A horde isn't a horde....It's a MISSION. They flew missions in WW2 if im not mistaken. 1 person can't take a base. I often ask people if anyone wants to take a base with me, It's possible to take one with only 5-6 people. But anyways, I asked and sometimes get about 20-25 people. So it's not a horde to be mean, It's a tactic to take a base, sometimes by accident 
No a mission is a group with assigned duties to carry out. Telling everyone bomb the crap out of the base and town and then drop troops isn't a plan, nor a mission. Most likely half the guys will get there and seeing as everything has already had the crap blown out of it not be able to complete there mission.
So it up to you to NOT encourage the horde by pointing all of your volunteers at one target which you KNOW is over kill as you stated that you only NEED 5-6 to capture a base. So why not split your force and send 10 to capture a V base, and the other 15 to capture an airfield? You still have twice the numbers YOU believe you need. You have cut down a horde, you have created two fights, and more fun for both friend and foe alike.
I totaly agree with your leadership ethics there.
But I don't think I agree with the first part about paper bags or lemmings. A natural horde* will almost always have players of all skill levels in it.
The bit I think I fail to see the relevance of the most is the fact that the players skill level depicts what they are allowed to do in the game.
Furballing (or indeed, any aspect of the game) is for everyone. There is no skill requirement or fighting style requirement to be allowed to furball. Not being able to fight out of a wet paper bag is no reason to do anything but fly the game how you like. So I fail to see what you expect the 'skilless' to do about the horde issue. Leadership is a far better way of dictating how the MA gameplay works. I like your point there.
*natural horde - a horde that forms without someone posting a mission for base capture.
I agree with what your saying, a furball is a different animal all together tho. Furbals or to use your term natural hordes form away from bases, and sometimes get pushed back to one base of the other as the numbers dwindle on one side. They rarely have any damage done to the town as nobody, or very few even think about a capture.
No the hordes I'm talking about are those with the expressed purpose of doing nothing but capturing a base in the quickest and easiest way possible. The hordes that have 30-40 people circling the base at less than 5k, half of them heavy waiting for someone to drop the troops.
The reason we have hordes like that is that a large portion of the AH player base would actually like to fly in a group and have some goals. Do I think that the horde attracts newbies and players with less experience? Yes, of course it does - and I don't think that is a bad thing. Online games are about INTERACTION - if people want to fly in an endless air-spawning instant furball, they might as well go get a playstation. The more friends you make, the more squads you fly missions with, the more likely it is that you might actually stay around beyond two weeks.
The horde now seems to meander about randomly. Why? Perhaps because the maps have NO strategic points that need to be guarded / actually mean anything. In the past, when you had maps with strategic zone bases, I thought that the action picked up quite nicely as you got near to taking one.
The solution to what to do vs a horde is the same as it ever was - just pork the troops at all the bases they can use to support their advance. It doesn't take a lot of guys to do it, and it takes guys away from the horde if they have to continually resupply.
There is nothing wrong with flying as a group, the group on the other hand doesn't NEED to be 30-50 strong. Like Hitech said once people running in squads that by-pass the squad limit of 32 by having extra wings couldn't name everyone in the squad without reading them off a list. You can only make so many friends at a time. The same goes for these hordes, cut them in half, switch up the groups on each successive missions and everyone gets to fly with everyone.
Killing troops is like when they could pork fuel to 25% it just kills the fight, or moves it. I love seeing missions, why would any one want to stop them from happening? Missions are fun to defend against, and participate in. Like I said a mission has goals, purpose, and directives. A horde just steam rolls with the only direction "XX base is next"
I'm saying obviously it must be fun for them otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
Sure it was fun to finger paint, then someone taught me to use a brush, and guess what, now it's a LOT MORE fun!
