I've recalculated on the impact of the carriers on the fighting over Crow's Island. Assuming they have turnaround-times with exclusive parts of ten minutes (that is, landing, getting it off deck and then later getting it on deck and taking off), that means six planes per hour per carrier serviced, with a total of 24. This will probably not decide the bigger airbattles, but will definitely affect their routine operations.
So, the refined plan:
Day 1: Send off the naval assault force including available Herrings. Send off Cods with supplies, singly, to arrive as soon as possible.
Launch most of the Sparrows in a bid for air dominance, followed by the Ospreys. Their goal for now is to engage the enemy with much higher numbers, destroy most of the ones patrolling over Crow's Island then cover short bombing missions both against land and sea targets, then retreat again. Ospreys attack the enemy fleet as far as it's lying near Crow's Island. Repeat that until constant air superiority can be achieved.
Launch Albatross against enemy airfields, to arrive about an hour before the aerial attack. Crater the runway. This allows us to stop them reinforcing their planes. Any additional bombers (I don't know the number of enemy airfields) wait until the survivors land, then bomb them.
Day 2 or 3: The fleet arrives. Combat with the enemy fleet (hopefully, only a smaller number). Do another air superiority mission (including Albatross' airfield bombing), then concentrate all Ospreys on the enemy fleet.
Additionally, the Cods arrive with reinforcements.
Is this still a design game? Or it turned into "manage armed forces of the nation" game?
Hasn't it always kind of been?
But yes, doing it with separated military and design turns would be an awesome idea. With generals able to request certain designs, and so on.
Paratroop raids are far more effective than bombing, many as the bombs are placed by hand it the vital points.
second our troops should out number the defenders and out class and out gun them.
The risks to cod should be minimal as the recovery should take place under cover of darkness or in the early morning.
Assuming that the cod is fired apron its hull should be proof against rifle bullets and anything bigger is probably not available to the local Moldavian guards and can probably be evaded or torpedoed.
That requires the paratroopers to survive up to their target, in hostile terrain. Plus, unless we somehow develop high-altitude parachuting equipment, it requires our bombers to be vulnerable to attacks.