To contest air superiority or no to . . .

[Tisifoni12]

What do your fighters look like? Are they upgraded?

At the point abandoned they were mostly Lagg. I had started research of Yak early and had begun a slow shift of production. I went from 3,000 + fighters down to say 600 in about a month as the fascists had like 6,000.

I should have considered how to conserve them sooner. When playing as the Reich or as GB I'm better at conserving air forces

 

[blahmaster6k]

At the point abandoned they were mostly Lagg. I had started research of Yak early and had begun a slow shift of production. I went from 3,000 + fighters down to say 600 in about a month as the fascists had like 6,000.

I should have considered how to conserve them sooner. When playing as the Reich or as GB I'm better at conserving air forces

Did you upgrade them with air xp? Putting +5 into engine will help them perform much better in dogfights, and then some in range and gun if you can afford to. Along with making sure they were researched with the light air designer for the extra agility.

 

[The Colonel]

Train your planes to full XP then put them all into one sector. See if you can win against the Germans in one Sector. I don't think the AI is smart enough to concentrate its air force.

In my latest SOV game the germans put basically their whole airforce over eastern poland (I held the border instead of stalin line for fun) and it basically was just like air Verdun except I immediately had a positive K/D from only building good fighter IIs despite never doing a single red air force focus. They basically ran out of planes like 6 months into the war. Wish I'd started building CAS sooner lol.

 

[Cavalry]

When the air force is outnumberred, keep the air screen on the screen and turn off the air force when needed, usually when you see your CAS cannot hit land troops, with the ratio of total planes 1:2 then they cannot anyway.

 

[Secret Master]

Did you upgrade them with air xp? Putting +5 into engine will help them perform much better in dogfights, and then some in range and gun if you can afford to. Along with making sure they were researched with the light air designer for the extra agility.

He's right.

The AI is bad at designing planes, so you should be able to create light fighters that obliterate German planes.

I'm going to add something to the list, though:

As the Soviets, I can beat the combined Axis air forces without even taking the first air force focus. The trick is to ignore air doctrines and instead invest a ton of air XP into the 1940 light fighter (with proper designer) until you have max engines, maybe +2 to guns and range, and a reliability of 60% or so (lower if you were more confident). Use air XP to grab the spirit that makes researching planes cheaper to get the Lagg-3 into production earlier. Swap it out for something else when the war starts if you want.

Only after getting a good plane then do you start picking up doctrines. I know it's counter-intuitive. But the smaller performance increases from doctrines in air to air combat capitalize better on good planes, and a high performance fighter that completely outclasses the 3000 BF-109s Germany probably still has in service will help you out more.

 

[blahmaster6k]

When the air force is outnumberred, keep the air screen on the screen and turn off the air force when needed, usually when you see your CAS cannot hit land troops, with the ratio of total planes 1:2 then they cannot anyway.

If your air force is outnumbered, you should not be producing or flying CAS at all. Your top priority is producing as many fighters as possible with as many factories as possible to regain control of the air.

 

[Cavalry]

As said, control the air is not a goal in many case, or can do in 1-2 years time. CAS bombing the troop and capture Berlin can be done faster. + gun is dangerous when you are outnumberred because it reduces the survival of fighters.

If SP AI concentrate his airforce and outnumberred you, then you can turn off air for a while or switch to another airzone. They will move the air out. That's why timing is quite important, you can choose turn on CAS at the beginning of attack or when the attack stalled.

 

[Secret Master]

+ gun is dangerous when you are outnumberred because it reduces the survival of fighters.

No, it isn't.

The only thing that matters in fighter versus fighter combat is kill ratios. Once you have as much agility and speed as you can mount from engine upgrades and aircraft designer, adding guns despite the penalties improves the capabilities of your fighters in combat. You gain more kills than you lose in lost aircraft.

If you are outnumbered, you still need to win dogfights by killing enemy planes.

Let's take a quick test. ENG versus GER over the English Channel (no advantage with pilot recovery). No doctrines. Britain has 1940 fighters with the designer and no XP applied to the planes. Germany in the first test has no doctrines and +5 to engines and the designer. In the second test, Germany has +5 to engines and +4 to guns and the designer. Both sides have plenty of RADAR so that detection is high (to prevent low detection from creating "noise" in the results). Roughly 30 days, using the Months tab in air losses. Which run is better?

When adding the guns, the RAF's kill ratio advantage goes from 1.78 to 1.45. It's a clear win for the gun upgrades despite being outnumbered 2:1. Yes, Germany is still losing, but the planes with gun upgrades have better kill ratios against the British. It's a better trade in terms of IC lost, wing XP lost, and aces generated/shot down.

I did this test down and dirty, but those who understand the way air combat works will no doubt realize that since I didn't have doctrines, special spirits, aces, or exercised wings in play, the advantages enjoyed by the RAF would deteriorate even further if the German planes had competent pilots and any kind of mission efficiency advantage. And with, say, agility boosts from doctrines or buffs from air force spirits or advisors, it would be even worse for the RAF.

 

[Cavalry]

No, it isn't.

Good test. Should we increase gun & maintain reliable first or increase speed and agility first, for the same amount of xp?

 

[blahmaster6k]

Good test. Should we increase gun & maintain reliable first or increase speed and agility first, for the same amount of xp?

Engine first, then range/gun. Agility acts as a multiplier to all stats including attack, so it kind of double dips here. It also gives enemy planes penalties with enough of an agility advantage. Guns are the cherry on top when you can't increase your agility advantage anymore, at least from my experience.

Reliability isn't really that important for planes due to the low accident rate in vanilla. You'll notice accident losses if you're not in intense combat, but if you're engaged in massive air battles accident losses are just a drop in the bucket compared to shoot-downs. If you're not engaging the enemy air force, you can put down your planes or put them on interception and you won't see accident losses either.

 

[Secret Master]

Good test. Should we increase gun & maintain reliable first or increase speed and agility first, for the same amount of xp?

This is where it might get complicated.

Some time ago I did a test where I nailed down an upgrade procedure that involved like going +1 engine, then +1 guns, then back to engines for 2 steps, then back to guns, and so on. It was complicated, took a lot of time to test, and ultimately didn't help me play the game better because I didn't factor in range upgrades.

So, I'll give you the easy to remember version.

First of all, bank 95% of air XP prior to researching 1940 fighter only spending it on things like the research boost air force spirit and spending any overflow air XP that would get lost due to the 500 XP cap. When research on 1940 fighter is complete, go +5 engines, then add guns and range as needed (I can't tell you what range you'll need in your game, that's on you). In SP, as long as you know you will be facing significant air combat, reliability of 50% is a reasonable target. Lower is sustainable, but once you clear the skies, you might lose more planes than you want this way (if it even matters by then).

You will be exercising wings using older aircraft, off course. Forming new wings with older aircraft, they exercise on the map as new planes filter in and when they get capped on XP, they should be good to go. Older planes tend to have higher reliability, so you won't lose lots of 50% reliability planes to training accidents.

I emphasize engines first in this scenario because it's the no-brainer choice. No matter what you intend to do with a fighter, engine upgrades are useful. Guns and range are more situational, as there might be times where the range is more important or the guns are more important.

Note that heavy fighters are not the same, so if you have heavy fighter specific questions, that's a whole other thing in terms of design philosophy.

 

[Parsimonia]

Note that heavy fighters are not the same, so if you have heavy fighter specific questions, that's a whole other thing in terms of design philosophy.

Is it range and guns for heavy fighters?

 

[Tisifoni12]

Apparently one doesn't have air superiority over Belarus despite having 1920 fighters to the Germans' 68 . . .

 

[Supremeleaderpies]

Train your planes to full XP then put them all into one sector. See if you can win against the Germans in one Sector. I don't think the AI is smart enough to concentrate its air force.

the ai actively will concentrate its airforce if you do

 

[Tisifoni12]

Restarted

Held forces on the line of the 'former' Soviet / Polish border, with Romania, the Baltics and Finland neutral and kept my 3,000+ fighter aircraft defending Belarusian and Ukainian air areas. Did the Stalin line with some additional defence works in the gaps.

The Germans advance cautiously, attack in a couple of places, then along the southern and central sectors of the front. They take one tile. Then stop.

We bring our divisions up to strength and add further fortifications in those gaps unopposed.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Update

As the AI Allies were being totally rubbish in Africa and the Middle East; stalemate between Mersa Matruh and the Libyan border, on the Canal and in the Belgian Congo.
Launched second front against Japan.

While sorting the Asian war out the Germans at some point went from having a few hundred fighters on the Polish front to somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 resulting in massive losses of my fighters over Belarus. Can I be bothered to go back and re-start that involvement, but check back on the air war on the other front every week or something like that of game time. Not really. Took me three run throughs of the Asian peace to avoid making stupid mistakes like clicking on a province without remembering to choose Communist Chinese puppet first.

Import rubber and aluminium and roughly double production of fighters, but would still take years to re-build numbers. I can launch offensives, I have huge stockpiles of tanks, artillery, etc. and have done all the tactical doctrines, but they soon run out of steam, so they last a few days and I may capture a couple of tiles.
It's 1945 and the allies are still pissing about in Africa and the Middle East.

Autumn 1945 and the front line hasn't moved much in four years; lose a tile here, gain a tile there. Russia has been maintaining friendly relations with Finland, Sweden, the Baltic States and Romania. Then suddenly Estonia goes fascist, I pull troops in to contain this madness. The Estonians are reinforced by Italians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, two panzer divisions.

I terminate the game as this seems a senseless development. There is no reason for this peaceful minor to suddenly decide to join a war that's been going on for four years, with no particular impact on Estonia. Unless this is something built into the AI to throw a curveball for the hell of it.