@HardLuck: I'm not advocating unescorted German bomber missions if that is what you are reading into what I wrote
. Plus 9 times out of 10 the Germans really doesn't need much ground support in early 41 if you are conducting your ground campaign correctly. The whole point is to use the German Airforce wisely and keep the Soviet Fighter arm with very little experience.
A very interesting statement.
I think the Luftwaffe should be available for ground support throughout '41, and to a lesser extent '42. Not everywhere and not all the time, but certainly to start with the Luftwaffe should be dominant. If they are not needed then it is the ground war that needs rebalancing, hopefully over time we will see how that balance is working out with the latest patch in place.
If you are advocating not taking on the Soviet fighter force to keep them with low experience then to what purpose; are you expecting to start ground support bombing later in the game (late '41 or perhaps '42) or do you want to be able to fly more effective CAP later into the game ?
I don't understand why this would work because surely the Soviets can gain experience by flying aggressive tactics throughout '41 and build up experience that way, but perhaps there is something I don't understand about how it works.
And surely if the Axis can't provide good ground support for the first half of '41 what chance have they got later in the game when the Soviets can deploy greatly increasing numbers of air craft ?
Am assuming in all the above that the Soviets will use best aggressive tactics to fatigue Axis fighters and bomb airbases in an effective manner.
In any case, I think it is wrong that air groups can gain experience from being shot down in large numbers. Of course if Axis heavily fatigue their fighters and the Soviets get some easy air-to-air kills then fair enough, experience gain is appropriate.
