1. The attacker declare an attack on a territory and commit escorting fighters.
2. The defender commit intercepting fighters, both from the territory being attacked and by scrambling from adjacent AirBases
3. Dogfight
Escort fighters A1
Interceptor fighter D2
This is preemptive fire that target aircrafts only, and all casualties are removed from play.
4. AA fire. The attacker commit his surviving aircrafts to SBR facilities or general combat.
Facility AA gun fire D1+D1+D1 to SBR bombers, and each AA gun unit fire D1+D1+D1 in general combat. Preemptive fire, so casualties are removed from play
5. General combat
After this round of combat is finished, the attacker press Attack, Contest or Retreat. If he press Contest or Retreat, the combat ends. He can press Attack as many times he want. If he press Attack, this include all steps from 1 to 5 again. Yes, you must do dogfight and be exposed to AA fire before every time you use your aircrafts in combat.
I think only fighters can roll dice in the Dogfight phase, both because of playability and historical issues. If all planes can roll a 1 in dogfight, it would be like the old Tranny that defended on a D1. So you buy nothing but Trannies, and they roll a D1 like ten times, and sink the attacking Battleship. You can do the same in dogfight, buy nothing but Bombers, and they roll a A1 like twenty times and kill all intercepting fighters. This is gamey, and not historical correct either. Real life transport ships never sank a battleship, even if they had a small gun on deck, and real life heavy Bombers was slaughtered when on a mission alone, even if they had a machine gun in front and rear. That’s why it was so important to develop long range escort fighters. If the B 17 bomber had been strong in dogfights, the P51 Mustang would never have been made. Same with real life ships, they all had some ASW ability, but for game purposes only the A&A Destroyer can negate submarine first shot and submerging in this game. If all units had the same abilities it would not be fun.
Based on this, let only fighters be allowed to roll dice in the Dogfight, and make it preemptive
It is also important that the AA gun fire is resolved after the Dogfight. Interceptors meet the enemy at the border far away, and AA guns is close defence, when you actually see the white in the enemy eyes