Convoy AA massacres the Luftwaffe

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If it is true that convoys' anti-air capability results in a massacre of the Luftwaffe, then here is one approach to address that situation:

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Did I get this right, the take away is to not use small wings against convoys?
It becomes clear how AA losses scale with airwing size in this way, if many small wings attack AA losses skyrocket compared to a single 1000 size airwing.

@janat08, based on Alex's statement, it sounds like that is an accurate assessment, " the take away is to not use small wings against convoys? "

Others might have better insights into this situation.

This is one reason I'd recommend that house rules not limit the size of wings. Small wings are glass cannons. Somewhat powerful, especially with an ace, but can (theoretically) be easily destroyed.

...even by convoys.
  • No house rules that limit the size of wings (unless a multitude of small wings causes the game to lag and stall out).
 
Did I get this right, the take away is to not use small wings against convoys?

I think the key takeaways from how the mechanics work is the following:

It looks like only NAV IIs and NAV IIIs are effective at sinking convoys.

Once you got these the damage you will cause to troop transports will likely outweigh losses from AA for sure, and size of airwings essentially just impact intensity of losses on both sides. You won't sink more or less convoys per plane lost to AA with bigger or smaller wings, unless you make wings so small they can't get get 20 planes per combat.


If you don't have 1940 Naval bombers or better yet, then simply don't attack seazones that see alot of convoy / troop traffic, and if you must attack, do so with big wings ( which can wreck a capital ship still in bigger enemy fleets, but indeed take reduced losses from AA due to fewer attacks )
 
What counts as a small wing in this context, though?

For example, I normally put wings into groups of 200, not to abuse aces, but because air fields are sized in increments of 200.

Would 500 be large enough? Or do we need to go higher if we have NAV I's?
 
What counts as a small wing in this context, though?

For example, I normally put wings into groups of 200, not to abuse aces, but because air fields are sized in increments of 200.

Would 500 be large enough? Or do we need to go higher if we have NAV I's?

I think it would very much depend on the situation like how much losses you can tolerate to keep an air-power threat and what your mission efficiency and detection is looking like.

From ltccone's numbers it seems a rule of thumb of losses you can expect to take from AA is around 1 plane lost per wing active per day, if you have radar and good detection.
 
Concerning convoys vs air attack, what about ships on escort or any other mission in the sea zone, or fighters on intercept/air-superiority? I've never seen these air based convoy raids be given any defenders besides the convoys themselves. If air 'would' hurt/massacre convoys, how do you defend against that?

That's one think I hate about HOI4 naval, is that you can't assign ships to closely escort your convoys. Escorts shouldn't have a huge spread, it should be tight as hell, and always be present with the convoys in the area. If multiple convoys, split the ships in the seazone with the convoys.
 
I think it would very much depend on the situation like how much losses you can tolerate to keep an air-power threat and what your mission efficiency and detection is looking like.

From ltccone's numbers it seems a rule of thumb of losses you can expect to take from AA is around 1 plane lost per wing active per day, if you have radar and good detection.

Okay, so putting 2000 NAV I in Bordeaux in 200 plane wings bombing Bay of Biscay might cause 10 planes lost per day if the Brits run a ton of convoys through there (which they most certainly will be).
 
Concerning convoys vs air attack, what about ships on escort or any other mission in the sea zone, or fighters on intercept/air-superiority? I've never seen these air based convoy raids be given any defenders besides the convoys themselves. If air 'would' hurt/massacre convoys, how do you defend against that?

Fighters on intercept / air superiority should be able to shoot down naval bombers conducting missions in their area same as they would normally against any other type of bombers, but these results won't be visible inside the actual naval battle report, just in the air battle results. I guess you can think of it as the interceptions taking place before the bombers reach their targets.

Ships on escort as far as I know don't have any ability to defend convoys versus air attacks, but if both ships and convoys are hit in the same sea province the battle reports might get merged making it appear as if they are. In fact I'm pretty sure no ship in any situation can protect other ships with AA at all, they only use them for self defense ( which is something that I would love to see improved ).
 
Thanks Alex, yeah, forgot about the air combat logs. But Carriers with fighters are still useless (and concepts of escort carriers used in Mods), because those carriers won't have planes on air intercept, they will be on carrier duty. Hence, they just need to fix the worthless Escort Mission, which to me seems to be done backwards. They are YOUR convoys. The Escorts don't need to spread out, the whole idea of Escorting is to stay close to what you are escorting. :)

The Escort mission to me (considering the spread) is more of like a Hunter-Killer mission, which isn't the same as Escort.
 
but if both ships and convoys are hit in the same sea province the battle reports might get merged making it appear as if they are.

If a convoy battle with planes attacking a sea zone with a real fleet occurs, does it affect the targeting of the NAVs.

And what I mean is that naval battles tend to get lumped together in most cases in sea zones. Will such lumping together mean that NAVs intending to hit the convoy instead see the entire fleet and convoy as potential targets, and spread their hits around to DDs and capital ships?
 
It sounds to me like the real culprit is that the convoys get to reset any damage at the end of the day (damage rounded down), while the NAVs lose half of their damaged planes (damage rounded up). If the two algorithms were consistent, it would balance out, and the shrinking numbers of both convoys and planes would make some sense. With NAVII, the planes have enough firepower to sink a few convoy ships outright, so the mechanics function at least well enough to remain logical.

Question is, should the devs change how the convoys work, or the planes? If damage is rounded down for both, there would be virtually no sinkings of convoys or planes shot down by those convoys. If it's rounded up, then both would take fairly high attrition.
 
It sounds to me like the real culprit is that the convoys get to reset any damage at the end of the day (damage rounded down), while the NAVs lose half of their damaged planes (damage rounded up). If the two algorithms were consistent, it would balance out, and the shrinking numbers of both convoys and planes would make some sense. With NAVII, the planes have enough firepower to sink a few convoy ships outright, so the mechanics function at least well enough to remain logical.

Question is, should the devs change how the convoys work, or the planes? If damage is rounded down for both, there would be virtually no sinkings of convoys or planes shot down by those convoys. If it's rounded up, then both would take fairly high attrition.
It at least needs to be consistent. One shouldn't be rounded up, and the other rounded down.
 
It at least needs to be consistent. One shouldn't be rounded up, and the other rounded down.
Why have rounding at all? I know they don't want to track damage separately on every convoy around the globe, but they could at least keep track of the partial damage and let it carry over into the next convoy battle, wherever it may be. The convoys represent multiple ships anyway so this is perfectly valid to have 0.25 in 4 different places mean that the 4th one loses a point.