"Attacking" AA Realistic?

[Ron]

I just had an opponent attack me with AA and a few Militia with the sole purpose of damaging my airforce. Looking at the combat results I was suprised to see the AA attacked first, thereby damaging all my airforce. Tac and Strategic bombers take longer to repair then AA so it is a worthwhile and viable tactic, but 'reason' says to me it shouldn't. The scene was Japan/China so I couldn't really base them further back to avoid such a situation. What do others think? Great game but some 'strategies' are so apparent and not something I would have considered from a historical perspective! [:)]



Ron

[hakon]

AA are very simmilar to range 1 fighters in many respects, and a bit too effective (though quite fragile).

A general problem in the game is that all aircraft are included in very battle. If you do an airfield attack against a stack of bombers, for instance, all the bombers will intercept you and try to defend the airspace, being shot down in the process. Should any bombers survive, the attacking fighters are of course pretty useless in the actual bombing run, and will often be shot down by the flak in the area.

I think the game should use some intelligence as to what units are included in a battle, somehow like this:

1. If the enemy has no ground (except flak) or naval units participating in a battle, bombers should not participate in the battle. (They should still be elligable as losses from airfield bombing, though.

2. If the enemy has no aircraft participating, the defender should not include any fighters in the battle.

This can still be abused (by including a single militia or fighter), but at least it helps a little.