Spaatz

That is... so not true. 

Dowding has around +8 damage from CB (you will hit units in cities about 80% of the time, and that's generous) plus 5 extra points of morale every hit. Spaatz, on the other hand, avoids AA, has +15 damage ALL of the time, and then another 24% damage on top of that. Spaatz is unbelievably good.

Wait, WHAT?!

Maybe it's a medal, but I don't have the update, so I wouldn't know. And yes, he is in fact game-breakingly OP.

After reading the posts above, here's my thoughts ... Dowding is still better (for me) just by that because I only ever use an air force general on a carrier. In my opinion, any other specialized general with any medals on their air force (like MacArthur) and can still do a lot as an infantry general or a tank general.

The Avoidance of AA sounds really darn good including the half-cost. It's just that I never use my air force attacks on an AA unit (including other ships) unless I play in the Pacific missions or missions that have mostly water terrain and ships for you to use, and where you have to fight a lot of enemy AA ships, I would never use an air force general ON LAND, because that money (even if the cost of air attacks is halved) is better off spent on replenishing/recruiting/SF as your land/sea units (including generals) can die or lose SF easily in almost all battles. Your other units (specially heavy tanks) can do a better job at eliminating turtling AA units in cities or grouping together with other units. At least for me, I prioritize my air force on mostly tanks, artilleries, and weaker infantry. Would be cool to have Spaatz, but I don't recommend anyone to use him on a carrier because that limits his (ridiculously high) damage output by making him use only two attacks at a time instead of the countless amounts of attacks he can do on an airport ON LAND if you have sufficient money (which can be scarce in some battles).

Sidenote: I often times use my air force on very weak units (one-shot away from dying) so that either I don't have to clean them up by sacrificing time or my AI allies'. Spaatz can do the job as twice as much though ... but he's a behind a paywall lmao xd

I think you're thinking about this all wrong. Yeah, if you use Spaatz the same way you use Dowding, then Dowding is better. But the whole point of Spaatz is that you *don't* use him the way you do Dowding. In a naval battle, the most powerful ships are battleships. They're also the only ships your own battleships can't hit without being hit back. Fighting battleships sucks. Wouldn't it be great if Dowding could take them out from a distance? But no. Thanks to AA, carriers also suck against battleships (though the morale hit is still really good). So Dowding is reduced to sniping the destroyers and subs - the weakest units in the enemy fleet and the ones your other ships are best equipped to deal with. Spaatz is a game changer (and even game breaker), because instead of being limited to the ships it's good against, now you can use your carrier against the ships you actually *want* to use it against. Also you can take out coastal artillery even with AA (AA units on coastal artillery are the worst if you can't get land forces there).

Same deal with land battles. I almost never use an air general on land - just not worth it, especially when your air general is Arnold. But Spaatz just hits so hard and so often that now it makes sense, and is actually OP.

Perhaps it's not the theoretical best way to play, but I don't use air generals because I don't have any good ones, and I don't have any good ones because I don't need them. I perfect cleared the Allied campaign with just Roko and MacArthur, Axis side I've only bought Guderian and Leeb and so far that's all I've needed. The Elite campaign might change things. But if air generals on land units become more useful, that just makes Spaatz even more OP.