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GA can heavy damage a unit or supply base/railway etc. It's a very useful method for both sides. I don't really understand why you care so much about this problem. Some units may hurt but most of them are healthy. In fact, I see GA as a balanced strategy for Blitzkrieg. The land battle formula has increased the battle loss a lot. In many battles, the German army only suffered quite a few losses, but achieved very great results. I think it is exaggerated as much as the air interception probability. I haven't bombed your rear railway so far just to keep your supply system unblocked during the clean day in 1941. Therefore, I think the current practice is fair: I just choose bombing the unit in front of my eye, especially when I need to help my troops break through.
By the way, I carry enough escort(more than 70 per fly) every time whether the air interception happened or not.

Since you have asked I will explain the impact of massed GA.
Massed GA is not a bug, it has been in the game since the beginning. It is in my opinion a design flaw as it is totally unrealistic, however for now it is part of the game.
There are bugs with AS interception and auto-intercept which means the Soviets can bomb units on the front line free from the risk of interception. That is the best and most effective use of GA, especially if followed up by a ground attack. The way you have been playing would not have worked without those bugs, you could have got some GA in outside fighter cover but many of the attacks would have been intercepted.
I don't have past data as this is a server game, and the current turn Gundam has not done much bombing. However the previous turn Axis losses because of GA were roughly 1/3 of total combat losses for the turn. Most significant were about 60 Panzers lost directly to GA or damaged and then retreat losses.

1. Allows the Soviets to seriously damage 1-3 units a turn that then then be pushed back in ground combat when they might otherwise have held. Thus breaking pockets which has happened a few times in this game.
2. Axis have to make their pockets more secure to protect against the above, so there is an indirect effect here too.
3. Serious damage to Panzer/Mot units that they need to REFIT on a depot to recover from, thus putting them out of the game for 1 or more turns. I had one Mot division that lost half it's trucks, I think to GA but am not sure. It had 7 MPs two turns later as a result, so not from the bombing directly but because of the lack of trucks.
4. Axis have about 60 AA Battalions worth deployed forwards, that is roughly the equivalent of 4 divisions, many motorised, that are drawing supplies which would have otherwise gone to ground combat troops.
5. By taking up slots the AA SUs are stopping Axis deploying combat SUs to those units.
6. Casualties inflicted. Not that significant, especially as Axis have a glut of manpower during this period of the game. Over a full game they would add up, how much is hard to estimate. Panzer losses have happened on a few turns and that has likely more impact.

We don't know how significant the intercept bugs are to the game, that is way too complicated to calculate or even estimate. There are individual small or moderate impacts that have a knock on effect to the following turn, and then the turn after that and so on.

Having reflected on this, we have not been in agreement about the use of GA for some time now. I am not going to continue with the game.
The Soviets have won, Gundam has played a strong game and to be fair to him the issues with GA were there when we started the game so it was my mistake to start a game under those circumstances.
Will post the recorded moves below, Axis are on 632 VPs at the start of T13. They would need to take 5 out of 6 of Kalinin, Rzhev, Ryzam, Tambov, Voronezh and Rostov by T16 and that is not going to happen.
Have been pushing the advance in the hope of getting a sudden death victory in '41 because long term in this game Axis have no chance. T13 the Soviets cut off a good bit of the over extended 3 Pg and were also beginning to counter attack around Pskov but really the result has been clear for a few turns now.
I wish Gundam good fortune in his future games.
I am going to take a break from WITE2 for a while until at least some of the issues with the air war have been resolved.

T10.
Heavy Soviet GA.

Baltics. Gone static.
Pg4. Left spearhead towards Rzhev. Right spearhead pockets one division that was left behind.
Pg3. Cross the river below Orel, otherwise resting.
Pg2. Soviets have retreated, advancing towards Kharkov
Pg1. Continue towards Stalino. Clear the Crimea.
Not much combat this turn, mostly following up and resting.

T11.
Pg4. Another small advance towards Rzhev.
Pg3. Pocket Orel and break out towards Tula. It is all a bit fragile and over extended.
Pg2. Pocket Kharkov. Loose pocket, can hopefully seal it next turn.
Pg1. Clear the last of the Crimea.
Got blasted by the VVS near Stalino last turn which has blunted the offensive there.

T12
Pg4. up to Rzhev.
Pg3. just advancing into empty space.
Pg2. seal off the pocket from last turn, not sure if it will hold.
Pg1. Rebuilding mostly, just the one attack.
Took Tula, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov & Stalino this turn. However the prognosis for the campaign is not looking good. The Kerch bug has hurt me, with 3 Corps intending to cross there and now counter marching back towards Stalino. The blunted offensive at Stalino last turn has cost a lot of progress too.

I am going to take a break from WITE2 for a while until at least some of the issues with the air war have been resolved. -tyronec

As always a joy to see what Tyronec can do with the Axis. I hope your absence is brief.

In my ‘41 GC as Soviet it seems that GA for the Soviets doesn’t do much, except for the Sturmoviks, which operate like A-10 Warthogs in a European edition of The Final Countdown.

I tried splitting up some ADs grouping like planes in each AD to compare results.

The sturmoviks seem to be worth more than all the other aircraft the Soviets have combined when it comes to GA.
I imagine as that air fleet grows the problem would be exacerbated.
Maybe detune the lethality of that platform a little and see how it affects results?

Here is the bombing situation about 13th Panzer division in T10. I use two air missions to do it.

You can see I put many bomber and fighter.

Here is the Panzer divison's original force. With some battle loss already.

Finally, 13th Panzer division was rout by land combat.

The following picture is a test which I use Ju87 bombing the front line unit. You can see 100% air intercept by Soviet. So about tyronec said the GA issue won't gonna happen in this situation that the bombing hex is near to the airfield.

ORIGINAL: gundam1985

Here is the bombing situation about 13th Panzer division in T10. I use two air missions to do it

The actual losses from that bombing don't look too bad. That is a total of 1206 bomber-missions, and it only destroyed 2 guns (0 AFVs) and killed 292 men. So basically, only every 4th bomber killed a single enemy soldier.

What does have an impact is when they are bombed, the German Panzer units can lose a lot of MP, up to 1/3 of their MP or so. And because of units being disrupted, they are more vulnerable to counterattack.

I think Seminole is right to distinguish between IL-2s and the level bombers - I have definitely noticed the same thing, IL-2s do wayyyy more damage than level bombers (which do hardly anything at least in terms of the direct damage).

There are some damage elements doesn't show in the image, the bombing also cause lots of disrupting so that they can't get into battle this turn. When you look out the land combat, 13th Panzer division drop all the damage equipment so that one battle cause the heavy loss.

The Soviet had cut off two infantry regiments and move forward near Pskov in T12. It seems that no enemy behind the defensive line.

The Soviet also cut off the many Panzer/Motorized divisions in center, it's a disaster to Axis.

Il-2 can be quite lethal in '41 already for what I remember in the few games that got that far to see them in action.
By lethal I mean destroying 1-5 panzers per bombing run.
The problem is that they can spam also the bombing runs.

Another issue I feel - as Tyronec mentioned also the AA SUs - is that when a unit attack the Flak SU takes quite some damage as if attacking directly in the frontlines with its guns...

The front line unit carry some AA SU, which are standard equipment in history even in today's war. IL-2 is a powerful weapon as the same as JU-87. When you plan a battle, you must consider air defense as an important option, rather than blindly going deep into Soviet territory at no cost. Actually, the air war is very similar to WITW. In that game, if you choose the Axis, you will be crushed by the Allied air force

ORIGINAL: gundam1985

The Soviet had cut off two infantry regiments and move forward near Pskov in T12. It seems that no enemy behind the defensive line.

Definitely playing with fire regarding reserves left in AGN. I guess the mech went to help AGC?

ORIGINAL: gundam1985

The Soviet also cut off the many Panzer/Motorized divisions in center, it's a disaster to Axis.

Nice pocket, although the forces are there to fix things immediately, I'd look upon that as nuisance, not a disaster.

More intriguing to me is that the German FBD is about two weeks from connecting the double track line to Tula. I wonder if Tyrone sees the same 'Road to Moscow' that I do...