A note on the lethal tag.
I am not a fan of lethal land; ever. (Exception, atomic weapons which have their own rules). Why? History shows that there are still survivors/defenders even after the heaviest of bombardments. This happen in WW1 after a position might be shelled for a week straight and it happen in the Pacific in WW2 after the Allies would bomb an island for a month and then shell it with battleships repeatedly. The Marines would come ashore and the Japanese would still offer heavy resistance. In game terms, I have played too many scenarios with lethal land and it just results in a less than satisfactory experience.
For lethal sea, Kly's theory is you hit a ship with enough shells or bombs, it will sink. A torpedo might speed things up, but it is not required. I find it ironic that you would specifically name the Dauntless not to have lethal sea bombardment when that very aircraft was the one that changed the entire war in the Pacific at the battle of Midway. If the US had to depend on torpedo planes in that battle, they would have been big time shafted.
One of the reasons not to go with a "lethal" flag is to keep a unit from being abused in a way not intended. If we had a way of doing it, B19-B24-B29 units would never bombard naval units because they were totally useless. The US tried, but they never hit anything except fish. The Japanese would watch the plane, see it drop bombs and then simply manuver out of the way. The next best thing we could do is not give them lethal sea like the regular carrier planes have. There are some other plane units that fall in this category (no lethal sea) but it is more of a case to note sea attack is not something they did on a regular basis.
I agree that lethal isn´t that fun on land units.
However the "Dauntless-issue" was more to get a grip on this games AI. It´s an issue facing what really happend vs. what the AI/Game programming does. Sadly sometimes very very different.
We can all agree that Lancasters and B-17 would in game be used in close support roles instead of P-47s if these heavy bombers pack a heavier load.
My thought was a little more directed towards this blitz thing for fighterbombers and leave the leathal kill out. Hope the Ai uses more P-47 attacks than B-17s.
Heavy bombers should be strictly strategic and used as such vs cities mostly. Heavies should perhaps have precision bombing and collateral.
So land lethal NO.... Let the infantry and armor clean up.
As said El Justo done a great job in AoI, both in aircraft and powerful ships. But the WW2 era is much more complicated and I´m not sure how the AI will handle the many types of aircraft.
Then I´m much more sure that El Justo and his team have tested out all variants and will produce a killer of a scenario.
My two cent was only to question and discuss the possibility of using blitz in the first case, lethal land could be left out.
BUT then what makes the two very important bombers (torpedo & dive) on carriers differ.
Both the Dauntless and Avenger should be used by the AI. Will it ?
And hey don´t forget that torpedo attacks could be lethal like Taranto and the old Swordfish, so don´t sell torpedo attacks short.
Then surely the AI would probably never understand to send in several dive-bombers to soften up the ship until the torpedo swings in for the final kill.
Me for one would use this as I would landforces, with several artillery pounding the enemy units until they are red. Then the infantry or panzer goes in for the kill.
I thought it sounded good, but I might be totally wrong