Interdiction missions?

[DazKaz]

I can promise you that Interdiction does have a delay element to it; I've been taking advantage of it ever since I got told about it. Latest example is an Infantry division running from the Romanian province bordering Yugoslavia at the corner of Bulgaria into Bucaresti and Ploesti from the south (which is longer than coming into Bucaresti directly from the west and involves a couple of river crossings) in the time it took a Romanian HQ 2 provinces away from Ploesti to get to next to Ploesti. It just seems that GA does too. The delay might not be so observable when it's inflicted by a plane on GA missions though, because it will be attacking troops in combat, and the relationship between combat and movement is always variable.

I suspect if you send a GA mission to a rear area province/region, it'll have a similar effect on movement to an Interdiction mission. The difference will be in an environment with a mixture of moving and in-combat targets. If you set the planes to GA, they'll pick on troops in combat; Interdiction will pick on troops moving and not in combat first. They'll both do some of the other (I've seen Interdictors bombing combat provinces), I imagine, but have different priorities.

I only wish my interdictors wouldn't loiter over empty provinces quite so much when there are juicy material targets just adjacent.

Try setting up the test yourself. Use the two different kinds of missions, Interdiction, ground attack then no attack.
I hope you get different results to me.
I only had time (read patience) to do it the once.
That is why I'm asking for others to give it a try.

 

[DazKaz]

I've re done the test, this time in a plains province Keokuk in the US the three brigade division of inf was moving north west to south east, crossing the river out of the province.
I hit it with my five stack of TAC bombers, first on Interdiction, then ground attack, then no attack.

0300 26 July 1943 was the start date of all missions as I just kept re loading the saved game.

The ground attack, and the Interdiction missions both struck the unit six times with bombing missions during this time, and the green movement arrow was removed while the bombing mission lasted for both missions.

Interdiction: starting str 98.9 org 33.8. They cleared the province at 0700 27 July 1943 with a str 88.1 org 24.6

Ground attack cleard the province at 0700 27 July 1943 with similare levels of str and org left.

No attack cleared the province at 0700 27 July 1943

Conclusion: no difference in time taken, str and org are effected in the same way for ground attack as interdiction.

 

[DazKaz]

Anyone else tried this test yet and got different results?

 

[Viljainen]

I've re done the test, this time in a plains province Keokuk in the US the three brigade division of inf was moving north west to south east, crossing the river out of the province.
I hit it with my five stack of TAC bombers, first on Interdiction, then ground attack, then no attack.

Interesting result. I guess the only difference between ground attack and interdiction is their choice of targets then. Interdiction missions prefer moving targets to slow down enemy movement and ground attack prefers targets in combat to support own units in battle.

 

[Dev]

Unfortunately its a lot harder to test the effects on movement especially as my game never releases properly, and crashes to desktop every time forcing me to re start it which as you guys know takes for ever! About twice as long to load as any other game I have in-fact, and I have loads

Just a quick tip, if you have 4+ gigs of Ram you can disable the swapfile and Hoi3 will reload almost instantly from cache when you restart the game.

 

[womble]

Anyone else tried this test yet and got different results?

Not yet, I'm afraid. I'm happy with my wash at the moment, and haven't finished my first '36 game yet. When I have, I'll probably have some time for controlled tests... Looks like, whatever the movement effect, we've cleared up the "Which does more str/org damage?" question.

Edit: If you've got time for one more test and still have that savegame, try it with your TACs split up into individuals. The arrow should be gone pretty much permanently, then...

 

[unmerged(15794)]

Those who have commented on the targetting algorithm are closest to the truth, I believe.

e.g. if you were to engage a single province of enemy troops with your landforces and supported that attack with two air wings (one on ground attack, and the other on interdiction), both air wings would commence attacks against all enemy troops in that province.

Now, if some of those enemy divisions begin to retreat due to org loss, the ground attack aircraft would continue to target enemy forces in combat as a priority, whilst the interdicting aircraft would focus their attacks on the retreating troops.

In addition to slowing the rate of withdrawal of enemy troops when attempting a break-through, interdiction is an excellent means of preventing the enemy from rushing reinforcements towards the province your land forces are attacking. I typically ground attack specific provinces, but set interdiction missions to include any neighbouring provinces I am concerned about. This serves to help isolate the battlefield from reserve formations. The effects are minor in the early war years, but as the number and quality of aircraft you are capable of fielding improves (also taking into account improvements in doctrine), so does the effectiveness of the various mission types.

 

[loki100]

Anyone else tried this test yet and got different results?

Hi, I've been playing around a bit but not in a controlled manner.

Its clear now (& thanks for all the explanations) that interdiction does 2 things, viz:

e.g. if you were to engage a single province of enemy troops with your landforces and supported that attack with two air wings (one on ground attack, and the other on interdiction), both air wings would commence attacks against all enemy troops in that province

However, whilst if you want purely to stop movement, the best air org is a series of single TAC wings over the province, so that their presence is near constant. I now reckon for this part of the mission, its their presence, not their numbers that seems to be important.

 

[womble]

However, whilst if you want purely to stop movement, the best air org is a series of single TAC wings over the province, so that their presence is near constant. I now reckon for this part of the mission, its their presence, not their numbers that seems to be important.

This chimes with what I've seen. The only issue with single wings I'm finding is that they seem to lose org more quickly. Might that be because they're more vulnerable to ground fire in small stacks?

Edit: and it doesn't seem to matter what type of plane you have, so long as it can Interdict, and I think only transport planes and maybe strat (don't know, never had the chance to give one an order) don't have that on their options.

 

[loki100]

This chimes with what I've seen. The only issue with single wings I'm finding is that they seem to lose org more quickly. Might that be because they're more vulnerable to ground fire in small stacks?

Edit: and it doesn't seem to matter what type of plane you have, so long as it can Interdict, and I think only transport planes and maybe strat (don't know, never had the chance to give one an order) don't have that on their options.

aye, what I'm not sure is whether air formations with relatively weak Grnd Attack are as effective, so it becomes a good use of your interceptors if/once you have air superiority - but I guess what you've got is the effect of columns of troops having to break up as soon as enemy aircraft come overhead - so its the disruption rather than the particular power.

Of course, the pain, is it really adds to the effort of managing an air campaign - and also as the AI sticks to purely strat bombing or Grnd attack it does give a human player a huge advantage.

 

[PrivateJoh]

I've just finished a test for movement speed while under effect of different bombing missions.

Test was run from 0900 22 July 1943, using five TAC bombers, when a division of three INF Brigades entered a hill province, to when it cleared the province heading west. I have no idea if it was strategically re deploying or moving normally. The different missions where run during the whole of the time the unit was in this province.

Time when clear of the province:

Under ground attack 1700 23 July 1943
Under interdiction 1700 23 July 1943
Under NO attack 1700 23 July 1943

If this is true interdiction has NO effect on movement.
Can anyone else do a test please to confirm these findings, in case I did something wrong?

Well, I have not tried to test this, but this seems to contradict what people are claiming about delaying movement. In any case, some others claim that interdiction has allowed them to achieve encirclements (whether it is due to interdiction or a secondary issue as infrastructure damage or supply shortage I cannot say). So, there does not seem to be a clear answer for this question.

According to Johan's answer (somewhere earlier in this thread), the difference is about the choice of opportunity/target.

Ground attacks is for targetting units currently in battle, and interdiction those that are moving behind.

What I translate of this is:

• Ground attack will target front line troops (most likely in battle if tech has been researched, but also front line enemy units even though inactive/entrenched),
• Interdiction will target moving units behind the enemy lines. If these are not found, it will just do ground attack --- possibly focussing on reserve troops????.

He never mentioned anything about delaying movement, but yet again, his explanations are not always very detailed.

Cheers.

 

[Mordred]

What I translate from Johan's words is (same of above):

Ground attack targets units engaged in combat.

Interdiction targets reserve units in combat.

 

[loki100]

What I translate from Johan's words is (same of above):

Ground attack targets units engaged in combat.

Interdiction targets reserve units in combat.

but I don't think that is what is happening ... Interdiction attack will look for a moving target first - when it finds a moving target it does two things - it attacks it (as per G/attack) and slows it down - now this moving target can be in a rear area or a province under attack.

A ground attack mission will look for a combat first in its designated area and attack that - and have no impact on movement (? - I think).

If either mission can't find its notional target (movement or combat respectively) then it'll attack any enemy formation in its designated zone.

But it is indeed rather confusing - not least as different people obviously believe they are seeing different things happening.

 

[unmerged(131342)]

Just an extra voice. My opinion:

- Damage done by interdiction and ground attack is exactly the same.
- Interdiction targets list priority:
* Moving divisions
* Divisions doing nothing
* Divisions engaged in combat
- Ground attack mission target priority list:
* Divisions in combat
* Divisions doing nothing
* Moving divisions

Conclusion: when targetting a single province the missions do the exact same thing (bomb all divisions in province), when targetting an area or multiple provinces the two missions allow you to choose which targets are a priority.

 

[DazKaz]

Just an extra voice. My opinion:

- Damage done by interdiction and ground attack is exactly the same.
- Interdiction targets list priority:
* Moving divisions
* Divisions doing nothing
* Divisions engaged in combat
- Ground attack mission target priority list:
* Divisions in combat
* Divisions doing nothing
* Moving divisions

Conclusion: when targeting a single province the missions do the exact same thing (bomb all divisions in province), when targetting an area or multiple provinces the two missions allow you to choose which targets are a priority.

Thanks for your input.
Do you have anything to add about slowing movement, or not as the case may be?
This is the thing that is confusing me the most, as different people are observing different effects.
Ill try to do that test again using one air wing this time. I just don't have the time to do it for a few days though.

 

[unmerged(131342)]

Frankly I think that last test was pretty conclusive. It makes sense too, when in combat the arrow may dissapear, but the move counter ticks on... It really is too bad, but I've seen no effect on movement with any bombing mission to be honest. Then again, I haven't tested it.

 

[flecha224]

I thought that adittionally to stopping the movement while bombing, interdiction missions reduced organizations values in a faster way than ground attacks, at least this way was at HOI2, it is not in HOI3 ? oh my hod :rofl: