I think the only thing that can be done is waiting. For what you'll say. Well, for scripting and mission design to move forward.
I too prefer incentives to smoothly convince players into a certain style, rather than hard and fast rules. Of course, the players should also have a sense of sportsmanship.
I mean, it's not necessary to have completely equal teams and in the case of BoB a blue numerical advantage is also historically accurate to an extent. That means if i want to fly blue and the numbers are 30:20 in my favor i'll probably do it, but if they are 30:10 or 20:10 in my favor i'll probably switch to red, since numerical imbalance is more pronounced at smaller server populations. It's easier to get 5 people going in a group and survive if you have 20 on your team, than if you have just 10 (especially with the size of the map), so a 20:10 is more lopsided than a 30:20 even if the numerical gap is the same.
A supply system as already mentioned would be good, but that's part of extensive scripting. Maybe we could strip it down to bare essentials and have a planes/pilots counter like we had in IL2 servers, along with a simplified fuel supply model on a per-airfield basis. Eg, if target X gets destroyed (a fuel dump on the field or a nearby storage tank) then airfield Y doesn't have high quality fuel and people spawning there will get the 87 octane version to fly (or equivalent for blue team).
But that means we'll first have to get the appropriate FMs too, either as part of a loadout fuel type selection, or as copies of existing 3d models with two different FMs (low and high octane versions).
Overall, the solution is not too complicated, it will just take some time. In the meantime, upping the flak coverage around airfields (low level flak mainly, like 20mm, Bofors, etc, the short range but quick firing stuff) and instituting a planes/pilots counter for each team will help dissuade lone wolf strafing tactics while also making it historically dangerous to strafe a field.
Then as scripting and mission design progress, further incentives will be available, like affecting the enemy's quality of available hardware through planned operations. "Hey, let's hit their convoys,fuel dumps and Spitfire factories, so they only have 87 octane Hurricanes to fly and we can then win the map"...suddenly you'll have quite a few people flying blue bombers
For the time being, setting a planes and pilots limit per side and upping the flak around airfields will probably do. I mean, if you lose too many aircraft/pilots, your team will lose the map, so it's enough of an incentive to either fly clever or team up and do a realistic attack (one fast low level pass in a group and then out).
EDIT:
Hahaha, forum telepathy
