The Commander Series Forum

Our aircraft are mostly ineffective. It must be us!
Are any of you fighter or bomber command chaps doing better than us? If so, how do you do it?
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Typically we have 3,000 to 6,000 points per side on a larger than average table; 6'x8-12' or more. North Africa mostly.
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When we previously sent planes anywhere but to the flanks of an opponent force, there were too many COs and HQs firing AA. Sometimes the foe also had AA units. Often a mission would abort or be so shot up, its attack was down to one or two dice. Lots of crashed planes too.
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Solution #1
Continue to operate on the flanks to reduce AA.
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Solution #2
Buy more air observers and aircraft.
Two observers and two airplanes.
Three observers and three airplanes.
Thus, 0-3 planes will show up with diluted AA.
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Solution #3
Buy bombers and assets for scheduled missions.
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Solution #4
(This would be a house rule for BOMBERS only)
AA hits on a 6 - not 5 or 6.
Abort occurs on a 6 - not a 5 or 6.
Reason = bombers fly at a high altitude.
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#4 changes things a lot. Too much perhaps. We've not tried it. However, in the Osprey Operation Compass book or perhaps their Tobruk 1941 book, a remark is made about the gillions of AA rounds fired to knock down one aircraft. Staggering number of rounds. Just huge. That's the reason for the house rule in #4 above.

We've not tried this so....
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Comments welcome.
Respectfully,
Bill

I too have faced this problem, playing 67 Isreali/Egyptian. Even with 3 HQs, life can be difficult for the attacking aircraft.

Two options - drop smoke on the enemy unit nearest the HQ, or Catch the HQ in an artillery template and suppress it.

If life is really difficult, the enemy may be using too many HQs. Even if exceeding the total number of HQs permitted for your bigger games, restrict them to 2 per 1000 points.

Steve

Regarding #4, You might modify that so only AA over 85mm(?) can engage high-flying bombers. Light AA and AAMG can't hit them at that range. You'd have to look up what altitudes were typical for the particular bomber to attack from and the effective ceiling for AA of a given size.
Similarly, large caliber AA probably can't engage low flying attack aircraft. You aren't going to hit a P-47 with a FlaK 40 except by pure luck.

Suppression of enemy air defence? steveww57's advice is how real joint fires were and are still brought in.

Even the aircraft we think of as delivering CAS were mostly used just behind the enemy's front lines to attack columns etc, unfortunately not something we get to very often in our games. When we ran a linked series of games (in the reports section for RAF Lossiemouth) the overall commander could allocate aircraft to hit areas behind the front line if he guessed right they did far more damage, if his assessment was wrong they got nothing. These aircraft were not subject to ground AAA but were vulnerable to fighters - which again the commander could allocate to airfield defence (sitting over our airfields to stop offensive counter air), defensive counter air (sitting behind our lines to stop his aircraft hitting/seeing anything of ours), sweep / escort (going into their airspace to shoot down his fighters).

Okay, doesn't answer the problem but did let us get some effective use of air power.

Solutoin #5 Spend the points on artillery so your opponents AA has nothing to fire at.

1. Hit his AA with arty
2. Use direct fire in the command phase to KO/suppress his AA - perhaps there wont be much left?
3. Call in the a/c against his AA

Use as many a/c as possible to swamp his remaining AA

Once the air is "clear" then focus on his other units

#6 Bluff about the aircraft and then buy extra artillery or other units. (Bluff=mention that you are thinking of buying aircraft or even put the model down on your base edge but never actually use it)

As it is part the situation in question here, I would like to ask why are CO's and HQs so much better (often 3 times better) at AA then dedicated AAA units?

This is the issue that needs to be addressed when discussing Aircraft effectiviness in BKC/CWC IMO.

You might try a game using the commanders optional rule instead of the normal AA-equipped HQs.
That should make it a fair bit more dangerous to be walking around in the open without friendly air cover or AA nearby.

Focus on what Air Support is good at - that is, shooting up enemy AFVs in the open.
Aircraft hit all targets (except command) in the open on 4,5,6 and reduces AFV save by 1 (unless 6 already), while artillery only hits full AFVs on 6 in all cases.

Well, airstrikes following an artillery salvo are the way I go (and were using autosuppression with artillery, so if it's hit and not saved, it's suppressed).
Generally, however, you won't get many kills unless you really have lots of firepower(twice as many dice as a unit has hit points as a rule of thumb), but if the ennemy is suppressed and your other units are close by to mop him up, that's the way to go

Thank you for the conversation, thoughts and ideas.
I appreciate it a lot!
Respectfully,
Bill