Slitherine

The thing that i am pondering is that initiative on fighters doesn't matter if you simply use them for escort roles. This is because they always get the first shot when defending another unit that is being attacked. And as your fighters are never attacked directly by enemy fighters (at least not in my experience so far up to mid ‘42), I think initiative doesn’t matter if you just use them in this defensive role. So in comparing the 109E with the 109F, although its initiative is much lower, its air attack is higher. Therefore my understanding is that the 109E will do more damage when defending surrounding units from being attacked and is therefore better in this passive defensive role, rather than the 109F. So its probably worth having a mix of 109E’s and 109F’ – the former used defensively and the latter used for hunting enemy air. This is just an example, but you could basically view all fighters this way I guess (initiative for offensive fighters and attack for defensive ones). Is my understanding of the mechanics correct in this respect?

I also have a question about Strategic bombers. I currently have 2x Ju88A’s and 1x He111. The new He177A is now available and of course I will upgrade my old He to that. I was thinking to wait to upgrade the 2x Ju’s so that I can upgrade them in class (to the 188A). But when I compare the stats of the He177A and Ju188A, the Ju seems to be worse in almost every single respect. So is there any reason why I shouldn’t just upgrade out of class so that all my strat bombers are He177A’s (other than saving prestige, which isn’t an issue at the moment)?

I use a mix as a prestige saver. I also like the 109E with hero's over the F as to the higher attack.

However, the problem is range, and you need that extra range when the F comes out.

It's a turning point in the war. You may regret the upgrade later when you need prestige. It also depends upon your strategic use of 2 bombers.

Every now and then the upgrade choices present an interesting challenge. The 109E vs 109F is a good example.
I usually upgrade early for the extra range, as I rate time in action above attack value, but different models for different roles also makes sense.

The way the rules work, powerful, low initiative fighters should go after bombers and do escort duties while high initiative fighters should take on other fighters. In the Battle of Britain, the general idea was that the high performance spitfires fought fighters while the more robust hurricanes took on the bombers, so this is one of the cases where Panzer Corps encourages reasonably historic use of units.

I assume that defensive fire ignores initiative because if you attempt to attack the bombers without dealing to the escorts first they are free to have go at you on your way in, which sounds fair enough.