Allied CVs, early war

[KPAX]

Boy is it depressing early on.

My CVs get jumped by those god-aweful Bettys, get too close to the warp-speed KB and just get toasted.

What do I do with them?

I have tired to raid, but the Bettys range is so long. And the KB is using warp-speed technology or some wormhole.

Is it just best to let them sit with the CA, CL and DD and go through the first (or maybe two) rounds of upgrades which take place in early 1942. Along with training the pilots and upgrading the aircraft?

What are folks doing with them?

[RogerJNeilson]

Well I do regard the CV vs CV battle as being pretty chancy, so I tend to do one of two things - either keep them as a threat - preferably the enemy not knowing where they are for as long as possible, or else use them when i know the enemy carriers have depleted their own airstrikes and they can be caught retiring - which means them not knowing where you are.

I'd never chance them against long range air - carriers sink, islands don't.

Sometimes I do let the enemy have glimpse of where my CVs are - but that's very premeditated.


Of course - for the benefit of my current opponents - just because that's how I say I use them doesn't mean its how I will always use them.

Why raid.... have a look at some of your destroyers and fast cruisers.....

Roger

[shall9]

Concentrate your carriers, keep them well protected with high AA ships, and keep them far away from anywhere the KB might be until sometime in 1943. You could get lucky and draw the KB into an area where you have lots of land based bombers and your carriers, or they may do something stupid like trying to dock at Manila before Corregidor is taken.

[Commander Stormwolf]

:

a)betty was the reason that usn could not attack deep into japanese territory after midway

b) betty was the reason that usn didn't use their old BB during the guadalcanal campaign

c) betty could have sunk lexington during the rabaul raid if the IJN was properly organized


in general, the betty (and the idea of long-range torpedo aviation in general) was perhaps the most formidable weapon the japanese had,
and if the japanese torpedo corps was not squandered during the attritional fighting in the solomons, would have been a powerful adjunct
during any decisive naval engagement (lets say instead of 100 betty and frances in the marianas, the IJN stockpiled 1000 emilies, it could have been
a turket shoot, the other way around)

so what to do with the usn carriers? you can risk them and raid, or you can keep them safe until you can challenge the kb

both strategies have rewards

the first one can slow down the japanese expansion

the second one will guarante strength in 1943

[RogerJNeilson]

The third, to lose your carriers is to give the Evil Empire carte blanche all over the map.....

Save them till you have so many you don't mind losing a few...... (Late 1943)

Roger

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: KPAX

Boy is it depressing early on.

My CVs get jumped by those god-aweful Bettys, get too close to the warp-speed KB and just get toasted.

What do I do with them?

I have tired to raid, but the Bettys range is so long. And the KB is using warp-speed technology or some wormhole.

Is it just best to let them sit with the CA, CL and DD and go through the first (or maybe two) rounds of upgrades which take place in early 1942. Along with training the pilots and upgrading the aircraft?

What are folks doing with them?

You have to handle them with care, which is me calling the kettle black because i get too bored and eventually take what some players would consider unnecessary risks. [:D] Few players make Yamamotto's mistake of breaking up his "winning team" so to speak so against that force your best advice is to avoid. The good news here is that if player one wants to get milage out of KB directly he or she will have to advertise it's location which makes your ability to use Allied CV's much easier. As you said though....you have to watch out for G4M/G3M torpedo equipped concentrations. Same with subs, which are worse in my experience. One sub can ruin your day (and the balance of power)

Usually I keep the CV's back and await an opportunity, but often i'll conduct raids. Sometimes that gets me in trouble, other times i get away with it and sting like a bee while moving like a butterfly.

[Mundy]

Me too... [:(]

I made the mistake of insisting they go straight back to Pearl in robot-like fashion and paid the price in one of my PBEMs.

It probably helps to let them get some AA upgrades in before getting too daring with them. Lots of the USN ships are pretty weak in this regard at the start.

Ed-

[Nikademus]

The AA upgrades can cause agony. I had in one game 5 x US CV's (i don't mix RN and US CV's on average....not kosher IMHO) which was a pretty good concentration...but then one upgraded AA and because of the current load at Pearl Harbor it was to take about 25 days to get out of the dockyard. There was some activity going on somewhere else that i wanted to counter......so the decision was.....sit and wait or send 4 CV's? the agony.......oh and to boot the others were eligble for AA within 40 days too.....so then the question was also, sit tight and let the enemy advance and then counter future moves with stronger defenses????

I solved this thorny problem with a careful logical plan.

I flipped a coin.

[tocaff]

Actually the old USN BBs weren't used around Guadalcanal because they consumed huge amounts of fuel and there wasn't enough available and doctrine dictated not using the BBs in confined waters. The later was ignored when the BBs Washington and South Dakota were sent in as other options were burned.

[KenchiSulla]

If you know the position of KB and can get away with a strike, why not? Land based bombers are a theat so always keep the CVs together and have a strong CAP up..

[geofflambert]

In my first PBEM in late March of '42 I sent my four CVs against all 6 of his CVs and mauled them pretty badly. The location was halfway between Finschafen and PM, with mine on the south side of the peninsula, and his on the north side. Only Kaga escaped with less than 4 bomb hits (1) and only one of my CVs was hit (by both bombs and torps) but still had less than 75% flotation damage and no fires, and I think it would have made it to Sydney, for instance, and all it's air arm successfully landed at PM. He complained that his KB was extremely low on fuel (decidedly careless, I think), and it may have been low on sorties as well, being quite active up to that point without visiting a port. There also were severe thunderstorms over my TF's (each carrier in its own) and only perhaps half his attack found a target, and that was only 1 of the four TFs. His KB was in PC conditions and easily found by all of my strike. I don't remember what land based stuff he had available, but it did not figure in the battle. All and all, I'd say I was extremely lucky (not to mention foolhardy). We stopped the game at that point, of course. My 3 CVs would have hunted down many if not all of his CVs, I think (of course he may have had Bettys around and now had a lot of Kates and Vals on nearby land strips so perhaps pursuit would have been rather risky). A note on running low on fuel: if you don't have AOs available or aren't willing to bring them near the front, and can't be bothered to rendevous and refuel, have some large xAKs handy with their tanks full as an emergency pit stop. You might even keep them with the AOs so they are kept full til you commit them.

[Mundy]

Yeah, I remember Neptune's Inferno pretty much saying that due to fuel, it was either the CVs or the BBs, but not both.

The choice is sorta obvious to us today, I guess.

Ed-

[pharmy]

Betty's and Nell's lose their edge once you have better CAPs and after a couple of fighter traps, he will have lost his best pilots. Takes a long time to train a new and proper LBA - Navt/NavB/LowN along with search and ASW skills (the last two are essential for when your subs get better and you want to augment your recon). They are really easy planes to shoot down without fighter escorts. In 42 they are still a force to contend with, but the erosion of pilot skills will sooner or later render them toothless (they can't hit a destroyer with a torp 90% of the time) - although with the newest official patch it seems that no cap is leak proof. Also using Dababes AAA really thins their ranks and messes up their aims. Also they need an air HQ to have torps, keep checking signals intelligence, and always estimate ranges from size 4 AFs(both strike range and fighter escort range). Its no good keeping track of where they are as you can ferry from Kwajelein to Port Blair in two days.

[spence]

b) betty was the reason that usn didn't use their old BB during the guadalcanal campaign

c) betty could have sunk lexington during the rabaul raid if the IJN was properly organized


in general, the betty (and the idea of long-range torpedo aviation in general) was perhaps the most formidable weapon the japanese had,
and if the japanese torpedo corps was not squandered during the attritional fighting in the solomons, would have been a powerful adjunct
during any decisive naval engagement (lets say instead of 100 betty and frances in the marianas, the IJN stockpiled 1000 emilies, it could have been
a turket shoot, the other way around)

The IJN spent nearly 4 years wishing that all this was true. In the real world the Bettys (and Nells) had one really good day against ships (Prince of Wales and Repulse). That same torpedo corps went after the Lexington in February and then Adm Crace's TF at Coral Sea without any effect. After that they spent the rest of their existence completely justifying their reputation (amongst their own crews) as RONSONs (a type of cigarette lighter). The occasional torpedo hit they scored hardly justifies the expenditure of aircrew that went along with it.

One ought to think rather hard about bringing one's CVs into range of these babies though since the game (at least) indulges the IJN's fantasies concerning their effectiveness. But if you can catch part of the KB or the "mini-KB" with multiple American CVs then you can put the hurts to the IJN for sure. Their hulls are all but irreplaceable. Yours come back as Essex Class (up to a point).

[Commander Stormwolf]

Lexington's raid on Rabaul was greeted by a handful of unescorted betties

someone remind me if they were carrying torpedoes or 250kg


and most of the japanese betties were lost above port moresby and henderson field,
tasks that could have been handeled by the IJAAF if they built proper airfields in the area


i do agree that a better design than the betty was needed, something fast and heavily armed+armored

also, betties took up a lot of the precious airfield space on those small islands, so during invasions like the marshals,
relatively few could be brought into action.

how about all the airfields full of zeroes, and the atolls full of emilies (90% of an island base was the atoll water space)

a much tougher nut to crack

[Grfin Zeppelin]

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf


i do agree that a better design than the betty was needed, something fast and heavily armed+armored

Oh Stormwolf........

[ny59giants]

I'm not a big fan of hiding my American CVs till '43, but you can increase their chance of survival. Place a Marine fighter group (18 planes) on each of your CVs. That will bring the number up to 45 per CV. Even with the navy fighters re-sizing to 36 planes in July '42, I keep the extra fighters on till the Hellcat (I max out with 99 planes per CV, so I don't add all the extra planes the re-sizing allows you to do then). Just train up more navy fighter pilots. It helps to stay 14 hexes away from Ms Nell and Ms Betty. That is the extended range of the Zero. 225 fighters plus Wasp is a good number to have if you keep them all together.

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: icepharmy

Betty's and Nell's lose their edge once you have better CAPs and after a couple of fighter traps, he will have lost his best pilots. Takes a long time to train a new and proper LBA - Navt/NavB/LowN along with search and ASW skills (the last two are essential for when your subs get better and you want to augment your recon).

Why on earth would you want to train Betty pilots in nav bombing, ASW and LowN skills? Get them up to 70 Torpedo skill with about 55/60 search and they are done! Combine with 50 xp, 70 airskill A6M3a pilots and you have a strike force of 90 planes ready to do damage 15 hexes out well into 1944!

[crsutton]

I pretty much have one rule set in stone as the Allies in 42. "Don't lose your carriers." Write this down and tape it to your monitor. You can risk and lose anything else but your carriers and still come out smelling like a rose.

So......I never use Allied carriers in any place where I know KB is. And, if I don't know for certain where KB is, I don't use my carriers at all. I have passed up a few choice opportunities but if I am not 100% certain KB is not there I will call off the operation. Simple as that.

[zuluhour]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I pretty much have one rule set in stone as the Allies in 42. "Don't lose your carriers." Write this down and tape it to your monitor. You can risk and lose anything else but your carriers and still come out smelling like a rose.

So......I never use Allied carriers in any place where I know KB is. And, if I don't know for certain where KB is, I don't use my carriers at all. I have passed up a few choice opportunities but if I am not 100% certain KB is not there I will call off the operation. Simple as that.

I pretty much have one rule set in stone as the Allies in 42. "Don't lose your carriers." Write this down and tape it to your monitor. You can risk and lose anything else but your carriers and still come out smelling like a rose.

So......I never use Allied carriers in any place where I know KB is. And, if I don't know for certain where KB is, I don't use my carriers at all. I have passed up a few choice opportunities but if I am not 100% certain KB is not there I will call off the operation. Simple as that.

I only had Wasp left at sea for eight months for not adhering to such fine advice.