hold territory on the flanks. Given that armour may be directed precisely, air-power at the whim of the AI (especially with multiple battles in the same zone) then risking a potential killer blow to the enemy's forces to that airpower is more than I find acceptable. Further, to truly exploit the power of aircraft requires more, not less, micromanagement than HOI1.

9 armour encircling from 2 directions, backed with fast moving infantry is unstoppable. Like many features of the game, there are other paths to victory, but they generally are superflous to the twin stengths of force concentration and speed.

One could certainly do well with your air strategy, but one can do equally well without it. That's probably the most serious endictment of air power as it stands, though to repeat, it's closer to getting it right than many of the complaints make out.

 

[mld0806]

But what about Russia - vey few airbases there - CAS should be able to use very hastily prepared landings. Or make FIRST level of airbase (when you select to build in a province) very FAST to build (2 weeks to build level 1 then 3 months to level 2 then normal speed for levels 3+)

There are enough air bases in Russia to extend your CAS in a leapfrog style forward, as long as you set airbase provinces as strategic objectives and make their capture a priority, and build up the Polish frontier to provide basing for your initial strikes. By the time you're nearing the edge of your CAS umbrella, you're only one province away from the next airbase, and should be in a position after battles to continue the advance without CAS cover and using only TAC cover for that battle.

 

[mld0806]

Sure, though using the benefits and strength of an attack which is surely going to be rare is probably not the best advertisement for air power.

There's many other uses for air power as Germany, not just Logistical Strike, though this can be used to slow Russian movement outside of the lines of advance and allow your manouver forces more time to operate.

In HOI they are just about one and the same. Except for France where most of their armies can be bypassed to trigger Vichy, a significant number of enemy divisions must be destroyed in order to be able to take and hold enough territory for conquest, unless you're playing a manpower-based nation such as USSR, where one could simply grind forward and destroy the enemy through attrition, encirclements are vital as they are the only method of reducing enemy numbers.

Almost all of the major nations have surrender events that are territory dependent. If the requirements are (as in Bitter Peace or Britain Surrenders) IC, territory, or resource based, then your strategic objectives are to get the provinces listed as targets, aim for high IC and resource concentrations, and VP sites to reach this amount. You can do so without major destruction of enemy forces if you appropriately design and implement a strategy.

Particularly against Germany or USSR, it's suicidal not to destroy encircled units. Due to supply and SR anomalies, those units are dangerous and will eventually breakout. The TC loss through destruction and occupation will certainly be less than the TC cost of enough infantry to contain a 40-50 division pocket.

IF 40-50 divisions are all bottled up in one province. Out of supply units, you can hold out quite well with 2/3 their number. And the AI isn't going to stack all units in one province if it doesn't have to, but will try and match any holding forces you have deployed. You can feasibly hold pockets with proper dilligence and counterattack of any breakout attempts while the advance forces move on.

The TC drain of each province with partisan activity can be averaged at about 3.6 (3 occupation and .6 partisan). 10 provinces = 36 infantry divisions, more than enough to contain a cut off pocket of 40-50 divisions.

Secondly, due to the short campaigning window, not just in USSR, speed is the most vital resource in the game if you wish to preserve manpower and make advances necessary for the conquest of nations. Fighting USSR isn't only restricted to Germany

Concentrating on strategic objectives and advancing on them will be faster than destruction of the enemy in detail any day.

Of course, but 3 armour divisions, or 4 air wings will essentially be tied to the same portion of the front. Basing air strength on their re-use and mobility is a bit of a red-herring, unless you're offensives are 1-2 provinces wide and 1-3 provinces deep.

4 air wings are not tied to one portion of the front. CAS perhaps, but not really if properly located, and TAC most defintely not. Armor on the other hand have at best 3 provinces they can affect at one time. TAC support can be given an average of 4-8 deep and as many wide, a choice of 2-4 enemy areas, at least, to operate in as needed.

You can take Poland and have air superiority/air missions, on all the vital provinces without building an airbase. The existing ones will cover the entire front necessary to take Warsaw and destroy the Polish army in Westen or Southern Poland.

Certainly, but you start running into overbasing. As well, there's a neat little bonus you get for base proximity which means those CAS hiting the front provinces from the adjacent province are doing better by basing right up on the front.

That's debateable, especially if your planned advance requires even 1 rebase (which it will if you intend deep penetration.)

If you're penetrating too deep, you're leaving supply lines vulnerable. Additionally, one rebase isn't that terrible if it's not over a long range. It might take a couple days if you're waiting for full org, but if you plan it right, you can do the rebase right at an operational pause while your land forces are reorganizing themselves, and you don't have an issue.

If you plan your advance correctly, those retreating units will be harried by freshly arriving armour divisions. Encirclement is all about speed, hemming in the enemy and being able to hold territory on the flanks. Given that armour may be directed precisely, air-power at the whim of the AI (especially with multiple battles in the same zone) then risking a potential killer blow to the enemy's forces to that airpower is more than I find acceptable. Further, to truly exploit the power of aircraft requires more, not less, micromanagement than HOI1.

How does it require more micro than HOI1? In HOI1 you had to retarget EVERY INDIVIDUAL PROVINCE. Here you don't. In addition, armor, while precisely directed, isn't always attacking the enemy. A combination of armor with air power covering and attacking during the advance will be more powerful than armor alone, simply because that enemy is weaker than when they started the retreat.

9 armour encircling from 2 directions, backed with fast moving infantry is unstoppable. Like many features of the game, there are other paths to victory, but they generally are superflous to the twin stengths of force concentration and speed.

Repeated how many times over the Russian front? Most times at least a 2 pronged, if not 3 pronged approach is called for. So we're talking 18-27 armor, minimum.

And force concentration with fast infantry? Oxymoronic. Fast infantry is by default Engineer infantry, who's combat power is at the low end of the infantry scale when compared to Infantry - Art. Mobile forces are for advance, foot forces are slow and for consolidation and support of the mobile breakthrough. Firepower superiority can be achieved by brigaded infantry much easier than just "more Inf - Eng so they move faster". And they're much less manpower dependent.

One could certainly do well with your air strategy, but one can do equally well without it. That's probably the most serious endictment of air power as it stands, though to repeat, it's closer to getting it right than many of the complaints make out.

And the indictment is more on the failure to penalize overly large land forces. You can just build a bigger hammer without any need to economize and do just as well as if you economize. Kudos for strategic options, but crapola for accuracy.

 

[Dinsdale]

There's many other uses for air power as Germany, not just Logistical Strike, though this can be used to slow Russian movement outside of the lines of advance and allow your manouver forces more time to operate.

That's correct, but it still leaves logistical strike as perhaps the most powerfull use of airpower, and the most self-defeating (outside your example of taking a particularly tough province.)

Almost all of the major nations have surrender events that are territory dependent. If the requirements are (as in Bitter Peace or Britain Surrenders) IC, territory, or resource based, then your strategic objectives are to get the provinces listed as targets, aim for high IC and resource concentrations, and VP sites to reach this amount. You can do so without major destruction of enemy forces if you appropriately design and implement a strategy.

Taking USSR's BP provinces requires the destruction of the Soviet army. Even more so with Britain, while trying to capture all those provinces is counter-productive, capturing the British Isles requires combat and destruction. Strategic objectives are dependent on the destruction of enemy units except for France.

IF 40-50 divisions are all bottled up in one province. Out of supply units, you can hold out quite well with 2/3 their number. And the AI isn't going to stack all units in one province if it doesn't have to, but will try and match any holding forces you have deployed.

There are supply "anomalies" which sometimes result in pockets being supplied indefinately. Having 2/3 of 40 divisions, ringed around several provinces is exponentially more expensive in TC cost than destroying the force and having those provinces counted in total TC calculation.

You can feasibly hold pockets with proper dilligence and counterattack of any breakout attempts while the advance forces move on.

Of course, and one could do any number of things to make the game harder on oneself.

The TC drain of each province with partisan activity can be averaged at about 3.6 (3 occupation and .6 partisan). 10 provinces = 36 infantry divisions, more than enough to contain a cut off pocket of 40-50 divisions.

That's what garrisons are for Further, 36 divisions will not be enough to encircle and hold against those divisions in a 10 province pocket.

Concentrating on strategic objectives and advancing on them will be faster than destruction of the enemy in detail any day.

Again, you're ignoring the practical necessity of destruction.

4 air wings are not tied to one portion of the front. CAS perhaps, but not really if properly located, and TAC most defintely not. Armor on the other hand have at best 3 provinces they can affect at one time. TAC support can be given an average of 4-8 deep and as many wide, a choice of 2-4 enemy areas, at least, to operate in as needed.

As soon as you redeploy those aircraft they need time to recover org. Unless you like watching aircraft in airbases, they are most certainly tied. I hate bringing up fighting in Russia, but as that's going to be the focus of any European ground war, it's provinces are too large for more than a handful of provinces with CAS, and only slightly more with TAC. There are some fortuitous exceptions where the zonal range overrides province range.

You also need to factor in IC cost of holding airbases in the force pool so that you can place them as the advance continues.

Certainly, but you start running into overbasing. As well, there's a neat little bonus you get for base proximity which means those CAS hiting the front provinces from the adjacent province are doing better by basing right up on the front.

That's all true, though it really strikes me as using a sledgehammer to crack a nut when it comes to Poland. Useful though if you want to fight a defensive hold on the Eastern Front while concentrating elsewhere though.

How does it require more micro than HOI1? In HOI1 you had to retarget EVERY INDIVIDUAL PROVINCE. Here you don't.

Again, practically you do. Babysitting to ensure the correct target is picked, halting and staggering to ensure that the same planes on different missions don't end up converged on the same province at once (something I find extemely annoying)

In addition, armor, while precisely directed, isn't always attacking the enemy. A combination of armor with air power covering and attacking during the advance will be more powerful than armor alone, simply because that enemy is weaker than when they started the retreat.

Again, you can use that tactic, but it's not necessary and certainly not a compelling reasong for building more airpower than absolutely necessary. One can overbuild armour too, but provided you're more subtle than simply banging 24 stacks around, it can be effecient, relentless and has the added bonus of holding those long flanks while recovering. Unless the AI retreats into your path, you don't need to harry, the purpose of encirclement is to avoid battle until it's destructive to the enemy.

Repeated how many times over the Russian front? Most times at least a 2 pronged, if not 3 pronged approach is called for. So we're talking 18-27 armor, minimum.

18 minimum, with more following up. One can not continually attack on that front as May-October is the only window open. With careful management of TC, it's possible to have 1 major offensive in year 1, and 2 simultaneous in year 2 of the attack. That's enough to cripple USSR's army despite fighting at a 1:2 or 1:3 disadvantage in total units.

And force concentration with fast infantry? Oxymoronic. Fast infantry is by default Engineer infantry, who's combat power is at the low end of the infantry scale when compared to Infantry - Art.

Not oxymoronic at all. Having 12 weaker infantry in the right place is more important than 24 infantry out of position. Unless you plan to drag the war out for 6 years, engineers are perfectly powerful early in the game. If you find yourself using them in 1946, you've done something wrong.

Speed, not strength is key in this game, and as France found out IRL.

Mobile forces are for advance, foot forces are slow and for consolidation and support of the mobile breakthrough. Firepower superiority can be achieved by brigaded infantry much easier than just "more Inf - Eng so they move faster". And they're much less manpower dependent.

No, you need less infantry if their faster, not more. There's no need to brigade every division, unless you anticipate launching a broad front "over-the-top" style advance, in which case your TC will render your forces useless anyway. Unless you can encircle, you're not doing enough damage and will simply be "pushing" enemy divisions out of the way until you reach your objectives. Only USSR has the manpower to push in this manner.

And the indictment is more on the failure to penalize overly large land forces. You can just build a bigger hammer without any need to economize and do just as well as if you economize. Kudos for strategic options, but crapola for accuracy.

Well I don't think that weakening other areas of the game to emphasise reliance on one, fairly redundant, force, is necessarily the way to go. TC, indeceisive open combat, and org loss are already incentives to to economise on ground units and chose wisely where to attack, any more would lead to the danger of stalemating fronts and preventing what is now, a very accurate land speed system.

 

[zvezko]

I am going to continue the argument about the Area Operations.
I am now playing a game with germany normal/agressive and i am building some air force, well let's see what happend

1.The CAS helped my troops advance in Yogoslavia(although not much)
2.now for my point. i am now invading russia and have 2 stacks with 3 TAC and 2 CAS, and 2 stacks of 5 FTR

so i reached moscow but i can't capture it, i have 18 divs(7 armor 10 inf 1 HQ) in 3 provinces around it in moscow there are about 10 inf only.
so i want my 2 stacks of TAC/CAS to do a interdiction in moscow so later i can attack (i have air superiority with my FTR) BUT THEY ALWAY BOMB THE PROVINCE NEXT TO MOSCOW and for that i think the AREA OPERATIONS are stupid(very) and ahistorical

my south russian front has already reached and captured stalingrad but i still can't get in Moscow because of the AREA OPEREATIONS

f you want you can show me 1.000.000.000 documets that show that it's historical but it still will not be!

 

[Kikaider]

2 questions:
1) Are you launching the aircraft AFTER you attack Moscow because THEN they SHOULD head to Moscow in support of your assualt. (You could also maybe redeploy some divs to take that province so moscows all thats left, its probably what I would do in your situation)

2)Did you mod the game? how can you have stacks of 5 ftrs if the game limits you to 4?

 

[unmerged(39735)]

I've found that air power helps out the most in the initial stages of creating pockets and in cases where pockets are not created. When your forces are spread out along a line it's not possible to immediately pocket anything so there will be retreating forces that you have to fight as you advance. Those retreating forces can easily be DECIMATED by a strong air force. This makes your initial advance faster which means you can complete encirclements faster.

It's also pretty rare that every single advance you make is going to result in an encirclement. If it does then air power probably isn't really needed. Most of the time however a significant number of enemy troops are going to be retreating and will have to be fought again as your troops continue to advance. Air power does a lot of damage to these retreating troops, especially CAS on ground attack missions.

Against territory with heavy AAA fortifications I don't bother deploying my airforce. The casualties are just too high to make it worthwhile. For most of my major advances I like to have at least 5 TAC on interdiction duty and at least 5 CAS on ground attack missions for every region I'm attacking. I play HSR so planes are grouped in stacks of 5 instead of 4.

 

[subnormalized]

CAS/Tac didn't do that much DAMAGE, they helped the side with them win battles. So they aren't weaker than history. And aircraft, especially CAS, are DEVESTATING against armor on the move.

Also, the contention that air is less efficient TC wise than ground forces is wrong. First, you can shut down some air TC use if needed, temporarily.

Second, compared to Armor, air is far more TC friendly. I use armor because that is the canned argument against air power, "But for those ICs I can make X more armor units and those units will take more actual ground!":

3 Arm TC use (early to semi-mod): 21.6/28.2/28.8/29.4/30
2 Tac/2 Esc (basic to adv): 16/16.6/18.4
2 CAS/2 Ftr (basic to adv): 15.8/16.8/17.4

IC build cost, air are more valuable, as well:

3 Arm: 11100/13320/14430/14985
2 Tac/2 Esc: 9900/11880/14220
2 CAS/ 2 Ftr: 6360/7920/8880

OTOH, you can mix those 3 Arm into 6 Inf and get a 15% multiplier to defense... that's what, 3 skill levels? For 6 Inf, plus the benefits of the Arm... and that's a *reliable* benefit, placed where you need it (ignoring micro-costs and Org loss of reshuffled armies- we have Air idiosynchracies making micro at odd times already to balance that Arm/Inf problem...)

Combined Arms with defensive Arm/Inf may badly outweigh Combined Arms Air/Ground. Maybe not. And maybe Arm/Inf is only of obvious benefit on Operational Defense, while Air multiplies Operational Offense better, I dunno. But you might be oversimplifying the benefits of Arm yourself.

Third, if you increase the issues that TC causes to an enemy, air becomes MORE powerful in that it has the abiliity to lower enemy available TC and destroy enemy ESE, thereby making them signifigantly weaker, thereby increasing the value of each IC spent on air forces.

Finally, the investment in air power is matched by a decreased use of ground forces for the same job, and not on a 1:1 ratio. If you have signifigant air power, you can do the same job with fewer actual forces, freeing up some TC elsewhere to make up for the slightly higher TC use of the air forces as need be.

But Air also takes multiple research slots. Yeah, you may be running out of nice places to spend Deutchmarks, but all the same...

Really dunno how to make Air more nifty-valuable. I like it too much to ignore it, and manpower costs are also something to think on, but it's not a no-brainer currently...

Personally, I just want to be able to handle massive numbers of AirUnits easier. The 4-unit Air-stack-limit may have fixed one bug, but the current click-interface just is NOT anywhere near-as-cool/simple as moving 6 Arm/2Mot/1HQ under Patton...

I do agree, no more *pure* strength, WW2 is *not* about A-10's supporting Special Forces squads, but I dunno, how about it adding Interdiction/Ground_attack to degree-of-Envelopment? But only during the Day? Feasible, or no, Paradox?

The combined arms bonus of Air is too weak, IMHO. Especially weighed against a reliable 15% for Arm/Inf, though yeah, you theoretically *shouldn't* be on the defense that bad normally, and only get 5% normally... especially vs. the AI

But actual Defense against humans in MP is probably very different from SP experience. You probably have to fall back a lot more, as humans aren't puppy-silly like the AI, unless they're drunk, I guess...

 

[mld0806]

Taking USSR's BP provinces requires the destruction of the Soviet army. Even more so with Britain, while trying to capture all those provinces is counter-productive, capturing the British Isles requires combat and destruction. Strategic objectives are dependent on the destruction of enemy units except for France.

Destruction of forces is great, but not at the sacrifice of strategic objectives. Achieve the strategic objectives, THEN go for destruction, or else make certain that your destruction advances the strategic objectives. Destruction of the enemy units should never be placed above strategic objectives. Combat and destruction as part of a strategic objective. Forcing the British Capital off of the Home Islands then leaves those forces to the mercy of supply getting through, and if you're cutting off convoys, those units won't be supplied and therefore won't be a threat. You don't have to destroy as long as you can render ineffective enemy forces. NO nation requires the destruction of enemy units, it's simply getting enough VP sites to eitther trigger a surrender event or force puppeting or annexation.

There are supply "anomalies" which sometimes result in pockets being supplied indefinately. Having 2/3 of 40 divisions, ringed around several provinces is exponentially more expensive in TC cost than destroying the force and having those provinces counted in total TC calculation.

If you notice supply anomaly, save, exit, and reload. It's a workaround, but until they fix it, it's the way it has to work.

I also don't see how 26 divisions around 40 is exponentially more expensive than having 30 provinces worth of TC drain not being counted? If you set your holding line at a river and have forces containing the flank, you can maintain said pocket indefinitely. Any sort of breakthrough attempt that the enemy will make can be countered by having your units in positions that they can support each other with flanking counterattacks to prevent enemy breakout.

Of course, and one could do any number of things to make the game harder on oneself.

Harder? I'd say taking unnecessary territory and suffering casualties in unnecessary battle would be making the game harder on oneself. Hmm...oh, yeah, except that TC doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should, so you can go 75% over your TC and still fight on with little chance of losing.

That's what garrisons are for Further, 36 divisions will not be enough to encircle and hold against those divisions in a 10 province pocket.

Certainly 36 divisions will be plenty if appropriately positioned and supporting one another. I do agree with the Garrisons, however those free up maybe 6 points of TC for the same provinces.

Again, you're ignoring the practical necessity of destruction.

Again, you're putting destruction of the enemy units above defeating the enemy nation.

As soon as you redeploy those aircraft they need time to recover org. Unless you like watching aircraft in airbases, they are most certainly tied. I hate bringing up fighting in Russia, but as that's going to be the focus of any European ground war, it's provinces are too large for more than a handful of provinces with CAS, and only slightly more with TAC. There are some fortuitous exceptions where the zonal range overrides province range.

If you have your aircraft close enough to the front, they don't lose too much organization on a redeployment, and that organization can be mostly regained in a day or two. Aircraft recover organization linearly instead of in a diminishing equation like ground forces. You can operate them fairly soon after redeployment.

TAC have nearly double the range of CAS, so therefore double the number of areas they can cover. A combined strategy allows you more than enough coverage for any advance you could make, unless you're shooting dangerously deep with a spearhead.

You also need to factor in IC cost of holding airbases in the force pool so that you can place them as the advance continues.

Who said anything about holding airbases? You capture the enemy's airbases and use them, not build your own. Plan your production so that your bases are completed shortly after you take the target province. You CAN deploy bases forward in occupied territory. PLAN and STRATEGIZE, not build a bunch of stuff to beat the enemy units. You want to beat the enemy NATION.

That's all true, though it really strikes me as using a sledgehammer to crack a nut when it comes to Poland. Useful though if you want to fight a defensive hold on the Eastern Front while concentrating elsewhere though.

And building more infantry and tanks over air forces is not a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Why not just build bare minimum and accumulate money with the spare ICs?

Again, practically you do. Babysitting to ensure the correct target is picked, halting and staggering to ensure that the same planes on different missions don't end up converged on the same province at once (something I find extemely annoying)

Make sure that your air leaders are high enough rank to make piling up not a major problem, make sure that you don't have too many aircraft active in a single area (counterproductive). During an advance, yes, you have to watch them somewhat, but certainly not retargeting every time you want to use them.

Again, you can use that tactic, but it's not necessary and certainly not a compelling reasong for building more airpower than absolutely necessary. One can overbuild armour too, but provided you're more subtle than simply banging 24 stacks around, it can be effecient, relentless and has the added bonus of holding those long flanks while recovering. Unless the AI retreats into your path, you don't need to harry, the purpose of encirclement is to avoid battle until it's destructive to the enemy.

Certainly it is. Unless you can guarantee that you don't have retreating forces threatening your supply lines, you're vulnerable to counterattack and cutting off of your tanks. If the AI ever gets smart enough to do defense in depth like a human player is, you're going to be in trouble trying to race through for encirclement while not making allowance for forces that retreat out of the pocket.

18 minimum, with more following up. One can not continually attack on that front as May-October is the only window open. With careful management of TC, it's possible to have 1 major offensive in year 1, and 2 simultaneous in year 2 of the attack. That's enough to cripple USSR's army despite fighting at a 1:2 or 1:3 disadvantage in total units.

And this is why I say TC drain has to be higher. 18 minimum? That's about historically what Germany had at the height of the war (20). You start crawling over that and you should start HURTING, and more than 20 will definitely make you hurt. I max at 16, MAYBE 20 if I'm not feeling a TC crunch elsewhere.

Not oxymoronic at all. Having 12 weaker infantry in the right place is more important than 24 infantry out of position. Unless you plan to drag the war out for 6 years, engineers are perfectly powerful early in the game. If you find yourself using them in 1946, you've done something wrong.

Speed, not strength is key in this game, and as France found out IRL.

Having slower, stronger infantry in the right place makes holding supply lines with a lower IC and manpower investments (and a marginally higher TC investment) much easier and more effective, and allows combat to be shorter, thereby meaning longer continuous operations and lower reinforcement costs. Having fast but weaker infantry means more casualties and shorter continuous operations and the necessitation of MORE forces to do the same job, thereby erasing the marginal TC advantage gained.

Speed AND strength combined are key, not simply speed. Reliance on speed means reliance on more forces than is actually necessary for the job at hand.

No, you need less infantry if their faster, not more. There's no need to brigade every division, unless you anticipate launching a broad front "over-the-top" style advance, in which case your TC will render your forces useless anyway. Unless you can encircle, you're not doing enough damage and will simply be "pushing" enemy divisions out of the way until you reach your objectives. Only USSR has the manpower to push in this manner.

Encircle with armor, hold and hammer with Infantry. Why encircle with infantry? They're not there to encircle.

Well I don't think that weakening other areas of the game to emphasise reliance on one, fairly redundant, force, is necessarily the way to go. TC, indeceisive open combat, and org loss are already incentives to to economise on ground units and chose wisely where to attack, any more would lead to the danger of stalemating fronts and preventing what is now, a very accurate land speed system.

TC combat modifiers is what I'm talking about. TC doesn't hurt combat nearly enough. You can be 75% over your TC modifier but not suffer too greatly in your combat modifiers. Certainly not enough that you can't outbuild the penalty. And this is why more ground forces are a viable option, you can simply outbuild any TC penalties you get in combat. Economy doesn't do anything to really help your ground forces, and inefficiency does far too little to hinder them in combat.

 

[zvezko]

2 questions:
1) Are you launching the aircraft AFTER you attack Moscow because THEN they SHOULD head to Moscow in support of your assualt. (You could also maybe redeploy some divs to take that province so moscows all thats left, its probably what I would do in your situation)

2)Did you mod the game? how can you have stacks of 5 ftrs if the game limits you to 4?

1. I am not attacking moscow with ground units, i want only the aircraft to attack moscow for say 1 month and then i will attack with ground troops!

2. I did mod the max stacks but i tried with max 4 and it was the same

 

[Dinsdale]

Destruction of forces is great, but not at the sacrifice of strategic objectives. Achieve the strategic objectives, THEN go for destruction, or else make certain that your destruction advances the strategic objectives. Destruction of the enemy units should never be placed above strategic objectives. Combat and destruction as part of a strategic objective.

Well we're going round and round here, so let's agree to disagree. Taking strategic goals in the face of 300,400,500 Soviet divisions is nigh on impossible.

Forcing the British Capital off of the Home Islands then leaves those forces to the mercy of supply getting through, and if you're cutting off convoys, those units won't be supplied and therefore won't be a threat. You don't have to destroy as long as you can render ineffective enemy forces. NO nation requires the destruction of enemy units, it's simply getting enough VP sites to eitther trigger a surrender event or force puppeting or annexation.

Conquering Britain requires a large number of provinces, including many half a world away. Leaving any British held province on the mainland untouched, for whatever reason, is simply inviting Canadians and Americans to join the party. IMHO you're unnecessarily complicating the game. After London falls, those British units are toast anyway.

If you notice supply anomaly, save, exit, and reload. It's a workaround, but until they fix it, it's the way it has to work.

Well this isn't the best place to bring it up, but I often find AI nations going in-and-out of supply when they should be supplied, but not consistently out of supply when pocketed.

I also don't see how 26 divisions around 40 is exponentially more expensive than having 30 provinces worth of TC drain not being counted? If you set your holding line at a river and have forces containing the flank, you can maintain said pocket indefinitely. Any sort of breakthrough attempt that the enemy will make can be countered by having your units in positions that they can support each other with flanking counterattacks to prevent enemy breakout.

If you have even a 5 province pocket, the surrounding ones (let's say 10 to be on the conservative side) are going to need more than 2.6 divisions to be able to contain a pocket. I find the AI aggresively seeks to extract itself from pocketing, and with as few as 40 inside, will force it's way out. You're TC calculation ignores partisan suppresion, or better: liberating well placed puppets.

Harder? I'd say taking unnecessary territory and suffering casualties in unnecessary battle would be making the game harder on oneself. Hmm...oh, yeah, except that TC doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should, so you can go 75% over your TC and still fight on with little chance of losing.

If you start going significantly over TC then land speed crawls to a halt. I don't know what you mean by unnecessary battles, the idea is to avoid battle when not required, and yes, I do believe that allowing the AI to keep units which can be destroyed easily, or making unnecessary attacks because you leave troops escape is harder. As soon as you fracture a line, encircle and hold, then vanilla infantry are quite capable of finishing off the haul.

Perhaps it's simply a different playing style (which would be good, multiple paths to victory would be the sign of a good game) but I cannot see how cheaply annihalating the enemy without the TC cost you seem to assume it takes, could be difficult. I've never had a problem with either TC or manpower in playing this way.

BTW, are you factoring in the oil usage and manpower loss for aircraft?

Certainly 36 divisions will be plenty if appropriately positioned and supporting one another. I do agree with the Garrisons, however those free up maybe 6 points of TC for the same provinces.

Against an even number of divisions, and spread out around the pocket? I have no idea how you do it, the AI spends itself in attacks against my weakest units. The most nailbiting time is when a 5-10 division province comes under repeated attack and needs reinforcing. I don't know why the AI isn't attacking you.

Again, you're putting destruction of the enemy units above defeating the enemy nation.

Again, they are one and the same. It is an unnecessary risk to allow 400 Soviet divisions the opportunity to attack your weakest point, or 200 German divisions to crush your advance from Normandy. The AI might be crap, but this is one maneuver it pulls off very well.

unless you're shooting dangerously deep with a spearhead.

Which is what I find myself doing Temptation, what can I say!

Who said anything about holding airbases? You capture the enemy's airbases and use them, not build your own. Plan your production so that your bases are completed shortly after you take the target province. You CAN deploy bases forward in occupied territory. PLAN and STRATEGIZE, not build a bunch of stuff to beat the enemy units. You want to beat the enemy NATION.

There are several gaps in Russia. The Caucus region comes to mind. Furthermore, they tend to be the most heavily defended provinces, or behind the Dnipre river line.

I really don't appreciate your tone regarding strategy. You do not have the monopoly on style, and frankly, jumping through hoops to justify air power is not one which I find a winner.

And building more infantry and tanks over air forces is not a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Why not just build bare minimum and accumulate money with the spare ICs?

100-120 combat units is hardly overbuilding. There's no reward for having surpluss cash in the game, it's a waste of IC.

Make sure that your air leaders are high enough rank to make piling up not a major problem, make sure that you don't have too many aircraft active in a single area (counterproductive). During an advance, yes, you have to watch them somewhat, but certainly not retargeting every time you want to use them.

It's quite simple to have a top ranked leader, but any more than 4 units degrades combat effeciency. I find it time-consuming and fiddly, and I find it more effort than HOI1.

Certainly it is. Unless you can guarantee that you don't have retreating forces threatening your supply lines, you're vulnerable to counterattack and cutting off of your tanks. If the AI ever gets smart enough to do defense in depth like a human player is, you're going to be in trouble trying to race through for encirclement while not making allowance for forces that retreat out of the pocket.

If the AI gets better, then the encirclements need to be shallower. The flanks are rarely the problem, those are the avenues where continued forward movement of reinforcements and next-echelon units ensures they are always secure. The part I find most risky is the seal around the end, but provided you take advantage of terrain, it's still going to hold. When you knock the enemy off balance and they take org loss, lose dig-in bonus, and have them attacking you in unfavourable terrain, the jig is up. After the initial breakthrough and some close run counter-attacks, it should be all over by the time encirclement units close together.

And this is why I say TC drain has to be higher. 18 minimum? That's about historically what Germany had at the height of the war (20). You start crawling over that and you should start HURTING, and more than 20 will definitely make you hurt. I max at 16, MAYBE 20 if I'm not feeling a TC crunch elsewhere.

I rarely go into the red TC. It's more likely in year 2 by the time you get toward Siberia and Baku, but releasing Ukraine, or the Baltics will help tremendously. I disagree with your assessment of TC drain. It's a highly abstract system, and preventing 40 division advances, or slowing them down, will turn the game into WW1.

Having slower, stronger infantry in the right place makes holding supply lines with a lower IC and manpower investments (and a marginally higher TC investment) much easier and more effective, and allows combat to be shorter, thereby meaning longer continuous operations and lower reinforcement costs.

Holding territory won't win (unless you're playing France or Poland) the idea is to take it, and to take it as cheaply and quickly as possible.

Having fast but weaker infantry means more casualties and shorter continuous operations and the necessitation of MORE forces to do the same job, thereby erasing the marginal TC advantage gained.

I disagree. Put 10 brigaded infantry on defense against an AI attack of 40 divisions and they will be wiped out almost as quickly as 10 non-brigaded or engineers will be. The AI doesn't make little attacks, it tries to overwhelm and consume units. If you're able to hold a province with 2 or 3 divisions (except in winter) and the AI isn't attacking, then you don't need those brigades on there anyway.

Speed AND strength combined are key, not simply speed. Reliance on speed means reliance on more forces than is actually necessary for the job at hand.

Again, you're making some strange assumptions about quantity. Speed cuts down the number of units required, it doesn't increase them.

Encircle with armor, hold and hammer with Infantry. Why encircle with infantry? They're not there to encircle.

You need infantry to keep up with tanks to hold the perimeter of an encirclement. It's a waste, and fairly inneffective, to have tanks holding against counter attacks without infantry.


[quote[
TC combat modifiers is what I'm talking about. TC doesn't hurt combat nearly enough. You can be 75% over your TC modifier but not suffer too greatly in your combat modifiers. Certainly not enough that you can't outbuild the penalty. And this is why more ground forces are a viable option, you can simply outbuild any TC penalties you get in combat. Economy doesn't do anything to really help your ground forces, and inefficiency does far too little to hinder them in combat.[/QUOTE]
That sounds reasonable. I don't understand why someone would need to get over 75% of TC in the first place. I have no idea how one would have enough IC to build that many units!

 

[unmerged(36331)]

I've found the best airpower (ground attack) is a combination of CAS with TACs. You need atleast twice (if not 3 or 4 times) as much CAS as TAC (so small nations should stick with interceptors and hope that they get passed by). The TACs should start with a combination of installation and logistical strike, along with a large number (I try and have atleast 15 per strike) of CAS making ground attacks. This will knowck enemy troop strength down dramatically, even if not in the correct area, it causes manpower loss and reinforcements stop working for the enemy. Then, you attack and an hour afterwards, start the TACs on Interdiction and the CAS on ground attack.

It took me a while to come up with this, and my CAS really saved me when playing USSR. The plan only really works as US or USSR however, because they are the only ones who have the time and capacity to do this. But, my airpower has an effect similar to that of HOI 1. Invading Europe as US, I have yet to lose a battle, mostly due to airpower.

 

[subnormalized]

jumping into the middle of the mld0806/dinsdale debate...

RE:TC and unit-containment vs unit-destruction.

Destruction of forces is great, but not at the sacrifice of strategic objectives.

*SNIP SNIP*

Certainly 36 divisions will be plenty if appropriately positioned and supporting one another. I do agree with the Garrisons, however those free up maybe 6 points of TC for the same provinces.

Well, you *are* ignoring IC->TC conversions, though it usually won't be much with 2/3-5/6 of IC being lost, anyways...

But regarding the number of Troops to hold pockets, you're also playing normal/normal. Does the AI get Economic bonuses with upping the second setting, or does it just affect behavior? I reliably know behavior changes with the second setting, since everyone says Furious is WileECoyote-stupid-agressive, while Agressive is the best AI setting... so why do you do Normal/Normal?


*SNIP SNIP*

Re: Stacksize Management

Again, practically you do. Babysitting to ensure the correct target is picked, halting and staggering to ensure that the same planes on different missions don't end up converged on the same province at once (something I find extemely annoying)

Make sure that your air leaders are high enough rank to make piling up not a major problem, make sure that you don't have too many aircraft active in a single area (counterproductive). During an advance, yes, you have to watch them somewhat, but certainly not retargeting every time you want to use them.

Actually, mld, there *are* annoyances to Airstacking vs Groundstacking Leader-micro. On land, I can reliably send an attack with 24 divisions into a single province under 8 Mj. Generals (keeping rank low for high-skill...) and 1 FieldMarshall (adding a HQ, of course...), but sending 16 AirUnits under 3 Mj. Generals and a single AirMarshall? Using 4 stacks, It could get split/stacked in various provinces like...[checks his old combinatorics... lessee partitioning, right? Ah, screw that, we'll just write out all possibilities...]

{1,1,1,1} -AirMarshall not needed
{1,1,2} - Airmarshall useful, but wasted 50% of time... (he could be either one of the 2-out-of-4, see? Silly probability maths... :wacko: )
{1,3} - Airmarshall usually useful, wasted 25% of time
{2,2} - Airmarshall useful, but need another... 100% waste, or 50% waste?
{4} - Airmarshall best deployed...

so... without weighting the partitions and compififlexifying the equation, simple Accountancy shows that we need to use two or three Airmarshalls to consistently get best-effect in a multi-combat Area, which means two levels of skill-loss. And he's sometimes utterly wasted anyways, with associated Skill-loss... It just offends my sense of aesthetics, or something...


Anyways, the Air Interface/design needs a good bit of tweaking. The gray/blue switchover is nice, especially on attack, but it isn't fine-grained enough to help in reducing memory/mouse micromanagement. The Right_Way to do the "Where's my Planes?" zoom-in is either to

A. Make a seperate Counter-Stack (Triangles instead of Squares?) for AirUnits.
B. At least let us 'grab' planes by multi-clicking on their airbase-of-operations, even when they're Airborne.


Sometimes you gotta pull folks off of Logistical Strike or what-have-you to toss them into the frontlines on Interdiction, (stupid attackers...grumble grumble) but they're futzing around on top of some enemy stack in who-knows-wheresville. Even if I know the Map Location of the base, I still can't grab them out without having to memorize the name of said-province, then going into the whole Airbase-Listing-Menu to find those silly TACs... or checking out each Enemy_Stack-mixed-with-friendly_units in the spots I was working over...

Not fast enough/intuitive enough for me... I'd hate to lose time like that in MP, when every hour of combat helps... but I avoid MP like a wimp, just because.


Oh, and is the Manual *right* about total Air-to-Ground DefenseStack_Limits? Can you really watch a ground pocket experience -100% overstack when they defend with 62+ units vs. Air? Or did they futz that up, along with the Manual Advice to send planes in *before* attacks?

If the manual is right, WOOHOO! The 1-province Moscow Uberpocket will slowly evaporate under a night/day shower of AirUnits! Just lemme whack the AA down, and maybe the Infra, and then a proper-timed staggering of RoundClock Interdiction lets me go *nutty* in zero-attrition Combat!!

Oh, let it be true, let it please be true... For if it is the truth, then crazy-rejoicing in German CAS/TAC will surely find its way onto the boards, and we shall dwell in the house of Airpower forever and ever, Amen.

----
EDIT: Though then we worship at the Altar of ahistoricity, unfortunately. Ah well, can't have everything, at least until HOI3...and air *is* fun already, if a little ticky-tacky in spots.

 

[Syagrius]

1) Taking air command away from local ground commanders and assigning a centralized command for the front has absolutely NOTHING to do with the question of whether CAS/TAC was used in an air-artillery/direct front support role during ww2.

On the contrary, I believe it cries out for a system with province based missions for CAS/TAC.

This paper underlines my points of the underestimation of C3I in the game. It was the major difference for the enormous variations in effectiveness and use of CAS/TAC in ww2.

There would be absolutely no close air support without a highly expensive radio and wire C3I system, which allowed local ground commanders to call in support. The centralized commands task was to prioritize.

But as an integral part of an attack, air wings of CAS/TAC were put in the air for direct front support.


2) If anything, the paper makes an argument for sending final decision up the command ladder: In game turn: CLOSER to the player - not away to some AI.

3) In the original paper the references was just references. Throwing out 372 pages as source is just spam. There is no way to argue against something like that. Is that your strategy?




AGAIN: Whether missions is supporting troops by default, is an open question. How effective it is, is even more questionable.





This does not make any sense.

There is no STRATEGIC level direct order for any supporting military assets. Artillery or CAS/TAC is always used in an supportive role. Most of the time they sit on their ass, being repaired, waiting for the weather, under transport or whatever.

In game you order interdiction missions or ground support. They even got the names wrong. Here interdiction is the battle winner and ground support the way to go against retreating/moving and/or single units.





The lack of direct combat support is NOT solved by changing the names.






And this is partly where we disagree.






Did you ever play HOI1?

There where a button that made the air group repeat the mission, until told otherwise. You could keep a province covered continuously if you wanted.

In HOI2 you have to make sure you pause IMIDIATLY every time a combat occurs, in order to give orders to your CAS/TAC so that they recognize the battle.
And even then they seem to drift away towards that lonely HQ.






Yupp, I find it difficult to come up with a complete solution. And it is put there as an afterthought.

If I'm forced to use this rather impotent air "force", I rather have an abstracted system that encouraged investment in air units and research. The ahistoric solution we have today is too frustrating.

But I do not want that. I want an functioning air AI and controll over my CAS/TAC.

Then we could have a more historically inspired air bit in the game.

Right on Wardog!

 

[unmerged(5023)]

If you plan your advance correctly, those retreating units will be harried by freshly arriving armour divisions. Encirclement is all about speed, hemming in the enemy and being able to hold territory on the flanks. Given that armour may be directed precisely, air-power at the whim of the AI (especially with multiple battles in the same zone) then risking a potential killer blow to the enemy's forces to that airpower is more than I find acceptable. Further, to truly exploit the power of aircraft requires more, not less, micromanagement than HOI1....(snip)
One could certainly do well with your air strategy, but one can do equally well without it. That's probably the most serious endictment of air power as it stands, though to repeat, it's closer to getting it right than many of the complaints make out.

Another newcomer to the thread here, and a new HOI player...I never played
HOI1, only HOI2. I'm *loving* the game, but I have to agree that Air Power
is the big weakness to the design so far. In my 1939 and 1940 invasions, I
decided to give CAS a real go of it, after seeing the discussions that air
power is so bad.

For the Poland attack, I made about 2 dozen CAS's and put them along the
Polish/German frontier, and put them all on "interdict" missions. My land
attack approach was to try and "hit 'em where they aint", encircle with
armor and stomp the resulting pockets with inf. I gave the CAS two
entire weeks to soften things up before hitting, just to see what all that
CAS could do...invariably, they'd hit 1-2 big stacks of Polish inf running
around behind the front, and did jack to the points I'd want to break thru.
Finally after two weeks, I just sent in my inf to create two holes in the
front, shot the armor thru the holes into the rear and encircled, and then
crushed the pockets, and poof went the Polish army. Even with 24 CAS,
they weren't all that helpful, since when I would do a ground attack, I'd
do it with overwhelming local numers and the battle would last a couple
hours tops, then the armor would sweep thru. (so the "attack and then
the CAS will join into that square" thing just wasn't useful or needed).

Next was France; rebased all the CAS over to the western front, and put
them on interdict again..this time I micromanaged things a bit more,
and would look at the range on the airplanes and compare to how many
squares in an area they could hit...by having the planes in one airbase
attack a father away area, I could restrict the # of enemy sectors they
might go after, whereas going after the next-door sector meant they
were *less* likely to hit where I want. Kinda silly, really. So if the idea
of "area attacks" vs "targeting single sector attacks" was to reduce the
micromanagement of air units, I don't think it works...it just sets up a reason
for players to micromanage which airfield and areas they match up, to try
and get the right sectors targeted. With this approach, I actually got my
CAS to hit a few of the right places and help some; in opening the Liege
corrider for my armor, and keeping the Maginot inf's pinned down (by
knocking their org low enough that they couldn't attack out). But based
on how much IC was spent on them, I can't say it was an equal or better
investment than that same IC would have been on more armor or inf. And
in spite of my micromanagemt efforts, a lot of my CAS efforts were wasted
on stray infs that could I target the CAS better, I'd have never bothered
with.

Third use was in Barbarossa; I rebased back over to the Polish/USSR
frontier and let them regain their org...then went into Russia with the
CAS on interdict again, and did my best in micromanaging the airfield-area
matchups to try and control where the planes would hit. Used the same
attack strategy as vs Poland; picked two spots to attack with my inf on
the front, hit them with overwhelming numbers and knocked the hole, and
sent the armor in. Those initial inf-attacks took just a couple hours and had
overwhelming odds, so the CAS were not useful there; the armor then
burst into his rear and ran thru open sectors, so the CAS weren't useful
there either.

After the inf made the breakthrus and the armor exploited and encircled,
the CAS were left to beat on the org levels of the now-surrounded Russian
inf divisions...which sounded fine with me, I didn't want to just leave them
there, I wanted to crush the pocket and the inf in it. There were a couple
of big stacks of Russians in the pocket, and a couple tiny ones...and of
course, the CAS diligently slammed the small stacks of Russians into the
stone ages...one nice stack of 2 Russian infs beaten down to appx 10 org,
right next door to a stack of 17-odd Russian divisions with much more org.
The CAS kept beating and beating on the little 2-stack even though those
inf didn't have any org left to beat out, and ignored the big stack of Russians.
Sure would have been nice if the targeting AI had enough of a brain to
know when there was no more stuffing to be beaten out of its first choice
target, so it'd move on to the next one...would be even nicer if I could
manually tell it to do so!

After the inital pocket had been eliminated and the attack across the
Dnieper was ready to go, I rebased CAS up to Kiev and a few other airfields
at the front...their ORG was shot from that, and in captured airfields, they'd
gain well under a point of org per turn. The same scenario played out;
my inf punched a hole across the river, in quick battles that the CAS didn't
help with; the armor exploited and encircled, and the CAS focused their
energy on the smallest, most beat-down of the encircled enemy units,
bombing over and over and over a few Russian infs that already had no
org left to speak of, while ignoring the bigger more dangerous Russian
stacks...not to mention ignoring any sensible stacking limits, and pouring
a dozen stukas on a single provence instead of spreading them out over
the area.

Deeper into Russia, past Stalingrad, I deployed a couple of CAS's to a
newly taken provence that had an airfield, and a few Russian infs in the
next provence, that I wanted to soften up for my armor to run over...
but because of the land-area that provences cover out there, my
CAS couldn't even reach the adjacent provence and were totally useless.

...

After that point, there was no land combat going on for the CAS's to help
with, so I sent them to Brest and the Channel Coast; and put them on
naval attack, after stripping British aircover in the area...24 CAS on naval
did some *serious* damage to British shipping - a good page-full in the
sunken-ships report in just a few months, including 2 carriers, several BBs
and a ton on smaller ships.

So feeling a little better about the CAS's, I sent a few along in my invasion
of Persia...made an airfield in the provence SE of Baku, because there was
a huge stack of 20+ Brit/Persian divisions in Tehran that I wanted to wear
down....put a few CAS on interdict, and let them to go to work. Sure
enough, the Brits also had 2 infs sitting in the adjacent provence...my
CAS ignored Tehran and did mission after mission against the two inf in the
other provence that I had no intent of attacking.

----

My overall thought on airpower is this: (and this holds for ground units,
too - its an overall philosophy thing) people want their defensive units
to react as well as possible, over as wide an area as possible...they want
their attacking units to act as focused as possible, on as defined a point
as possible....that's the nature of offense vs defense...so to have areas or
zones for defensive planes to work in, is a GoodThing and a micromanagement
reducer...but having to use your offensive weapons that way, is not.

Even defensively, there could be exceptions to this -- someone MAY want
to have a few fighter plains maintaining air superiority over a key harbor,
for example, vs wandering around the zone it is in.

To me, the ideal would be to be able to chose, when setting your plane
orders...between a single sector, a zone of sectors, or a total wide area
to operate in. Carrier-based planes can be focused on assisting an
amphib invasion of a single target sector; yet CAS planes cannot be.
It just makes no sense, and from a playability/fun perspective, it's damned
annoying.

 

[Kikaider]

1. I am not attacking moscow with ground units, i want only the aircraft to attack moscow for say 1 month and then i will attack with ground troops!

2. I did mod the max stacks but i tried with max 4 and it was the same

Well, the reason I asked question 1 is because it is possible (I would assume) you occupy every province in the "Moscow Interdiction Area" and moscow is all that is left, that you would have the airforce bomb the pocket.

 

[Permanganate]

...and moscow is all that is left, that you would have the airforce bomb the pocket.

Moscow will be Flak-10 so sending any planes over it is certain suicide, and sincce it's a medium or larger stack of Russians it will have no effect anyway, even if you capture everything in the area to force it to go after the right target instead of some irrelevant one. Land forces are your only chance of getting a heavily defended Russian Big Three city.

 

[unmerged(5023)]

Moscow will be Flak-10 so sending any planes over it is certain suicide, and sincce it's a medium or larger stack of Russians it will have no effect anyway, even if you capture everything in the area to force it to go after the right target instead of some irrelevant one. Land forces are your only chance of getting a heavily defended Russian Big Three city.

Not to mention, that...if the only way to get the targeting-AI to go after the
right provence is to capture every other provence it could reach...something
needs re-working.

 

[Kikaider]

I'm fully aware of that, I was just answering his question/providing a solution to him. I was not metioning anything about the usefulness (edit: or ease) of such a tactic.

I even built 5 wings of 3 tac/1 esc to help speed my russian advance in my germany N/A in an attempt to see they're effect, but since I get the exact(almost) same results without they're use, they are interdicting in India with my "Far East Corp", since there are only (at worst) 6-9 division stacks, that are being met by a similar number of units on my side. There they're useful, in a limited sense, but mainly cuz they cost little MP which I'm dagerously low on (good thing the russian campaign is going well). (Chiming in on the large discussion) MP maybe their largest claim to fame, I think...

 

[unmerged(45646)]

Apologies for the OT, but I just figured out that IMHO means "in my humble opinion." I can be humble about my arrogance, but at least I'm not arrogant about my humility.

IMNSHO, i should like to say that a post with information about the actual planning (during ww2) of air strikes would be useful. A lot of people seem well informed, and I'm more interested in the historical information than the mission assignment in the game. Thanks