Air to Air Combat

[unmerged(56745)]

Could someone be so kind as to explain some of the finer points of air to air combat? I do know that researching radar greatly increases the chance of encountering enemy aircraft and beside the obvious research upgrade to fighter planes what does it take to thwart and defeat enemy aircraft entering your provinces air space? Any and all insight (save for Sting's comments) would be most appreciated and welcome. Thank you in advance.

 

[bubbelties]

Different things influence air combat. Obvious things like weather, leader skill and experience. But also if a plane is near a friendly airbase, it gives a combat bonus. The leader trait "superior tactician" also gives a combat bonus for air-to-air combat. Intorceptors gain an extra bonus when fighting bombers.

Radar got several advantages:
-It gives a combat bonus to friendly units within the same province
-Air units on a air-superiority mission will more often attack incoming enemy air-units.
-It removes fog-of-war over neighbouring seaprovinces and, I think that your units will intercept enemy units better above the seaprovince.

Radar research only improves the effects of radar instalations, not all airunits.

 

[unmerged(56745)]

Thanks Mo-jo, so without any radar installations, air to air combat will not be a frequent occurence? The ability to spot and thus engage enemy aircraft is almost non existent, am I correct in this assumption? Accordingly, with the building of a radar station in a province, will there be a greater probabilty of my air superiority mission being successful? Does this translate into aircraft being destroyed?

 

[blue emu]

Radar got several advantages:
-It gives a combat bonus to friendly units within the same province

Not quite... it gives a penalty (-2.5% per level) to enemy units, not a bonus to friendly units.

Air combat that takes place adjacent to the province in which your Air unit is based gets +15% bonus.

Interceptors vs enemy Bombers get +25% bonus.

Each leader skill level is worth +2% bonus.

Superior Tactician is worth +10% bonus in Air-to-Air combat... so it's better to use a skill-1 Superior Tactician than a skill-4 with no trait.

Each aircraft in the stack beyond the first two give a -2% stacking penalty.

If more aircraft are involved in the combat than the highest-ranking leader can command, the over-stacked aircraft get a -25% OCL (Over Command Limit) penalty.

 

[unmerged(56745)]

As always Blu emu, your knowledge and courtesy is most appreciated.

 

[bubbelties]

Well radar curtainly isnt needed for succesfull aircombat, it only improves it. But I do believe that air-superiorority missions are more succesfull, but the destruction of air units is a bug in doomsday. If the bug is removed the only way to destory units would be to have extensive air coverage in a area or an encounter with a lone air unit.

Also if you have two airunits partoling an area and one of them gets into battle, there is a good chance the others come in to help. If you do this be sure to have enough leader capacity to prevent overstacking. When you manage to get 3 4-stack fighters to attack and one of them got an air general leading, it is very possible to destroy enemy units.

 

[unmerged(56745)]

Thank you as well Mo-jo, great advice and much appreciated. Cheers

 

[unmerged(3221)]

Also continuously research air doctrines to increase organization. For most major countries, that means one of the 5 tech team slots is basically slaved to researching air docs from around 1938 to 1943.