OK, soooooo.... too recap. I am a big fan of SSI's SP series.
I, previously, played the snot out of the first 2 turns of War in The West's operation Husky and was extremely impressed with the complexity of this game engine's air war and it's GUI scale-ability.

I deleted all my saves and started the tutorial from scratch the other night. I think it was Friday. I used my theory of go big and brutal for the first turn of the air war. think 'big week'. I had the game engine set to full verbose. I knew it would take 3+ hours to watch every conflict.

It can take 4+ hours if you use a .5 second delay of the text output and micromanage every squadron you can put in the air.

I had to restart the game a few times while I relearned my strategy. I deleted the saves from before to free up HDD space. My method can be summed up as a meat grinder. I had minimal losses in AtA combat, but I had maximum loses in attrition. When I started the assault at the end of turn 3, I was behind 100 to 300 in victory points.

But, by the start of turn 3, the enemy AI was not flying. So.... It was time to try the land war. Turn 4 is still playing a 3rd attempt. (Sleep deprivations helps combat my OCD).

I had to check the manual to better understand the icons for the ground units and oooOOOooooo! I found out there are multiple types of ground combat that you can initiate. Not only that but you can assign Corp and Division assets to your attack. Though, be warned! 2 divisions attacking another (20K troops attacking 10K, fortified, troops) takes more then 4 hours to play out in full verbose. but it is fun to watch the attacker move forward from the start line.

Why am I happy? Because you can if you want, but you can also let the AI give you a progress report in less them a minute. This game engine is truly what some of us dreamed the SSI game engine could be.