Air units: useful for anything?

[Ryben]

After playing some games, specially as Axis, i´m starting to think that air units are quite worthless and you could practically go without them...

They are expensive to build, they consume a lot of fuel and they took usually heavy losses (there´s usuallya n enemy fighter on range) so you expend even more PP reinforcing them. And they really don´t deal a lot of damage.

Fighters are only useful against other fighters...and not too much. When escorting you deal enemy interceptors nearly as much damage as you take. Then the tactical or strategical bomber you are escorting reach their objetive but rarely (look below) the cost in PP of the damage received (and fuel expent) is worth the damage you dealt.

Tactical bombers: i expected them to be some kind of "tank-busters" but they rarely deal more than 1 or 2 damage. I think they are more effective on naval combat but, as axis, you tend to be overwhelmed by allied fleet so it´s impossible to have enough tac-bombers to make an effective impact on them. And there´s always those damn interceptors.

Strategical bombers: They are the most useful unit and, if playing with allies, they could deal a lot of damage to axis PP production. As axis they tend to be...well, non-existant as you rarely have PP to build them. And, to be useful, you´ll need a lot of them.


My main complain is that interceptions are always automatic no matter how and when you attack. I mean, it´s like the fighters are "teletransported" to where an attack is taking place and that´s very annoying and unrealistic.

Fighters can´t be anywhere, anytime...i know the game is somewhat abstracted but you can´t expect that a bunch of german stukas attack a French corps near Paris (for example) and. ..pop! the UK fighter automatically fly through the channel and intercepts them.

Fighters inteception shouldn´t be automatic. It may have be a % of interception...the more far the interception from the fighter unit, the less chance of achieving it. That could depict the fact that the fighter is running our of fuel, the time it takes to reach the target, bad ranging, you are over enemy territory and avoiding flak...etc. Radar and fighter technologies improve that %.

[syagrius]

For me tactical bombers are a must; I use them to soften enemy units in cities and forts. Leningrad and Sebastopol, are not easy to take without air support. With my fighters with the germans I tend to try to gain air superiority over the Channel and England, it keeps the UK busy while dealing with the Russians. So for me, air units very usefull.

[Kuz]

If you have a lot of them and/or they are improved they can potentially take out entire units. But more importantly they lower the effectiveness of the ground unit and I believe lower the entrenchment value as well.

[shawkhan]

...To address your 'main complaint' first: I think you are forgetting that this is a strategic game, not tactical. Each turn represents three weeks, not a single day or single air mission. Over the course of three weeks it would be highly unusual if some air interception didn't take place. Results vary dramatically, which indicates the overall success of ongoing sorties, not a single mission.
...I find air indispensable, especially when attacking cities/fortresses. Each air strike reduces fortification level by one and effectiveness by a varying amount. With it, you can take Paris in one attack rather than two, three or even more ground assaults. Speed of conquest(tempo) is the basis of this game. Especially as the Axis you have a limited window of opportunity to achieve your personal version of world conquest. W/o air, this is much harder. If you miss out on the easy early victories you will certainly lose the following war of attrition. Try playing the 1942(or later) scenarios to get a feeling for lost opportunities. I consider myself fairly competent at this game but winning the 1942 scenario is the best I can do. Winning a gamestart at 1943 or 1944 is beyond my capability.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I find air units to be very very useful in this game. Your land units will hurt dearly if the enemy gets air superiory. As the Axis I usually start Barbarossa with 3-4 tac bombers and 4-5 fighters (one Romanian). I group a fighter to each tac bomber so the tac bomber has some protection. Tac bombers are great when you want to capture tough hexes like cities, capitals, armor units.

Try to look at the combat odds before and after the hex has been attacked by a tac bomber. It can sometimes be significant changes. Sometimes I even use 2 or more tac bombers against a critical target. I do this to ensure I can attack and capture the hex with my land units. Fighters are most useful against enemy fighters so you make sure the enemy interceptors won't damage your tac bombers. When I have air superiority I even use fighters against my targets. The fighters inflict maybe 1-2 steps and lower efficiency and entrenchment levels as well.

Russia will definitely need air units to start the counter attacks against Germany in 1942-1943. If you try to attack German corps units with your corps units you will see combat odds like 3:4 or 3:5, but if you strike the hex with a tac bomber the odds will change to 4:3 or even 4:2. That means you have a chance to eliminate this unit, especially if you can attack from 3 hexes. I feel that the easiest way for Russia to start the steamroller towards Berlin is to build lots of air units and then start the counter attacks. Without air it will be very difficult to crack a German double defense line.

I think all units in the game are useful and I build some of each of them with every country, except that I don't build naval units with Russia or armor units with Italy.

The way for the Allies to get the initiative is to get air superiority. Germany can't afford to build enough fighters to stop this from happening. If he tries he will soon run out of oil from all the air combat. Germany will need tac bombers to prevent transports from getting ashore. If you have a level 4 XP tac bomber at quite high tech levels then it can destroy a transport with just one attack. If you have 3-4 such units near the invasion zone then you can disrupt the entire invasion.

I believe it's a big mistake to ignore building air units. They have to be expensive because they're so powerful if used correctly.

[Ryben]

Thank you for your responses.

For some reason i found myself playing CEAW as if i was playing Panzer General (i´m a big fan of the series) and i tend to forget the time scale and size of the units. I´ll try to follow some of your advice, hope it helps to improve my style of play.