I keep losing all the battles as Germany, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I have around 16 int and set them on air superiority and the on in Germany i set it in air intercept (to intercept bombers) but I still find myself losing battles
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Have you managed to catch any of the air battle reports to check the factors influencing the outcome?
Yeah, I really don't see anything going wrong on my side, I have radio and all other techs up to date and I'm getting the mission bonus. What I've been trying to do is to put 4 fighters on my stack and then putting another stack of 4 fighters on the same airport with the reserve mission at this point I don't if its better to just micromanage the planes instead of doing the reserve mission since it looks like it does nothing. I'm playing HPP if that helps
So, reserve mission doesn't work necessarily like it really should, I wouldn't use that. Remember, at 3 wings, and 4 if you have the right leaders, you're getting the maximum efficiency from your aircraft. Six, and you still have 50% efficiency... I wouldn't be stacking units of 4 or more in one province.
Also, if you just order the mission, make sure that you're changing the Posture setting: units on aggressive (the default) will basically chase bombers back to their airfields (regardless of the range/area settings), which can lead to significant air combat penalties. Defensive is good for the units that you want to maintain a defensive posture for.
Also, are your airports large enough? For that, one level of airfield can maintain 1 air unit, which means that there is a maximum of ten units which can be sustained per airfield for a fully upgraded airfield. Also, if you overstack the airfield, there are penalties for how quickly units can be repaired.
This is a good primer.
Also, if you just order the mission, make sure that you're changing the Posture setting: units on aggressive (the default) will basically chase bombers back to their airfields (regardless of the range/area settings), which can lead to significant air combat penalties. Defensive is good for the units that you want to maintain a defensive posture for.
Also, are your airports large enough? For that, one level of airfield can maintain 1 air unit, which means that there is a maximum of ten units which can be sustained per airfield for a fully upgraded airfield. Also, if you overstack the airfield, there are penalties for how quickly units can be repaired.
This is a good primer.
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If it's after the Fall of France, the UK gets a significant air combat bonus (via "Their Finest Hour" decision) for the next 6 months or so. You really don't want to engage UK fighters during that time period, if you can avoid it. Before that, Germany typically has a technological advantage over France and Poland due to its high starting tech levels and sufficient Leadership to maintain that lead, but NOT over the UK, so you're taking on an adversary with an equal starting situation and the Leadership to keep its research current or even slightly ahead of time. Anything you do that's less than "optimal" will leave you at a disadvantage against them. Then they get the TFH bonus on top of that.
As pointed out in the previous post, stacking penalties are a very important but poorly explained phenomenon (each plane gives a 10% penalty to ALL planes in the combat, except for some missions where you only suffer 10% for each ADDITIONAL plane), so you really don't want more than 4-5 planes per combat under most situations. Three planes gives the highest offensive firepower (4 for some specific missions, and some naval missions only incur a 5% penalty per plane, making 6-7 the optimal number), but a 4th or 5th plane can sometimes help split up incoming fire enough to make it viable through sheer survivability, even though it does less damage to the opponent. That's assuming that your airfield can repair that many planes at a time (1 per airfield level). Note that it's possible to amass a huge number of aircraft and gain a higher total damage figure, because stacking penalties are capped at 90% and 30+ planes will provide SLIGHTLY more firepower than 3 in spite of the massive penalty. I'd much rather engage the enemy in 10 different locations with 3 planes each, rather than tie up 30+ planes for one attack.
The other point to consider is doctrines. If your fighter doctrines aren't up to date, you've got less Organization, which means your planes run out of ORG first, and start taking additional Strength damage (which requires time and IC-days to repair). During an air combat, pause the game, click the combat progress bar below one of your units, and check the relative ORG values of your planes versus the UK's. Check the modifiers for each unit. You should be able to see where and why the combats aren't going well.
The Intercept mission provides a small but significant bonus to air combat, so using Intercept instead of Air Superiority is more effective, and also allows the planes to repair overnight if there are no enemy planes in the area. Air Superiority doesn't always allow "down time", so your planes frequently skip a repair cycle.
Note too that the Defensiveness and Toughness values for aircraft are all but irrelevant during air combat, due to a mistake in transferring values from HOI2 to HOI3 (the later game used percentages, the earlier used decimal fractions), so instead of giving a 5% increase per tech level, you only get a 0.05% gain, which is pointless. Game balance was set using those wrong values, so fixing the mistake would involve a complete rebalance of air combat as well. The mistake was fixed for land combat values in one of the early patches, and combat balance was readjusted for it, but air combat was never corrected, much to everyone's dismay.
As pointed out in the previous post, stacking penalties are a very important but poorly explained phenomenon (each plane gives a 10% penalty to ALL planes in the combat, except for some missions where you only suffer 10% for each ADDITIONAL plane), so you really don't want more than 4-5 planes per combat under most situations. Three planes gives the highest offensive firepower (4 for some specific missions, and some naval missions only incur a 5% penalty per plane, making 6-7 the optimal number), but a 4th or 5th plane can sometimes help split up incoming fire enough to make it viable through sheer survivability, even though it does less damage to the opponent. That's assuming that your airfield can repair that many planes at a time (1 per airfield level). Note that it's possible to amass a huge number of aircraft and gain a higher total damage figure, because stacking penalties are capped at 90% and 30+ planes will provide SLIGHTLY more firepower than 3 in spite of the massive penalty. I'd much rather engage the enemy in 10 different locations with 3 planes each, rather than tie up 30+ planes for one attack.
The other point to consider is doctrines. If your fighter doctrines aren't up to date, you've got less Organization, which means your planes run out of ORG first, and start taking additional Strength damage (which requires time and IC-days to repair). During an air combat, pause the game, click the combat progress bar below one of your units, and check the relative ORG values of your planes versus the UK's. Check the modifiers for each unit. You should be able to see where and why the combats aren't going well.
The Intercept mission provides a small but significant bonus to air combat, so using Intercept instead of Air Superiority is more effective, and also allows the planes to repair overnight if there are no enemy planes in the area. Air Superiority doesn't always allow "down time", so your planes frequently skip a repair cycle.
Note too that the Defensiveness and Toughness values for aircraft are all but irrelevant during air combat, due to a mistake in transferring values from HOI2 to HOI3 (the later game used percentages, the earlier used decimal fractions), so instead of giving a 5% increase per tech level, you only get a 0.05% gain, which is pointless. Game balance was set using those wrong values, so fixing the mistake would involve a complete rebalance of air combat as well. The mistake was fixed for land combat values in one of the early patches, and combat balance was readjusted for it, but air combat was never corrected, much to everyone's dismay.
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Hi, after >2000 hours on HOI 4, finally kind of fed-up after MTG recent playthroughs as Britain. I played HOI 3 years ago before YouTube, etc.., could help. I have been researching HOI 3 for about two week and experimenting - this game really is a gem. With that said, (1) is that 100% correct about Defense and Tough being bugged, or is that more of a guess? (2) Could you explain the # of Air planes again? I do not understand your numbers.
I saw a chart for stacking penalties, do the numbers represent how many planes at a time in a specific air zone, or does that mean the number of planes grouped together (I assume that is what a 'wing' is)?
Appreciate your help.
I saw a chart for stacking penalties, do the numbers represent how many planes at a time in a specific air zone, or does that mean the number of planes grouped together (I assume that is what a 'wing' is)?
Appreciate your help.
1) Defensiveness and Toughness used to be bugged, but in either FTM or TFH it was fixed. What was never fixed was Air combat, as their air defense values are basically worthless because of how they imported them from HoI2.
2) We've never gotten a good explanation for the number of planes in the group, but an estimation would be that it's about 100 airframes. There are stacking penalties, which means that the most efficient number of groups in combat is usually around 3/4, with 6 being the max before the penalties get so bad that you aren't actually bringing those airframes to the fight. The AI however doesn't know how to handle that, and so will doomstack their air forces and basically overwhelm the system (it does this with it's Navy, too, so watch out).
2) We've never gotten a good explanation for the number of planes in the group, but an estimation would be that it's about 100 airframes. There are stacking penalties, which means that the most efficient number of groups in combat is usually around 3/4, with 6 being the max before the penalties get so bad that you aren't actually bringing those airframes to the fight. The AI however doesn't know how to handle that, and so will doomstack their air forces and basically overwhelm the system (it does this with it's Navy, too, so watch out).
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Stacking is based on the number of planes in the same combat, regardless of which group they're assigned to, or if they're running different missions. Air Defensiveness and Toughness are definitely bugged for air-to-air combat, having only 1% of their intended effect as stated, although they may or may not be wrong for air-to-ground missions (don't recall, and am not about to go through all of the testing again after all these years). Basically, they're not entirely non-functional in air-to-air, but the values are so low that they only have a marginal effect at best.
I remember a couple of multiplayer posters getting excited when they found out that they didn't need to spend Leadership on aircraft techs for Defensiveness and Toughness, and figured it would give them some kind of massive advantage.
To quote myself from another thread:
5 wings is the "optimal" number for most missions (stacking is normally -10% effectiveness per wing, except for some ground attack missions which are -10% per wing over the first, allowing one more wing for the same penalty). One wing is the most "efficient", but will easily be defeated or even destroyed in combat. Total firepower is reduced by stacking as follows:
1 wing = 1 attack strength x 90% effectiveness (100% - 10% stacking penalty) = 0.9 effective firepower
2 wings = 2 attack strength x 80% effectiveness = 1.6 firepower
3 wings = 3 attack strength x 70% effectiveness = 2.1 firepower
4 wings = 4 attack strength x 60% effectiveness = 2.4 firepower
5 wings = 5 attack strength x 50% effectiveness = 2.5 firepower = highest firepower for the entire group
6 wings = 6 attack strength x 40% effectiveness = 2.4 firepower
.....and it goes downhill from there, until you hit:
10 wings = 10 attack strength x 10% effectiveness (penalty capped at 90%) = 1 firepower
25 wings = 25 attack strength x 10% effectiveness = 2.5 firepower
> 25 wings @ 10% effectiveness per wing = > 2.5 firepower
.....so unless you run more than 25 wings, 5 is the optimal figure. Running wings of 3 allows 6 planes for greater survivability by doubling up, or reasonable efficiency by running them independently. 4-5 is fine if you run them independently, but any overlaps where they end up in the same combat can cause serious overstacking penalties.
The CAG Duty mission only inflicts a 5% penalty, so you can run twice as many planes for the same penalty.
I remember a couple of multiplayer posters getting excited when they found out that they didn't need to spend Leadership on aircraft techs for Defensiveness and Toughness, and figured it would give them some kind of massive advantage.
To quote myself from another thread:
5 wings is the "optimal" number for most missions (stacking is normally -10% effectiveness per wing, except for some ground attack missions which are -10% per wing over the first, allowing one more wing for the same penalty). One wing is the most "efficient", but will easily be defeated or even destroyed in combat. Total firepower is reduced by stacking as follows:
1 wing = 1 attack strength x 90% effectiveness (100% - 10% stacking penalty) = 0.9 effective firepower
2 wings = 2 attack strength x 80% effectiveness = 1.6 firepower
3 wings = 3 attack strength x 70% effectiveness = 2.1 firepower
4 wings = 4 attack strength x 60% effectiveness = 2.4 firepower
5 wings = 5 attack strength x 50% effectiveness = 2.5 firepower = highest firepower for the entire group
6 wings = 6 attack strength x 40% effectiveness = 2.4 firepower
.....and it goes downhill from there, until you hit:
10 wings = 10 attack strength x 10% effectiveness (penalty capped at 90%) = 1 firepower
25 wings = 25 attack strength x 10% effectiveness = 2.5 firepower
> 25 wings @ 10% effectiveness per wing = > 2.5 firepower
.....so unless you run more than 25 wings, 5 is the optimal figure. Running wings of 3 allows 6 planes for greater survivability by doubling up, or reasonable efficiency by running them independently. 4-5 is fine if you run them independently, but any overlaps where they end up in the same combat can cause serious overstacking penalties.
The CAG Duty mission only inflicts a 5% penalty, so you can run twice as many planes for the same penalty.
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Wow, I am so happy to see that Veterans still roam this board. Thanks a million to the both of you.
PS - I have more questions. Maybe some day I can help others, but presently I am worthless.
PS - I have more questions. Maybe some day I can help others, but presently I am worthless.
Being worthless is a positive in this case, so smile. Your questions seem to be well thought out and intelligently phrased, so you don't even make a bad example of forum behavior.
I am hoping necro is acceptable in HOI 3 forums. I used this title because I am revisiting HOI 3 again and I read some new forum question on Air Combat in a mod thread that left me more confused about Air.
(1) Is the best German defense against Strat Bombing to place INT in a circular pattern on Intercept/Defensive?
(2) Whether or not (1) is correct, do you have to change your air zone coverage every now and then because the AI changes its tactics? I do not know, I believe that is another possibility I was reading.
(3) If you place Militia with AA in Dortmund, will its AA combine with the Provincial AA to fight Strat Bombing on Dortmund?
(4) Does Provincial AA assist in defending units being Tac Bombed?
I thought the answers to (3) and (4) were "NO," but I am reading they are possibly a "YES" now???
Thank you in advance.
(1) Is the best German defense against Strat Bombing to place INT in a circular pattern on Intercept/Defensive?
(2) Whether or not (1) is correct, do you have to change your air zone coverage every now and then because the AI changes its tactics? I do not know, I believe that is another possibility I was reading.
(3) If you place Militia with AA in Dortmund, will its AA combine with the Provincial AA to fight Strat Bombing on Dortmund?
(4) Does Provincial AA assist in defending units being Tac Bombed?
I thought the answers to (3) and (4) were "NO," but I am reading they are possibly a "YES" now???
Thank you in advance.
I find that the best way to limit damage from Strategic Bombers is to build an airfield in the urban provinces that the AI targets. The AI will usually target the same 2-3 provinces over and over, unless the bombers escape relatively undamaged and are able to attack more targets before being grounded for repairs. Normally, unless you build more factories or AA, the primary targets seem to be Leipzig and Dortmund. If I play GER, I build an airfield in Leipzig during 1936 (it boosts Construction Practical experience, so it speeds up completion of any IC that you're building) and station a 3xINT there with an Intercept order for the province before war breaks out. That will generally do enough damage to the bombers to keep them grounded for a few weeks before they raid another target. You won't stop them from hitting Leipzig, but you can make them pay dearly for it, and ideally that may be the only target they raid, since it can just about repair by the time the bombers are in good enough shape to fly again. Once repaired, it again meets all of the criteria that the AI uses to choose targets, so it gets hit again.....and again......and again. Build up the AA in Leipzig and the AI may decide to bomb Dortmund instead, so your shiny new AA never gets used.
If you set a second group of INT to intercept at one of the bombers' usual waypoints, you can potentially hit them multiple times in a single bomber raid. That waypoint will move as new research changes the speed of the Strategic Bombers, so you may need to adjust your intercept points from time to time. Usually the waypoint on the way to target is different from the one on the way home. Covering an area CAN work, but I find it rather "hit or miss" as to whether the INT actually intercept the bombers. A frequent problem with ALL intercept missions is that the AI may send the INT to attack the next province ahead of where the bombers are, and therefore miss the bombers when they teleport to the next waypoint or target. The real sticking point is that it resets the mission target, so the INT will ALWAYS try to intercept at the new (and wrong) location, requiring you to cancel and reassign the mission. In worst-case situations, you may even need to use an "Air Superiority" instead of "Intercept" mission, which doesn't get the intercept bonus. At least that's not a problem when you're intercepting directly over the target.
Adding AA to the province does trivial ORG damage to the bombers attacking the province, but several levels of AA get wrecked on the first attack (fortunately, the repairs are automatic and free), so it's pretty much a waste of IC. The province AA should assist ground targets and ships if military units in the province are bombed, but mobile AA will not protect the province from Strategic Bombing. Historically, they used different types of guns: many of the light mobile batteries generally couldn't even reach high-altitude bombers, while the heavy AA guns (generally 105mm and up) were a bit slow to track low-level aircraft. The famous (or infamous) "88" sat somewhere in the middle, being at least adequate at both roles, and proved successful as an anti-tank weapon as well.
The moderators are not happy about thread necromancy, and clearly would prefer a new thread on the topic, but I can understand the desire to keep the information together. I guess it's due to some kind of limitation of the storage and retrieval system for older information, and causes issues of some sort.
If you set a second group of INT to intercept at one of the bombers' usual waypoints, you can potentially hit them multiple times in a single bomber raid. That waypoint will move as new research changes the speed of the Strategic Bombers, so you may need to adjust your intercept points from time to time. Usually the waypoint on the way to target is different from the one on the way home. Covering an area CAN work, but I find it rather "hit or miss" as to whether the INT actually intercept the bombers. A frequent problem with ALL intercept missions is that the AI may send the INT to attack the next province ahead of where the bombers are, and therefore miss the bombers when they teleport to the next waypoint or target. The real sticking point is that it resets the mission target, so the INT will ALWAYS try to intercept at the new (and wrong) location, requiring you to cancel and reassign the mission. In worst-case situations, you may even need to use an "Air Superiority" instead of "Intercept" mission, which doesn't get the intercept bonus. At least that's not a problem when you're intercepting directly over the target.
Adding AA to the province does trivial ORG damage to the bombers attacking the province, but several levels of AA get wrecked on the first attack (fortunately, the repairs are automatic and free), so it's pretty much a waste of IC. The province AA should assist ground targets and ships if military units in the province are bombed, but mobile AA will not protect the province from Strategic Bombing. Historically, they used different types of guns: many of the light mobile batteries generally couldn't even reach high-altitude bombers, while the heavy AA guns (generally 105mm and up) were a bit slow to track low-level aircraft. The famous (or infamous) "88" sat somewhere in the middle, being at least adequate at both roles, and proved successful as an anti-tank weapon as well.
The moderators are not happy about thread necromancy, and clearly would prefer a new thread on the topic, but I can understand the desire to keep the information together. I guess it's due to some kind of limitation of the storage and retrieval system for older information, and causes issues of some sort.
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Hi Kovax. When you say AA gets wrecked.., do you mean that it gets wrecked because AA absorbs the damage to factories? Because if AA is a meat-shield for Strat, that would be good.., right? Thanks for the response.
Also, is it correct to assume that if you put an airfield w/Int at a specific province, they will ALWAYS hit the Bombers?
Also, is it correct to assume that if you put an airfield w/Int at a specific province, they will ALWAYS hit the Bombers?
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So, I've never had the experience that Kovax has, for me the AI always chooses Dortmund.
Iirc, the AA guns don't get to meat shield the factories. I feel like there's a bunch of separate attacks going on (STR v AA, STR v IC, etc) simultaneously. Since the devs never fixed air combat properly, we get a half-assed game for air and naval combat, and one that can't be fixed without exe access.
As far as the interceptors being "in" the province and always intercepting, yes. It's why I have taken to building the airfields in all urban provinces that have IC.
Iirc, the AA guns don't get to meat shield the factories. I feel like there's a bunch of separate attacks going on (STR v AA, STR v IC, etc) simultaneously. Since the devs never fixed air combat properly, we get a half-assed game for air and naval combat, and one that can't be fixed without exe access.
As far as the interceptors being "in" the province and always intercepting, yes. It's why I have taken to building the airfields in all urban provinces that have IC.
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I've had numerous cases where the INT stationed in the target province properly intercepted the bombers (sometimes not until after the bombs are dropped, and it rarely ever stops the bombing even if you do hit them first), then followed them to the next waypoint. While it was really helpful to hit the bombers again, it reset the intercept target to that new location, which then required me to reset it back to Leipzig (or Dortmund, depending on what your IC and AA buildup did to influence the AI).
If the AA guns do serve as a "meat shield", it's only a paper shield, because the guns get wrecked faster than the factories (I often seen 3 levels of AA knocked out in a single bombing run by 3xSTR), but I never noticed any significant difference in the damage taken by the factories. I guess it's like Escorts, the submarines get extra targets to shoot at, so they get more total "kills", which may (or may not) reduce the number of convoys hit. It ends up costing you more IC for the lost escorts than the extra protection saves. The bottom line is that it's just not worth it, and building up AA just makes the AI hit a different city that you haven't protected.
Historically, the guns shot down relatively few planes, but did a lot of minor damage to them with shrapnel, killing or injuring crewmen and forcing repairs that grounded the planes for a while. More importantly, they forced the planes to fly higher, seriously reducing bombing accuracy, or else suffer much higher casualties. That protection factor is not taken into consideration, and the planes do their full damage to the target regardless AA defenses.
If the AA guns do serve as a "meat shield", it's only a paper shield, because the guns get wrecked faster than the factories (I often seen 3 levels of AA knocked out in a single bombing run by 3xSTR), but I never noticed any significant difference in the damage taken by the factories. I guess it's like Escorts, the submarines get extra targets to shoot at, so they get more total "kills", which may (or may not) reduce the number of convoys hit. It ends up costing you more IC for the lost escorts than the extra protection saves. The bottom line is that it's just not worth it, and building up AA just makes the AI hit a different city that you haven't protected.
Historically, the guns shot down relatively few planes, but did a lot of minor damage to them with shrapnel, killing or injuring crewmen and forcing repairs that grounded the planes for a while. More importantly, they forced the planes to fly higher, seriously reducing bombing accuracy, or else suffer much higher casualties. That protection factor is not taken into consideration, and the planes do their full damage to the target regardless AA defenses.
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Very interesting. I just built a crap ton (early 1938, on slowest speed) - if I see anything, I will post. But I am not very smart so I doubt that will happen, you never know. Thanks again, best forum.
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This is untrue. ALL forms of AA in a province (building, unit, and Ships if present) will fire at bombers doing ANY action in a province other than air-to-air. I've tested this multiple times; adding 20 mobile-AA to a province (and no other AA) that is getting Strat-bombed will have an effect on the bombers. Not as much an effect as a simple 4xINT wing, but it's still noticeable.
Feel free to try it yourself
(vanilla TFH, I don't know if mods screw this up)
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To reiterate and reinforce the message:
1) Air Defence and Toughness are bugged and not working for both air-to-air and air-to-ground.
2) Static and mobile AA hit every plane in their province regardless of what they are doing, except for air-to-air combat. This includes ships in the port. Be very careful of doing port strikes into provinces with high AAA and ground units.
3) Every plane wing/group in a province is included in stacking penalty calculations regardless of their mission or grouping.
4) AAA is generally pretty useless and interceptors/fighters are a much better investment.
5) You do not need air support to win ground combat as long as you deny it for your enemy, and its successful use is a lot of micromanagement.
6) An air group does not retreat until all of its wings decide to retreat. This has serious implications for multi-purpose groups, in that you absolutely do not want to use them.
7) Never go above the support limit of an airfield or you'll have a bad time.
These facts lead to some conclusions about HoI3 air power which I'll expand below:
-You can save yourself a lot of headaches, research points and IC by only researching, building and operating INT/FTR and maybe some TRA for paratroopers and supply. This is because ground support and tactical bombers get damaged pretty fast, and land combat generally moves pretty fast too, which means that you need to babysit your TAC's and especially your CAS. Meaning that for you to really get your money's worth of them, especially since their doctrines require a REALLY significant LS investment, you need to focus them to hit the important battles, soften up only the provinces which you are going to attack next, and constantly be monitoring their health so that they don't get wiped out, plus leap-frogging them to new airfields so that they stay in range. This can be fun if you're into micromanagement but it can also get really overwhelming, really fast.
-The best way to control the air space is by putting a group of 4 or 5 INT on an air superiority mission over every enemy airfield you can reach. This ensures that the moment the enemy tries to take off, your planes attack them and combat ensues. If you play as Germany, that means you need about eight such groups as you'll be using six at a time while two recover from battle damage. I prefer to use groups of 4 so that each major airfield has room for 2 TRA doing air supply missions and so I can overall have more groups in play but 5 works well too, especially if you don't want to use air supply. For Barbarossa, you'll want to get some FTR groups into play as the distances in Soviet Union become ridiculous and INT won't cut it. As mentioned, the TFH bonus for the Royal Airforce can be brutal but this tactic does work against the UK too and is the fastest and easiest way to ensure that Bomber Command leaves you alone, and you don't have to worry about creating interception zones or anything.
-The two ground attack types you might want to build regardless are NAV and STR because both are really strong in what they do. Even a single group of 4 strategic bombers can completely destroy British industry in just few weeks once you've locked the RAF down on their airfields. It's so strong that against the AI it's almost cheating. As Germany, I've wiped out UK IC by late 1940. And while NAV are not quite as strong, they are very good at their job as long as you keep their doctrines up-to-date and they will eventually grind down all hostiles navies that they can reach. Again, even a single group of 4-5 can be really useful but for efficiency you'd probably want 4 groups.
-Do not try to be historical and create mixed-purpose air groups. An old advice used to be to include FTR with CAS since their stats meshed up pretty well and CAS are really weak against enemy fighters but the mechanics mean that the whole group remains in the fight until your FTR lose their ORG while trading fire with the enemy INT while your CAS do nothing but die, instead of the real air battle where your multi-role fighters distract enemy interceptors allowing your close support planes to escape. Yeah, that's what we all thought about but it's not how the game mechanics work. Always put just 1 one type of planes into a group.
Air combat is the only thing where HoI4 is clearly better than HoI3, IMHO. It's kind of sad but useful to know that you can actually ignore most of it as long as you achieve air superiority, your land forces will win the day.
1) Air Defence and Toughness are bugged and not working for both air-to-air and air-to-ground.
2) Static and mobile AA hit every plane in their province regardless of what they are doing, except for air-to-air combat. This includes ships in the port. Be very careful of doing port strikes into provinces with high AAA and ground units.
3) Every plane wing/group in a province is included in stacking penalty calculations regardless of their mission or grouping.
4) AAA is generally pretty useless and interceptors/fighters are a much better investment.
5) You do not need air support to win ground combat as long as you deny it for your enemy, and its successful use is a lot of micromanagement.
6) An air group does not retreat until all of its wings decide to retreat. This has serious implications for multi-purpose groups, in that you absolutely do not want to use them.
7) Never go above the support limit of an airfield or you'll have a bad time.
These facts lead to some conclusions about HoI3 air power which I'll expand below:
-You can save yourself a lot of headaches, research points and IC by only researching, building and operating INT/FTR and maybe some TRA for paratroopers and supply. This is because ground support and tactical bombers get damaged pretty fast, and land combat generally moves pretty fast too, which means that you need to babysit your TAC's and especially your CAS. Meaning that for you to really get your money's worth of them, especially since their doctrines require a REALLY significant LS investment, you need to focus them to hit the important battles, soften up only the provinces which you are going to attack next, and constantly be monitoring their health so that they don't get wiped out, plus leap-frogging them to new airfields so that they stay in range. This can be fun if you're into micromanagement but it can also get really overwhelming, really fast.
-The best way to control the air space is by putting a group of 4 or 5 INT on an air superiority mission over every enemy airfield you can reach. This ensures that the moment the enemy tries to take off, your planes attack them and combat ensues. If you play as Germany, that means you need about eight such groups as you'll be using six at a time while two recover from battle damage. I prefer to use groups of 4 so that each major airfield has room for 2 TRA doing air supply missions and so I can overall have more groups in play but 5 works well too, especially if you don't want to use air supply. For Barbarossa, you'll want to get some FTR groups into play as the distances in Soviet Union become ridiculous and INT won't cut it. As mentioned, the TFH bonus for the Royal Airforce can be brutal but this tactic does work against the UK too and is the fastest and easiest way to ensure that Bomber Command leaves you alone, and you don't have to worry about creating interception zones or anything.
-The two ground attack types you might want to build regardless are NAV and STR because both are really strong in what they do. Even a single group of 4 strategic bombers can completely destroy British industry in just few weeks once you've locked the RAF down on their airfields. It's so strong that against the AI it's almost cheating. As Germany, I've wiped out UK IC by late 1940. And while NAV are not quite as strong, they are very good at their job as long as you keep their doctrines up-to-date and they will eventually grind down all hostiles navies that they can reach. Again, even a single group of 4-5 can be really useful but for efficiency you'd probably want 4 groups.
-Do not try to be historical and create mixed-purpose air groups. An old advice used to be to include FTR with CAS since their stats meshed up pretty well and CAS are really weak against enemy fighters but the mechanics mean that the whole group remains in the fight until your FTR lose their ORG while trading fire with the enemy INT while your CAS do nothing but die, instead of the real air battle where your multi-role fighters distract enemy interceptors allowing your close support planes to escape. Yeah, that's what we all thought about but it's not how the game mechanics work. Always put just 1 one type of planes into a group.
Air combat is the only thing where HoI4 is clearly better than HoI3, IMHO. It's kind of sad but useful to know that you can actually ignore most of it as long as you achieve air superiority, your land forces will win the day.
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