A thought on hordes:
Counter them. The Germans attacked Britain with a horde. The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor with a horde. The allied 1000 bomber raid on Hamburg was an uber-horde...Desert Storm... and on...and on...
Here are two ways to counter them:
1) You organize large defensive fighter hordes. In the BOB, Leigh-Mallory experimented with the "big wings" of three to five squadrons of fighters - 36 to 60 aircraft. Pros: Air superiority, likelihood of disproportionatiely high kills to casualties Cons: Difficultly in getting organized/inflexibility. Aces High applicability: Well, a fighter force could be held on standby waiting for news of a horde. It would require the commitment of many pilots to hang out in the tower waiting for the word. It would require those same pilots to subordinate themselves to the mission commander so that the thing could be organized effectively. Conclusion: Unlikely to pull this off in AH
2) You organize squads into defensive fighter squadrons. In the BOB, Dowding was a critic of the big wings and an advocate of squadron-sized intervention. He cited flexibility as the main benefit. Pros: Large enough group to influence a horde, small enough for flexible deployment Cons: It's hard to get anyone to be disciplined in AH (unless it's FSO). Aces Hight applicability: In AH several of the larger squads regularly fly together in FSO and practice together. They likely would not object to fighting together in an organized manner. Conclusion: This second alternative is much more feasible. Squads would have to volunteer for horde-busting duty. For it to work most efficiently, there would have to be a nominated strategic commander for the country. However, that's just not going to happen unless it's FSO. So, option 2 would have some effect on the hordes, but would not be organized with enough efficiency to stop them.
Footnote: Certain members of my squad are some of the worst horde offenders. Most (like myself) rarely participate in hordes, though. I'll ask my squad if they would like to try horde busting as a squad in the main arena.
