Bilbao Airforce

[SSLConf_pewp3w]

So I tried to slog through the first grand campaign dlc again, after having to quit at teruel the first time because it was just to grindy, random and boring.
This time I managed teruel and a few more levels. Now I am at bilbao and in the briefing it says that the republican air defense and airforce is minimal. I checked it out and it has two fighters. But: I still have to bring a full compartment of fighters to actually destroy them in one turn (meaning 5 fighters), because otherwise they will just reinforce every single turn because the AI has infinite prestige. If I bring no fighters, the enemy fighters will just destroy my bombers.
So thats it or am I missing something?

[brumleek]

Hello.

It has been a long time since I played AO SCW but I would try few following things:
- Ignore them until you have the opportunity to soften them up by Anti Air. Then finish them with fighters.
- Escort your bombers with fighters. If AI fighters attack your bombers anyway, they will have to eat up your support fire, which will soften them up. Next turn just clear the remains.
- If I remember correctly Italian auxiliary fighters were pretty capable and I was using them quite extensively. You pay some prestige, but you will save your core slots for more important units.

[VirgilInTheSKY]

iirc you should have received Bf 109 by this time, and they should not have such a hard time at dealing with I-15/I-16s. Escort your bomber with fighters, and enemy fighters will usually go for your artillery, so escort your artillery with AA, and finish them off with fighters if they dare to attack.
Capturing enemy airfields is also a way to deal with them, aircraft lose a turn to rebase in such case and cannot reinforce, so you will have one more turn to shoot them if you can still reach the new airbase with AA or fighter.

[SSLConf_pewp3w]

Anti-Air is a waste of slots in most cases, especially when they have little range. There will always be units outside of the range of your anti-air.

I know about how to protect your planes and units. The most efficient way is to destroy enemy planes as soon as possible. You need to destroy them in one turn, because otherwise they will reinforce, because the AI has infinite prestige.

But this is not what this post is about. This is about Bilbao and how to make efficient use of your slots. I want to use as little anti-air units as possible, that means fighters and ground-to-air guns. But if I don't kill the enemy planes in a single turn, they will just be back two turns later fully reinforced. I could of course just ignore them, but then they will destroy my bombers bit by bit. Anti-Air doesn't help with this. Fighters also don't really help with this, since enemy planes can still attack your bombers and will do damage.

[brumleek]

If:
1) You consider AA a waste of resources, core slots and...
2) ... you really must destroy enemy fighters in one turn...
... then send your 5 fighters and be done with it

There is nothing else you can do, provided that conditions stated above must be met.

[adiekmann]

I ALWAYS play this campaign with anti-air veteran. I think it is a must because you fighters suck for the first half of the DLC, and in Bibao you are facing a endless number of enemy aircraft from the outset.

I always deploy at least 2 AA units, and all three of my fighters. I also deploy 3-4 tac bombers and no strat bombers. My "88" goes on a hill behind the north-central city with the double river crossings. With the increased range on the hilltop, it can cover and deal with any enemy air attacks in the area. (I also place a couple of big guns there, usually my 203 mm and a 152 mm).

It helps if you have any camouflage and/or fast rebase heroes. The Rebase hero is for your fighter as I scramble him all over the place to deal with enemy aircraft. There will always be more no matter how many you destroy, so be aware of that in case you haven't realized it yet for yourself.

I can give you more suggestions if you wish, but remember, this is the most difficult map of the DLC and possibly in all of AO!

[Stephen1024]

88 is great for AT and bombers, smaller AA with rapid fire good at damaging low flying fighters and tacs.

Later in war when got swarms of enemy aircraft AA will be even more important. Not always going clear sky's in first turn.

Game rewards combined arms.

[nexusno2000]

20mm quad is very good for protecting high value units such as 88s and 'soft' artillery from low attack aircraft.

Combine with AA veteran and a few fighters and you will completely neutralize enemy airforce in no time

[adiekmann]

88 is great for AT and bombers, smaller AA with rapid fire good at damaging low flying fighters and tacs.

Later in war when got swarms of enemy aircraft AA will be even more important. Not always going clear sky's in first turn.

Game rewards combined arms.

The 88 works great in a AA role if you have either a Lethal Attack Hero on it or play with Anti-Air Veteran. OS to even just 12 with a couple of stars of exp and the 88 can take down a tac bomber or fighter no problem. And yes, they slaughter Strat bombers too with ease. Hilltop with base 3 range already, and it frees up your fighters to cover/attack elsewhere, or to finish off enemy planes already hanging by a thread after taking AA fire. If I have a camouflage hero I put it on as well so it will take out multiple enemy aircraft per turn. It's worth its core weight over 2 additional fighter planes.

[Scrapulous]

Anti-Air is a waste of slots in most cases, especially when they have little range. There will always be units outside of the range of your anti-air.

OP, I think you're seeing a lot of skilled players here disagreeing with the idea that AA is a waste of slots. I'm probably not a skilled player, but I definitely disagree with the "AA is a waste" idea. I understand the temptation to think of AA as useless - because it's a reactive unit that depends on enemy units flying into range, which feels very limited next to fighters, which are active and let you reach out and strike. But fighters are more slot-expensive than AA for this reason. I think the key to embracing AA is learning how to maximize its utility. Be sure it escorts units that the enemy likes to bomb, and you will often have targets. Recognize when you have air superiority, and you can convert the AA to AT - some AA units are spectacular in anti-ground roles (light quad guns and the 88, especially, but not exclusively).

In later DLCs, I always have my artillery move in pairs, with each artillery supporting the other in case I stupidly allow the enemy past my front line to attack them. Each artillery pair always has a strong AA unit that moves in lock step with the artillery and provides AA cover. These AA units are among my most experienced (thanks in part to some training missions). I would also mention that there are plenty of situations in the early war ('39, '40) where you are battling against equal or superior enemy fighters. In these scenarios my fighters always, always appreciated being able to attack enemy fighters after they had been softened up by my AA units. A dogfight between healthy planes would often result in a draw or worse, which would leave my planes struggling in a "fight - repair - fight - repair" cycle that would make it hard to maintain air superiority. The AA enabled me to repair much less often.

Depending on the heroes you get, you can also do some impressive things with AA. In one of my cores, I got a Fast Deployment (unit can attack even after using truck/halftrack movement) and an Overrun hero (unit can attack again after a flawless kill). I put them both on an 8.8 AA - this gave me the equivalent of a late-war tank destroyer, which roamed the battlefields of Spain and destroyed the feeble 1930s Soviet armor with impunity. It could also get itself to many more enemy aircraft and deliver a punishing counter attack. You can also do impressive things with self-propelled AA guns and Butcher (+5 soft attack) heroes.

All that to say that AA can seem lackluster at first, but learning how the AI can be baited into range, learning how to use the AA to give your fighters the advantage, and how to turn your AA units into versatile, multi-role units with clever tactical deployment and selective use of specific heroes might change your mind.

[Stephen1024]

88 is great for AT and bombers, smaller AA with rapid fire good at damaging low flying fighters and tacs.

Later in war when got swarms of enemy aircraft AA will be even more important. Not always going clear sky's in first turn.

Game rewards combined arms.

The 88 works great in a AA role if you have either a Lethal Attack Hero on it or play with Anti-Air Veteran. OS to even just 12 with a couple of stars of exp and the 88 can take down a tac bomber or fighter no problem. And yes, they slaughter Strat bombers too with ease. Hilltop with base 3 range already, and it frees up your fighters to cover/attack elsewhere, or to finish off enemy planes already hanging by a thread after taking AA fire. If I have a camouflage hero I put it on as well so it will take out multiple enemy aircraft per turn. It's worth its core weight over 2 additional fighter planes.

Agree that's some nice ideas. Would also add not rely to much air power, wet weather and allies make to much air power waste and its slot heavy. I can have smaller air force and still do the job I need and by having AA and arty I never need worry about allies air power or rainy days. Nothing worse watch turns disappear while my air force grounded and victory slips through your hands.

[Panzer73]

Agree that's some nice ideas. Would also add not rely to much air power, wet weather and allies make to much air power waste and its slot heavy. I can have smaller air force and still do the job I need and by having AA and arty I never need worry about allies air power or rainy days. Nothing worse watch turns disappear while my air force grounded and victory slips through your hands.

Heads up, you'll want to train a large air force for AO42, the air-only scenarios have 62, 62 and 65 slots, respectively.

[Stephen1024]

Agree that's some nice ideas. Would also add not rely to much air power, wet weather and allies make to much air power waste and its slot heavy. I can have smaller air force and still do the job I need and by having AA and arty I never need worry about allies air power or rainy days. Nothing worse watch turns disappear while my air force grounded and victory slips through your hands.

Heads up, you'll want to train a large air force for AO42, the air-only scenarios have 62, 62 and 65 slots, respectively.

Yeah they had few air heavy maps now. Enjoy but most my air force won't see many others maps. Thanks for warning. Going be interesting see how they handle late war years. Guessing allies going have large air power. Dont think we will have core slots to cover large enough air force and still have enough on ground. So in lot ways most planes won't see to much flying time.

[SSLConf_pewp3w]

I ALWAYS play this campaign with anti-air veteran. I think it is a must because you fighters suck for the first half of the DLC, and in Bibao you are facing a endless number of enemy aircraft from the outset.

I always deploy at least 2 AA units, and all three of my fighters. I also deploy 3-4 tac bombers and no strat bombers. My "88" goes on a hill behind the north-central city with the double river crossings. With the increased range on the hilltop, it can cover and deal with any enemy air attacks in the area. (I also place a couple of big guns there, usually my 203 mm and a 152 mm).

It helps if you have any camouflage and/or fast rebase heroes. The Rebase hero is for your fighter as I scramble him all over the place to deal with enemy aircraft. There will always be more no matter how many you destroy, so be aware of that in case you haven't realized it yet for yourself.

I can give you more suggestions if you wish, but remember, this is the most difficult map of the DLC and possibly in all of AO!

Thanks for your tips. I am now done with the mission and imho this was actually the easiest mission in the DLC so far, because the AI wasn't able to retreat and reinforce as much as in other missions. I also have a lot of artillery which makes reducing entrechment easier.


This thread was very interesting for me to read. I am by no means a beginner, I have around 800 hours in Panzer Corps 1. I played the campaign of panzer corps 2 and it was okay, if a bit much of the same (but that was the same with the base campaign in PC1).
I have to admit my mind was pretty much made up on the point of usefulness of Anti-Air-Units. I used one 88 in the base campaign to cover my artillery and I plan to do this later in the grand campaign as well, but I just am not sold on it. I neither have a lethal hero or the anti-air-veteran trait.
Much of my problem comes from the fact that anti-air itself is often useless after the first few rounds when you dealt with the enemy airforce. Now I know you can switch to anti-tank mode in most cases and thats useful, but those units are lacking some mobility. I am often advancing quite fast and the anti-tank units are usually in position a round to late. Now much of my dislike of anti-air and anti-tank units might stem from panzer corps 1, where those units were mostly useless or only useful in fringe cases.
I don't like to be reactive, I'd rather be proactive. As I said you can only destroy enemy planes if you bring a lot of fighters, otherwise they will reinforce again over and over. Now of course, if the enemy planes attack into your anti-air units, you might have a chance to still destroy them, but I find that anti-air units almost never can cover all of your units. My (admittedly [too] simple calculation) looks light this: Core slots for 5 fighters and no core slots for anti-air means less core slots used than if you use 5 fighters AND Anti-Air.
One could of course reduce the number of fighters, but as I stated above, then you will never be reliably able to destroy enemy planes completely.
Now I went into Bilbao with a single fighter which I used to attack enemy planes whenever I saw them. I won the map in 17 turns and counted how much strength I lost due to enemy planes: 27. This might sound like a lot, but it didn't really hamper my advance, especially with how much prestige you are gaining. After elite-reinforcing before brunete I was still left with 7800 prestige. I only play on middle difficulty, so that might have to do with it.

I will try to incorporate some AA into my core, although I doubt I will ever be fully convinced of it's usefulness. Maybe I am just to stubborn. Anyways, thanks for all your insightful comments. I can say for sure that anti-air is much more useful in PC2 than in PC1. I will admit that my dislike of Anti-Air might just be a hyperfocus of mine because I think PC2 is a much worse game than PC1 is. (That doesn't necessarily mean PC2 is bad, maybe PC1 was just too good). If I ever sounded condescending, that wasn't my intention, I really like this forum because of the many helpful and interesting posts.

[PaxusZero]

I am going to put it out there for AA too. I don’t experiment with lighter guns, I have several veteran 8.8. And I also use them as AT support or attackers. I have used them to kill bunkers as well as DeGaulle in that horrible tank (the only things that could take him out near death.)

[adiekmann]

You know...I made a big mistake. I just realized it now. I was thinking of and confusing Bilbao with the Ebro scenario! That's the scenario that I was giving advice for. My bad.

Yes, this is the smallish map slog. It's been a while since I played all of SCW. I use all three of my fighters here and maybe one AA to cover my artillery. But yes, it is good for AT duty as well, and the 88 is also pretty good at taken out bunkers in AT mode. Fast Deployment is a helpful hero to use on it too. Come to think about it, I usually choose the other pathway in my most recent playthroughs. But like I said, I have always played with AA Hero in SCW. For me it is a must-have in this DLC far more than any other. I also never have more than the three original fighters that you begin the campaign with either. I support the AI ally that is attacking from the East with a couple artillery pieces protected from air attack by one 88. One of my 2cm guns cover the rest of my ground force attacking up from the bottom/south. I think I still deploy all 3 of my fighter units. But yes, this map isn't nearly as difficult as Ebro. Sorry for the confusion!