How do you use Fighter and bombers

[rocksk]

I tends to use fighter to help ally AI or to hit approaching armys in the fields.

What about you?

[albiedamned]

Always. Unless you are being attacked by enemy air power yourself, then your best use for fighters is on strafing runs against enemy units. Of course if the enemy is attacking you with air power, then you want your fighters to defend against that.

[cityhunter]

I usually put my airfields next to my wonders, and build half fighters and half bombers.

Using multiple airfields I can get lots of fighters to protect the wonders while getting bombers to wreak havok.

I don't know about anyone else but the AI always goes for my wonders so having the fighters able to scramble is great against enemy bombers. of course many anti aircraft always help.

My favorite is the fighter/bomber on the aircraft carrier. good bang for the buck.

[Swissy]

I build airbases intended to house one aircraft type. Fighters bases are built near cities and are purely defensive. Bomber bases are built at the borders and used to pave the way to the enemy capitol. Helicopter bases are built at enemy capitols ASAP after capture to blunt counter attacks. My carriers on sea maps are used to protect the invasion sealane and provide support against the counter-attack after capitol capture.

I usually place my cities close enough that two airbases can cover 3-4 cities. I have a couple of bomber airbases at the border of my target nations.

[albiedamned]

Swissy, you should try using your fighters on offense. They are very good at taking out enemy units, though not buildings. Of course they are vulnerable to anti-air units, so you need to target those with your ground troops.

[rocksk]

Try this. Nuke one city to clear it of enemy sam site. Then send in fighters to patrol around the city. This often force the AI to either counter with fighters or keep his Civ at home.

it great to look at when AI counter with fighters. AIR WAR : If the counter with Anti Air trucks, fighters can take them out petty fast.

Also i love Aircraft carrier.

[Red Scorpion]

Originally posted by cityhunter
My favorite is the fighter/bomber on the aircraft carrier. good bang for the buck.

If there's any water on the map, guaranteed I've got an Aircraft Carrier in it.
Question:- The Aircraft Carrier takes up 2 Pop-Cap, with 7 Fighter/Bombers in it does that mean it takes a total of 9 Pop-Cap? I keep meaning to check it out, but playing mainly Land Maps @ the moment to avoid having to think about the Sea angle.

All answers will be appreciated.

[rocksk]

Kind of hard to test that. By the time i build an aircraft carrier, i usually is building lots of other stuff.

I will scrap one tonight. See how many pop is released.

[Signa]

I tend to build a Airbase on my border where there's been or shall be a war and fill it up with Biplanes and then upgrade them with tech advancements. Whenever I have to defend OR attack near that base I just hit my 0key (10th Air Force) and send the Fighters out to attack enemy forces that counter-attack AND to keep enemy fighters/bombers/helos from ruining my troops.

With Bombers I build Airbases near wonders or production centers or just anything important. Fill it up with six bombers and four fighters. Use the bombers to eliminate enemy wonders and economic power (hitting mines and oil wells, losing those is crippiling in the VI/VII/VIII eras).

All the airbases that are for defense/bomberd are on a hotkey so I can select a lot at once and scrambel them all when I see a incoming raid. Wonders are surrounded by 3-5 air defense structures to back this up. Of cource B-2s are a hell of a threat but if the fighters are scrambeled to spot for the SAM's then there is no problem.

I sometimes build Anti-Air's to escort my army if i'm either over an ocean or way away from my Airbase (o and BTW whenever I capture a city I immediately build a Airbase and transfer the 10th Air Force [and don't limit yourself to one, you can have as many Fighter Wings {7-10 Fighters} as you need {or can afford}] up so they can continue supporting the land army) but I think the best counter for a fighter is another fighter so I rarely bother (btw the Bantu are my favs, love those awesome Hawks 'n Eagles [wish they had a info age special Fighter...]).

But in a island map the Aircraft Carrier with her Fighter-Bombers is queen of the sea. With just a Cruiser or two for ASW defense these can wreck havoc (just like the real ones...). I usually have a lot organized into groups of two and use them like I do Airbases. Attack a city, move forward with air cover after assimilation. Only this will limit you to attacking either coastal or very close to coastal cities. But after you deny the sea to them and take all that land they have lost anyways...

Carriers are also the ultimate in sea dominace (except for a wolfpack of Subs versus a player who doesn't think escorts are important... ). They sink BBs and D'naughts like Subs do en masse. Cruiser are kinda a threat to the airwing but you can overpower them or get your heavies on them (and BTW I do no ignore my BB's, I try to have a amount of them to [just depends on the conflict, channel/close-water warfare and close-to-shore conflict is better for BB's and open sea/deep strike/air2air is better for flattops). Subs are no threat to a escort carrier anyways.

The versitility of these things is amazing... to bad the game is usually over before I can get going with them... Plus the escort role metioned above.

I prefer to use its airwing like Fighters (for air2air and anti-troop action) and leave the bombing work to land-based B-17s/B-25s/B-52s/B-1s/B-2s (BTW what happened to Zepplins? hope their in the XP).

While the 10th Air Force/creeping Airbase strategy works well for land maps on sea maps I tend to not build the pure fighter bases and just get the defensive fighters/bombers bases and just use the carriers like I would the fighter forward bases on sea maps.

BTW Japan and Germany are also favs of mine with their quicker built aircraft and carriers.

[rocksk]

Signa, I kind of do the same thing, building loads of fighters filled airbase around the map. Specially newly taken cites, and move backward fighters up to new front to save traveling time.


I play Japan the other day, kind of fun to watch zeros against spitfire fighters combat. Too bad that their base is closer to combat ground then my, they end up catching my zeros when my zero is returning to base and down 3 of them.


Just last night in an island map, my three carriers kindly held back enemy navy reinforcement throughout the war while my ground troops fight through a very hard ground battle, losing nearly 75% but gaining a city. The whole island is pack with AA guns, so no air support most of the time. Even when I send fighters in, they tends to get eaten alive or have smoke coming out of their back on the return trip. End up nuking all of his military production centers to stop the flow of ground troops.

[Signa]

If an enemy is loaded with SAMs I either tend to to go "screw it, i'll go around", wait till B2s roll off the tarmacs, or get a larger amount of land artillery in my invasion army and target the SAM's first. With about 5-6 Modern Howitzers or Information MLRS's you can take a lot down really fast (one volley from each unit so you can just go CLICK dead CLICK dead CLICK dead CLICK dead CLICK dead ). Then bring in the Air Forces/Naval Aviation to blunt enemy counterattacks. Nukes, of course, if you have decided that's how your going to play, will work to get rid of the SAMs (but as rocksk said they are best spent getting rid of his industrial facilities or maybe resource nodes if they are low on a specific resource [especially oil and metal]).

[rocksk]

This game i play is 3 vs 3. All players own their lsland. usually end with 6-7 city within the small lsland. With city to city so close, reinforcement is also very closeby and with 3 to 4 of each Barrack,auto,seige centre. the Reinforcement is horrible. What more is they rule the sea. My AI buddies are burden to take on all their navy will my carrier and landbased fighters tryied to support them, shafting the navy from air taking lost of loses.

My ground force need to do a force land just like D-Day where U-boats sink transports and supports ship. I lost nearly 6 ships on the lsland crossing. Fighters overhead attacked the sub while emeny destoryers attacked my fighters. After the initial landing can conqueuring a city with the help of nuke, I am attacked by two airbases of fighters and lots of troops. near the city is also three redoubts(Fort). Of cause my fighters from the nearest airbase and carrier group counter the air attack but suffered bad loses due to distances and short combat air time.

End result is 75% land force loses and 8 out of 24 fighters and 4 out of 10 bombers. Hate those AA guns and destoryers.

[Grond]

The best use for Bombers is to reduce cities in conjunction with an attack. This frees your units up from having to attack the city and enables you to take it much faster. The second best use is for taking out lightly defended Wonders.

[rocksk]

Got this idea last night.

When i got Steath bomber, i can bomb every sea base oil supply as well as isloated land oil extraction on the map.

This will effective shutdown the oil supply for a lot time. Send i one Sfigthers to kill the CIV when the oil platform is destoryed.

[PTM]

Once the enemy is in disarray, I constantly patrol fighters and bombers over his cities, bombing the heck out of his military buildings and killing off reinforcements as they make their way to my attacking force, which is usually behind the fighter/bombers (wow that was a run-on sentence if I ever saw one).

- PTM