Strafing enemy units with fighters = pointless?

[smashtheaxis]

A lot of times, I regret strafing enemy units. Ground units that can shoot back have a pretty high chance of downing one my fighters (-1 strength), while fighters only rarely do worthwhile damage. Fighters being quiet expensive, it's not worth the risk in most cases.

I'm playing Allied Corps at the moment, and I hardly need the 4 core fighters that I bought. Useless against ground targets, and the SE fighters that I got are enough to deal with the few Luftwaffe units I encounter in the late campaign scenarios.

I can understand it if the ground attack efficiency of fighter planes was reduced to make gameplay more balanced, but it's a bit annoying that because of the loses, it doesn't make much sense prestige-wise to even bother using them for ground attacks.

Anybody else feels like this?

[sn0wball]

Basically I feel the same, but most of the time there were targets without any air defense to attack.

[Naxor]

Because of this i only have currently 2 x bf109s and 2 x Bf110s. Bf110 is doing far more better against ground targets and are good finishing off enemy planes.

[Resolute]

I found strafing quite useful. It's good for finishing units of and reducing entrenchment.

[Anfield]

While its true the Allied fighters in game are very poor vs ground targets, the US ones should be much better infact. They do always take a units entrenchment down one level everytime you attack even if you dont kill anything. And even if you are only killing 1-2's they all add up giving you more exp. each time. Try to avoid targets that you wont hurt or will fire back well at you, look for targets that have already been hit, color change on them, and hit them with your fighters. Another good use that I use mine for is spotting. With such a small core in AC i wont waste a slot with a reccon unit, so my air are my eyes when I play.

[wastel]

Well..my experience is, that e.g. an russian I-16 does 2-3x times the damage to my ground troops than e.g. a 190A from my side. I nearly fear the tons of russian fighters more than their ground attack planes, with both attacking my ground units.

@Anfield...all fighters should be weak against ground targets that are not in an Truck os something else. There is no reason why US planes should be better in strafing runs.

A good option for the developers would be the point, that ALL Radial engine fighters should have an higher ground defense value than their liquid cooled counterparts..

I single bullet hit into the cooling system of an P51, Spit or 109 and the Plane was doomed to belly land somewhere. These cooling systems are most times below the wing and so very vulnerable to groundfire.

just my 2 cents

wastel

[Brindlebane]

Game wise you really only need 3 fighters and with those gang up on one target and it's toast.As has been said though,fighters are great for recon.So if you have four,three for bomber cover and one for recon.

As far as an example for fighters doing CAS roles.Let's not forget the Hurricane,the real hero of the BOB and then relegated to CAS roles as the faster Spit took over it's mantle.Just one example but the Hurricane was great for CAS roles as was the later Typhoon.Again a fighter originally but more suited for tank-busting.I'm sure there's many examples of this in WW2 as the technology advanced.

Game wise though.i do have fighters having pot shots at escaping ground units that have two or less and finishing them off quite nicely.Use fighters for finishing off units not for the initial assaults.

[wastel]

Well, you have to keep in mind that the Hurricanes going to the CAS role was modified to do it (20mm or 40mm canons, bombs and more)
This reduced their fighter abilities (more drag and much more weight)
More or less the 190F and G in the game are the "fighterbomber" versions of the 190. Better ground attack, less air defence.

I don't know if there are any mods out there, but to convert the fighters (p47/38/51/109...) into an fighter bomber would "just" mean
to increase their ground attack value, but lower their range, movement, air defence value and initiative.
This would be a completely new plane tree.

Like you said, fighters like they are now, are good as recons and to finish off units. And of course for their main role...

Wastel

[bebro]

I wouldn't say pointless, but yeah, it can be a risky move vs. even low air attack enemies, esp. when using the original "very random" setting. Attacking 0 AA units is always safe.

Personally I think (1) air attack ground units cause losses too often on aicraft, but I could see the gameplay point of not making air too powerful. Suppressing the ground unit before always helps...

[Anfield]

My point on US figthers, well the P47 for sure. Heck even the games library claims it was the US's best ground attack aircraft, and ive never seen or read anything that didnt back that up. Its numbers should be up there with the British Mos. and typhoon. I was sort of hoping this last update might fix that, but nope lol

But you can never have enough fighters in the game with good exp flying around!!

[wastel]

Again the problem with the fighter bombers in real War and in game here. The P47 was a good ground attack aircraft, when it was loaded full of bombs and rockets.
But in PC you have the fighter version, just with the 12,7mm guns.
Best would be to double all fighters, that where used as fighter bombers, with a secondary variant to choose. With higher ground attack value, but low air defense value..to simulate
their bomb load.

[smashtheaxis]

Ideally, it should be possible change the armament of the fighter planes on the airfield, i.e. before they launch to a mission. That could even be implemented by adding the suggested extra units with different armament. Only problem is that it takes too long to update units.

[shawkhan]

Could the switch function work with fighters?

[bebro]

I think it would work technically, just that you could switch back and forth in mid-air, which is maybe a bit strange gameplay-wise...

[KeldorKatarn]

Yeah i think that would overpower those units a bit. I mean the Fw190 also had fighter bomber variants which eventually replaced the StuKa. imagine you can switcb a Fw190... nobody would by StuKas anymore...

[wastel]

Yes thats true. well we have the 190 Fighter Bomber in game(F & G)..just with some strage stats.
I must say i like it the way it is. otherwise planes like the A20, mossie, ju87 and others would not be used if a fighter could do the same job and even more..

wastel

[Anfield]

Agreed that while a switch feature would be doable, it wouldnt really work well game wise. Better just just put them in the pool of ground attack aircraft to buy. So if you want a P-47 fighter buy that, if you want a ground attack P-47 with reduced fighter stats but better ground attack number, buy that.

[captainjack]

There's already tac bomber variants of hurricanes, and FW190, so maybe it just needs some P47s to complete the set.

If you feel that you should be able to convert your old Hurricane fighters into fighter bombers, the cheat codes can be used to refund prestige and bring experience up to what your fighter variant had. This won't help for heroes, but SE units in AC wouldn't be affected much - I think that the only SE switch would be Tempest and Typhoon. If you were converting SE fighters to normal Tac Bombers you can add enough extra unit slots to allow you to effectively re-arm or convert the fighters into Tac bombers whether a one-off or scenario by scenario.