Questions about TACs vs CAS for the USSR on the Eastern Front

[eastcoastceojam]

Since the USSR can go in so many directions, I'm on the fence about how to build the air force. I'm planning to wait until 1941 to fight Germany, and do an early war with Poland or Romania/Turkey to weaken the Axis and remove Purge debuffs before Barbarossa.


1. I've read many threads about fighter planes, so I think I have a good plan there:

• The USSR starts with 1936 Fighters researched, and in production. Add more factories to those planes ASAP.
• When you get sufficient Air XP, make a 1936 Fighter variant with boosted Engine (maybe Guns or Range too). Try to keep reliability at or above 64%.
• Try to get 1940 Fighters in production early. The Aviation Cult focus can help with this.
• Once 1940 Fighter is researched, make a variant with Air XP prioritizing Engine upgrades.

2. Sending Air Volunteers to Ethiopia, Spain, and China/Warlords when allowed is a good idea, to grind lots of Air XP. Here is where I have some questions:

• To grind the most XP, what types of planes should I send, Fighters, TACs, or some of both?
• Ethiopia only allows 20 planes in Jan 1936, but later the USSR can send a couple hundred each to Spain or China.

3. I have many more questions on whether to focus on CAS or TAC bombers:

• The USSR starts with 230 Interwar TAC Bombers. I don't want to waste production on Interwar planes, so I need to research and build a replacement.
• And, since the USSR already TACs, you could level up with crap planes, and then retain that experience when you upgrade to newer equipment.
• Compared to 1936 CAS, 1936 TACs have 3x range, and similar air defense. But they have less ground attack, speed, and agility. They also cost 50% more to build. Due to the latter points, it looks like (on paper) a no brainer to build CAS over TACs.
• But, does the range advantage of the TACs allow them to support more ground battles? Much of the early fighting with Germany should be in the smaller air zones of Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland, so not sure how much this helps.
• TACs do less ground attack damage per plane, but maybe the extra range allows them to get more planes in the fight?
• And, if they are in more battles, I imagine the lower speed and agility of TACs will make them die faster than CAS in a contested theater.

Regarding Doctrines, I am planning to take Strategic Destruction or Operational Integrity, since each have the Agility buff for Fighters. But I haven't really thought about that when I'm not sure what kind of close air support planes I'm going to focus on.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

 

[Jays298]

The range should probably be irrelevant somewhat because you are fighting from your own territory and can build airbases wherever you want.

The way I see it, in this game, fighters are most important. Then CAS. TAC are kind of like a poor man's Strategic bomber that can do ground attack too, but aren't really something to focus on.

Basically Build fighters and CAS, reinforce the TAC you have already when you take losses. But most of your air effort will be on fighters.

The air volunteers is a good idea, where you spend the XP probably depends on when you think you will go to war. Using the TACs to grind out XP might be a good strategy. Like if I wanted to do a Soviet run, I'd probably leave Poland and Romania alone due to guarantees, let Germany do its historical path to 1942, maybe take on Iran if I wanted an early war. Turkey is a good buffer and usually stays neutral.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

The way I see it, in this game, fighters are most important. Then CAS. TAC are kind of like a poor man's Strategic bomber that can do ground attack too, but aren't really something to focus on.

Basically Build fighters and CAS, reinforce the TAC you have already when you take losses. But most of your air effort will be on fighters.

Thanks for your comments. I was coming around to a similar conclusion.

I will keep most of my Aircraft-focused MILs on 1936 Fighter variants, then switch to 1940 Fighters as soon as the research cost becomes reasonable. The goal I have seen on earlier threads is to have 2,000+ fighters by Barbarossa, hopefully much of them of the 1940 variety.

I will also put 2 MILs on TAC Bombers in late 1936, to replace my losses. Then eventually research the 1936 TAC to pump out better planes. After that, put 10 factories on CAS to boost my ground attack, and let them pile up until I have enough to make multiple airwings.


I'm confused why 1936 TACs are worse at ground attack than 1936 CAS. I had assumed their close air support values were similar. IRL, the dive bombers had greater precision than two-engine bombers, but the tactical bombers could carry more ordnance, and spread damage over a larger area. But in game, CAS does much more ground damage, and with it's lower cost, gives more than twice the bang per IC buck compared to TACs.

TACs extra range is great in China or ocean air zones where airfields are sparse, but otherwise doesn't seem that compelling. I'm only using it as the USSR cause they have so many of them laying around at the start of the game.

 

[kettyo]

Ideally CAS should be good against armour and artillery while TAC be good against infantry i think but the game doesn't currently do that.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Ideally CAS should be good against armour and artillery while TAC be good against infantry i think but the game doesn't currently do that.

Makes sense to me, give CAS buffs to piercing/hard attack, and give TACs more soft attack. It would give you a more interesting choice between TACs and CAS, depending on the types of enemies you intend to fight.

 

[Paul.Ketcham]

I would like to point out a few keys when it comes to tactical bombers:

1.) They are completely-inefficient compared to strategic bombers; you need 1944 tactical bombers to even approach the effectiveness of 1936 strategic bombers (41 IC/16 strat bombing versus 60 IC/30 strat bombing, aka 22% less effective with top-end tactical bombers versus bottom-end strat bombers).
2.) 1922 and 1936 tactical bombers are pretty crap. You need higher-tech ones to start getting higher attack levels (3/6/10/15 ground attack for higher-level bombers). For perspective, CAS attack/IC efficency compared to tactical bombers in these scenarios ranges from 36% to 48% as effective as CAS, so range is always going to be the determining factor for adding TACs to a fleet of CAS (even 1944 TACs aren't IC efficient compared to 1936 CAS, so don't replace CAS entirely under any circumstances).
3.) Range is mostly important for three scenarios:

a. Naval bombing. Naval zones tend to be large, so getting good efficiency on naval bombers is hard outside of coastal zones or ones with islands in the middle.​

b. Large airzones or areas with few airfields, namely Asia, Africa, and South America. Russia factors into this once you are pushed into central Russia, but western Russia still has plenty of airzones if you're confident of holding the Germans back.​

c. Overcrowded runways. If you're trying to fit huge numbers of fighters on the frontlines to contest air superiority, tactical bombers can be stationed behind fighters rather than stealing runway space from them (as opposed to CAS, which are substantially shorter-ranged).​

In short, tactical bombers can be very effective, but are ultimately a luxury resource that are only needed in crappy air environments like South America, the Pacific, Africa, or Asia. In Europe, CAS remains king so long as you aren't facing overwhelming air opposition, when sometimes airfield space is at a premium. Tactical bombers are also more positively compared to naval bombers than CAS since there are vastly-more sea-based airzones that have range problems than land-based ones. Also, its never worth replacing CAS or naval bombers entirely with TACs on account of their high production cost, nor is it ever worth building TACs instead of strategic bombers for strat bombing.

The nations I like tactical bombers with most are ones with significant naval theatres, especially the US and Japan. Germany has the spare IC to throw around on luxuries like TACs as well, while Britain has certain areas where CAS aren't realistically going to be effective (like Africa, where hardly any airfields exist, or when liberating allied ground where you can't build new airfields in the first place). France, Russia, and Italy are all cases where either a lack of IC or an inability to win air superiority kills the argument for TACs, unless Russia isn't going up against Germany (i.e. fascist Russia or monarchist Germany).

1922 tactical bombers are honestly best used as lend lease to the Spanish Civil war or Sino-Japanese war, since you can get a ton of air experience without really losing much of anything. China is a good candidate for receiving them anyways since its one of the countries that is best able to make use of tactical bombers (way too few airfields, not enough industry to either build aircraft or airfields in meaningful numbers).

Edit: Spelling

 

[xtfoster]

Ugg, you are looking at it all wrong.
Medium (Tactical) Bombers are JOATs (Jacks-of-all-Trades), they can can do anything any other bomber can do (except drop nukes), just not as good. They are good for when you don't want to devote resources (research, industry, and XP for upgrades) to Light Bombers (CAS), Heavy Bombers (Strat), and Naval Bombers.
For strategic bombing, they suck but still can get the job done assuming you can keep the enemy from shooting them down (i.e., kill the other air force and AA).
For Ground Attack, they suck but can get the job done (same as above).
For Maritime and Port Strikes they actually compare petty well trading increased range for lower naval damage, which means they will do more damage in zones where the Naval Bombers can't provide complete coverage.

 

[dasaard200]

TAC bombers fill in the gap between CAS and Strat bombers .

Yeah, they're not great at everything, but range trumps IC cost;
and flexibility helps in combat, both in adding numbers to a fight [CAS + TAC] ,
and in "spread the wealth" attacks [TAC + Strat] to keep Bozo's repair efferts busy .

Paired up with HFighters, you can DOMINATE large areas at sea, giving your Navy an "air umbrella" while island hopping in the Pacific, or advancing from airstrip to airstrip on land .
Given plentiful numbers, your TAC and HFighters will speed up your Conquests !!

 

[DicRoNero]

Two more points which are missed:

• TAC upgrades are so poor that in fact you're most likely to just buff range, as ground attack (+strategic bombing merged with it) is +10% max compared to +25% for CAS or STR. And no, adding 10% to another 10% to then compare 20 vs 25 doesn't make sense here.
• TAC (vs CAS) consume more of the precious Aluminum, and given you're constrained by it, CAS production output is 252%, 216% and whopping 262% of TAC for 1936/40/44 models respectively. Opportunity cost of each TAC is 2.1-2.6 CAS planes for any given amount of Aluminum.

TAC are also deprived of their quite historical capability to Air Supply, which in my opinion just adds insult to injury. The ad hoc nature of it is already covered by the mission taking Command Power, so unlikely to be abused either way. That, and TAC just don't trade well versus Fighters (unlike STR 40/44).

I agree with @Paul.Ketcham. Putting it with my words, sometimes I miss having some TAC ready here and now. But the number of cases me missing CAS is just 10 times as high. CAS are also CV-able, and now that CV-CAS ain't penalized by airzone size for ground bombing, parking a couple of carriers next to your fighting site is just a game-changer for naval invasions, and very helpful otherwise if already landed.

 

[Dalnar]

IF you have industrial capacity, then both CAS and TAC are handy, because they do not need to operate from same airfield so you can have more planes in zone on good operation efficiency.
But I love TAC for their versality on countries like Italy. You can use them as NAVs, for ground support, drop mines or sweep mines and even strat bomb ports and air fields. I simply love TACs. So I will rather mass produce TACs instead split my production between other types and just use them as I need.

 

[him_15]

I always use a mixture of both on the Eastern front.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TAC only start to win as in situations noted above:

• You have so many planes that even with investment into air fields you can't fit both CAS + fighters in target zones, so you use TAC to get use out of airfields that are further away. This is a good problem to have, but you probably won't have it.
• Huge air zones that CAS or NAV can't reach, such that TAC mission efficiency is 2x as good
• You are research constrained, so you just get these to cover all of your non-fighter needs, though never ideally.
• You are playing SP and can dominate the skies with fighter 2's or 3's anyway, so you just spam one other type of plane to cover everything else and don't care about the efficiency. Switch roles as needed and be done with it out of understandable laziness.

 

[eastcoastceojam]

Thanks for all the great comments.

And double thanks to @DicRoNero for reminding us about the limited ability to upgrade TAC ground attack with Air XP. Being limited to a max %10 buff (compared to 25% for CAS) on an already smaller base ground attack number is a big deal. The Air Upgrades are listed below, for noobs like me that missed what he was trying to say at first read.

Two more points which are missed:

• TAC upgrades are so poor that in fact you're most likely to just buff range, as ground attack (+strategic bombing merged with it) is +10% max compared to +25% for CAS or STR. And no, adding 10% to another 10% to then compare 20 vs 25 doesn't make sense here.
• TAC (vs CAS) consume more precious Aluminum, and given you're constrained by it, CAS production output is 252%, 216% and whopping 262% of TAC for 1936/40/44 models respectively

Many mentioned sending the old 1922 TAC bombers away to grind some Air XP, and I think that is the great plan for the USSR. Instead of lend leasing them, I will use 100 as air volunteers in China, and another 100 as air volunteers to Spain. Then I can make sure they see combat, and will have some experienced air wings that I can use on the home front later, if needed.

TACs have a role to play in the war with Germany, but just not as big of a role as Fighters or CAS.



List of air equipment upgrades

Upgrade	Types	Bonuses	Penalties
Weapons	Fighter, Heavy Fighter	+10% Air Attack	-1% Speed -10% Reliability -5% Agility
Range	all	+10% Range	-10% Reliability
Engine	all	+2% Speed +5% Agility
Reliability	all	+10% Reliability
Attack	NAV	+5% Naval Attack	-10% Reliability
Bombing	Strategic bomber	+5% Bombing	-10% Reliability -5% Range
Bombing	TAC	+2% Bombing +2% Ground Attack	-10% Reliability -5% Agility
Attack	CAS	+2% Air Attack +5% Ground Attack	-10% Reliability -5% Agility

 

[DicRoNero]

There are also no 'good' Medium Air Designers in the whole game (for TAC+HF). Japan has the best one (fuel_efficient_aircraft_manufacturer, or 'Aichi'), and even that one on top of the normal 20% reliability bonus just boosts HF range by 10% w/o anything extra for TAC. So normally you start with 96% reliability for TAC and that's a bit redundant. As helpful as it is when you improve range (and drop reliability), starting with extra attack/agility/speed is [or would have been] a far better option.

In fact, the only historical mission I recall which absolutely required a single TAC having all the reliability one could get was the Blaich raid by a lonely HE-111 in mid-Africa (!), just over Chad lake - quite a feat, given the distance. A better article (in Russian, though) is available here.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

To grind the most XP, what types of planes should I send, Fighters, TACs, or some of both?

In my experience: detection in SCW and China is too low to have reliable fights, so there's almost no practical use for volunteer fighters (CAS will have no problem finding job - meaning more XP - provided, AI is controlling at leas one side of the conflict). However, when fights do happen, fighters tend to take larger losses than CAS (that, given some luck, can avoid losses entirely for the duration of SCW). Basically, if you have superiority (or some token fighter cover) CAS-capable planes are way more efficient, otherwise fighters might help turn the tide (at the cost of IC).