does AA help at all? still taking huge damage

[leastfire]

does anyone know how division AA is actually supposed to help against CAS? I forgot to convert planes to self sealing tanks so air went horrible for me^^ and it says 19.01 damage taken to friendly divisions, 65 org and 39 strength in one battle? how much AA I should have per division?

 

[Findell_HOI]

Hover over the AA symbol on he divisions and see how much anti CAS you are getting.

 

[Zenbeast]

Divisional AA does two things: it reduces the damage taken from CAS, but the amount needed to get maximum reduction is pretty low. AA also shoot down CAS, and that you can stack pretty high.

 

[General Tao]

Looks to me like this is to be expected - the enemy has overwhelming air superiority in that region and your fighters have no hope of successfully combating enemy CAS in the air. With this level of disparity, even if you are running pure meta fighter designs against standard AI it is gonna be a hard slog - recommend you switch to interception if not already on it, you may want to just concede the air for now and focus on building up a sizeable fighter force.

On the ground, I'd say things are actually in a better state. Yes you are taking significant CAS damage, but you are shooting down enemy CAS at a phenomenal rate. If you can keep this up, the enemy will run out of CAS in a matter of weeks. You may not be able to push, you may even lose a tile or two, but those losses are not sustainable for the enemy AI.

So I wouldn't be too worried about CAS - I'd focus on winning the air war. Max HMGs or CannonIIs, dual engines, SSFT, armour, extra fuel/drop tanks and maybe a turret and you'll decimate that 4k stack with just a 2k stack of your own. Don't forget to build radar, get better coverage of the air zone with sufficient airfields closer to the centre, finish your doctrine, and maybe even go for motherships if you have them.

 

[Eisscrat]

Yes the rate of shot down enemy planes is huge. So the problem of enemy CAS will go away pretty soon. AA is doing there part.

Dont ever build dual engine fighter. Single engine with max heavy machineguns are the meta. If you design them properly even without self sealing tanks the should win against a AI airforce with same numbers.

 

[General Tao]

Dont ever build dual engine fighter. Single engine with max heavy machineguns are the meta. If you design them properly even without self sealing tanks the should win against a AI airforce with same numbers.

I know dual engines aren't the meta but the increased thrust allows for more modules which help with minimising losses. Yes the IC trade is less favourable but unless you're in a real pickle (and OP can likely fix the air imbalance in about six months or less) I'd rather have fewer losses, especially to help get air wings to higher veterancy.

But yeah, you're right. Technically the single engine is more optimal.

 

[leastfire]

Looks to me like this is to be expected - the enemy has overwhelming air superiority in that region and your fighters have no hope of successfully combating enemy CAS in the air. With this level of disparity, even if you are running pure meta fighter designs against standard AI it is gonna be a hard slog - recommend you switch to interception if not already on it, you may want to just concede the air for now and focus on building up a sizeable fighter force.

On the ground, I'd say things are actually in a better state. Yes you are taking significant CAS damage, but you are shooting down enemy CAS at a phenomenal rate. If you can keep this up, the enemy will run out of CAS in a matter of weeks. You may not be able to push, you may even lose a tile or two, but those losses are not sustainable for the enemy AI.

So I wouldn't be too worried about CAS - I'd focus on winning the air war. Max HMGs or CannonIIs, dual engines, SSFT, armour, extra fuel/drop tanks and maybe a turret and you'll decimate that 4k stack with just a 2k stack of your own. Don't forget to build radar, get better coverage of the air zone with sufficient airfields closer to the centre, finish your doctrine, and maybe even go for motherships if you have them.

yeah on top of that it's sheep mod and AIs here build actually well designed planes.. and right, CAS bombardment stopped soon afterwards so they must have ran out so this number of shot down planes is ok? true, radars, I am forgetting to build air research facility way too often^^ below AI design which because of me forgetting to equip self sealing tanks, has almost same stats to me. they deal huge losses even to my maxed air defense design (bottom pic)

 

[Eisscrat]

I know dual engines aren't the meta but the increased thrust allows for more modules which help with minimising losses. Yes the IC trade is less favourable but unless you're in a real pickle (and OP can likely fix the air imbalance in about six months or less) I'd rather have fewer losses, especially to help get air wings to higher veterancy.

But yeah, you're right. Technically the single engine is more optimal.

Ok this is a luxury fighter if you have the time and ic to spare.
Like a two engine CAS to maximise damage per aircraft than can join the battle.
But as the OP is already in a pickle the most economic solution is adviseable

 

[William9113]

90 planes is at least like 2000 IC.

The cost of support AA in those 6 divisions is like 600 IC.

The AA are still around, and can still shoot down many more planes.

If you didn’t have AA, the damage dealt to you would have been quadrupled (11.7 AA reduces CAS damage by 75% IIRC)

The answer to your original question is undoubtedly yes.

 

[Kanitatlan]

I think my primary take away from the images is that it is indicating that in a week the enemy will have no CAS left so what are you worrying about. You have more than enough AA given those figures and your only worry should be what would happen if the AI had half a brain and switched to logistic bombing instead. You may be taking damage but the damage to your divisions is a lot cheaper to replace than all those CAS you are shooting down. I would be more concerned that you've deployed too much AA and are going suffer ground combat problems as a result.

 

[leastfire]

okay thank you all does amount of lost AA depend on opposing CAS joining battle? I feel like I am loosing much more AA equipment than proportionally having it in divisions. Here is template that I am using, maybe I could change something. For example I am never sure about balance between hp/org/defense (mechanized) and attack (tanks)

 

[Life is Comedy]

2 Line AA are overkill.
Unless you plan to basically do a no air build and hence want to shot down planes using your ground forces (like you are kind of doing).

I don't at all play with meta builds (I find them boring and optimized for a different playstile anyways) but I would also limit myself to one line AA.

More weird is why would you build a full Tank destroyer division ?
You can achieve the same result (especially against AI) with normal tanks + 1 line anti tank OR +1 tank destroyer.

 

[RobbiusBossius]

2 Line AA are overkill.
Unless you plan to basically do a no air build and hence want to shot down planes using your ground forces (like you are kind of doing).

I don't at all play with meta builds (I find them boring and optimized for a different playstile anyways) but I would also limit myself to one line AA.

More weird is why would you build a full Tank destroyer division ?
You can achieve the same result (especially against AI) with normal tanks + 1 line anti tank OR +1 tank destroyer.

This is not vanilla AI, it's sheepsmod which makes the AI actually do competent and proper builds, what most average players use/make against the vanilla AI do not work against this mod

 

[Life is Comedy]

This is not vanilla AI, it's sheepsmod which makes the AI actually do competent and proper builds, what most average players use/make against the vanilla AI do not work against this mod

Haven't played that specific mod, but even when playing mods like Black Ice or Ultra Historical realism, I never felt the need for full Tank destroyer builds.

"sheepsmod" might be different?

But truth is I tend to play with a few tanks, but also a lot of "heavy/Sturm infantry" divisions supporting those tanks (and other more normal infantry for just defence). So might be different playstile that also contributes to different needs.

 

[RobbiusBossius]

Haven't played that specific mod, but even when playing mods like Black Ice or Ultra Historical realism, I never felt the need for full Tank destroyer builds.

"sheepsmod" might be different?

But truth is I tend to play with a few tanks, but also a lot of "heavy/Sturm infantry" divisions supporting those tanks (and other more normal infantry for just defence). So might be different playstile that also contributes to different needs.

of course it's different..... makes the AI do actual proper meta like mass mob minors, proper armor, marines, air, etc
you want TD's because allies (and sometimes soviet) do actual armor/amtracs and TD's give the most hard attack

 

[Kanitatlan]

okay thank you all does amount of lost AA depend on opposing CAS joining battle? I feel like I am loosing much more AA equipment than proportionally having it in divisions. Here is template that I am using, maybe I could change something. For example I am never sure about balance between hp/org/defense (mechanized) and attack (tanks)

View attachment 1338900

This is a perfectly good Sheep's mod division and the amount of AA is probably, under the circumstances, perfectly appropriate. If it was me I would probably shift slightly towards the mechanised to give more hit points and slightly more divisions but tend to focus rather more on optimising losses than other players do as I have a long tradition of trying to win with the best possible casualty ratio so there is more of a target than just winning.