Fighter Escort

[prattaa]

Will the fighter escort mechanic see some revision in the near future? As it is now the bomber unit takes just as many losses as they would without an escort, the only difference is the losses to the attacking fighter unit. The escort does not provide any protection to the bomber. While escort can not provide absolute cover to the bombers it should provide some reduction in loss.

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[Andy2012]

Will the fighter escort mechanic see some revision in the near future? As it is now the bomber unit takes just as many losses as they would without an escort, the only difference is the losses to the attacking fighter unit. The escort does not provide any protection to the bomber. While escort can not provide absolute cover to the bombers it should provide some reduction in loss.

Agree with this one.

[Navman2854]

Will the fighter escort mechanic see some revision in the near future? As it is now the bomber unit takes just as many losses as they would without an escort, the only difference is the losses to the attacking fighter unit. The escort does not provide any protection to the bomber. While escort can not provide absolute cover to the bombers it should provide some reduction in loss.

Strongly agree

[Erik2]

+1

And please add a (close) Escort mission for the AI, both AI fighters and destroyers could benefit from this.
The Escort could be set up to pinpoint the team/unit(s) which should be escorted.

[bru888]

Will the fighter escort mechanic see some revision in the near future? As it is now the bomber unit takes just as many losses as they would without an escort, the only difference is the losses to the attacking fighter unit. The escort does not provide any protection to the bomber. While escort can not provide absolute cover to the bombers it should provide some reduction in loss.

Same for escorting paratroopers in-flight.

[Andy2012]

Guess it is unanimous then. Motion passes.

[Mojko]

Hold your horses gentlemen. I'm familiar with your suggestion as this is how it works in Panzer Korps. I must say I really prefer the way it now works in Order of Battle and this is why: it gives you a choice. Attacking bombers / air transports directly while ignoring escort and retreating to the safety of your AA is a viable tactic. Reverse situation is also interesting. By adding escort to your bomber doesn't eliminate damage done to bombers, you still need to calculate where the bombers need to go (out of reach of enemy fighters) to lower damage suffered. If you change the system to the one in Panzer Korps these choices will be removed. You almost never want to attack into an escort. Having interesting choices is a good thing, hence my preference.

[GiveWarAchance]

Hold your horses gentlemen. I'm familiar with your suggestion as this is how it works in Panzer Korps. I must say I really prefer the way it now works in Order of Battle and this is why: it gives you a choice. Attacking bombers / air transports directly while ignoring escort and retreating to the safety of your AA is a viable tactic. Reverse situation is also interesting. By adding escort to your bomber doesn't eliminate damage done to bombers, you still need to calculate where the bombers need to go (out of reach of enemy fighters) to lower damage suffered. If you change the system to the one in Panzer Korps these choices will be removed. You almost never want to attack into an escort. Having interesting choices is a good thing, hence my preference.

very good! I was thinking the same as this. It is classic tactic to avoid escorts and go for the bombers if possible. I think best to have the game roll a dice whether the fighters make it to the bombers past the escorts. If the attackers make it to the bombers, there should also be a bomber defensive roll to possibly cull the fighters before the bombers get culled. Everyone involved should get some.

[prattaa]

Mojko, I do not agree. The attacking fighter should not be able to do the same amount of damage to bombers as they would do if no escort was present. The attacker should have the initiative but after the initial pass on the bombers they would be evading attack from the escort and be unable to do further damage to the bombers. For example playing Erik's Blitzkrieg campaign on Sedan scenario. A 4 star He 111 is protected by 3 Bf 109 units, each with at least 1 star is attacked by a green MS 406 unit. The He 111 takes 3 losses while the MS 406 takes 4 losses. To replace the He 111 losses with experienced crew would cost almost 100 RP. Incensed by these losses I recreate the event but without any Bf 109 escort. Again He 111 takes 3 losses and MS 406 takes 2 losses. So what is the value of the fighter escort? Better to use the deployment points on cheap tac bombers. I'm not saying the bombers should take no loss or that the attacker should have taken more just how it works right now is not even remotely fun, fair, or accurate.

[hrafnkolbrandr]

According to the book To Command the Sky, when allied bombers in Europe had escorts in WWII, losses went down. When they didn't, losses went up.

[Mojko]

I'm not arguing about historical accuracy. I'm just saying that current system produces diverse gameplay which is good.

gameplay > historical accuracy

[prattaa]

After 2 year hiatus I am back playing some OOB and I'm disappointed to see this never got any attention. Are there any mods that address this?

[Mojko]

I think this mechanic is still working fine. Usually the scenarios are well balanced around this mechanic. I've been playing Erik's Afrika Korps campaign which is super difficult and I found very difficult to use bombers. It's still good as you need to think about how and when to use bombers instead of fighters.

[Horst]

I still vote for a little defensive bonus like with Panzerkeil spec for escorted bombers, as it gives the impression the escort fighters cause enough distraction that the opposing interceptors can't fully focus on their prey.

[prattaa]

After some more testing it appears fighters serve very little purpose. A fighter positioned on top of or adjacent to a ground unit that is attacked by an enemy fighter/bomber unit provides no protection whatsoever. The ground unit will suffer the same losses to the attack regardless of friendly fighter cover or not. There really should be an attack penalty for fighters/bombers that are intercepted or defensive boost for units being attacked.

[Horst]

While playing Endsieg, I noticed how quickly bombers get almost useless without real protection by the large amount of enemy fighters/interceptors. You have to park bombers sometimes many turns in hangars at beginning if you don’t want to waste RPs for repairs. Or better, don't use them at all to get rid of all enemy bombers asap.

[prattaa]

Yeah, playing through the PzC conversion campaigns my primary strat is to spam fighters and AA at scenario to start wipe enemy air out in the first few turns then retire the units to free up CP for tac bombers and arty. But it should not be this way in my opinion and limits the usage of the fighter class.

Is it possible to create a mod to increase air defense stat of units that are protected by fighters?

[Horst]

Is it possible to create a mod to increase air defense stat of units that are protected by fighters?

That requires changing the code that no one here is capable so far.

[GiveWarAchance]

An easy duct tape style fix for this problem is to give the player many more command points for air so both fighters & bombers can coexist in a meaningful way.
If that doesn't fix the problem, that means you haven't added on enough duct tape.... I mean command points.

[terminator]

The current "Fighter Escort" mechanism satisfies me.
It’s like a surprise effect: the enemy fighter attacks first by surprise the bomber and the friend escort retaliates after.