On the point of closer airfields to encourage furballs etc. It always seemed to me that the wide scattering of airfields, towns, factories, ports, vehicle hangars and all is neither realistic or conducive to enabling major battles. After all in real life towns, factories and airfields are grouped together by their very nature. New York, Paris, Rome, LA, Ok not LA bad example. In AH we have the capital somewhere in the mountains, a port somewhere miles from the nearest airfield, factories dispersed God knows where. VH's up the side of some bloomin' mountain.
My idea would be to cluster them all together, or some of them anyway. The capital should be defended by airfields, say three or four or five mutually supporting with the radar factory, possibly on the coast near the port and a couple of satellite towns nearby. Troop barracks, fuel and all the rest of the would soon build into a major metropolis. There could be one or more of these megapolis (megapoli?) in each country as in real life set back perhaps from the front lines. But one big city based around the capital.
The advantages of this as I see it would be to to draw in participants into a major fall of Berlin type scenarios. Obviously the enemy would have to take the big city to win the war. This can be done in a number of ways.
Strategic raids by bombers escorted by flocks of fighters. Bombers really are underused in the MA. This would encourage their use in the way intended as strategic weapons. Throughout any war the city would have to be reduced even if the front lines were miles away. It would be a tough nut to crack with massive flak defences too. This would avoid those big overwhelming Jabo raids. Formations would have to fight their way in and out.
Meanwhile the normal attritional attacks on the rest of the country could go on gradually working closer and closer to the megapolis. The trinity map would be ideal for this as it's large size would allow the capital to be set well back and give a focus to the war.
Eventually the enemy would be at the gates and a major battle would ensue. With mutually supporting airfields around the capital it would be less easy to smack down one field in a vulch fest when you can up from a nearbly field and tackle the intruders.
I think this or a variation could satisfy everyone. The buffs would get their moment in the sun. Strategy afficionados could make their plans and the furball fans would get all the targets they want. If the big city is on the coast the CV heads can get involved too with maritime landings.
One of the irritations for me is the relatively scattered and unfocussed attacks going on all over the map. Many is the time I've chopped and changed looking for the action only to find it's all gone away by the time I get there. This would allow everyone to know to see what the war is about. The road to Bishopton, or Rooklyon or Knightsbridge.
What do you think?????
