The original game designers decided not to put in fighter sweeps because the RAF doctrine was to ignore them (though historically they occasionally got tangled up). However you can put in a sweep in BOB2 using a simple workaround - a flight of Bf110s heavily 'escorted' by 109s.

We can try a couple of these and see what the result is.



Agree, I sent the dive bombers in too high (15,000 feet). They were picked up mid channel, and hammered. Now that we have degraded the chain home low, this afternoon we should send them in low - fast in, fast out.



That's a gutsy suggestion. Straight to the center of the hornet's nest! Remember we only have ten minutes flying time over London (if we get that far!). To do that, we would definitely want to skim the treetops on the way in or the RAF would be able to fly fighters from Scotland and still catch us.

Anyone else want to try to fire a missile into the heart of the deathstar?

Low-level StuKas against the radars sounds good to me.

Maybe send in a Bleistift (Do-17) or Hornisse (He-111) raid against the airfields first (with 109 cover) and while the RAF is busy intercepting sneak in a radar raid with StuKas and 110s. They can't defend everything after all.







Okay then. I'd wait until the southern groups are depleted before attacking London though.

Wow, this is great.

Ju 87,s Escorted by 109,s Coastal Radar Stations 0700 Rye and Dover

D0 17,s ( Escorted by Bf 110,s if available) Convoys 0800 ( and recon)

He III,s Escorted Coastal RAF Airfields 0930 ( Any within range of 109,s)



Hopefully, This will force the RAF to supply aircraft to the forward fields catching them on the ground.

Two steps forward, one step back?

Chose to go with the advice to go after Fighter Command using bombers with large escort, and try to sneak in some low level attacks on RDF. Targets as below (remember this middle phase of the day we have only 30pc of total assets avail)



Manston, Hawkinge and Lympne with medium bombers and escort going in at 5,000 feet at about 12:00-12:15 (catch the Tommies having their cucumber sandwiches).



RDF sites with Ju88s and Do17s at 2,000 feet, unescorted (not necessarily by choice, no avail escorts) going in at 12:20-30



We hit Manston and got away clean, but Hawkinge raid was met off the coast.



Zooming in we can see the escorts doing their job nicely, and stripping away the intercept so the Hawkinge raid can get to target, while they keep the pursuing RAF off the tails of the Manston raid to the NE.



Our unescorted bomber raids were unfortunately also detected and met off the coast and had to fight their way to target and out again.



But recon shows we hit the RDF sites, and some of them now show heavy damage, particularly the important Dover, Rye and Foreness stations. We might have kicked the door open there!



The airfield raids also hit paydirt with damage to Manston, Hawkinge and Lympne.



We have now knocked down 17 Spits and 24 Hurricanes, damaging 41



for the loss of 8 109s, 4 110s, 17 Ju87s, 2 Do17s, 6 Ju88s and 16 He111s.




Looking at our loss/kill ratio for just these raids, we lost no 109s or 111s, but 4 110s, 12 Do17s and 6 Ju88s. But we claimed only 4 Hurricanes, and no Spits destroyed.



While we hit our targets, clearly at this early juncture sending unescorted medium bombers over, even at low level timed for when the RAF is busy elsewhere, is costly.

This evening we will have more fighters and dive bombers again available to task...I am thinking some heavy fighter sweeps then low level dive bombing attacks to knock the RDF out once and for all this evening, so we can concentrate on fighter airfields tomorrow?

!

Well, if you're going to get into a fight you're going to get hurt, there's no two ways about it so you might as well make those first punches count and do as much damage as you can.

"Der bomber wird immer dirchkommen." Nicht war?

Good plan I think Heinkill, particularly if you have fighters avaialble for escort. Keep kicking away at the CH stations, as they were clearly still detecting your raids - better to be intercepted after striking targets than out in the Channel I reckon!

I'm all for another go at the radar.

I think we should hit the radar again and also place our fighters in a position where they outnumber the british fighters to inflict maximum impact on their numbers. As you said before we nees to makeuse of our early strength in numbers and skill.

@HeinKill: How are you positioning the Free Escorts for your raid (High, Ceiling, Late, etc)? In past campaigns I found that having a Late escort was often successful.

Also, I am wondering if sending an entire Gruppe of bombers to RDF stations is a good use of your resources, especially at such low altitude. With a bit of luck a Staffel of 110s should be able to do the job, and with better chances to escape quickly. Remember those RDF stations can be repaired or replaced by mobile units quickly, and the damage reports may be very inaccurate (of course in reality we wouldn't be aware of that :D). I would save the bombers for where they hurt most, the major airfields and aircraft factories, and use small raids with 110s for the RDF and small coastal airfields.

I notice that some of the raids are set to "Bomb in trail". Does this make a difference?

It's still early days, so no need to change overall strategy on the basis of a few setbacks. Wenn wir jetzt den Krieg verlieren, dann reissen sie uns den A*** auf

Very interesting, Heinkill. Can't wait for Ver.2.12!



I've won a few LW campaigns in BoB/BoB2 and my tactics were basically:


1.) Concentrate your initial attacks on the RDF stations in sectors B, C, D.
2.) Hit them hard. Better to "overkill" a single site and put it out of action for a few days than to lightly damage two or three.
3.) Use Stukas mainly against the RDF stations. The farther inland they have to fly the higher the chance for them to get butchered by the RAF. I would send them in at Gruppe strength and they would usually heavily damage/destroy a site in a single attack
4.) Support Stuka attacks with low-flying Me-110 raids, going in first.
5.) Use the level bombers en masse against 1 or two targets with maximum fighter escort. A heavy bomber force will usually get to its targets, especially if they're not too deep in enemy territory.
6.) Keep in mind that a 1:1 loss ration (or even slightly worse) is absolutely OK if you manage to shut down the RAF airfields.
7.) Never order unescorted bomber/stuka raids until the RAF has been severely hurt.

My gut feeling is to initally ignore the CH stations completely apart from a few unescorted ultra low level lone wolf raiders and concentrate everything on the frontline RaF airfields.

Sending smaller diversionary raids and then concentrating all resources on one airfield to totally put it out of action will push the RaF back and force them to fly as far as the LW so evening up the fight a bit.
Once the RaF are on the backfoot, then shut down the CH stations totally while still making sure the airfields are kept out of action.

My thinking is that the airfields need destroying totally, the RaF will throw all resources towards stopping this so attriting their fighter resources.

The CH stations are too hard to knock out completely while active airfields are nearby, so take out the airfields first.
THe RaF will have to fly from/to the London stations and will have to have more standing patrols to compensate for the extra flying time, so burning up more of their resources.

As long as the RaF losses outstrip LW losses then the campaign 'should' be winnable.

Did they have those back in '40?

Yep they did. And if you fly the RAF side in the campaign, when the Luftwaffe causes heavy damage to your RDF you get the message 'Dover CH has been damaged, mobile units are filling the gap'.

I'm leaning towards going hard and heavy on the larger fighter command airfields at Manston, Hawkinge and Tangmere tomorrow (game time).

H

Yes I would also use a meet and greet escort if the raid was deep into enemy turf, over the Channel it seems overkill. But maybe should consider...



V true



Yes. If you watch the pattern of bombs from level bombing, standard spread is pretty tightly clustered. Bomb in trail causes a longer line spread with greater chance of hitting a specific target.



Yes, note to self, order colder blood!

There is so much detail in this game. The strategy part alone is a game in itself, and as good as any Paradox game

Sure is, and did I mention it isn't a text message...it's a nice sæxy WAAF voice keeping you informed....

Good read and plan so far Keep hitting them same targets. Maybe low level attacks in between ?

A pity we don't get the equivalent in the German campaign.

They did. But they were far less capable than the fixed installations.

From the official history of the Ventnor CH station:

RAF Ventnor bombed

RAF Ventnor continued to work effectively until 12th August 1940 when 15 Junkers 88 dropped 72 high explosive bombs on the station at mid-day, leaving it badly damaged and off the air.



The photo above was taken from one of those bombers, the transmitter towers are in the foreground. Although a domestic site was also located within the compound at the top of St.Boniface, the official record states that amazingly only one person was injured. However a reliable source has recently informed the writer that at the time, the word amongst the RDF people was that "several" WAAFs had been killed during the raids on the RDF stations. Despite the on going danger from ten delayed action bombs, the station was back in limited service within the hour. On the following Friday there was a second raid by 6 JU87 aircraft which deposited 15 bombs into the compound with the result that two unfortunate hits finally created damage that could not be fixed easily.

Armourers (six men and two corporals) were rushed from the Fort Grange airfield near Gosport to deal with the remaining bombs waiting to explode. Four were dug out and one detonated as it was being taken away. A fifth bomb exploded as the detachment were waiting to return to their base which by then had also been attacked. - Thanks to Don Sutherland for this information, he was one of those brave men. Today, near the parking spot close to R Block, there exists a strangely cratered area amongst the gorse : I believe them to be bomb craters. The station remained unserviceable for two months but mobile equipment was brought from Kidbrook in London and installed at Bembridge to 'plug the gap' in the chain, albeit with reduced range, until the Ventnor repairs were completed.