Ground attacks in AoD

[unmerged(291207)]

A lot was told about irrelevance of CAS, and ground attacks in general, in AoD. Main complaints I saw were: too much losses from surface fire, too big stack penalties, too big negative modifier from entrenchment. All of that doesn't bother me much, as I think it can be dealt with. Planes were overpowered, I think, so those are changes for the better (and there always was entrenchment penalty, as I remember).
But if I think correctly, now ground attack first reduces organization, and only then - strength. From my point of view, and I used air power a lot, it makes GA close to useless, if you intent to destroy enemy troops, and GA is just for that. In DD there was clear distinction - interdiction for lowering ORG, GA for lowering STR. Why change it?
Consequences for gameplay aren't good, I think. Is anybody at all using ground attack now?
What do you think?
And what do you think about returning to GA reducing STR only?

 

[Gazer75]

Never use it. Waste of time and resources IMO.
Much more efficient to encircle the enemy divisions than bombing them away.

 

[Mjarr]

Consequences for gameplay aren't good, I think. Is anybody at all using ground attack now?

Not without some modification(s).

 

[Tuscan]

I usually use ground attack on already weakened divisions with lower org, find its a bit more effective then.

 

[Commander666]

Never use ground attack anymore since the strength reduction now very little, but your aircraft take a lot of damage. It was a much better set up in Doomsday.

The other mission that has gone nuts is "airport strike". While the AI can strike your weakened aircraft on a base to the point of eliminating them, the human (when attacking AI planes sitting on airport) can only get their strength to a very low point after which the planes continue taking such little further loss that they will far outlast the damage occurring to your bombers.

Was doing airport strike on 4 CDN bomber units that had a smidgen of remaining org and strength. After two weeks of daily daytime bombing them, I just wore my bombers down to about 60% remaining strength even though the battle result was totallly red in my favor and I constantly kept the AA at near nil using other bombers. I discovered elsewhere that fighters and intercepters seem to perform this mission (with intention to eliminate the enemy planes on the ground) better than tactical bombers (and strategic bombers do it the worst, receiving the greatest damage but indeed getting airport destroyed the quickest) but simply can not get a kill using any of my aircraft in greatly superior numbers.

It is nuts considering the real life circumstances of bombing/strafing planes on the ground. The only real game effect is the airport eventually goes to zero (which does not seem to matter to the enemy ducks sitting on the airport as they survive it all with nearly nil org anyway). The previous "airport cratering" mission in Doomsday was much better. At least you could destroy an airport WITHOUT having to do some kind of wierd "air combat with planes sitting on the ground" and which seems impossible to win. If any of those planes I am bombing on their airport I could engage in regular air combat, they would have been most quickly eliminated.

 

[unmerged(151142)]

@mjarr, what would you change?

 

[Mjarr]

I don't think there is any single instant way to make ground attack more useful, as the way to make it more effective within some reason is mostly based on combination of several aspects. My minimod (link in sig) has one solution by greatly tinkering with ground\org damage multipliers for aircraft, ground combat tweaks so the org drains slower by default and relatively longer buildtimes to make unit spam and holywallostacks less likely under general conditions. Of course there's more into that, but in general it does the job quite alright most of the time, ignoring eastern front or China where there can be pretty bloody ground combat going on, oddly enough is sort of historical and realistic as ground support by air force was far less decisive factor there for the most part.

Practically it means the aircraft for the most part takes attrition over the course of days when it comes to standard ground support (interdiction or GA) rather than a single instant peak unless enemy INT\FTR were busy.

 

[quaazi]

Am I really the only guy who still uses aircraft then? Use them economically and you'll do fine - bring them in at the critical point for interdiction missions, make the enemy crack, and when they're retreating from battle with their ORG at 0 and attrition doing its work, THEN use ground attack and you'll do plenty of damage. Be sensible with your usage, is all.

 

[unmerged(291207)]

@quaazi
I tried to use GA in similar way. I used ground troops to break enemy, and GA him, as he run (with stacks of 8 CAS and good doctrines). I managed to keep his ORG low, but not to make significant losses. Not significant in terms of invested IC.
I don't argue, that planes can't help at winning battles by reducing ORG. They surely can. If it is cost efficient, that's another question.

So my point is still the same. Make GA target STR only.

 

[quaazi]

Well of course it depends on your expectations. I think of a 50% STR loss as a crushing victory for my aircraft, but if you want a division to be wiped out completely, it's a bit too much maybe?

 

[Julle64]

Now when we are talking about the air war, there is this line in db\misc.txt file:

# Combat Modifier: Total Air Overstacking Mod for each division above the enemy.
-0.50

I have often wondered what this does exactly? Is it for air to air battles only or does it also affect the GA?

 

[Julle64]

I have also modified my game quite a lot to make the air war more to my liking. These are my modifications:

Air divisions (in db\units\divisions\):
- CAS +2 to hard attack, +1 to soft attack, +2 to surface defence
- TAC +1 to hard attack, +2 to soft attack, +1 to surface defence
- INT +1 - +4 to air defence
- FTR +2 - +3 to air defence

db\misc.txt:
- Air to Air str. damage 1,0 -> 0,7
- Air to Air org. damage 1,0 -> 0,8
- Air - Land Combat Damage (str and org) raised by 0,05

I have tried to modify three things. First: make the interdictions and ground attacks less lethal for CAS and TAC. Second: make the CAS and TAC more lethal to ground troops. Third: make INT and FGT less vulnerable against bombers. As a house rule I don't use big stacks of planes against AI. INT and FGT groups have 2 wings and bomber groups 2-3 wings.

 

[Ivan_W_S]

I use ground attack sparingly now, only to destroy running enemies. I only build TACs now, because they are more versatile, no more contracts for you Herr Hugo Junkers, sorry. To breakthrough a well defended Soviet province, I use all available means to do so. TACs to logistical strike, reducing enemy's ESE, then switching to interdiction as the ground assault begin and finally switching to ground attack when they are fleeing ( no losses to your TACs as long as there is no AA in the province, because fleeing army don't stop and shoot their AA guns ).

So, on a schwerpunkt, I use fighters to gain provincial air superiority, TACs to attack AA (if there is a significant amount >4), then TACs to logistical strike (regional attacks), TACs to interdiction as ground attacks begin (supported with artillery bombardment as well), Transport to paradrop 1 fallschirmjager division. And finally TACs to ground attack if there is no AA, especially in Barbarossa where Stalin rarely builds AA. If it is a shore province, amphibious assault of 1 division + shore bombardment is also important. Then, move your armored + motorized quickly to encircle the pocket(s) created by your breakthrough. A lot of time and planning is needed to achieve a breakthrough on a schwerpunkt, but it will reduce your losses significantly.