A comment by one of the LCA guys in another thread got me thinking. He suggested that flying the LCA stuff was like flying a WW2 mission.
If that's the intent, to fly organized dedicated mission, then why not have an arena that is geared towards that. I'm not trying to be a wiseguy here, the header was the only way I figured I'd get anyone to look if for no other reason then to jump me
So you set up a two side arena with the following that would give it that feel and make it more of a challenge if flying dedicated missions is the key.
-Two sides
-large expanse of water between them (think English channel as an example)
-Heavy bombers only operating from rear bases (They didn't operate on the continent during the war or at the airfield right next door.) No more low level heavies then from the next field.
-Medium bombers at fields slightly closer then the heavies
-Fighters & fighter bombers at forward bases
-Carrier fleets operating in the large open expanse of water.
Obviously the battle will start over the water. Taking one of the other guys fields would involve real organization. Obviously the heavies have to take off earlier and are airborne longer. Fighter sweeps would be in order to get the defending CAP away from incoming bombers and since they'd know the heavies were up the CAP would have time to climb and be prepared for them so the air to air combat would be a factor in protecting those bombers. Guys would need to be willing to fly escort missions where they might not see action just to make sure the bombers got through. Defenses have time to react to the heavies coming across so flattening the airfield would be that much tougher.
Make ground vehicles a part of any capture. This is WW2 after all. LVTs have to get ashore and be a part of the capture, not just paratroops. Once the foothold is made on the other sides continent, Fighters &Fighter bombers can up from that field. The heavies would still be limited to the distant home based fields. Mediums could operate from the continent after a certain number of bases fell on the continent. Have smaller single strip fighter bases to go with larger fields that handle bombers. Once on the other guys continent, then the other ground vehicles have to fight their way to the next field. Obviously you can provide air cover, but it's gonna take time as they have to travel to that next field and may run into enemy armor and fighter bombers.
Throw in weather(Low clouds) so that operating fighter bombers might be tough and there may be places that the GV guys have to fight it out without help from above. Make the terrain tough with natural choke points to force those armor battles.
If the land grab crowd is really serious then make it a challenge where teamwork and coordination is the key.
My guess is though that winning a reset would be a heckuva lot tougher in this kind of environment as carrier fleets would be targeted constantly, and it would take some real coordination and patience to make it happen instead of just overpowering numbers.
