RHS Optional Carrier Air Upgrade x.759 Uploaded

[el cid again]

This update does four things:

1) It changes the USS Midway Air group in CVO (and RAO) - the only scenarios that get the big USS Midway -
to have four squadrons - two of F4Us and two of the late war dive bomber (losing the F6Fs, TBFs and night fighters).
All squadrons are 24 machines.

2) It corrects 3 FAA squadrons so they appear on their ships vice on land at Aden.

3) It converts a number of USN CVEs to no air group status. But the air squadrons (now appearing ashore) formerly on them are STILL carrier qualified! And it creates 3 training carriers that never appear - associated with those land based carrier qualified squadrons - named for real training carriers (Wolverine, Sable and Charger). [Seven new transport CVEs are added to USS Long Island which always was a transport carrier - see the thread on this for names]

4) The SBC squadrons of USS Hornet (VS-8 and VB-8) are set to upgrade to the SBD-3 vice the SBD-5. [There is one other SBC unit - VMO-151]

To release within hours, after conversion of all the units, as a microupdate. It is not critical so it is optional and need not impact a game in progress.

[el cid again]

The above is in the upload process. IF this is popular, we might go on to add 4 RN CVEs as transports,
and 18 more USN CVEs as transports, requireing making up some more training carriers (of which
three USN would be St Joseph Bay, Winjah Bay and Totem Bay). This would involve 8 FAA and 36
USN/USMC air units transitioning to land based but carrier qualified. A lot of work - germane only if players like it.
It is however very historical material. The place to comment is here: no comments = it won't happen (at least not until something requires we update the file set).

RN transport CVEs were Chaser, Speaker, Arbiter and Reaper. To that we might add Unicorn - a CVL which did operate planes but technically never had an air group.

The USN CVEs are too many to list - but all identified in the published RHS carrier spreadsheet.

[witpqs]

Is this also an issue for some Japanese air units (carrier trained but starting on land)?

[el cid again]

The JNAF changes its organization early in 1944 (see Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units of the Second World War).
Carriers no longer have air groups per se. Instead, something akin to a Carrier Air Wing forms up on land, and typically it forms operational groups for three carriers, all members of the same carrier division. The Battle of the Philippine Sea was fought under this organization.

We have code problems preventing us from dealing with this properly. Once an air unit is formed, it cannot be renamed, or disbanded in any perminant sense. We also do not know what carriers will be lost or what air units aboard them might survive in any particular game?

What I did was continue the initial system for carriers - giving air units on them names indicating their ship. [On land I use both the original and the later system - but only later units use later names - early units keep their initial names]
A complication is this: some units were reformed after they were lost at sea - as land based units. They were really new units - but given old names. We escaped some of this by using carrier type names for their first form - land type names for the later form. Yet other units more or less escaped in part - and rebuilt - but now they had no carriers to fly off of. Are they carrier units - or not?

Then there is the matter of carriers to train on. Had the IJN actually had a servicable carrier fleet AND AVGAS to train units with - it might have trained units otherwise not trained IRL.

So far I have substantially ignored this matter. Carrier type planes can be put on ships - and they will fly with higher attrition rates - which may be good modeling anyway. I have created carrier units for almost all carriers part of some plan or other - and not for conversions (except the wierd semi-carrier case). In EOS you can convert almost every cruiser or battleship to a carrier - plans to do that are quite historical - but you won't get any air groups at all for them - you must somehow make do with units from other carriers or land units able to operate from carriers. I will continue to think about these matters - but unless a system better than the one already in place occurs to me or is suggested - I don't think we will change anything.