German airforce is lopsided

[Weasel]

If it were early in the war I would understand, but it is now June 1943 and I have Yak 7s and 9s, the equal to the Me109.  A typical airstrike I am seeing over and over again is as follows:  Launch attack, 130 fighters escorting 150 IL2s, 8 German fighters meet the attack and shoot down 6 fighters and 13 IL2s!  Or in the last one, 3 fighters went head to head with 90 fighters and got 13 of them.

I think the code is wrong big time, sheer odds alone should at least bring down 1 of the Germans.

Also, have you noticed that when you use the SHIFT key to plan a strike that the stupid AI will choose fighters and bombers from bases 30 hexes away and ignore the ones 6 hexes away with 0% air miles?

[Ricky B]

It has been awhile, but I always thought losses to flak were part of the reported losses and so the attacker would lose some even if no actual air combat occurred. Also, at this stage in the war historically, the Germans still retained a large experience advantage even where they didn't have better plans and so achieved a good loss ratio. At Kursk, I think the overall loss ratio was around 8:1, with some days being more than 10:1, dropping toward 4:1 on other days. This included flak, and what I hadn't heard about until a recent book - the Soviets had a number of pilots that got lost returning to base and never appeared again, due to poor training and poorly working navigation equipment. They were trained to stay together and the leader would navigate, but after a fight they might lose sight of the leader.

So still excessive as you note, but that is so common with the calcs used in so many games.

Rick

[KG_RangerBooBoo]

Their is a very interesting discussion at Matrix forums in the War Room section of the WitE section concerning tactics and the early air war

[Weasel]

I never thought of the flak being part of the losses...DUH! I let the AI run a bunch of airfield attacks at turn end just to see what would happen, didn't save the turn or anything, and I lost 680 aircraft attacking the fields to 40 of the Germans both in the air and on the ground.

Do you guys keep the Hurricane IIC in your arsenal or get rid of it by 43? I am starting to think that maybe I should upgrade to the Yak 1B or 7B for fighter bombers with bombing as their mission (all hurricanes I have are set to bomb).