Help a newb with air combat

[chrisman1]

Working on my first game at the deity level and so also the first game I've had to extensively use air units.

For several turns of war, I was able to bombard the crap out of the French with my bombers but they have started to defend their cities with jet fighters, so I'm taking heavier losses than I would like.

Is there a way to attack their jets in their own cities? Can my own jet fighters perform a mission along those lines?

If no, is there another way to avoid being shot down by their fighters? I'm seven turns away from stealth technology at which point I will start producing stealth bombers instead of bombers, but I'd like to protect my current bombers as much as possible.

Thanks in advance for any help.

edit: might be helpful if I clarify that I am playing Vanilla.

 

[vmxa]

Your jets can only either bomb, recon or air superiority. IOW they cannot directly attack other jets. If any plane, bomber or fighter, attacks the town any jets have a chance to attack it on defense.

In vanilla no lethal bombing, so you can only damage planes with bombing runs. This is useful as it makes them either no defen or increase the risk they will be shot down.

Jets do less well on defending adjacent tiles, so if you do not directly attack the town they are based in, you have a better chance of survival.

So I would either learn where they are based and target that or target a place they cannot reach and use grown forces to attack the town they are in.

 

[Turner]

Been a while since I've done air combat in Vanilla, but I think if you have a jet fighter on an Air Superiority mission in a city that's close to the city you're bombing, there's a chance they'll intercept the AI trying to intercept you and shoot them down. But I don't remember if that's a Conquests thing or a Vanilla thing.

 

[chrisman1]

Thanks Turner and VXMA.

Is the air superiority mission a mission that can only be conducted in my own cities? i.e. Am I correct in assuming that I can't assign my jets to air superioty in an enemy city?

 

[Turner]

That's correct. But my understanding is that they will 'fly the skies' and have a chance at intercept over any tile within their operational range.

 

[chrisman1]

That's correct. But my understanding is that they will 'fly the skies' and have a chance at intercept over any tile within their operational range.

Great, thanks for the help.

 

[vmxa]

They have a chance, but my experience is it is not real high. It is the same in all three versions. The main change is that in Conquest you can have an airfield and do not have to base planes in a town.

I use flaks, rather than fighters in C3C. I use a fighter or two for recon.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Try a few bombing runs with your jets first to lure out AI jets. That way, it's jet vs jet, and not bomber vs jet, if you are intercepted.

 

[Hasdrubal Barca]

To kill enemy jets use them as bombing missions over your desired target prior to the bombers, it will trigger the AI jets defensive mission and either kill the enemy jet or die to the defenders, in any case, you´ll have the way clear to your bombers.

In defense, the air superiority mission only intercepts any enemy plane in half of its operational range, since jets have a 9 tile range, it will be 9/2=4.5=4 tile range only.

Mobile SAMS are very efective on defense if used in pairs or groups of four units stacked since AA guns work with cumulitive probabilities instead of single probabilities for fighter/jets.

You can also try out a combined arms assault, bombard the city/airfield with artillery/ships to weaken the fighters/jets there (bombard fire always targets air/naval units inside a city first), then bombard with fighters/jets to kill them, finally pulvarize the city with your bombers.

 

[Turner]

He's playing vanilla, and some of those rules are Conquests only.

 

[capnvonbaron]

my $0.02 from lots and lots of vanilla play time...

Before you send bombers, build lots of fighters and send them on bombing missions over AI cities. Their fighters that are on "air sup" will intercept your incoming fighters and have a pretty close to 50/50 chance of dying. Once you are reasonably sure there are no more defenders, you can send your bombers in relative safety. Even the bombers have a chance at killing the intercepting aircraft, but not as good as fighter-on-fighter and bombers cost more shields to reconstruct anyways.

Another thing you can do is park an aircraft carrier full of fighters on air-sup next to the enemy city you are bombing. The fighters on the carrier will usually intercept the AI interceptors and your bombers can bomb in relative peace. Also, stealth won't be 100% stealthy... the enemy can still shoot them down (I'd say one out of six times), and unlike regular bombers, stealth bombers won't damage the enemy interceptors in return, so the AI can use those interceptors again and again and again.

The last thing is that the AI usually places its fighters/bombers as close to your borders as it can, in fairly large cities. If you take those cities with ground units quickly, you can concentrate your fighter/bomber advantage further along their turf. They will be too busy constructing ground units and won't likely replace the air units you killed off in your takeovers. This is especially important once the enemy gets the ability to build SAMs... I think they can shoot down nearly as many fighters/non-stealth bombers as you can throw at them If you find that there is a SAM in an AI city, send a super-stack of artillery and lay waste to the city that way. Usually the arty will take out the military improvements first (SAMs, barracks, etc...) and once the SAM is gone, send in the bombers. Have fun!

 

[Turner]

For the record, Stealth Bombers have a 5% chance of being intercepted, while regular Bombers have a 50% chance.

 

[capnvonbaron]

For the record, Stealth Bombers have a 5% chance of being intercepted, while regular Bombers have a 50% chance.

I thought it was something like that, although I don't know what "5%" is based off of... 5% for each enemy fighter on guard? Because I know for a fact I lose more than one-in-twenty stealths when bombing against guarded cities...

 

[chrisman1]

Thanks for all the great tips folks. I will start using my own fighters more to take out their interceptors.