ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
ORIGINAL: Icedawg
ORIGINAL: LoBaron
What does LRCAP over a CV TF require? A constant knowledge of the CV TFs wherabouts and future course.
We are not yet talking about actual combat, we are talking about information distribution.
This would expose the carriers to an radio sniffing equipment in the remote area or limit the operational
freedom of the TF.
I can live with that rationale, more so because it has an additional game balancing aspect.
Edit: splitting a vessel into a new TF to avoid the penalty is easy, though in a PBEM I´d consider that very gamey.
Me too. I find the use of non-sub 1-ship TF's to be very gamey - for example, placing single xAKL TF's out in front of your CV TF to draw air attacks.
I can't recall a single occasion on which splitting off a single vessel for this purpose ever presented itself for consideration, simply because it's exceptional in my experience for an ACTF not to be accompanied by at least one other TF, be that SCTF, ASW group or whatever. In the case of a CVTF being accompanied by, say, a SCTF, would you regard it as being gamey to assign LRCAP to the SCTF rather than the ACTF?
I bet Mitscher foamed at the mouth at how gamey Tojo was being when that picket boat's sighting forced Doolittle to launch early. Typical shabby Jap trick. [:'(]
I understand what you mean and am not happy with the ease how limitation can be avoided.
The reason why I consider it gamey is because the limitation was exactly implemented to lower the effectiveness of LRCAP over carriers and nothing else.
So this is a bit dissimilar from using picket boats IMO, but I admit this is quite a grey area and I only express my personal opinion here.
