Multi-role aicraft design - how it actually works?

[galaktyczne kopytko]

Greetings Generals,

I attempting to create a mutli-role aircraft, which could have help me get some more air superiority in contested region (yellow air). Sometimes my enemy has even full air superiority over my head (red air). That is usually when my allies are not able to help me sending their planes. In a nutshell: I'm playing 36' historical scenario as Poland and I'm trying to hold the borders versus Germany in 39'.

Despite manufacturing standard Fighter aircrafts, my plan was to replace default CAS design, at the lowest possible cost of Air Experience points, to multi-role aircraft which would help me with air superiority. The main reason is that my deafult CAS design has Basic Small Airframe (36' technology) from the begining of the game while my Fighter design has Inter-war small Airframe (33' technology).

So I created this CAS-Fighter plane (picture #1. CAS => FIGHTER) just by adding 2x Cannon. And now I am wondering if there would be any difference if I would make my plane in a different way - by putting 2x Cannon first and then attach Bomb Locks (picutre #2. FIGHTER => CAS).

My doubts are related to the fact that when I deploy my CAS=>FIGHTER aircrafst to an airwing and send them on Air Superiority mission - their Comabat stats (Agility) present them as beeing on Close Air Support mission (picture #3. CAS=>FIGHTER deployed...), despite that their stats are different before being deployed (picture #4. CAS=>FIGHTER during deployment...).

Could You please, Generals, provide me some informations about:
1. Whether there are any differences in multi-role aircraft behavior and statistics depending on its design? (picture #1. vs #2.)
2. What stats would my CAS-FIGHTER design have (from picture #1.) on Air Superiority mission?

Also please feel free to ask me about more details, informations, etc. if needed.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

And now I am wondering if there would be any difference if I would make my plane in a different way - by putting 2x Cannon first and then attach Bomb Locks (picutre #2. FIGHTER => CAS).

Slots matter: it's one thing to simply add MG, and quite another is to remove Bomb Locks, add MG instead and then install Bomb Locks again. So your "lowest cost" won't apply if you mess with initial loadout.

 

[vermicious knid]

CAS running missions in the air zone should still add to air superiority, even if they aren't on the air superiority mission. Unless something changed in BBA that I haven't noticed.

As for the lower agility in the deployed wing...is the wing 100% your current model? It might be some older planes dragging your averages down.

 

[blahmaster6k]

So I created this CAS-Fighter plane (picture #1. CAS => FIGHTER) just by adding 2x Cannon. And now I am wondering if there would be any difference if I would make my plane in a different way - by putting 2x Cannon first and then attach Bomb Locks (picutre #2. FIGHTER => CAS).

1. Whether there are any differences in multi-role aircraft behavior and statistics depending on its design? (picture #1. vs #2.)

There are. The plane classification is based entirely on which weapon is in the first (left) slot. If bombs are there, it is considered "CAS". If cannons are there, it is considered a "fighter".

The main differences between two otherwise identical designs with the weapons swapped will come from design companies and doctrines that selectively boost different plane types and air missions. For example, the plane you designed with bombs first and then cannons would benefit from battlefield support's +20% CAS agility, but not benefit from the light aircraft designer's +10% agility and speed or the +10% fighter agility in strategic destruction and operational integrity. The design with cannons first would have the opposite behavior.

2. What stats would my CAS-FIGHTER design have (from picture #1.) on Air Superiority mission?

You can see the stats the plane will have on any given mission by hovering your mouse over the mission icons on the right side of the window.

A word of advice. Except for the 1940 and modern air frames, it is generally best to avoid making multirole aircraft. If you aren't winning the air war, you should be focusing on air superiority fighters only and ignoring CAS missions. Pure air superiority planes will have the best stats and get the best trades in air combat. Don't use turrets, they sacrifice too much agility and compete against armor, which is much better in-slot. You want to be using a design with armor (and ideally self-sealing fuel tanks if you can afford the rubber) and drop tanks filling out the bottom row, and then putting as many cannons and machine guns as you can in the top row that you have thrust for on a single-engine design.

Multirole planes can work, but it's a niche strategy best done with rocket rails and battlefield support doctrine. The idea is to build them like a normal fighter but with a rocket rails in the first slot. Put them on close air support and have them shred enemy fighters with the absurd +65% air support mission efficiency modifiers from doctrine+air spirits, which boost all the combat stats of your planes. This strategy can work in single player but it's somewhat of a situational gimmick since your "fighters" will be worse than a normal fighter unless they're flying CAS missions in a zone with active ground combat - but they are best in class at air combat when they are.

 

[The_Tim]

Only thing I'd like to add is this:

why are you bothering with CAS as Poland, you already have waaaay too much on your plate to prepare for with the invasions from GER and SOV, you should either be building up a decently potent fighter force, or largely forgoing air and putting AA in your divisions to compensate. In a normal game you are going up against 2 large air forces, you just don't got the spare IC nor the needed air superiority to be able to bomb enemy divisions to any real effect

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

A word of advice. Except for the 1940 and modern air frames, it is generally best to avoid making multirole aircraft.

While I agree, the idea here, probably, was to get few extra fighters by converting starter CAS, rather than your classical "I want my plane to do it all just for the sake of it" approach. Assuming it'll be cheaper to convert CAS than build new fighters, obviously (which logic dictates it should, but how often logic correlates with meta?).

 

[blahmaster6k]

While I agree, the idea here, probably, was to get few extra fighters by converting starter CAS, rather than your classical "I want my plane to do it all just for the sake of it" approach. Assuming it'll be cheaper to convert CAS than build new fighters, obviously (which logic dictates it should, but how often logic correlates with meta?).

If the goal is conversion, I'm pretty sure any small airframe can be converted to any other small airframe - so why keep the bomb locks at all? Just go full fighter.

 

[Gran Strategist]

After considering and experimenting with multirole fighters I stick with dedicated aircraft.

If we look at air superiority and cas so ignoring strategic bombic and naval strike and assuming contested air space, you essentially get two buffs and one essentially relies on the other one.i.e. you won't be doing much cas without air superiority as your cas will just be getting shot down in droves therefore you can't have the cas buff without air superiority buff.

Thus to get any buff you need to focus on and gain air superiority first and foremost which will allow your cas to fly and also shoot down enemy planes.

Once you have air superiority or at least parity you can then start to fly your cas.

If you fly cas without air superiority you are essentially throwing away those planes and that production.

Now later on when you have air superiority and your fighters are bored it may seem like it would have been better to have multirole aircraft but if you don't need so many fighters and can use more cas then your best just converting them to full cas to make them as effective as possible.

If you have cas and lacking air superiority your better off converting them to full fighter, making them as good as possible at air combat and more likely to shoot down enemy fighters and gain air superiority then if you have too any fighters convert them back.

 

[Znail]

If the goal is conversion, I'm pretty sure any small airframe can be converted to any other small airframe - so why keep the bomb locks at all? Just go full fighter.

But it costs more to convert the more you change that converting a CAS to pure Fighter wont save you much.

I can see where this comes from as small frame can only use one slot for CAS so you may as well add a fighter weapon if you can and that wont cost much when converting. But I also agree that one of the best upgrades for both Fighters and CAS planes are the ones that add defense, so prioritize that research.

 

[blahmaster6k]

But it costs more to convert the more you change that converting a CAS to pure Fighter wont save you much.

I can see where this comes from as small frame can only use one slot for CAS so you may as well add a fighter weapon if you can and that wont cost much when converting. But I also agree that one of the best upgrades for both Fighters and CAS planes are the ones that add defense, so prioritize that research.

But it will save you some, and any CAS you put up with an air disadvantage is just going to get interrupted. It's still better to convert them into full fighters so that you have more fighters to work on getting air superiority. Alternatively, keep the CAS, don't convert at all, and just build new fighters. Producing multirole planes when you're not winning the air war will guarantee that you lose it unless you are using a very specific strategy with battlefield support and certain 1940 plane designs. The designs in this thread are not that.

I also disagree with you on that last bit. If you're playing the air war optimally you don't put armor on your CAS. It's better to just put cannons/bombs and non-strategic materials to make your CAS as cheap as possible. Air defense doesn't affect damage taken from AA, so it's pointless to give them armor or dive brakes. Your CAS should be escorted by fighters and ideally not be getting targeted much in the first place.

 

[Cavalry]

Multirole planes can work, but it's a niche strategy best done with rocket rails and battlefield support doctrine. The idea is to build them like a normal fighter but with a rocket rails in the first slot. Put them on close air support and have them shred enemy fighters with the absurd +65% air support mission efficiency modifiers from doctrine+air spirits, which boost all the combat stats of your planes. This strategy can work in single player but it's somewhat of a situational gimmick since your "fighters" will be worse than a normal fighter unless they're flying CAS missions in a zone with active ground combat.

This is good enough for a weaker air player. Who needs to fly air superiority (escort) if you can just fly CAS. If you have pure fighter then fine, but don't fly them alone, when you are weaker in air, always use any fighter in superiority only when cas bombing enemy.

 

[blahmaster6k]

This is good enough for a weaker air player. Who needs to fly air superiority (escort) if you can just fly CAS. If you have pure fighter then fine, but don't fly them alone, when you are weaker in air, always use any fighter in superiority only when cas bombing enemy.

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. The drawback of multirole planes are that they're weaker on air superiority, and that's definitely a drawback. They don't perform well if you need fighters to cover naval bombers (think English channel or Mediterranean Sea), and they don't perform well if you need to intercept strategic bombers or planes on logistics strike. The only situation where multirole planes work well is over regions with ground combat where they can be assigned to close air support. And in those situations, they dominate when given the right designs and doctrine boosts. But they are functionally worse than normal fighters in every other situation.

If you don't need to worry about sea zones and only about defending your country like France/USSR/Poland, then sure, multirole planes can work. But you absolutely need to have the right designs, tech, doctrines, and spirits. Even with the right doctrine, 1936 multirole planes are just bad. They don't bomb well and they don't fight fighters well because they only have two slots.

1940 multirole planes can work because while they only have 2/3 the module slots dedicated to fighter weapons as a normal fighter, the +65% air support mission efficiency they get more than makes up for it. But +65% AS mission efficiency can't overcome only having 1/2 the module slots dedicated to fighter weapons, the math doesn't work out, at least in my head. They should have more defense, but I don't know if having maybe 1/3 or so more defense can make up for having half the attack. And until rocket rails(1940 tech), multirole planes will have considerably less agility than a dedicated fighter as well.

Maybe I'll run some tests and see, but I don't think it will work.

 

[Cavalry]

But +65% AS mission efficiency can't overcome only having 1/2 the module slots dedicated to fighter weapons, the math doesn't work out, at least in my head. They should have more defense, but I don't know if having maybe 1/3 or so more defense can make up for having half the attack. And until rocket rails(1940 tech), multirole planes will have considerably less agility than a dedicated fighter as well.

Maybe I'll run some tests and see, but I don't think it will work.

They will work if they are durable than CAS and can do some CAS bombing. At least they can bomb when a combined CAS+fighter may not without high casualties . They are not good for replacement fighter, but good replacement for CAS in enemy air superiority zones.

 

[blahmaster6k]

They will work if they are durable than CAS and can do some CAS bombing. At least they can bomb when a combined CAS+fighter may not without high casualties . They are not good for replacement fighter, but good replacement for CAS in enemy air superiority zones.

In enemy air superiority zones, you should not be using CAS at all. It will simply be interrupted and not carry out its missions. This is why you use fighters only unless you have at least yellow, preferably green air.

 

[galaktyczne kopytko]

Thank You for all Your answers, generals.

After testing CAS-Fighter multi-role template, my conslusion is - it is just not worth it, at least on contested air. CAS losses are still high, either on air superiority mission (escort) and close air support. Seems like air attack is not making any difference.

I think I will simply focus on adding some defense to my CAS as well as decreasing their agility penalty by putting some anti-tank guns (and later on rocket rails?). My plan is also to minimise looses by setting them to execute mission just at night.

Do you have any thoughts on reducing airwings mission intesiveness in contested air? Will I lose more planes with lower mission intesiveness?

 

[Gran Strategist]

Do you have any thoughts on reducing airwings mission intesiveness in contested air? Will I lose more planes with lower mission intesiveness?

As a general rule i set my air wings to 50% intensive. While we do get notifications that the enemy has air superiority we don't get them when air space is contested. I have had multiple cases where i have checked my stockpile and saw a massive deficit in aircraft and after checking found i have lost a large amount of planes in contested space which i dodn't know about.

Setting it to 50% at least means you only potentially lose half your planes in an air zone rather than 75% or all of them if you set the intensiveness higher.

I would say if you have lost 50% of your aircraft in a zone you need to reassess the situation anyway and setting intensiveness higher is just throwing away resources.

The only time i set it higher is for the starting rubbish designs i want to use still as aircraft can be in short supply in the early game and poor planes are better than no planes but i am happy for them to just slowly get wiped out doing something useful and then delete the wing.

Occaisonally i might lose a lot of planes in a contested area but am actually slowly winning the grind. You could set the intensiveness higher but then you may forget to reset it back later so i just combine depleted wings into full wings so they can keep flying and obviously set in reserve wings if i have them.

 

[Cavalry]

Thank You for all Your answers, generals.

After testing CAS-Fighter multi-role template, my conslusion is - it is just not worth it, at least on contested air. CAS losses are still high, either on air superiority mission (escort) and close air support. Seems like air attack is not making any difference.

I think I will simply focus on adding some defense to my CAS as well as decreasing their agility penalty by putting some anti-tank guns (and later on rocket rails?). My plan is also to minimise looses by setting them to execute mission just at night.

Do you have any thoughts on reducing airwings mission intesiveness in contested air? Will I lose more planes with lower mission intesiveness?

I think get all of CAS-Fighter on CAS mission and if you have pure fighter, do them on air superiority at the same time with CAS bombing.

As long as they still do damage to land troops, it worths for land attacks. And stop them if you don't start land attack.

From wiki, there are 2 bombing in day light and 1 in night light (?). But the one in night CAS is probably 1/8 the effect of day mission. Because the CAS support modifier will sync together with day light land attacks, and land units have 50% attack penalty on night)

The CAS ground support modifiers depend on number of CAS joinning land battles, not ground attack.

 

[Secret Master]

In enemy air superiority zones, you should not be using CAS at all. It will simply be interrupted and not carry out its missions. This is why you use fighters only unless you have at least yellow, preferably green air.

That's the optimum path against a human opponent, certainly.

But I'll be honest: one of the ways I scam the AI is to run something akin to this set up.

Run Battlefield Support as your doctrine. And build multi-role planes like this:

Look at how this plane's stats change when on ground attack.

The higher defense (dive brakes) ironically means that this plane is almost as good at shooting down enemy planes when on ground attack as it is on air superiority. Note that the dive brakes are basically as good as one slot devoted to armor without the range penalty from armor.

All of this means that when your planes are getting disrupted by enemy fighters, they are still fighting and shooting down enemy planes. And a plane like this will spank the pants off AI fighters (in terms of IC cost as well as numbers).

Hilariously, that plane has higher ground attack values on logistics strikes than it does on ground attack thanks to the heavy MGs.

But since this plane is set to ground attack/log strikes constantly, it means that it is either slaughtering enemy planes when opposed, or it can bomb enemy troops and trains when there aren't enemy planes.

 

[blahmaster6k]

That's the optimum path against a human opponent, certainly.

But I'll be honest: one of the ways I scam the AI is to run something akin to this set up.

Run Battlefield Support as your doctrine. And build multi-role planes like this:

View attachment 945702

View attachment 945703

Look at how this plane's stats change when on ground attack.

The higher defense (dive brakes) ironically means that this plane is almost as good at shooting down enemy planes when on ground attack as it is on air superiority. Note that the dive brakes are basically as good as one slot devoted to armor without the range penalty from armor.

All of this means that when your planes are getting disrupted by enemy fighters, they are still fighting and shooting down enemy planes. And a plane like this will spank the pants off AI fighters (in terms of IC cost as well as numbers).

Hilariously, that plane has higher ground attack values )on logistics strikes than it does on ground attack thanks to the heavy MGs.

But since this plane is set to ground attack/log strikes constantly, it means that it is either slaughtering enemy planes when opposed, or it can bomb enemy troops and trains when there aren't enemy planes.

That's the design I use when I make multirole planes, but I prefer to wait until I unlock rocket rails to remove the agility penalty. It works fine with bomb locks, but it's not as good. It should also be mentioned that it's not just battlefield support, but the air spirit that gives extra air support mission efficiency - a spirit which normal fighters don't have an analogue for.

(And I think I was one of the first people to discover that multirole strategy so you don't have to inform me about it - we've even talked about it before here.)

 

[Secret Master]

And I think I was one of the first people to discover that multirole strategy so you don't have to inform me about it

I really should have tagged the OP as well, since I know that you know that I know that you know.... Well, you get the point.