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Mehring, even in the old days of losing up to 5k planes it was always possible to find more than enough level bombers to conduct interdiction and partisan supply missions. There's a ton of slack here.

Recon planes, granted, are a something of a chokepoint, but I've always managed to scrounge up enough of them to cover the front in 41. I don't need to fly a crazy number of recon missions to get a good idea where the panzers are, this is nearly always fairly obvious in 1941, as they tend to be committed to the front almost continually. I also picket the German line aggressively and put a zoc on everything which gives you plenty of intel.

The other category where the Red Air Force is critically short in is tactical bombers. But this doesn't matter much because ground support is effectively useless for the Red Air Force in 1941. This is simply baked into the code. (Pieter and I have tested this and gotten the same results, ground support in 41 just doesn't work. It will never fly more than a handful of planes at a time and these tend to get shot out of the sky. Only in 1942 does this hard coded disorginization go away.) Therefore you should pull those out and wait until 1942 to fly any ground support whatsoever.

Possibly I do things differently than other Soviet players. I disband airfields aggressively and mostly just leave 3 per front. The Soviet Union has so many air regiments that it's easy to fill the remaining airbases up in 1941, leave a healthy number in reserve, and cycle reinforcements into the airbases as on map air assets wear out. This is true even with the old and vastly inflated first turn losses.

Given this, I always welcomed the Luftwaffe wasting air assets on bombing missions beyond a certain point, as it will accelerate my ability to upgrade the Red Air Force. I've long wondered why more Axis players don't keep some air miles unused for interdiction at the end of the surprise turn. That would be a lot nastier than running up the score on airbases.

Flavius, possibly, it's difficult to say given the shifting relations with each patch.

I guess my old airfield bombing tactics are void now, but I'm getting a few kill results daylight bombing corps HQs (only t3 and NBAPs aren't yet ready to fly). I'm aware the Russians tended to bomb from too high and very inaccurately in 1941 but 150-200 dead on a game mission is not unusual and it's taking out a good number of attached heavy guns, also even larger numbers of disrupted supports. Not sure it has the logistical effect it should and no surprises there, but planes are flying and hitting targets, particularly the heavies.

Interdiction, I can't tell if it reduces enemy MP, something I could really do with in my current game. Could make or break it as I'm struggling even to evacuate armaments.

I usually only disband airfields if I sense a lack of support squads, preferring to spend the APs on sapper and AA battalion disbands and respective regiment builds. Come August 41 most airfields have always been well occupied or used for staging. So no, I haven't tried your strategy there.

Flavius, I apologize if seemed to say anything adverse concerning your posts. I have incorporated essentially all your insights into my Soviet play style. Your suggestions have saved me months of floundering. I play both sides and I am a WITE fanboy.

Using Airborne HQs to control Div Artillery contributing 24 CV each since all their Para units were converted to Guard Infantry is allowed. OK. I get it.

However, playing Axis, and although I would love to combine the I,II,III,IV Light chinese new year nebelwerfer celebration companies I can't.

The Germans did make an artillery division by disbanding the 18th panzer division and turning it into the 18th artillery division.