Interesting, but I don't think it was actually quite working this way. If I understand correctly that dogfight (which was really more of a WW1 thing and much less of a WW2 thing) is something preliminary which involves every fighter, so the fighters surviving the dogfight are the only ones then also intercepting the bombers (Is there a limited combat round or can only the fighters of one side survive?), I think this is not much simulating WW2 aerial warfare. WW2 aerial warfare was much more linear and mostly consisted in intercepting fighters attacking the bombers while bomber-escorting fighters were attacking the fighters attacking the bombers (often in a punishing role rather than a pre-emptive one) and interceptor-escorting fighters were attacking the fighters attacking the fighters attacking the bombers, this going on then having fighters attacking the fighters attacking the fighters attacking the fighters attacking the bombers, and so on.
Practically, the typical fighter would not engage in dogfight but rather go directly for attacking the bomber (with a number of other fighters behind him and behind one another in a sort of a train) while hoping not to be shot down by the escorting fighters while doing so. After attacking the bomber, the fighter would dive (and make evasive manoeuvrers but mostly just relying on speeding up and getting the hell out in a mostly straight trajectory rather than going in circles like in WW1 dogfights) to try to survive the fighters attacking him while expecting friendly fighters following (escorting) him to attack from behind the fighters which are attacking him from behind.
(I'm not an expert, and this is just based on my general knowledge of WW2, so do not ask me to provide references to prove what I'm saying. Also, if an expert of WW2 aerial warfare comes here and says otherwise, I'm not going to say that I'm necessarily right.)
I would have it working more like this:
Let's assume a normal battle with the attacker having fighters and bombers and the defender also having fighters and bombers. To keep it simple, let's assume for now that there are fighters and bombers and no aircraft which can operate as either.
The attacker decides how many attacking fighters are intercepting (non-modifiable auto-selection to none of them or all of them respectively if the defender has only fighters or if the defender has only bombers). (The non-selected ones are escorting/dogfighting.)
The defender decides how many defending fighters are intercepting (non-modifiable auto-selection to none of them or all of them respectively if the attacker has only fighters or if the defender has only bombers). (The non-selected ones are escorting/dogfighting.)
The attacking intercepting fighters roll dice and one defending bomber is taken as casualty (not removed) for every hit.
The defending intercepting fighters roll dice and one attacking bomber is taken as casualty (not removed) for every hit.
The attacking bombers (comprising the ones taken as casualties) roll dice and one defending intercepting fighter is removed for every hit. Then the attacking bombers taken as casualties are removed.
The defending bombers (comprising the ones taken as casualties) roll dice and one attacking intercepting fighter is removed for every hit. Then the defending bombers taken as casualties are removed.
The attacking non-intercepting fighters roll dice and one defending fighter (either intercepting or not: it does not matter) is removed if it is an intercepting one or taken as casualty (not removed) if it is not an intercepting one for every hit.
The defending non-intercepting fighters (comprising the ones taken as casualties) roll dice and one attacking fighter (either intercepting or not: it does not matter) is removed for every hit. Then the defending fighters taken as casualties are removed.
Every fighter has an "anti-bomber" and "anti-fighter" strength. The former is used for fighters chosen or auto-selected as intercepting and the latter for the rest.
Of course, this is ignoring the jabos, and this is quite unacceptable, but I'm trying to keep it simple. Let's just not forget that rules for allowing fighters to load some bombs or rockets on their wings and/or belly are quite a necessary addition to what I just detailed. The added complexity about that is that such a fighter is able to go back being a fighter any time it wants by just dropping the bombs (though there are limits to this: it will not be as good as a pure fighter) and will most likely do so as soon as it is about to be attacked by other fighters or even as soon as it can see them coming. To some extent, also bombers can get rid of their bombs to defend themselves better and/or avoid going down after being damaged. Of course, you cannot add rules for everything: it will always be a trade-off between complexity and coverage.
This system is completely removing from the table the ability of fighters to prevent interceptors from attacking bombers, and I believe this is fine as such ability is minor. If wanted also to cover cases in which the air superiority of a side is so overwhelming that the other side cannot even get to attack the bombers because its fighters are shot down before reaching them, it would be possible to add an other layer by which you can select fighters as either intercepting or sweeping (The non-selected ones are escorting/dogfighting.). Sweeping fighters attack or defend before any other aircraft and their casualties are removed before starting the interception steps (so that they do not get to fire at bombers at all) but do so at "sweep" strength (which should be set lower - arguably much lower - than the "anti-fighter" strength and the "anti-fighter" strength renamed to "escort" because both "sweep" and "escort" is "anti-fighter").
The other even more minor element is that one may want the bomber fire not to be merely punishing but to have a pre-emptive element, meaning an ability to shot down the fighter before the fighter can have a chance to shot down the bomber or an ability to disrupt the fighter fire so that its chances to shot down the bomber are lower the more effectively the bomber can shot at it. I did not provide for this, and I don't think it's too important to do so. This can be partially done by having the air combat going on for multiple rounds, so that the fighters shot down a round before will not be able to fire at the bomber again or more consistently by splitting the bomber fire between pre-emptive and non-pre-emptive or having a negative support from bomber to fighter, the higher the support the more the bomber is powerful at firing. However, this would also open all the matter that some bombers are much more vulnerable than others because of passive (armour) defence too (for example, a British Avro Lancaster being enormously inferior to a B-17 both as a matter of fire-power and as a matter of armour so much so that having the Avro Lancaster doing the bombers-only day-time bombings which the B-17 performed would have been suicidal).
Good post, and I see you've put solid thought into this. Nevertheless I'm going to disagree with some of what you've written.
Erich Hartmann was the highest scoring ace in history. During WWII, he shot down 352 Allied aircraft, almost all of which were Soviet. Of those, 260 were fighter-type aircraft, and 92 were ground attack aircraft. I do not believe that the dogfight was a relic of WWI.
In early 1944, Doolittle ordered American fighters to fly ahead of the stream of strategic bombers. This allowed American fighters to engage in dogfights with German fighters before German fighters could engage with American bombers. The earlier tactic was for American fighters to fly close escort. That led to the situation you described, where German fighters would attack American bombers before the escorting fighters could engage. If the American fighters are flying ahead of the bomber stream, you could say that in your proposed rules this is a "sweep" mission. While the Doolittle order may have been a sweep mission as your rules envision such, American fighters did not dogfight at a reduced combat value, and experienced no sweep mission penalty.
That stuff aside, my main point is this. A player's attention and clicks are a limited resource. Almost always, I will choose a good solution that consumes, say, 20 units of that resource, instead of a perfect solution which consumes 100 units. The difference between good and perfect almost never justifies the consumption of those 80 additional units.
Your system requires mission assignment. If I understand correctly, fighters are either intercepting, non-intercepting, or sweeping. Your system also has weapons loading, to where fighters can be loaded up with bombs, and where dive bombers or torpedo bombers can dogfight better after they've dropped their bombs or torpedoes. This is an increase in complexity, and an increase in the player's investment in attention and clicks. There's a time and a place for an approach like that.
There's a lot of stuff I've deliberately rejected for this map because I wanted to avoid bogging the player down in details. No terrain effects. No winter turns. No oil. No materials. No supply lines. I've chosen to say no to a lot of things, driven by my view that the player's attention and clicks are very finite. I need to be parsimonious in how that finite resource is expended. The reason I've maxed out my weekly Claude usage for four weeks straight is largely due to my wish to make the interface simpler. Fewer clicks. Easier to understand. Less time per turn so the game flows faster.
