Seriously messed this up

I'm probably not the first to make a mess of a C3 war, but I really hadn't expected that much of a difference between lvl 1 war number 1 and then second lvl 1.

Basically, I took no casualties in the 'training' war so I went into war #2 with the same army: 1 LR div, 2 Off fighters, 2 bomberwings.

I eliminated the enemy airwings with no problems. But the land targets is a different story.

What basically happens is, that bombing attacks on the land targets killed all my bombers and choppers. Plus who knows how many drones.

It should be noted, that the enemy targets have tiny garrisons only (14 to 16 in numbers of weapons). I lose about 200 weapons against their 5 to 10 per attack.

So is land attack any better? Nope.

LR div loses over 300 weapons per attack and can barely damage the enemy targets.

The C3 also has 2 LR divisions, which are close to untouchable. They take very limited casualties and every time I go against them, I lose big numbers of arty and tanks. Basically so many that it takes out all the fighting power after 1 or 2 attacks.

Obviously I'm doing something completely wrong. What is it?

PS: I hadn't spotted that precision bombers along with many other weapons are only available at space trading. This is really nutty, but it means I can't use solutions that involve space traded weapons.

What is the quality of your weapons/ammo?
Also, don't attack enemy land targets, you can win the war without attacking them.

Quality is 120 to 150.

I don't see how I could get 100 points from attacking non-teerestrial targets.

I allready destroyed all there was of air fleets.

I'm not going to destroy industry because their juicy industry is the whole idea of the invasion.

Cities is another option and I did knock a few over allready. But exploting that fully will leave me a country seriously low on population to work the factories I'm in it for.

So what's really left but the enemy armies or forts?

take out all forts for sure, capitol,cities,towns. Attacking armies isnt enough to bring index down.
Thats part of taking a c3, you'll have to rebuild the damage you incur taking the c3

Thanks, but 'take out all forts' is the problem here.

My armies and airforces die in the attack on those forts. The same goes for the cities. They are defended by immortal skeleton crews, it seems.

when I attack forts I hit defense of fort with bombers then I attack target(fort)with bombers or cruise ships

I'm not sure if anything's changed in the last few months, but hitting defenses with Mid Range Missile Batteries and hitting target with Heavy Artillery should work as well. The MRMB should destroy all the weapons in the garrisons, leaving you home-free.

If they are defended by "immortal skeleton crews", I don't know what to say. I would like to say that's impossible, but the way things are supposed to work and the way things actually work are sometimes two very different things.

Unless... the weapons in the defense air wings can be "resupplied" during a war so sometimes you'll need to destroy this resupply as well. This is usually true if the war last maybe a game-week.

OK, now it works! Wth!?

Low losses and easy kills. I wonder what's the difference from yesterday...???

You must note the difference between target defense and the actual target. Attacking the target directly can be far harder than attacking the defences first then the target itself. See Mizores post, it's a 2 stage attack.

You cant successfully and effeciently attack forts from the air without PBs, or any land target for that matter. It was also noted a week or two ago that people were having problems with using drones as a shield for FPs, dunno if that is still the case. Maybe it got fixed during your last battle.

Lastly, yes to mizores post again. Things get resupplied and rebuilt, so always be aware that defensive interceptor wings or heli wings of the C3 can suddenly re-appear unexpectedly. Best way to avoid this is to smash the unit while its actually on the ground, target each one, dont just rely on them being killed in the air when you start your war. Are you sure there aren't defensive helicopter wings floating around? you losses sound like them doing their thing.

I'ld like to know the exact make-up of your wings, do you mix FP with AD or PB? Do you mix your PB wings? Dont use attack wings (of offensive helis and FP) that you see on the war pages. They are not cost efficient. Attack helis are not a favourite weapon, only really useable to beat up small enemy land units.

Oh, and you really need to use much higher quality units to attack.

I'd like to know how to learn the actual controls. How do you actually attack a target?

I don't question your advice, Crafty, but tell me first of all: how can I get hold of PBs?

Any strategy involving these is futile if it requires you to go to game level 5 first...or whatever is required to do space trade.

It seems very cumbersome and demanding to do have to wait with space trading untill I have build my own space center and rented a shuttle or whatever it is (I gave up on understanding the details at this point because there were so many of the prerequisites that I didn't meet anyway).

If you cant get PBs (you could try trading with someone, direct trades dont require space) then dont use an airwing attack strategy is all.

I was just trying to illustrate the best ways of air attack.

Sounds to me, if you were having difficulty with both air and land attacks, then you were attacking the target without taking out the garrisons first, or there were helicopter wings still alive.

I cant remember what world you are on but I can probably sell you a few PBs if you are prepared to set up airwings and upgrade them. Most of my redundant PBs are old and hence low Q.

Yes, you are right, I did attack by air and didn't always attack the garrison defenses first.

Since then I've learned how to attack with groundforces in very economical ways. Especially using jeeps is so cheap it almost makes you cry ;)

And thanks for the offer of PBs. I'm on GR, but I believe you are not(?)

But anyway: I can't afford any PBs atm. I run a deficit profit of 7B so I've stopped buying weapons large style.

I don't want to end up broke when the beginner booster runs out. So I want to achieve a balance before I make any more weapons purchases.

Maybe later?

Im on GR and when you want I will sell you some PB's as well. Usually you can find enough ppl to sell you some 'imported' goodies!

OH, nice. I'll keep that in mind.