Can strategic bombers hit Moscow in 40 or 41?

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Saltynuts

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Just a random question. When I start a new game, I think I'm thinking of investing heavily in strategic bombers after seeing and reading about their awesome potential power (the good Commander's thread, and Pang pointing out to me that if you hit the capital and bring its infra to zero all supply to that country's units is cut off completely (I think).

Just curious, let's say I take Paris, make peace with France, then declare war on SU. Is there any practical way at that time that I can have strategic bombers (or heck, rockets?) that can reach Moscow from German territory without having to push deep into SU territory? Or is a deep push needed first?

Thanks!
 

Commander666

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If you take Paris you don't make peace with France. Rather "Create Vichy France" event will fire, once you get "Flank Maginot Line".. and you now own all of continental France in Europe except for the new country of Vichy France. Vichy France is not your puppet, nor your friend. And the Free French (Charles de Gaulle) will always hate you and their traitorous brethren the Vichy for having made a separate peace deal with Germany.

As regards the STR question, all bombers flying into extremely hostile enemy territory are effectively limited in range by their ESC/FTR (because flying without them attached is suicide). In fact, to be safe, you are also limited by range of your FTR as that is the only thing that can really protect the bombers.

With 1940 FTR-2 achieved your fighters can reach out 400 km, and ESC/FTR-2 500 km. But Warsaw to Moscow is 809 km.

If you want to risk losing your STR, STR-1 have range of 800 km only, but you could have STR-2 1940 by Barbarossa to so strategically bomb Moscow then.

But it is suicide and with very little going for it. Trying to keep the capital infra low in a big IC country simply is impossible. You need to bomb the whole country first to destroy most its factories so it can't repair the destroyed infra in Moscow. The successes I have shown using STR is because I have very many, they are later models, and I choose smaller targets. Yes, I can bomb Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary so they only have 1 IC, but I definitely can't bomb Germany to same even if it had zero Luftwaffe. And Russia is impossible because you can't reach most of it.

Much better is using rockets. Certainly hitting Moscow daily will reduce the effectiveness of the Red Army by decreasing Moscow infra a noticeable amount... but don't expect to achieve zero infra to have any units starving. But you will achieve "Lack of Supply" during combat... the amount of that negative modifier depending on how low you can keep Moscow's infra. Be prepared that AI SU repair speed will be very fast.

Finally, even with all supply from capital cut off, units will still get some supply from local factories producing supplies and/or supply draw from allies and puppets for some hours of the day when units can't get supply any other way.

STRATEGIC BOMBERS are really meant to be used strategically... and not grossly. So, a pocket of SU you are trying to eliminate but is getting supply from the factories in that pocket might be quickly put totally out of supply by one or two days bombing of those few but critical factories - with the result that then the Out of Supply modifier quickly climbs to -50 during combat; and enemy units eliminate.

Another example is giving one Logistical Mission to a province to reduce the infra to zero (if it is 4 modern STR) and while that is temporary until repaired, it could be crucial to delaying reinforcements so you enter the province first. But aiming to keep Moscow infra so low that it would affect Barbarossa a lot is very difficult for STR because they will be neither modern, not be very many and, mostly, soon all be shot down.

Finally, it takes more than bombing just the target province because the surrounding province infra will pump up the zero infra in Moscow to effectively be much higher than zero. So you need to pound Moscow AND all surrounding provinces to zero infra. But it is impossible to maintain actual zero ESE in the target given repair speed even if you had 16 STR wings and no enemy air force to interfere. But certainly you would greatly reduce ESE to the Red Army everywhere. As said, successful STR to attempt this kind of thing first destroys the country's IC so province repairing is not possible.
 
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Pang Bingxun

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Pang pointing out to me that if you hit the capital and bring its infra to zero all supply to that country's units is cut off completely (I think).

Not quite. Even if you somehow manage to reduce infra to zero ESE will still be around 5.5%. That will severely decrease the rate that enemy land units regain Org, but it will not cut them off from supplies.

At 10% ESE Inf1941-Art1940 starting with 27.44 supplies will take 41 days and 5 hours to go down to zero supplies. It only takes 16 days and 3 hours to take them down to 50% supplies, so that seems almost reasonable.

Please be aware that soviet union usually uses the -15% supply consumption ministers that will increase those numbers severely to 61 days and 20 hours for zero supplies and 21 days and 20 hours for 50% suppplies. That ministers type is a gamechanger.

Just curious, let's say I take Paris, make peace with France,

That does not suffice to make peace with France. There are 3 ways to make peace with france:
1. Annex it. That may be the easiest approach.
2. Coup it. Than you can actually invite it into axis.
3. Make peace with the UK. For this negotiated peace event you need to take the UK mainland and most of great britains possesions around the world.

, then declare war on SU. Is there any practical way at that time that I can have strategic bombers (or heck, rockets?) that can reach Moscow from German territory without having to push deep into SU territory? Or is a deep push needed first?

If you are talking about 1941 this will be very hard. Strategic bombers have the range to reach Moscow from Finnland, but that is quite a distance that enemy interceptors can hurt your unescorted Bombers and during air combat strategic bombing effectivity is reduced. If you use escorted Bombers your range will be down to 500 km, too little to reach moscow from finland. But it will be enough to reach Moscow from Leningrad. So there is a possibilty. Still you will seldom be intercepted by less that 16 Interceptor, so your loses would be severe. It is may not be technically impossible, but it is far from advisable.

Rocket lack the needed range to reach moscow before 1944. V2A9 in 1944 however has range 2400 km, with those you can take moscow down to zero Infra each day. Are you able and willing to wait that long? If not trash the idea.

What can be done is to use stragic bombers to reduce Infra in one front province and all enemy controlled provinces adjacent to it. That can reduce ESE to very low levels. But as you want to take those provinces that likely is no in your best interest. So again: Best trash the idea.
 
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Commander666

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BTW, checking rocket ranges, I see you can't reach Moscow until you have the Ballistic Missile. As that is 1944 tech, don't think that idea is very practical either.

One other option is to have Finland in the Axis. Although their nearest base of Helsinki is 564 km from Moscow (too far for STR with ESC/FTR) you could build a new air base at Viipuri which gets you about 100 km closer - and within the range of STR-2 with their 500 km range FTR/ESC attached.

But honestly, I think you will still get massacred because you really need 12 FTR-2 and 4 STR-2 with escorts attached to make a profitable bomb run on Moscow. The Red Air Force by Barbarossa has 24 INT-2 (some upgraded and most others upgrading to INT-3) and a few FTR. About half that force is around Moscow... and will be trying to stop you.
 

Commander666

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Don't do "funky strategy". I was always taught that one should learn how to walk before they take it upon themselves to be a dancer. I think - once you have mastered how to pull off conventional strategy (Poland, Norway/Denmark, France spring 1940, Russia spring 1941) then you are in a position to apply skills learned to so develop unorthodox strategy. The fun is in doing something funky... but first you need to learn how to play the game - something you seem not to have really gotten yet given the immensity of questions you are asking; and concepts you seem to be missing even though we tried best to explain it.

Sorry if different view points (sometimes totally opposing views) leads to possible confusion. Well, it is for you to experiment and find who is right. Most times I think both parties are right because - whatever their viewpoint - it pertains to many other details has to how they play their total game. So differences in "best fleet composition" are normal if people use fleets differently or have different total strategy happening that benefits by adjusting fleet to better meet that specific need.

I recommend starting a fresh game with normal goals. Don't do any "total armor" or" total MOTs" build schemes. Just do an easier to build "balanced army". For Germany that should include a 2-3 PARA and 3-6 MARINES or you will never develop best strategy because you don't have all the tools. If you can't beat SU in 1941 the solution is not making a sneak attack in November 1939... but rather improving your tactical battle skills so you can win. That includes mastering the Luftwaffe.

AoD is an extremely steep learning curve. I wish you the best... and enjoyment... in trying to get this game better understood. Good luck!
 
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