The fact that a facility can be completely destroyed by bombers will encourage strategic bombardement if the price of new purchase is significantly higher than the price of repairing. IMO in OOB the risk to lose a bomber to AA-fire is not worth if the owner of the facility perhaps has to pay 1-2 IPC (maximum of 4 IPC) to activate it again. I would only bomb an air base or harbour under some rare strategic circumstances. Factories are another question.
Therefore and because of there capability to produce I would set the cost to

• air base  12 IPC (we use that price already in our house rules, of course without producing capability, so perhaps only usage for me)
• naval base 15 IPC

I would keep the built in AA in that case.

The possibilty to produce in naval and air bases , especially on islands, may have a high impact to the balance of the game:
Some examples:

US 1 may produce up to 3 fighters and 1 DD or 2 fighters, 1DD, 2 sub (max 40 IPC) in Philippines. - A J2-attack will need some more units.
US can produce in Hawaii, Midway, Guam (so perhaps NB in Midway or Guam should be removed from setup)
From round 1 on UK can produce ships in Egypt or Gibraltar.
Japan in Carolines (AB and NB)
Java could become an interesting hot spot, especially for US.

One more detail: An AB or NB has to be completely repaired (no more damage) if you want to produce 3 air or ships there.

I like the ideas that factories a maximum damaged (AB and NB 5 more damage) when conquered, that you steal 10 IPC  and the owner of a former capital can go on producing (so France is more interesting).

So this facilities have no built in AA ?
Why are the cost of naval base (must be seen as shipyards here) reduced to 8 IPC?
There is no more restriction to produce on islands (with a value of at least 1) according to your concept, right?

Good idea; but I have the following question: Does the carrier need at least one air on board before the battle to get the combined arms bonus? (Sorry for the question but sometimes it may happen that a carrier is empty).

@M 3 for cruisers: Why should the cruiser get faster if combined with CA and BB? And it is not useful because you loose bonus if cruiser moves away from rest of fleet.
We use in addition to normal (OOB) heavy cruiser a light cruiser with A3 D2 M3 C10. This is often bought after CA, DD, SS.

In our play group we reduced the attack value of strategic bombers - at sea only -to 3. In ground battles we keeped it at 4.
Ratio: Bombs dropping into water are doing no/less damage than at land where they can still do some damage if they don’t hit exactly.

Why didn’t UK scramble 4 fighters to SZ 109 (French from London and one from Scotland)?

My concern was not related to turn 1 or 2 but to later German turn:
9 additional Art for a Russian counterattack may cause a problem for Germany advancing to Belarus or Western Ukraine or one turn later to Bryansk, because Italy cannot take this area first (RU takes it back before the German turn) and therefore G cannot land their air on top of it’s army.
12 additional Inf may delay a G 6 attack on Russia (Simon33 was faster while I typed this post).

My concern was based on a game otherwise played without bid or only with a small bid (for example: balanced mod;  our group with other houesrules).
If you play OOB-rules with a bid around 30 IPC, then Gargantua’s idea is very fine (I already understood that he only wants to make one simple adjustment), the inherent bid goes to Russia and does not destroy the game in the MED (as usual IMO).
I will have to try it to see more effects.

@simon33:

Not to mention the effective 37IPC bid to the USSR.

I like the idea but this seems the main problem. Perhaps let USSR only start without IPC or with a reduced amount (=like a bid).

Thanks for the clarification.
I’m sorry, this game was some months ago, so I can’t remember the exact combat move. I believe the German air consists of a bulk of strat-bombers coming from Germany with an airbase. Another possibility would be fighters and tacs from Holland with an airbase.
There was no German carrier involved. (The UK fleet was too big to be successfully attacked by 4-6 fighters/tacs which should land on new build carriers.)
I am sure that the German air had only 2 movement points left after SZ 91. Flying over Spain in non-combat after the attack was the only possibility.
The UK player thought that he was safe from the German air because of his misinterpretation of the rules. (There was no more Italian transport on the board which could have opened a landing space.)

Hi, question about flying over neutrals, which came up in one of our games:
GE wanted to attack an UK fleet in SZ 91, but could only land in Normandy or S-France if the German air could fly over Spain (can’t remember the reason for this residual range of 2). So GE attacked in the same round Spain with (one or more) Inf from S-France: GE argued that if GE attacks Spain in combat move Spain is no longer strict neutral (but enemy) and so the German air could fly over Spain and land in non-combat move.
UK Player refused this move and argued with p 11 Europe rulebook: “Air units can’t fly over an unfriendly neutral unless they are attacking it” … Strict neutrals are treated in exactly the same way as unfriendly neutrals, …"
Was this a legal move from Germany?