How effective are stealth air units on ground attacks vs SAMs and tds

War-spite · Nov 2nd 2017, 3:02am

I have not done much with stealth air, as usually i find the costs not worth the benefit, but in one game i had a stupid oversupply of resources, so I figured why not.

I had a stack of 5 stealth bombers attacking a stack of 4 motor, 1 air mobile, 1 nat guard, 15(!) mech inf, 2 crv's and 6 SAMs. the mech and motor were max, the sam's were lvl 3.

I didn't wipe out a single unit. I lost a bomber and a half.

I even sent in cruise missiles in waves ahead of me staggered on attack so they hit about 15-25 seconds apart, figuring that would eat up the AA attacks. When my bombers hit the AA timer had 5 minutes or so left.

We each lost about 40 hp.

Does that seem right?

Liqter · Nov 2nd 2017, 5:34am

None of your CM should have gotten through a stack of 6 SAM , they should have shot them all down.
SAM cannot see stealth and will not shoot at you until you directly attack them , high lvl TDS can see stealth.
The terrain may have given the stack a large enough defense bonus to offset some of the stacking penalty , big stacks like that take several waves of attacks before you start getting good damage on them.

War-spite · Nov 3rd 2017, 2:48am

I didn't expect any of the cm's to make it through. They were simply to eat the SAM's AA defense, as I assumed that once I began the attack, I would be attacked with the "double attack" had I not.

I still don't understand how I took so much damage.

Liqter · Nov 3rd 2017, 4:14am

War-spite wrote:

I still don't understand how I took so much damage.

LVL 3SAM has 11 attack vs airplanes , both Mech and Moto max lvl have 3.0 air defense . i have not used stealth bombers but have used stealth strike fighters and a stack like you attacked typically takes several waves of 5 strike fighters combined with max lvl CM. To minimize plane losses , overstack the first group and weaken the target by hitting with planes only from the first wave , you may have to do this again , the point is to weaken the target enough that your CM's do not get shot down. you may want to use less expensive (normal) strike fighters in the 1st and 2nd waves then use the harder hitting stealth to clean up.

Liqter · Nov 3rd 2017, 4:21am

Honestly i think LRB best use is destroying enemy cities , lower moral and destroy airfields and Army bases , anything he is mobilizing halts when the building is damaged and makes it hard for him to reinforce. I have not been impressed with LRB damage vs. military units but they wreck cities pretty fast.

Germanico · Nov 3rd 2017, 10:52am

Ballistics are strategic weapons - used predominately to wreck cities or production. They do dish out nice damage vs units and have a splash range, but if you want to target a specific unit that's the realm of CMs.

Last warrior · Nov 3rd 2017, 4:51pm

@War-spite Did enemy units stood in province with buildings?
Overstacked penaltie of enemy was not enough to attacking that with single 5er stack of stealthbomber. you should use two waves of CM's 1st wave 5, second 10. after that attacking. Even so you would lose own unit too. But at least you would see better result.

CM's dont "eat" defence of SAM, they "eaten" by attack of SAM. Defensive damage remain.

EDIT 2:

Such example of stack must be attacked by hellies!!! Or by good airforce taktikers.

Opulon · Nov 3rd 2017, 9:21pm

Yeah, you got rekt by defensif point defense value. Stealth is useful in the mid-late transition when ennemy begins to go full TDS.

After ? hmm.

War-spite · Nov 3rd 2017, 10:26pm

For the record i WOULD have preferred to use waves of heli's. I didn't have the range to reach them. I figured the "double attack" that AA units get would be voided with stealth units. Kind of like a sneak attack submarine. It was only 1 bomber lost, and I learned a bit more about stealth aircraft.

Opulon · Nov 3rd 2017, 10:55pm

It's true that maybe a good stealth buff as well as an incentive to get all the anti-stealth radar unit would be to negate the "point defense" for those specific units.

If they are still stealth at the moment of attack, of course

War-spite · Nov 3rd 2017, 11:19pm

I just kind of felt for all that research, all the cost of building the needed buildings, the time to build enough units to be effective, for them to become a regular bomber or fighter once the battle starts seems anti climactic.

I kind of pictured Gulf War I when the stealth strike planes flew in and wiped out all the sam sites the first night. The AA was firing, at clouds basically, and if there was any damage it was minor. I guess i would have preferred that stealth was more effective.

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