GAME MANUAL - Steam

HEARTS OF IRON DARKEST HOURcan only soften up thedefences to assist advancingland forces.RebaseThis order reassigns asquadron to a new air base.As mentioned above, the basedoes not need to be withinthe squadron’s range. Asquadron will move to the newbase location via a route thatdoes not enter enemy orneutral air space, though thesquadron could be interceptedwhile it is moving to its newlocation.Air CombatModifiersOverviewAir combats are resolved inmuch the same way that landcombats are resolved, anduse a virtually identical combatdetails screen. There is a timelimit of five hours placed onthe combat due to the rangelimitations of the aircraft. Oncethey have exhausted theirlimit, they will return to theirbase to recuperate for the nextsortie.Remember that a squadroncannot capture a province andVisibilityJust as naval vessels can bedifficult to spot and intercept,the same is true of aircraft.Just because two opposingsquadrons occupy the sameair space does not mean thatthey will necessarily engageone another. Visibility isgreatly affected by weatherand time of day. The same istrue of squadrons that have amission to attack navalvessels, and so they will notbe able to carry out theirattack unless they successfullydetect their target.Weather and Time of DayEffects on Air CombatIf a force manages to spot anenemy in adverse conditions,it will probably enjoy quite anadvantage of surprise.However, these conditions aregenerally very poor or nearlyimpossible for air-to-aircombat and will usually endfairly inconclusively.Remember that squadrons areunable to fly sorties if their airbase is currently under stormor blizzard conditions. Thereare some technologies thatwill improve your night-fightingcapabilities which that mightgive you a significant advantagewhen tangling with theenemy at night. Otherwise, Iwould recommend that youuse the mission parametersinterface’s feature to limitsorties to be conductedduring daylight hours.TargetingWhile intercepting andengaging enemy aircraft maybe difficult in adverse weatherconditions or at night, it isequally disruptive to aircraftthat are conducting bombingmissions against provincial ornaval targets, since they willhave great difficulty locatingand effectively attacking theirobjectives. Until you haveresearched advanced nightbombing and radar technologies,you would be welladvised to restrict yourcampaigns to the daylighthours. No matter howadvanced your technology,bombing missions carried outin bad weather will rarely beworth the cost of the fuel149