WitE1 FAQ - How can I deal with turn 1 Soviet retaliatory bombing?

Started by Telemecus, September 29, 2019, 12:52:06 PM

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Telemecus

A Gary Grigsby's War in the East 1 frequently answered question

How can I deal with turn 1 Soviet retaliatory bombing?

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QuoteTurn 1 I lost many planes to Soviet retaliatory bombing. I feel like its impossible to even contest the air war as Germany. I almost always get slaughtered, and my airbases spend most of the game 25+ hexes away from the front line, thus barely able to provide any ground support.

Telemecus

-Check none of your airbases were displaced - are you sure you did not leave any in a place where they would have been next to an enemy unit in their turn?
-Were the airplanes destroyed on the ground or in combat (you can see each in the battle reports)
-And finally need to ask what did the fighters and flak do
-Turn 1 did you escort your bombers during your turn - if so you probably would have been better not bothering in turn 1 axis. Your most important thing in the air war as Axis is your single engine fighter fatigue. If you have fighters with low fatigue they are killers, high fatigue and you might as well not bother with them. So before every bombing or manual air action check if you really need fighters. For example send in recon, if no enemy intercepts them then you do not need fighters as escorts. Do not waste fighters by flying them even once without any need.
-On flak. Have you allocated flak to units that will shoot down enemy aircraft on the way to your airbases? Do you have flak in your air HQs in range of your bases.
Flak in v1.11.03 is unhistorically over powered - so with them set up correctly with that alone you destroy their offensive.
-Can you keep your airbases out of range of their fighters? Most soviet fighters will only fly 10 hexes, some like the migs 18 or 19 hexes, only the P-40 which is not there for many turns flies further. So keep your bases out of range of enemy fighters, and if only bombers attack you having one fighter group in defence will masacre them.
-Test that your fighter defence are flying! They are not in swamps, they have fuel, put air doctrine reqd to fly to 0%. Test it flying a manual air missions while selecting fighters but cancelling at the last moment rather than launching - if you cannot see fighter groups in your manual air group selection, then that means they are not able to fly