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I've read some of the other threads regarding how to deal with fixing the Soviet Air Force in a '41-'45 GC. I've followed the advice by placing everything in the national reserve; the question is, what should I do next?

I don't know very much about which Soviet planes are good/bad either, which makes things more difficult.

1) When I'm assigning air units back to bases from the national reserve, should I only try to assign groups that are close to 100%? Some groups are very short on working planes, so my thinking is that it's best to leave them in the reserve until they are closer to full strength. Or should I just move everything out of the national reserve and into air bases?

2) Should I only assign groups that have obsolete planes? I've seen some other people say that they prefer to save their good air units for later, so they aren't chopped up by the Luftwaffe too early in the summer of '41.

If you have the 1.03 patch the air units in the reserve should be repairing.

The size of the air units is large when the war begins then they get chopped down to 10 for battalions and 20 for regiments for awhile, so you should have plenty of units near full size after resting in the reserve.

Some people are happy to have their old Soviet fighters get chewed up; personally I think that gives free kills for the opponent and helps them increase their fighter unit experience levels without paying a price.

What about specific planes? Is there any good information about which planes are obsolete and which aren't at the start of the war? The manual gives no help whatsoever regarding equipment.

Randalw had this to say when I asked the question at one point in time:
A quick review of Soviet planes:

ORIGINAL: randallw

A quick review of Soviet planes:

Anything with an 'I' to begin the name is outdated

Decently modern fighters to begin the game are the Yak-1, Mig-3, LaGG-3; these are replaced with Yak-9 family, La-5 family, and there are lend lease P-39s and 40s

Older bomber types are TB-3, DB-3, SB-2; I wouldn't call them horrible but their production gets phased out after not too long a time; the TB-3 isn't made at all

The IL-2 will be the mainstay for the Soviet tac bomber force, produced in mass numbers; there's also a decent amount of lend lease B-25s and A-20s

ORIGINAL: Zoetermeer

What about specific planes? Is there any good information about which planes are obsolete and which aren't at the start of the war? The manual gives no help whatsoever regarding equipment.

The Yak-3, La-7 are the best fighters, if memory serves. But they're late war models.

The R+D for Soviet bombers wasn't so good; a bunch of the bombers are outdated as the war begins, and most of the ones in mass production during the war, the U-2VS and famed IL-2 ( Shturmovik ), are short range.

Early on you may want to try deploying air units beyond the range of German fighters ( the Bf 109 is about 15-20 hexes, the Fw 190 a little more ).

Thanks for the fighter info. I forgot I had read that before.

Whilst we are on the airforce topic I will add some of my relevant findings.

As per the manual assign transport aircraft to V V S bases for night partisan resupply missions

Note assigned transports from the national reserve come already toggle to night missions

I will now only use the U-2 transport as they are readily available, the operational losses are too high for C47 etc

I will reserve the high payload >2000 load capacity transports for airborne troop delivery

Be careful when assigning aircraft to a base

Although they can hold 9 groups they sometimes will not have enough support for all the aircraft

Support is max at 250. You can view this in the airbase detail window.

Note this total doesn't update when aircraft are assigned or removed from the airbase, you must check the next turn for the updated support/support need total

The lack of support is especially felt at level bomber bases, as I guess they need more maintenance

Failure to keep support requirement within limit will lead to aircraft being shown in reserve status or damaged

Versus the AI you can ambush recently isolated troops resupply flights by assigning fighter to night missions, these easy kills are great for getting higher experience

Due to the AI's obsession with bombing Leningrad I upped my fighter intercept in the air doctrine screen to 180. This figure only seems to equate to a higher fighter scramble

For a 33 fighter 40 bomber airfield attack I was scrambling 84 fighters with this setting and getting good results plus I had a ton of flak there on the locked Air HQ

Really...i've never seen the AI bomb a city yet.

Remember that airborne divisions can't be dropped, just the brigades. [:(]

The computer will first utilize transport and level bomber air group units set to night missions and attached to VVS type air base units
(8.2.1). If those night mission enabled air group units attached to VVS air base units are not
sufficient to meet the partisan needs, then transport and level bomber air group units set to
night missions and attached to DBAD, AD DD, GAD DD, and GDBAD air base units may be
selected by the computer to also transport supplies to partisan units.