What the hell am I doing wrong w/ my carriers?

[robbo]

I am really getting pissed off with how my carriers are functioning. In approx. 20 carrier-carrier engagements I have played so far, I have sunk one, ONE japanese CVL. Meanwhile, enemy carrier air shows up- write off the all of my carrier assets. I just finished a round where 4 CV's went up against japanese 4 CV's two months into the long campaign out of range of LBA. End result, not one of the planes from my four carrier air groups so much as chipped any japanese paint, while 3 of my CV's, 3 CA-CL's and 4 DD's were sunk with the remaining CV and 2 more DD's are so badly damaged they won't make it back to port. I am trying to be realistic about this, and if todays events were a relatively isolated occurance I wouldn't be so frustrated. But in the last week it has been US 1, Japan 30-35.

Any pointers, comments would be gladly appreciated.

robbo "building my next fleet out of glass bottom boats, so they can see my old fleet" drysdale

[Ron Saueracker]

Mogami seems to have this sewn up.

[Erik Rutins]

Check the morale and fatigue of your squadrons and pilots. Were your carriers out on patrol for a while before engagement? Do you have sufficient escort fighters and naval search planes to find the enemy quickly and avoid massive casualties among your strike planes? Your strikes will be less accurate if they have to both avoid flak and enemy fighters on their attack runs. What altitude do you have set for your carrier squadrons? What TF commanders have you been using? What kinds of ships have you been including in your carrier escort TFs - plenty of Bofors 40mm protection or not? Do you put one carrier per TF or combine them all in one big TF?

Regards,

- Erik

[Buket]

I'd like to hear the correct answers to Erik's questions, please.

Buket

[Hartmann]

I made one observation, and it is that if you add much more than the historical complements of destroyers and cruisers to your carrier TF, this really seems to help.
It is obviously because of the additional AA, and because the likeliness of attacking planes being diverted to destroyers is much bigger.

It does NOT help (at least not that I noticed) to just have a second TF with those additional ships in the same hex.

Hartmann

PS: Also, I think it is generally much better to have all carriers in one big TF because of the combined CAP, though this may be debatable to some degree ...