CAS or Tropedo Bombers?

[The Village Idiot]

I just want to know the Ideal amount of each plane type per carrier. My current models can hold 106 planes

[SP3008]

What I do is normally have the ratio of fighters to torpedo bombers as 5 to 4. In the circumstance of having a deck space of 106 planes, I would have 59 fighters (rounded ahead) and 47 torpedo bombers. I mainly use torpedo bombers over CAS because they have significantly better naval attack.

[FDX]

Only put up CV fighters.

[Magni]

I generally go for 50:50 fighters and naval bombers. Naval CAS are pretty much entirely situational if you're invading islands outside the range of your own land-based air - larger continental invasions normally won't allow carriers to take air superiority over the beachhead by themselves.

[CloudSeeker]

Well. CAS have a higher accuracy then Naval Bombers. Well, at least early on. Later CAS have less.

[seashell]

you can do naval strike with cas so maybe versatility is cool

[Rodi]

Only fighters and do kamikaze on everything.
Naval bombers are better based off land imo,since you get a lot more in a battle that way, and numbers are all that matters.

[Magni]

Originally posted by (3CID)bottle:

you can do naval strike with cas so maybe versatility is cool

CAS do too little damage and just get shredded by ship AA in return. And the higher accuracy isn't really meaningful in practice, either. Naval bombers can ♥♥♥♥ up even destroyers quite well enough.

Frankly, the utility of carrier CAS is so small that even a navy-heavy nation can safely skip researching them.

[The Village Idiot]

Originally posted by sp2004:

What I do is normally have the ratio of fighters to torpedo bombers as 5 to 4. In the circumstance of having a deck space of 106 planes, I would have 59 fighters (rounded ahead) and 47 torpedo bombers. I mainly use torpedo bombers over CAS because they have significantly better naval attack.

I think this has been working the best for me, thanks!

[LukeTheSp00k]

CAS do too little damage in naval combat. Their only use is for supporting landings, and frankly that's a small benefit for the research and factory investment you need to make for it. Better to just have TAC fly CAS missions from your nearest airfield.

[kingarthur772]

I take 45 to 50 % Fighters, and a mix from Torpedobombers and CAS-Bombers from the last 50 to 55 %.

[Bramborough]

My own practice is to go very fighter-heavy. Like, 70-30 or even 80-20. In my view, the value (in HOI4) of carriers and their wings is to shred incoming enemy air. Allows the fleet to get in close and use naval gunfire and do shore bombardment. I've even considered going 100% fighter...lol, every time I do so, my CV air will manage take out a cruiser or something and forestall that notion becoming reality a little longer.

Whether that's "optimal" or historically accurate, hmm, I dunno. I just got tired of seeing my carrier CAS/NAV repeatedly getting slaughtered with nothing to show for it. Whether the correct min/max or not, I perceive my fleets have been more survivable and better able to go into hot seazones with fewer losses since I made that switch. Maybe I've given up a few air-delivered shipkills, but I think I've also lost fewer ships and gotten more shore bombardment and BB/CA-delivered shipkills by going this route.

Perfectly willing to hear counter-arguments from more experienced HOI4 players. I dont't pretend to have number-crunched this.

[Gorim]

I checked the stats and noticed the advantage of Carrier CAS over NAV: CAS is about 150% faster, 12% more agile and 15% cheaper than NAV, in addition to, obviously, the ability to fly CAS missions.

This means that while they can only deal about half the damage, they are more likely to survive fighters and AA, and are easier to replace. So I'd say if the enemy has a clear advantage in AA and interceptors, you may want to increase the numbers of CAS instead of NAV.

It may also be possible to expand on that with variants, but I haven't crunshed the numbers yet.

[Mikey]

I go with a 2:1 ratio in terms of fighters:torpedo bombers

Even in small numbers torpedo bombers from carriers are devastating to enemy fleets, but you need the extra fighters to protect your fleet from the inevitable onslaught of enemy long range bombers

I don't see the point in using CVCAS as you don't want your fleet close to the enemy land long enough for the bombing missions to have any effect on the land combat. As for naval combat the CVCAS are suboptimal at best.

[GoldenTalon]

Don't bother with carriers - just use land based NAV and fighters and AI fleets will be destroyed quickly. Spam SS and DD for ships with a few CL mixed in. AI is too dumb to counter.