S41: Why is the Luftwaffe so fragile?

[Ubercat]

I just started playing this again after a year hiatus and was almost immediately reminded of what put me off before.

It doesn't seem to matter what's in the target hex; airstrikes invariably give away more VP than they gain. At least every other airstrike loses a plane, even when the target hex only contains a Soviet Rifle division HQ and a disrupted rifle battalion, both isolated. (No enemy AA within 20 hexes)

I understand that attrition happens, and a soldier gets lucky once in a while with his Tokarev, but this is ridiculous! Why should a player concerned with VP bother using airstrikes when he's going to kill 4-6 enemy soldiers and lose a bomber? It's not a good trade.

In a slightly related note, last year I started a campaign game as the Germans and was surprised at how quickly my PzIV companies got chewed up attacking enemy bunkers occupied by rifle battalions.(I think it was bunkers. It was the next thing up from trenches) My memory is rusty, so maybe I didn't support them sufficiently with infantry but they seemed to suffer an inordinate amount of losses to troops that shouldn't have been that tough. It was direct fire, not assaults.

The tank losses occurred in the far north of the map, where there is a fortified, skimpily occupied Soviet line running southeast from the northern map edge.