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This seems to be something left over from WIR where you could only fly one direct mission per air group per week.  Given the damage that single mission can inflict on a target that is acceptable.  Ground attack missions in combat resolution can fly as much as the plane has available range, and seeing 200 bombers show up over your division is a sure sign it will be retreating in the combat even if only a company of boy scouts with butter knives are attacking.

Manually selecting (shift right click) works well enough.  I would not want to worry about the details beyond that.  I have also played WitPAE and managing the whole strike package thing gets old very fast, and represents a significant learning curve as the documentation to describe what altitude produces what sort of attack (glide bombing or dive bombing or level bombing or strafing) is not very clear.  Plus all the other considerations "bounce", mission altitude for escorts or CAP, etc etc etc.

The key point is that planes will fly ground support under AI control and the rest is gravy.  What is not so clear is what settings you should use for your doctrines, I'm tempted to go to 25% to fly, and 100% for every other setting with air superiority set to 120-150%.  I currently have the numbers significantly lower but seeing only 2-6 bombers flying on a ground support mission is probably not worth it.

With all the rest of what you have to do the air war is the last thing you need added on top of everything other thing.  Plus the Luftwaffe in 41 will muster strikes of 200+ bombers so it isn't only the VVS that can do that sort of thing.

Plus the Luftwaffe in 41 will muster strikes of 200+ bombers so it isn't only the VVS that can do that sort of thing.

Certainly, but they're not as devastating as the VVS later on when supporting ground combat. The main thing the Luftwaffe's really good at is interdiction, but that can be costly in terms of planes as you can't select what kind of unit types to interdict, so if you're unlucky they'll try to interdict some air base or HQ loaded with AA support units.

The key point is that planes will fly ground support under AI control and the rest is gravy. 

This really is the main thing. Both of these nations had primarily tactical airforces and their respective air forces were very much the handmaiden of their armies. The air element just wasn't as predominant in this theater as in the pacific.

There are some legitimate issues with the air model and it can do some odd things and the dev team is continuing to tweak it. But it's never going to play like WitP nor should it.

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak

There are different levels of enjoyable Hell everyone finds for themselves; micromanaging every air strike on the Eastern Front for 4 years is a place I will never visit. Micromanaging one player directed strike on a ground unit/week/air group and letting the rest be abstracted is a fine compromise between playability and insanity. Choose your airstrikes and other one time/week missions wisely and be done with it.

I'm with Marquo on this, but I've never played WITP, where I understand you can assign blond,left handed pilots over 6ft tall to missions and tell them to fly at 28325.66 ft. So for WITP players coming to WITE and not having that level of control, must be very hard to adjust to.

Not if you're Japanese. They don't get blond pilots. [:'(]