TW Axis Air OBs

Draft by Jason Long

5 August 01

Rules:

A number of units are required to return to their national territory at various times. These units do not pay any ARPs if they are eliminated or aborted. These units, except for Romanian units, are then out of play for the duration of the game.

Germany

Hungary:

Romania

Slovakia:

Order of Battle Notes:

The recently published photo-history of Zerst�rer Geschwader 1 comes with a detailed loss listing that reveals that the vast bulk of its aircraft were Me 110Es, with a sprinkling of earlier D and C models and I'm presuming much the same for ZG 26 in this OB. It does also confirm that no Me 210As were sent to the East during the TW period. Küstenfliegergruppe 506 deploys to Riga with Ju 88s for about three weeks in September and October, but this is far too short a period to be worth representing directly.

I was surprised to learn that the Ju 88A4 wasn't in general service during Barbarossa and can't pin down exactly when it began deliveries to units. Therefore I've presumed that all Ju 88s were A1 models as they were for KG 54, for which I have a detailed loss listing that reveals when its Gruppen were converted. This was during redeployments back to Germany and so I've presumed the same for all Ju 88 units doing the same. So, for now, I just ignored any conversions for units that didn't leave the theater. I'm hopeful that I'll receive better info on these units shortly.

A similar problem exists for tracking the conversion from Me 109F1 to F3, but I have slightly more confidence in these than I do for the Ju 88s, but changes are still possible and even probable as I receive information on JG 51 and 54.

The foreign contingent counter represents two staffeln of Spanish and Croatian fighters and a Croatian bomber staffel. The departure of the first Spanish contingent reduces it below representation, but their replacement and the addition of a Slovak unit guarantees its return in Total Victory.

There's about half a counter's worth of Hs 123 biplanes present for most all of the TW period, but I lumped it in with the attack version of the Me 109E to help justify that unit's TBF of 2. The Me 109 unit had previously operated the Hs 123 and never received fighter training, just like the Stuka pilots who ended up flying Fw 190s later in the war.

The Luftwaffe Schools rule is based on the transport units that supported the Demyansk and Kholm pockets that weren't retained in regular service afterwards. The majority of those that participated in the airlift were indeed retained on operations and I didn't penalize the Luftwaffe any further for them since the consequent loss of flying instructors is built into the Luftwaffe's ability to replace multi-engined pilots.

Finland:
I deleted all the ex-Soviet aircraft from the OB because I feel the current OB, from AWW, grossly overstates their impact on the equipment levels of the Finnish Air Force. They never were the sole equipment of any large Finnish unit and were often used in roles that Europa ignores like photo reconnaissance. I thought it best that they be subsumed into the ARP rate. Details are available elsewhere if anyone is interested.

I was hesitant to replace the G.50 with the Hawk 75 as the former stays in service for quite a long time, but in ever dwindling numbers. But the Hawk starts off with only a small number initially available and German deliveries of captured French and Norwegian machines greatly increase its importance to the Finns.

I broke out the equipment supplied by the Germans during the war separately in case any one wished to play with Finnish neutrality. If this is the case then the Germans generally ought to be able to use it themselves. However, this is not true during this period as most everything is either not in German service or going out of it. Conceivably it could have been diverted to other allies like Romania or Croatia, but probably not in quantities enough to make a difference, except for, maybe, MS.406s to Croatia. In the longer run this should happen as front-line aircraft are sent to the Finns and could have easily proven useful to the Germans or their allies.

Hungary:
The Hungarians commited small numbers of aircraft to Barbarossa. As best I can figure, the Hungarians deployed no more than 20 fighters and 24 bombers in Russia for the campaign season. They were a mix of CR.42 and Re 2000 fighters and Ca.135bis and Ju 86K bombers in roughly equal proportions, with the bombers outnumbering the fighters. Really you should have a mixed type A counter to reflect the variety actually committed, but I prefer the player to have the option of picking what he'd prefer. A counter for each of the main types flown by the Hungarians is a bit generous, but I doubt anybody is going to quibble too much.

CR.32s flew escort missions over Russia during July, but never based there. Hence the ability to fly another unit over Russia. And the restriction from using two bombers is to prevent players from abusing the situation by basing the Ca.135 in Hungary and the Ju 86 in Russia to fly GS missions.

Italy
The Italians commited one large gruppo of MC.200s and a regular-sized gruppo of Ca.311s to Barbarossa, but the latter has too few aircraft to rate a counter.

Romania:
See my comments in my draft OB for the entire Romanian armed forces for FitE.

Slovakia:
I had an article on the Slovak Air Force in issue 13 of Axis Europa so I'll be brief. The Slovaks committed around 30 each of B.534s and S.328s to the campaign in 6 squadrons. One fighter squadron never left Slovakia and only flew over the Soviet Union and all but one of each had returned by the end of August. A counter for each of these types is exceedingly generous when the combined total is only slightly over that for one counter. That's why I'd be happy to combine these with the Hungarians if they didn't hate each other so much. Instead I've come up with what is essentially a fragile rule for these air units to they don't hang around very long at all.

In the long term the Slovaks realize they can't support 6 squadron-sized units and downsize to a level below representation in Europa. On active operations in 1942 they only have one squadron of B.534s supporting their Security Division and one squadron of Me 109Es under German command. The former isn't worth bothering about and the latter should be shown as part of the foreign contingent fighter counter in my opinion. In the FtF reprint John Astell gives counters for this peculiar mix instead.

Return to Europa OBs.
Return to Sturmvogel.