AA is tied to territory, each player have an AA value in each territory and that value is used to defend their units in that territory from airstrikes, it wont do anything if neutrales are attacked, even if targeted in such way that allied unit, even the ai will be damaged due to the area of effect from the airstrike.
AA value is given by units with the anti aircraft traits, garrisons with the anti aircraft infrastructure and administrative centers as well as main plaza with military laser technology.
Patroling aircrafts also provide AA value, not only in the territory they are stationed in but also in all neigbouring territories, range of the aircrafts have no impact.
Missiles can't be shot down by AA, there is no defence against them, which make them great at softing up the enemy AA before using more cost effective aircrafts to attack now defenceless enemies.
When aircrafts make an airstrike, there seems to be 3 phases, first is the air duel, secondly is the AA fire and last is the air strike itself, any striking aircrafts destroyed in phase 1 or 2 wont make the strike, thus it is possible to prevent aircrafts from being able to deal any damage. You can see that in the airstrike graphics, if all aircrafts are shot down, no airstrike will be performed.
Phase 1 Air duel:
I have only been able to test one patroling squadron as patroling squadron from several areodromes seems bugged and will prevent the game from continuing as well break the airstrike (nothing happens at all, no destroyed aircrafts or damaged ground targets). Anyway from my testing:
Aircrafts on patrol will both uncover the fog of war as well protect its and all neighbouring territories from enemy airstrikes, range or placement of the aerodrome don't matter, all that matters is which territory the aerodrome and aircrafts are located in. When a strike target an friendly unit or district in one of the patrolled territories, the patrolling aircrafts will meet the striking aircrafts and the aircrafts on both sides will deal damage to each other, this mean you can expect to lose patrolling aircrafts.
A strength difference of 4 (which is the gap between monoplanes and biplanes) in an 8 vs 8 multirole fighter duel lead to 1 vs 4 losses, this indicate strength is very important in aircraft duels. However I guess strategic bombers wont deal any damage to other aircrafts given their specialization as just bombers and the fact they lack the ability to patrol. Their strength should however be important here to keep them alive.
Each of these in turn seems to get to fire, so the strength value of each AA unit is important, while it may look like 2 anti-aircraft guns would be better than 1 military laser in terms of total strength, the military laser will kill 3 multi roles in a squadron of 8 while the 2 anti-aircraft guns will only damage 3 of the attacking 8 multiroles. The AA fire seems to target 3 aircrafts and spread their damage out on these 3, but seems to leave the other unhurt as long as the 3 targets are still alive, this make larger strike groups have a bit of an easier time to avoid losses, as a single attacking aircraft will be quickly destroyed by AA, a group of 8 may not lose a single aircraft against light AA fire.
In this phase the attacking aircraft wont deal any damage, thus AA may be a much more cost effective way to defend against air attacks than using patroling aircrafts, which will likely take losses. Any aircraft destroyed by AA won't be able to perform air strike and thus heavy AA can completely nullify enemy airpower.
Phase 3 Air strike:
Any surviving attacking aircraft from phase 1 and 2 will perform their airstrike mission, how much damage it deal depend on the strength of the aircrafts, with fighter aircrafts dealing maybe half the damage of a bomber aircraft would, multiroles who is both a fighter and bomber with the highest combat strength is by far the most effective here, with maybe twice the strike damage of a strategic bomber or four times the strike damage of a multirole fighter.
The damage seems to be spread out amongst the hit units and districts, thus for survivability, it is better to group units together to avoid any being completely destroyed
Anyway what do all this mean:
The best AA defence in terms of cost seems to be garrisons as they are hard to destroy. The drawback is they are limited to only defence and can only cover one territory as they can't be moved.
Depending on the situation, patroling aircrafts can be very useful as they can cover many territories at the same time. But it seems like a small strength disadvantage can make it very costly to use aircrafts as many may be shot down by the striking aircrafts.
Land and naval based AA is the easiest way to provide AA, however be sure to spread them out, grouping them together may mean they can be destroyed by aircrafts or missiles, thus making your armies defenceless against air attacks.
Use missiles to soften up enemy AA before using more expensive aircafts, a cruise missile cost only about 1/4 of a multirole fighter and is guaranteed to do some damage to the enemy. Try to destroy cities as that will collapse the district based AA which is probably the most dangerous type of AA. Also strike aerodromes to destroy the patroling aircrafts.
Strike the enemy areodromes with aircrafts as that may destroy them, first in the air battle and then due to the ground strike.
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