Air Power

[unmerged(148359)]

Can somone please explain to me a few things about air power? Here are my questions:

1. What do all the sliders generally do when you give an air unit a mission in enemy territory? What exactly is the cone slider?

2. How many air units should be in an air wing? The AI likes to break them into single air wings into one air division, is this underpowering it? I remember in HOI 2 I'd put 4 air units into a division, and they would all be the same type of air unit, is this still an effective strategy? When does over-stacking come into play?

3. What are the general strengths and weaknesses of the different air units? It seems to me multi-role air wings would be a bit underpowered unless you were a smaller nation and it's all you could affordably use. Does it make more sense to use fighters or interceptors? I know it probably depends on the situation but what have you guys been using?

Thanks

 

[unmerged(148359)]

Anyone?

 

[domanb]

I played around with the air mission sliders. When you start changing the values, you can see that the combat area will change accordingly, giving you a good idea of what the different values will do.

 

[unmerged(151058)]

(1) cone and circle allows you to set a target area.. select cone, set range to something higher and drag the order window to the side of the screen, and you'll see the highlighted area. you can set the cone's direction by right-clicking.. useful for interception missions etc.

(2) 2-4. stacking penalty is very high, -10% for each additional wing

(3) looks like INT and TAC are best in general. there's a thread discussing CAS somewhere.. they're mostly suffering from stacking penalty but nice for minors (less research required)

 

[GLENN]

I have lost several air unit threw attrition

I have lost several air unit threw attrition, how do I prevent this?

Set them on Passive or Defensive. They will break off their attack when either their Org or Strength are down too much. If you put them on Aggressive they will fly almost until they are destroyed, sometimes they will be destroyed because they fly with such low strength.

Use the reserve mission if you have lots and lots of planes. This will keep them flying longer with one wing in reserve.
Especially if you have them flying all day and all night.


Don't forget about time. Default is 30 days continous. Reset for day only,not continous or set combat for a few days.

Plus don't forget you are probably over stacked. It's -10% for any unit after the first.

Remember the skill and experience of the commander effects the withdraw of units too!

 

[unmerged(144305)]

Is the air stacking penalty calculated from the point of departure, or the target point?

I break my air "brigades" into groups of same-type, and try to distribute them around the theater of operations, but in the early game, you're constricted by airbases so I typically have 3 or 4 airbases operational next to Poland, with 2 or 4 air brigades on each (broken into 1 or 2 groupings depending on their type, so TAC is together as are CAS).

If it's from the point of departure, that'd suck...

 

[ComTrav]

Stacking penalty where the battle is, so it's the target point. (IE, if you have 3 bombers set to bomb an area and 3 interceptors set to intercept around the area, and enemy interceptors attack you, you'll get 6 planes and a stacking penalty for 6 planes there.)

Note that Passive/Defensive will make them grounded when their strength is below a certain percentage, but it appears to be based on the stack's total strength/org. (So if you have one Wing that is at 20 percent and the others are basically fine, it's going to keep flying away.)

 

[GLENN]

Air bases have a supply limit which effect the number of operational Air Wings.
Each level can support 4 supply units. Level 10 is 40 supply.
Base supply consumption:

INF 0.7
Rocket INF 1.3
MR 1.1
CAS 1.5
CAG 1.1
TAC 2
Transport 1
Strat. Bomber 3
Fly Bomb 0.5
Rocket 0.5

 

[unmerged(96431)]

Why are tacs or cas loosing much org & strenghth by attacking defenseless targets? Sorry but your tipps are all useless. The entire air combat is completely broken.

 

[Sarayakat]

I have found that by arranging a deep defence of single squadrons set to intercept/defensive with overlapping zones allied strategic bombing can be forced to run a gauntlet doing excellent damage to them. Another method that works is larger groupings set to air superiority over the channel using regional targeting. As for TACs, while they will not win a battle singlehanded they make a great difference in battle when arranged in squadrons of 2, single province targeted on interdiction missions with a few squadrons targeted to the rear area on ground attack missions. In addition, TACs on a logistical bombing mission are great for forcing the brits to clear most of their units out of the channel islands preparatory to an invasion of same.

 

[unmerged(151058)]

Why are tacs or cas loosing much org & strenghth by attacking defenseless targets? Sorry but your tipps are all useless. The entire air combat is completely broken.

perhaps you should research tactical air command?

 

[ComTrav]

Logistical strike is amazing in Asia, too.

All these comments on how air defense...I'm wondering if anyone has tried running a strategic bombing offensive? (Especially now that air combat actually does damage, it seems like Strats get chewed up pretty quickly.)

 

[unmerged(62450)]

So, how does the rank of air leaders affect things? I've been trouble finding the relationship. If I promote all my air leaders to 5 stars, what do I gain? What do I lose?

 

[GLENN]

Air leaders can command 4 wings per rank, so 4 - 8 - 12 - 16


It's in thw Wiki