AI Air Defense

[Wdll]

Yes, but the navy pilots didn't have few million angry Germans shooting at them, did they?
Cause if they used same tactics over land there would be no one left.

[scJazz]

Having been directed to this thread by MobHack...

(NOTE: I tend not to play campaigns in the modern era where clusters, TI, etc mean instant doom to any non-American army)

IMO using Air Sorties is foolish. As Mobhack already pointed out, "Tube and rocket artillery is the most cost-efficient way of delivering bangs on target". The AI would appear to be spending rather large amounts of points on AA assets. OK you could use a single sortie early to identify AA concentrations. Then suppress them with Artillery and finally SEAD them out of existence. Eventually, clearing the way for Air strikes on targets of interest. In a way this makes sense. Unfortunately, I would end up spending far to many points on a goal of suppressing enemy AA when my main plan is to deal with enemy ground pounders.

So, ignore Air Sorties would appear to be the plan. This makes the use of Vietnam era Helicopter gunships suicidal. So that platoon of same that I purchased sits basically unused. Worse, if I manage what looks like I break through exploiting it becomes crazy as hell since AA gun > IFV and even sometimes MBT. So what is a guy to do?