Using AA Guns effectively?

[Caesar's Ghost]

I have been playing CMBO for awhile, and now CMBB. My opponents (a couple of old friends who I play by email or TCP/IP) never use aircraft. Last battle against one of them, low and behold about four fighter bombers showed up. A Stuka did some pretty good damage with its bombs, taking out one entire Platoon and shocking 5 tanks, gun damaging 2 of them on one pass with just two bombs. Luckily on the second pass its bombs mostly missed. Therefore, for the next game I bought some 25mm AA guns for the Russians. On my first move I unhid my AA guns, thinking that if an enemy plane flew over that the AA guns might not fire if they were hidden. Instead, they started shooting at advancing enemy infantry, even though I heard a plane fly over. QUESTION: If I hide my AA guns, will they unhide and shoot at enemy airplanes if the enemy airplanes come into their sight? I would hate to lose my AA guns to enemy artillery and mortars before his planes even show up. What are effective AA gun tactics? Thanks for your help!

[Guest Mike]

Unhide them and give them short covered arcs if you don't want them to shoot at ground targets.

[YankeeDog]

In general, if you want to keep your AA guns from engaging/being engaged by enemy ground units, place them so that they'll be unlikely to get LOS to enemy ground units. IOW, put them behind a tree line or row of buildings or whatever - somewhere where they are protected from ground fire, but still have a good view of the sky.

I haven't checked this in CMBB yet, but in CMBO AA units usually would unhide to fire at planes, but I wouldn't rely on this 100%.

Hope this helps,

YD

[Tigrii]

AA Guns always unhide to fire at planes in CMBB, unless suppressed. The problem is that after the aerial engagment is over, the AA gun is unhid and opens fire on ground units, thus disclosing it's position.

[Pud]

What if you place them in the middle of woods so that it has no LOS through the woods in any direction, will it still have LOS "up"? :confused:

[B.B.Toys]

Do AA guns unhide selectively depending on targets? Specifically do smaller calibre guns 20mm-37 mm etc. open up on strafing and diving planes while higher calibre guns, eg., 88mms, work on level bombers etc. only?

[offtaskagain]

Originally posted by BBToys:

Do AA guns unhide selectively depending on targets? Specifically do smaller calibre guns 20mm-37 mm etc. open up on strafing and diving planes while higher calibre guns, eg., 88mms, work on level bombers etc. only?

Heavy Flak does not engage aircraft at all. It simply wasn't done on a CM scale battlefield.

[SgtMuhammed]

Setting AA in woods will severly restrict its LOS. Yes it will be able to see in a narrow cone straight up but not out. What you end up with is about a 2 second window of fire that will only work if the enemy flies directly over the AA unit. The best place to put them is in the open or in scattered trees but shielded by other terrain from the front lines.

Heavy flack wasn't responsive enough to take on fighters and was really only effective against heavy bombers when used in mass. They were a strategic weapon rather than a tactical weapon. In the tactical setting of CM they are there in purely a ground fire role.