CAP flying off Allied CVE

[Kingfisher]

I have a TF unloading troops at Lae with a CVE in attendance. I forget what the ship's name is, but its one of the jeep carriers with a mixed airwing and not one of the Long Island types. Anyway, this CVE has 10 F6F Bearcats on board. Morale and fatigue is not an issue, and experience is low 80s. CAP is set at 60%.

The Japanese AI has sent several strikes composed of unescorted Bettys at the TF. One strike might be only 3 planes, then next 15-16. In each case the Bettys did not encounter any CAP. The graphic went from the overall map annoucing the incoming strike straight to ship-vs-Betty. There was no graphic showing F6F-vs-Betty. The intelligence report also did not record any losses in air combat during the strike.

Any reason why the F6Fs are not flying / engaging? Is a 10-plane formation too small to conduct CAP alone? Is the fact the CVE is part of the TF unloading at Lae the reason? Should she be in her own TF?

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Kingfisher

I have a TF unloading troops at Lae with a CVE in attendance. I forget what the ship's name is, but its one of the jeep carriers with a mixed airwing and not one of the Long Island types. Anyway, this CVE has 10 F6F Bearcats on board. Morale and fatigue is not an issue, and experience is low 80s. CAP is set at 60%.

The Japanese AI has sent several strikes composed of unescorted Bettys at the TF. One strike might be only 3 planes, then next 15-16. In each case the Bettys did not encounter any CAP. The graphic went from the overall map annoucing the incoming strike straight to ship-vs-Betty. There was no graphic showing F6F-vs-Betty. The intelligence report also did not record any losses in air combat during the strike.

Any reason why the F6Fs are not flying / engaging? Is a 10-plane formation too small to conduct CAP alone? Is the fact the CVE is part of the TF unloading at Lae the reason? Should she be in her own TF?

Are the other plane types in the mixed group flying or not? What is the total capacity of the ship and the total number of planes aboard? Exceeding the ships capacity by more than 10% turns it into an air ferry that cannot launch aircraft. That is the most likely cause of failures to fly from a flattop. Same TF as the invasion shouldn't matter, although CV's in coastal hexes have their air operations reduced by 50%, which could be having an impact as you are only assigning 6 planes to cap so only about 2-3 would be in the air at any one time, which if reduced by 50%............

Oh, and F6Fs are Hellcats, Bearcats are F8Fs and are post war planes.

[Nomad]

If you will take the SBDs off, the F6Fs squadrons will grow to 21. I have not had any problem using these, how many total aircraft are on board the CVE? If you are overloaded, they will not fly.

[anarchyintheuk]

One of the cve's has a fighter, dive bomber and torpedo squadron on it. I always have problems using it due to resize issues, the ones w/ only a fighter and torpedo squadron less so.

[Kingfisher]

I don't have the game in front of me so I can't check capacity vs what is actually on the ship, but I do know that what she has now is what she arrived with from PH.

IIRC, there are three jeep carriers in the allied inventory. Two arrive with a mix of fighters and TBFs, the third has 3 mini squadrons of fighters, SBDs and TBFs. The ship in question is the third one.

The thing about the coastal hex and small number of available fighters makes sense now. I previously had Enterprise and Essex in the same hex, also at 60% CAP, and remember seeing only a handful of fighters engaging when Betty paid a visit. Thanks for clearing that up.

[DEB]

ORIGINAL: Kingfisher

I don't have the game in front of me so I can't check capacity vs what is actually on the ship, but I do know that what she has now is what she arrived with from PH.

My first thought here was that the CVE was acting as a "transport" for the planes, as HansBolter said. If you have not taken off any aircraft since arrival from PH this is highly likely. CVE's are often used in this capacity, particularly between PH & the forward base/s.

[borner]

so if you remove the bombers from the CVE airgroups, the fighter group expands? Interesting. DO the bomber wings expand while at the ground base as well?

[Ike99]

I have a TF unloading troops at Lae with a CVE in attendance. Morale and fatigue is not an issue, and experience is low 80s. CAP is set at 60%.

My understanding is Carrier aircraft are penalized 50% down when trying to operate in a coastal hex. If your carrier is at Lae it would be in this category.

Do a search through the patches and manual to confirm this though.

edit-I did a search on this forum and found this,

When a CV TF is in a port, base or dot hex (either friendly or enemy), air operations are reduced by 50%. The purpose of this is to simulate that full CV planes operations need open sea to be fully efficient.