Airbase Search & Player Intervention

[garrisonchisholm]

I would be curious to know if anyone else has tried this, and if they have noticed improved results.

I am currently playing an Austria game, and as such they have 5 airbases in the Adriatic.  At the start of a battle if you select the Airbase in the roster and then their Search plan, you can edit it just like for your fleet.  What I try to do is not have the planes flying over useless ground or to an unnecessary extreme range.  Additionally I can tell them not to search at all if there is an Airship base in that city that could take over the role.  Theoretically this should make more flying boats (preferentially) available sooner, as they return from their searches in timely fashion or are not used at all.

What I have been unable to determine - despite playing this 100s of times in testing I have just started to employ this strategy - is if the AI uses those flying boats for anything once they are back on the tarmac, either an additional search or even a strike.

Has anyone noticed flying boats making naval strikes, particularly towards the end of a long scenario?

[jwsmith26]

I regularly use the strategy you suggest. On turn 0, I go into each airbase and manually adjust its search pattern to reduce the number of planes that are required to fly the pattern. I also adjust the range. It is often much longer than the situation requires because, as you point out, I want those planes back at base so they can be re-purposed. You have to set the pattern on turn 0. As soon as you run a turn the search patterns get locked in. If you change the pattern after turn 0 the change will be ignored. (OK, that's not absolutely true - in situations where search is not immediately initiated you can set the pattern up until it is initiated. That can happen when the battle starts at night or in inclement weather.) 

Incidentally, it is also useful to take a look at the airbase CAP at this point. If your airbase is within range of enemy bases it's going to need as many fighters aloft as it can put up. I find that often the CAP is set too low for bases in this situation.

I have seen many attacks by flying boats, some that actually hit something. Later flying boats can carry quite a load and can especially put a hurt on airbases.

[garrisonchisholm]

I had missed your reply JS, that is good to know, and in fact I dug this up to answer my own question. I recently saw 14 PBs take off on a naval strike mission, though I missed whatever result they achieved. Still, its good to know those aircraft are used.

[alexbrunius]

Is there a way to order additional searches later on during the day without manually ordering Carrier or Floatplanes one by one through the strike interface?


I find that having a single dawn search is not enough for longer scenarios when you have no clue where the enemy is during the afternoon, or as night approaches. Especially for shorter ranges below 100 Nm where the search planes is back in a few hours and could, in theory be sent out for several additional short-medium range searches within the same day.


It also seems very wasteful to send out searches to 400-500 Nm just to delay the return of the planes and try to get some useful intel from their return trip when it would be much better to do two 150 Nm search sweeps within the same timeframe.