What's the role of Carriers in this game?

[Maxagaze]

I've tried some single missions and found out that carriers do not launch any planes. There are six planes in the sky and that's it. Is that all of them? I cannot scramble any more? Why is that carrier even there?

[Macquarrie]

Well they are great in the campaign. Carriers aren't meant to fight in battles, they are meant to launch aircraft to strike naval targets.

[Maxagaze]

Originally posted by Macquarrie:

Well they are great in the campaign. Carriers aren't meant to fight in battles, they are meant to launch aircraft to strike naval targets.

Indeed. Only, I cannot launch a single plane from them during battle. Speaking of single battle of course.

[Lakel]

The game mirrors the fact, once the planes are overhead, its too late to be fooling with fueling and arming aircraft.

One bomb or torpedo and that CV is finished with a deck covered in armed and fuelled aircraft, plus the crew and gas lines being full.

Far as single battles go, they are targets at tha tpoint. and decent AA boats

[Maxagaze]

Originally posted by Lakel:

The game mirrors the fact, once the planes are overhead, its too late to be fooling with fueling and arming aircraft.

One bomb or torpedo and that CV is finished with a deck covered in armed and fuelled aircraft, plus the crew and gas lines being full.

But as the mission starts, the enemy airplanes are not on top. Didn't they scramble back in those days?

[Lakel]

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

Originally posted by Lakel:

The game mirrors the fact, once the planes are overhead, its too late to be fooling with fueling and arming aircraft.

One bomb or torpedo and that CV is finished with a deck covered in armed and fuelled aircraft, plus the crew and gas lines being full.

But as the mission starts, the enemy airplanes are not on top. Didn't they scramble back in those days?

If they pick up the aircraft 50 miles out on radar, yea. By the time you visually see them your only chance might be if you were already launching the aircraft.

Look at Midway, they were caught in the middle of air operations, refuelling cap planes, refuelling strike planes. Bomb hit, lit the match.

Spotting, fueling and arming a flight is not a 5 minute affair, and im fairly confident they did not keep aircraft fueled and armed on a 12hour standby.

Personally i'd be fine if they allowed the option, but it would come at a significant "vulnerable" penalty, more than the 60% for carriers on cooldown, and you would have to turn into the wind, and not be able to do evasive manuvers.

[Seraphim Stratus]

The CAP was there to engage incoming aircraft. It takes time to clear the decks and ready the ship for defensive action so by the time the enemy was detected it was time to prepare. On US ships which were equipped with radar the warning time would have been more but aircraft would have been launched before the time that our in game 3D battle begins. On Japanese ships it was very likely that by the time the enemy raid was spotted it was time to clear for action.

I do agree that it would be awesome to watch aircraft launch and climb to engage bombers or dive into engaging torpedo aircraft from a scramble but it would not be in line with the reality of the 1942 air war in the South Pacific. One exception I can think of to this was the defense of Taffy 3 in the Battle off Samar in 1944 where aircraft were launching and landing while the TF attempted to evade a Japanese surface action group including the BB Yamato. But it was the exception, not the rule.

[Macquarrie]

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

Originally posted by Lakel:

The game mirrors the fact, once the planes are overhead, its too late to be fooling with fueling and arming aircraft.

One bomb or torpedo and that CV is finished with a deck covered in armed and fuelled aircraft, plus the crew and gas lines being full.

But as the mission starts, the enemy airplanes are not on top. Didn't they scramble back in those days?

They usually had a combat air patrol going to shoot down enemy planes when they arrived. The planes were already up in the air before the fighting started.

[Maxagaze]

Originally posted by Lakel:

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

But as the mission starts, the enemy airplanes are not on top. Didn't they scramble back in those days?

If they pick up the aircraft 50 miles out on radar, yea. By the time you visually see them your only chance might be if you were already launching the aircraft.

Look at Midway, they were caught in the middle of air operations, refuelling cap planes, refuelling strike planes. Bomb hit, lit the match.

Spotting, fueling and arming a flight is not a 5 minute affair, and im fairly confident they did not keep aircraft fueled and armed on a 12hour standby.

Personally i'd be fine if they allowed the option, but it would come at a significant "vulnerable" penalty, more than the 60% for carriers on cooldown, and you would have to turn into the wind, and not be able to do evasive manuvers.

Ok. I'm sold. But what about the other thing? I've specifically played the santa cruz mission where you have to defend the USS Hornet. By history, the USS Hornet was unable to launch aircraft or let them land, so I assume that those six planes on the air during that mission, could be accurate.

How many airplanes does a carrier in this game possess? Hopefully more than six?

[Maxagaze]

Originally posted by Macquarrie:

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

But as the mission starts, the enemy airplanes are not on top. Didn't they scramble back in those days?

They usually had a combat air patrol going to shoot down enemy planes when they arrived. The planes were already up in the air before the fighting started.

Yeah... Looks like Hollywood fooled me there :P

[Macquarrie]

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

Originally posted by Lakel:

If they pick up the aircraft 50 miles out on radar, yea. By the time you visually see them your only chance might be if you were already launching the aircraft.

Look at Midway, they were caught in the middle of air operations, refuelling cap planes, refuelling strike planes. Bomb hit, lit the match.

Spotting, fueling and arming a flight is not a 5 minute affair, and im fairly confident they did not keep aircraft fueled and armed on a 12hour standby.

Personally i'd be fine if they allowed the option, but it would come at a significant "vulnerable" penalty, more than the 60% for carriers on cooldown, and you would have to turn into the wind, and not be able to do evasive manuvers.

Ok. I'm sold. But what about the other thing? I've specifically played the santa cruz mission where you have to defend the USS Hornet. By history, the USS Hornet was unable to launch aircraft or let them land, so I assume that those six planes on the air during that mission, could be accurate.

How many airplanes does a carrier in this game possess? Hopefully more than six?

The carriers in this game carry 12 of each type of aircraft, fighter, torpedo bomber, and dive bomber. Carriers could carry 2-3 times this number of aircraft irl.

[Lakel]

carrier air wing size is drastically nerfed in this game for reasons unknown to me, only 12 or 18 planes of each time iirc

[nyr***]

The limit on planes per carrier has to be a balance issue.

Hopefully modding is able to up those numbers a bit in the future.

[Protoss|]

Originally posted by CountryMac:

The limit on planes per carrier has to be a balance issue.

Hopefully modding is able to up those numbers a bit in the future.

planes atm are really accurate + AI doesnt do any evasivce manouvers + planes are for free to replace in the campaign

So atm Buffing their number up by 3x or so to make them accurate would mean just constant air waves killing EVERYTHING else. So yeah as long as other mechanics dont get adjusted its a bad idea.

[Shadow]

Originally posted by Maxagaze:

By history, the USS Hornet was unable to launch aircraft or let them land, so I assume that those six planes on the air during that mission, could be accurate.

What do you mean by that? Carriers could always launch and land aircraft and the USS Hornet was no exception. The only thing problematic was launching the b-25 because they count properly have HUGE BOMBERS land on a tiny carrier, it was a miracle that they managed to properly started them

[GrenadeBait]

I was disappointed when I saw the devs crippled carrier capabilities in this game. In fact, after playing a while I found that the game is very much design for surface battles. When I put together my first carrier task force and found that Shokaku only had 36 of the 72 aircraft (not including 12 spares), I was not pleased with the game at all.

However, after playing for more than 40 hours I understand why the devs crippled airpower on carriers and on land. After a few wins and loses in surface engagements I limped back to Rabaul and with the extra resource points I accumulated I put together two task forces:

1) A carrier battle group (CVBG) with Shokaku and Zuikaku with half a dozen Akizuki-class destroyers (because of their dual-purpose guns) for air, surface, and anti-sub defence;
2) A surface action battle group (SABG) with two Kongo-class battleships, four heavy cruisers, and four destroyers.

They have been in the Guadalcanal area for about a week in-game time and have had great results. The CVBG softens up the USN task forces by sinking or crippling the BBs and CAs and then the SABG moves in to finish the job.

So far the SABG has only had one battle because CVBG has done a great job. How good you ask...? The aircraft sank: 5 battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, 7 light cruisers, 10 destroyers, 2 submarines.

If the carriers were operating full air groups I can only imagine the carnage.