Hoi4 Close Air Support

Just started playing this after moving over from EU3. Still trying to figure out the HOI3 world.Starting as Germany in Dies Irae: Gotterdamerung.Just polling for peoples thoughts on the issue. Should I focus on only one or try a bit of both? I am staying away from strategic bombers as they are just too costly and I feel that Germany just does not need them at this time.Other than the obvious benefits with regards to range with tactical vs. CAS, is CAS better at taking out troops and such which would make their limited range a trade-off?

• Hoi4 Close Air Support Wing Size

Hungary is already an interesting country, as it has a lot of room for expansion, and even some historical struggles, that defined the nation's diplomacy in the years of the war. The main focus of this mod is adding more flavor to the country, primarily with the new focus tree. The political branch.

I know that they seem to be quite deadly against surface ships (found that one by accident as I clicked on the wrong air wing).Also CAS has a shorter Tech tree as opposed to tactical. Which techs are a must for either approach? In theory CAS has the advantage of being significantly cheaper in IC terms per unit than TAC, especially given that CAS use the light airplane practical which Germany should have oodles of due to building INTs for air dominance. You can almost build 2 CAS for every 1 TAC given that combination.That IC savings is offset by the fact that you now need to research a whole new field of air doctrines. Given that IC for Germany is usually not a limiting factor while leadership is precious this often isn't a good trade. Then there's the operational employment. Very few of your opponents are going to field enough armor to make CAS high hard attack worthwhile.

France and the UK have some tank units but those are generally inconsequential for Fall Gelb. CAS might be useful against UK armor in N. Africa but TACs are usually the better choice especially for their ability to knockdown infrastructure and logistic bomb which has more of an impact in N. Africa when both sides are fighting with tenuous supply situations. There are two countries which actually build enough tanks for CAS to be useful, one is the SU the other is the USA.

Great you say.those are the defining battles of the war. The only problem is that the SU has kindly neglected to build you any airfields with which to base them. For the USA, if an American doom stack invades you are not going to accomplish anything on a strategic level with CAS planes.

Stopping a large invasion is dependent on denying the invasion supplies, containing it, and ultimately crushing the beachhead. CAS aren't any good at port strikes or log bombing, TACs are more valuable.Back to the SU, I mentioned earlier that you can build maybe almost 2ish to 1 in terms of IC cost. Well that doesn't help you when the only airbase for 200 miles is a piddly level 4. Going with a strategy of building numerous small CAS planes runs into the problem that there's no place to base them without incurring severe over stacking penalties and limited range to support the front.The last annoyance is that a good deal of the bomber commanders which have traits suitable for ground support also have the 'Tank Buster' trait. Great you say, that's exactly what you want your CAS planes to do.

Well the only problem is that the TB trait lowers a target units hardness meaning that your CAS planes have to use their weaker soft attack rating.In total the result is that while CAS look good in theory.in practical terms they have range problems, their role is better filled with TACs, and what little advantage they have in production costs are offset by the fact that airbase space limitations makes CAS zerging much less viable. When you build CAS you only need two extra doctrines to research: pilot and ground crew training. The ground attack doctrine needs to be researched for other aircraft (like TACs) anyway. With FTM pilot/ground crew training finally applies to CAGs, but you need to research FTR, CAS, and NAV to get the full benefits of ORG and Morale (20%, 40%, and 40% respectively).

Hoi4 Close Air Support Wing Size

Without these CAGs are lame puppies.Given the above, if you are going to be a nation with sea power you are going to need to research all three types. If your going to do the research you might as well build the darned things.

Besides the great practical gains for FTR, CAS has pretty decent sea attack values. Since even Germany is going to use TAC and NAV in any decent setup, add CAS to the mix and build some CAGs for light naval airwings (they do a great job). Unless you are going to use gamey tactics even Germany will build some sort of navy, which means CVs.If it hadn't been for the much needed change with FTM I woud never build CAS. Now I do and am able to field a much better number of INTs than before. It may be good to have a small amount of CAS.

I use them as cheap substitution for naval strikes, yes. And for static defense, for offense they are not adequate.

They could work better if rebasing penalty would base on range of rebasing, not flat 50% penalty. 6 is usual amount.TACs are great multipurpose bombers. They have trouble only with very hard targets, only drawback is you need lot of doctrines to truly uncover their potential.And MRs for Soviet land is very good investment. There are often no serious airfields in range. Most of the techs relating to CAS and TAC (other than the type-specific Pilot and Ground Crew training) will need to be researched anyway, regardless of which you build. My preference as a major power is to build mostly TAC, with one (or possibly two) groups of 3xCAS for their higher hard attack, or for deployment along the coast as anti-ship bombers if there are no armored units to attack. They need to be closely supported by INT if you use them in that role, or they will take horrendous losses if any opposing aircraft show up.

Any more than 1-2 groups of 3 is better served by building more TAC instead.