Revised Air Combat

[Zwiback]

You mean if we just could have 5(#no of provinces) x 5(provinces / area) = 25 times as much Micromanagement?

If the air forces are managed by the commanding HQ (as an example) where you can set your priorities and are carried out according to these settings, it wouldn't hurt to have some kind of "set priority target" button which is a kind of override function for important battles.

 

[unmerged(94130)]

You mean if we just could have 5(#no of provinces) x 5(provinces / area) = 25 times as much Micromanagement?

Air regions are kept, air missions can be lauched over these regions, and it's the AI which choose the target.
But, if me, player, i want to launch interdiction missions on these units which are on this province, i want.
If i want to destroy these actories ont these provinces, my bombes will strike this province.

We can choose the province where divisions will go our divisions, so why i would have to delegate my air combats orders to the AI ?

Micromanagement, micromanagement...
If i can't control my forces, this game is useless...

 

[Hebos.vU]

Air regions are kept, air missions can be lauched over these regions, and it's the AI which choose the target.
But, if me, player, i want to launch interdiction missions on these units which are on this province, i want.
If i want to destroy these actories ont these provinces, my bombes will strike this province.

We can choose the province where divisions will go our divisions, so why i would have to delegate my air combats orders to the AI ?

Micromanagement, micromanagement...
If i can't control my forces, this game is useless...

I think you missed potski's point. With more provinces the HOI2 Air combat model is no longer viable. A new model is required.

 

[unmerged(52816)]

I'm with the OP on this one. To me the micromanagement was not any fun at all. Neither is the wrong province bombing, nor watching a five-hour slugfest with both sides retreating to recoup losses for a week.

Also, I definitely think that all three branches- air, naval, and army- should be coded specifically. The air war was not like the naval war (even in the case of naval aviation) nor the land war (similarly for the other branches). The air war, for example, was attrition based. True there were air offensives, but they were never like ground or naval offensives. Zones of coverage, frontage to use the thread vernacular, were allotted and squadrons exerted influence over the entire frontage simultaneously. Air units did NOT fly out enmass from a field proceed to province 1 of their , let's say, 3 province frontage then proceed to 2 then to 3. Worse still, they do NOT all get in a five hour air battle over province 2 then retreat to base without projecting power to province 3. The luftwaffe was slowly ground down over a period of years. Fighter Command was nearly on its knees in the Battle of Britain after months of independent air war. So the air war is almost entirely governed by attrition in the strategic arena. There's no encircling, pocketing, or overrunning of air forces. They have to be worn down by direct action.

I like the OP's idea. Build an air force/luftflotte/what-have-you use the brigade system to attach CAS/fighters/etc and HQ them at an airbase. From that airbase this luftflotte will project its power over its entire frontage simultaneously and constantly (barring user interruption). No more inappropriate bombing, no superstack jumping, no more five-hour engagements then a week off. All pertinent ordering and attrition status would be accessed through the luftflotte HQ not each and every squadron/stack.

To me, I don't see how this reduces to level of sophistication of the air war, nor is it an unrealistic abstraction. If anything, it would be less micromanagement, give a much more realistic account of the air war, and, hopefully, allow the AI to more effectively use ITS air forces. These are all boni in my book.

 

[TiggyFiggy]

I'd prefer a model where you launch missions over a target region, but the air wing doesn't travel as one unit, it in effect splits and performs that mission to all those provinces where that mission would be effective unless specifically targeted. Naturally you wouldn't see your one interceptor sprite break up and cover many territories, it would a little more subtle. It also means if the enemy gets the drop on your bombers you won't have catastrophic losses.

 

[Ostheim]

I'd prefer a model where you launch missions over a target region, but the air wing doesn't travel as one unit, it in effect splits and performs that mission to all those provinces where that mission would be effective unless specifically targeted. Naturally you wouldn't see your one interceptor sprite break up and cover many territories, it would a little more subtle. It also means if the enemy gets the drop on your bombers you won't have catastrophic losses.

Something like this might work and solve the air travel issue, then if there are ever parts of an enemy air division in a province with your planes a separate combat could take place affecting some appropriate percentage of the air division's org/str.

 

[unmerged(19150)]

Two big thumbs up

I was very happy to see this thread and hope with all my heart that Paradox listens. I stopped using airpower altogether because of the micromanagement nightmare that it required. I am a lurker and not a vocal member of this community but HOI is my all time favorite strategy game and I think there is a significant silent majority that would cry tears of joy if the air war aspect of this game underwent major revisions.

Please and thank you Paradox.

 

[potski]

I'd prefer a model where you launch missions over a target region, but the air wing doesn't travel as one unit, it in effect splits and performs that mission to all those provinces where that mission would be effective unless specifically targeted. Naturally you wouldn't see your one interceptor sprite break up and cover many territories, it would a little more subtle. It also means if the enemy gets the drop on your bombers you won't have catastrophic losses.

Perhaps you could only see the interceptor sprite on a slightly zoomed out view, and then you would see it covering a region, instead of a province? On the map all air units would follow this view, and all air-to-air combat would take place on a region level.

I think we can easily abstract that a unit(s) of INT would spread across the whole region, but if a bomber force was spotted most of them would attempt to close in on it. Factors such as weather, day/night, radar techs as to whether they get spotted, and then similar techs and commander skills on how much of the INT can engage.

Obviously, even though the bombers are shown as regional-level sprites, the actual air-to-ground combat would be done on a province level.

Of course, this is only if there are sprites on the map representing movement/combat. I'd not be against abstracting the whole thing.

Give the INC an HQ on the ground at their airbase, with an appropriate level commander in charge, and specify the region or even regions that you want him to carry out air superiority missions, and let him get on with it. You don't see the INC buzzing around the map. If you click on the HQ on the main map you get sprites appearing on the map just to indicate the area of coverage, even if the planes are actually grounded because its night or bad weather. Even just change colour of the provinces or something would be good enough for me.

Then an entry in the history log at the end of each day with a report from the air commander on stats of downed planes, with the actual losses of his own planes, and an estimate of the actual losses of the enemy (the actual losses with some +/-random element), and an estimate of how big the enemy force was that were engaged (in rough terms, Wings/Groups rather than actual numbers of planes). So you get:

0:00 1st September 1940: 1st Fighter Command HQ, Dover. Our forces engaged two Wings of German medium bombers in the Kent region today. We estimate they lost 5 bombers, while we lost 2 interceptors.

And while we are at it, let's not have bombing "battles" appearing sporadically in the log:

0:00 1st September 1940: Air Minister. Two Wings of German medium bombers attacked London today. They inflicted 1.1 infrastructure damage. We estimate they lost 3 bombers from our AA defences.

 

[Radu]

Yup, it's easy for the player to be overwhelmed by air action, so a sufficiently "zoomed out" perspective should be given. Because of its nature,air combat is very difficult to pin down the way land combat is. It is much more fluid.

As a consequence, perhaps a more "fuzzy" approach is needed.

For example,air superiority.

Every region (perhaps province is too detailed) should have two Airspace Control percentages attached to whoever is patrolling it. Daytime Airspace Control and Nighttime Airspace Control.

These percentages should not be zero-sum,but parallel,meaning that some areas aren't patrolled by anybody (Sahara?). Each nation will know its Airspace Control Percentage,but it takes air-air battles and (decryption acting as a multiplier) to realize the enemy's Percentage and to update it (fog of war should naturally impede the ability to see the enemy's Airspace Control).

The Airspace Control percentage should be a quantity multiplied by quality affair. First,a minimum quantity of planes (a wing?squadron?) should be insured for a presence to be established (percentage > 0 ), then the capability of that unit is multiplied by whatever detection means the nation has. Radar,of course,should be absolutely critical of Airspace Control. Without radar, the Airspace Control percentage should probably hover at 50-60% even with huge forces assigned at day and neglijible at night.

Airspace Control is degraded by the enemy either via destroying planes or by bombing radar stations or by having bombers penetrate the airspace,either by avoiding detection or by charging in with heavily-escorted bomb groups. Thus,the instance can exist where air control is limited even though there are enough planes and radars, but the enemy flies in heavily-escorted bomber flights that get through. This is the case with the Allied strategic bombing campaign that won by attrition vs the Luftwaffe between 1942-1944.

A special instance of losing Air Control should be enemy bombers or fighter-bombers avoiding detection and catching friendly aircraft of the ground,thus suffering higher losses.

Air Control,as a combination of presence and detection, should be the decisive factor threatening bombers, wether strategic ones attacking factories, tactical ones degrading enemy logistics or close support ones attacking enemy troops directly.

The threat can be of course,tiered, with detection more useful against strategic bomber groups and quantity,presence being most useful against enemy CAS.

As for bombing missions, a "fuzzy" system should be employed as well.

For CAS, they should be attached to a corps and fly in missions whenever that corps is engaged in battle,flying,what else? Close air support, hunting for enemy tanks. CAS shouldn't really be that useful against infantry, at least as strength losses go.

Tacs should have less Hard Attack and more Soft Attack,being level bombers and they should be assigned to either a region or an individual province assigned to logistical strikes,installation strikes or interdiction.

Strats should have either regions or provinces as strategic targets.

Of course, time of day should have a critical importance. In fact, only strategic bombing and air superiority should have any chance of success at night. Anything else should probably not even be allowed to be performed at night.

As for escort fighters,they should be assigned to as as support to bombers in the same way CAS are assigned to corps.Oh,and it would be nice this time for escorts attached to a bomb flight to actually reduce the range of bombers.

Now the problem is feedback. What does the player need to know.

IMHO, the player wants at any given time a summary.For air superiority as kill ratio would be relevant,for strat bombing a total of IC and resources bombed versus planes lost, for CAS, against a kill/loss ratio, same for interdiction.

Basically,I think the players accessing at any given time relevant,cummulated kill/death ratios for an air corps' mission in progress would actually be enough. Perhaps a pop-up graph showing the progression of the ratios over time if he desires it. Really,any relevant mission summary up to that moment would do.

 

[BooDoo]

As many poster had mentioned before, HOI series is always a grand strategy centric game where the military aspect of the game (Land, Naval, and Aerial warfare) are generally at strategy level.
The current system of air system had not been properly modeling the strategy level of aerial warfare.

The major difficulty of the current system to cope with the rest of the game is because of two game design.
1. The minimum unit of time is one hour. Most INDIVIDUAL air battle during the 2nd World War are over in less than a hour.
2. Air units works like a division, when it's out on a mission, the entire unit move as one. This create the problem of lacking continuous air battle. (Unless it's huge stack against huge stack, which will result in one side completely lose a significance portion of air force in a matter of hours)

A better model of abstracted air system will provide a more realistic air battle, and lessen the burden of AI for directing air force.

Proposed Air system.
Base on the new brigade system, there should be brigades of pure units form by fighter(LR SR MR), bomber (S T CAS), NAV to TRS.
Players construct an air division base on the strategy needs.

Deployment of the air divisions should no longer be directly ordered. Instead, players choose where an air division/corps/fleet should be attached. It can be an army corps, army, army groups, or regions.
Once chosen, the individual air brigade will be assign near the HQ of the land units by the AI. The air battle will be calculate in the background while provide the stats of performance to the player.

This first type of deployment are for the tactical bombers, close air support, escorting group for bombers.Their orders will depend on the group they are assigned to. And should concentrate on the movements and order of the land units.
For example, an air corp assigned to an army will choose the area of land advancement as top priority for assigning it's CAS and T to attack, while the rest of the fighter group could still be evenly spread across the army until the need of escorting those bomber when enemy interception show up. Or in the case of enemy bomber attacking land troops.
On the defensive and retreating, the air units will help covering the retreating land units from air attack, at the same time sent out bomber to attack advancing enemy army.

A percentage of "currently in flight" should be added to the calculation, which will represent how many units are on the air, and how many are holding in reserve to deal with the unexpected. This can be based on generals trait and skills as well as the direness of the situation.

The second type of deployment should be region based. An air superiority group, strategic bomber group and their escort, transporter group falls in this category.
And these unit will receive direct orders from the players to conduct their business. Order parameter will includes area of responsibility, since individual brigade will be parked at different areas based on the area of responsibility. This will allow a spread out of air unit to cover multiple regions.
Example, the player can form an night fighter divisions, and assign a huge responsibility area. This will result in the spreading of planes to cover huge areas, and provide an advantage if the enemy bomber come in small group all over the place. IE, referring to Kammhuber Line during early night fighter organization development.

Historically, there are air battles that fought between squadrons and wings size, and huge strategic bomber fleet grouping together against interception.
This system will simulate both big and small air battle of World War Two.
If a huge area is assign to relatively small force, plane will spread out. For bombers this mean less effective in attacking, both on land and sea. For air superiority group and interception group, this will result in less chance to intercept enemy bombers.
On the other hand, escort group's effectiveness should be based on escorter/escortee ratio, escort's range and speed, and enemy interception strength.

All of the above will be calculate under the table to less micromanagement.

Now, the forces that are directly in command of the players should be the transporter planes. Missions includes paratrooper drops, and supply cut-off land forces.

If this system is implanted, we should no longer see plane flying around the globe, huge stack ramming each other, divisions obliterated by huge stacks of Tbomber, and create a more AI friendly air system.