Gents,

I've found that it is possible to send a group of 25 fighters on an air superiority mission with a fighter escort of 25 fighters...
In my eyes this is not particulary fair.
It would be fair if one could put a fighter escort with a fighter cover.

Here's the extract from the rules:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Air Superiority Air Mission is a specialized mission designed to
engage enemy fighters on Interception SOAMs. The concept behind this air
mission is to have your fighters sweep through one or more enemy
controlled provinces in the hopes of drawing their fighters into combat
where, hopefully, you will inflict more losses on them than they do on
you. The enemy, of course, will not be so ignorant as to accept battle
when the odds are clearly in your favour. The enemy fighters will only
accept combat when they have a numerical advantage (even a slight one)
over your forces (in terms of aircraft). If the enemy accepts your
challenge, a Day Air to Air Combat will be resolved. In this case, your
main body and your fighter escort are treated like one big force and
your fighters will not have to operate under any hindrances (close
escort, etc.). Your fighters will be on an equal footing with the enemy
fighters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

It would be a bit more fair if it wouldn't be possible to give an AS mission a FE.
Perhaps we could change the FE missions and give them some limitations.

What are your thoughts about this?

Greetings,

Donald.

just sent in a bomber with a tas and a large escort.. will also do the trick...

an air sup. mission is not very usefull in my eyes.... and can be best removed

I have NEVER run an AS mission as it is mostly worthless. Now if it was added to the order that if an AS mission was run, and enemy fighters failed to respond, then the enemy fighters could NOT intercept any of your planes the rest of the day. (because you obtained air superiority) then the order would be worthwhile.
Also, the order doesn't affect FC planes only INT. Most people use FC rather than INT.

I prefer the defence-in-depth strategy. INT in every city around my important targets. That way the enmy has got to get through two or more INT groups.

FC only for my advancing armies.

And offcourse some TAS capable groups...

Keep in mind that you can have multiple forces on intercept or fighter cover - the limit as to the number of fighters that will respond on a given attack is 50 air groups. You can have more the 50 air groups covering a particular spot but only 50 would respond (there is a mechanism for which groups respond in that case - low force ID, low group ID as I recall). The 50 air groups could be in two groups of 25 or in several groups and they could be at the same air base or at different air bases (reaction success chance for a FC would be based on the group furthest away from the target location)

Remember as well that there is a limit on how many units can be on on certain SOAMS (10) so watch the count on fighter cover, maritime patrol and maritime interdict missions (intercept soams limited only by force count).

As others have noted - the AS mission tends to be used very little. The game mechanics for that mission just don't work very well.

Russ

Hello all,

So to summarise all remarks: AS missions suck and I was caught by surprise when those 50 fighters hit me.

That's sounds about right I think. I've now covered several area's with more than 1 FC so I guess that will render the AS missions with 50 fighters useless .

Do those intercepts only react on odd's based on the amount of planes or does the program look at the type and stat's of the planes engaging eachother too?

I mean a Spitfire VC is a much better plane than the Lagg-3 and therefore you could fight off 2 Lagg's with 1 Spitfire, so if 4 Spitfires are on a FC mission the odds would be still in their favour when the intruders are 8 Lagg's; theoretically...

Donald

Intercepts react to air superiority missions on a numbers basis only. Fighter Cover is actually triggered only by attacks on cities/forces so the AS mission isn't even a factor in those cases Given that defenders only respond to an AS mission when they have the advantage and only when they are on intercept missions (much less common than fighter cover) - the AS mission just doesn't have much game value these days.

Generally the best way to beat down enemy fighter defenses is to send your best tactical strike force (multiple forces if you have that sort of air power) in after their air base with a full force on escort (25 grps will shield the main body from 50 grps if CSC is the same or better). If you have good fighter-bombers, sending in fighters escorted by fighters on a base strike can be quite effective as well. The fighters in the main body fight at a disadvantage but they tend to be better against enemy fighters that leak through the escort than bombers. Something you mostly see with american units (P-47s, P-51s, etc. - good range, good tactical strike, good air-to-air, etc.).



Russ

Hello everyone,

This is quite usefull! Let's see if I can kick some ass with this info

I've never thought about building a mixed group.


Greetings,

Donald.