jpinard
1675
Nice! I like that idea.
I kinda settled on 6 infantry per space. 24 infantry per division (or company - whatever the denomination is), so for them to cover 4 spaces I divided 24 from 4 and got 6. Is that good amount or too many per space? Since they are 20 width I know they need 4 to cover, and then there would be 2 in reserve.
That’s a great question. I’ve never been able to figure that out. I understand the two different functions but figuring out what is most effective has been a challenge. I like Meepers idea of assigning CAS to armies. It makes sense.
Speaking of the Air theater, how effective are Tactical and Strategic bombers? And should I ever use Rocket Interceptors?
KevinC
1678
Air Superiority is more general purpose, get control of the skies kind of thing. They’ll intercept bombers as well, but it’s not their priority. Interception reserves the planes specifically for shooting down bombers and transports that are detected.
I’m usually not the target of strat bombers or anything, so I typically just leave everything on Air Superiority and win the skies.
Which has the potential to reduce fuel usage as well, which is new.
MikeJ
1680
Outside of different bonuses from doctrines, planes on Air Superiority and Interception behave exactly the same once they are off the ground. The only difference is that planes on Interception won’t take to the skies if there are no enemy TACS, STATS, or CAS on missions in the zone.
There is no targeting priority difference between AS and INT.
KevinC
1681
Good to know! Like I mentioned, I don’t typically bother because I’m usually focused on winning the skies so I can go bomb them. :) @Perky_Goth brings up a good point on fuel use, I might use it more often now, situationally!
Strat bombers are incredible when you can hit someones main industry with it. Britain is a particularly good target since most of their factories are in 2 air zones. With enough strat bombers, you can essentially grind their industry to a complete halt.
They are quite expensive to build in any number, though. I wouldn’t put yourself into tank or fighter shortfalls for them.
meeper
1683
You only need 4 to cover provided the enemy attacks from only one direction. Each additional direction grants an addition 40 combat width. I think 6 is a fine number for defending against the Germans in '41.
So it seems to me after reading this. That if you are in position of general air inferiority, like the Soviets will typically be early in the war, you should keep your fighters on interception. If they Germans have their fighter on Air Superiority, then you don’t lose too much by not fighting with them. But if they also include CAS or Strats in the air zone than having intercepting can disrupt the bombers and help your army. It will also save fuel, which may or may not matter to the Soviets.
jpinard
1685
Wow, another thing to write down in my long list of hints and tips. I never would have guessed that!
@stusser when I have time I’m gonna give that a try for. V3 run as I have that start of the German onslaught saved. It’s inter sting infyiurbtheory is right because all the guides I read said to only go air superiority.
I wonder if, whether your being CAS bombed or not, if there’s an overall bonus to just having air superiority. Because I see that flag in battles and maybe that could mean, even if the enemy has no CAS left because you intercepted and shot them all down, they still benefit from general superiority?
MikeJ
1686
Having air superiority means enemy ground units take a penalty to their defense and breakthrough (so they will take more damage) and a hit to movement speed. Having AA in your divisions counteracts this to an extent, depending on the total AA rating.
According to https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_warfare#Air_superiority, the effect I am talking about is Air Support in the game. CAS, besides doing direct damage to enemies also provides a Ground Support stat bonus. It’s worth hovering over the symbols in ground combat to see the effects in action.
meeper
1687
That goes for basically every pixel in a PDS game. :)
jpinard
1688
I could have misread one the later posts about this, but if your opponent has air superiority your ground units will be taking a greater defensive hit right?
Yes they will. I know I’ve seen the formula on how big a hit it is but I can’t find it.
My theory is that rather than trying to challenge the enemy for Air Superiority when you have less/worse fighters and eventually get attrited to virtually nothing. It is better to put them on Air Interception. you’ll still lose a lot of fighters but you’ll also have chance to take down some enemy (more costly) bombers.
Now I could easily be wrong about this
jpinard
1690
Sorry another dumb question.
I’m replaying the German assault against me and air superiority is yellow in Baltics, but green in Ukraine and Poland. Should I pull all those planes from the Baltics since I know I’ll lose air there and put them into the other areas? Or keep them in the Baltics to try and attrition their aircraft down a bit?
So excited. Have whole day planned to exact revenge on Germany :)
meeper
1691
No dumb questions!
Particularly as it pertains to that one as it’s tricky. Personally, I didn’t significantly alter distribution of my air wings until I began my offense after a year of having the Germans crash against my lines. The thing to remember about the ‘red’ air zones is that unless you’re completely out of aircraft there (in my case, this never happened, though my air wings were down to 40% rated strength before things began to turn around), your aircraft will still occasionally contribute to air superiority for your ground divisions.
I preferred to leave my fighter wings in the green Baltic / Ukranian zones to be sure that I kept an advantage there. My rationale was that if I pulled hardware from those green zones to the red, I’d wind up taking heavier air losses and then my green zones might not have enough aircraft to stay green.
jpinard
1692
@meeper - cool that’s kind what I was thinking too. I’m pretty happy with this at the moment (though it’s only been 3 month’s since invasion).
An issue I keep running into. I desperately need units to hold a line, but there’s not enough supply, so they run out of gas and apparently suffer extra attrition? What do you do in a case like this? I can’t get the infrastructure built to support them as Germany keeps destroying it.
Spock
1693
@jpinard, you and everyone else here persuaded me to buy the Man the Guns expansion. Haven’t played a lot yet, but I sure love the new detail on the naval side of the game. I’m playing as the US with a 1936 start. I may watch some of Quill18’s video to get back up to speed. E.g., I can’t remember anything about how to organize my troops into armies.
Did you start your USSR campaign in 1939?
jpinard
1695
- I am loving the game :)
@Shum - I do have logistics support on tanks, but maybe I should have added them to my horsies as and mechanized groups as well. Is it too late to do that when they’re in the middle of battle?
I will add infrastructure to Moscow right now. Thanks!
Should I be building more Civ factories? Feels like it’s taking forever to get anything built, but it could just be because I’m on speed 2 instead of 3.
Also - do you get better defense bonus in forest or marsh? Hovering over them doesn’t seem to tell me anything.
