ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
That was a figment of John's imagination. I did not have TFs of small fry out front to soak off enemy attacks - neither during the Great Naval Battle of Wake Island nor at any other time in the game. John thought I did. He was wrong.
What I did have at Wake Island was a vast and complex group of TFs. Death Star was at the center. Out front was a series of minesweepers, ASW and small combat TFs. These were DMS/AM, SC, and DD TFs. They were just in front of DS and to each side, not to soak off enemy air attacks but to address the threat of enemy subs, mines or combat TFs.
If that kind of deployment is questionable, I'd have to give up playing. What kind of nutty world would that be?
The problem is the relative tendency of a CV group to send in strikes even against small or very small target.
First of all, both opponents can do this, so no one has really ground to complain.
Secondly, that tendency is really light, the AI usually shall skip attacking small ships if there's detection of big "prays" in range.
Finally, no, the use of pickets is 1000% historical , and a smart and due practice for a player.
Only what, Japan is a bit disadvanteged in this due to scarcity of shipping and fuel.
The real issue underlying here is in my opinion the abuse of the "CAP trap" feature allowed by the game, which I don't think is realistic or plausible, for the reason that a big number of planes flying CAP should be detected, at least in part, by enemy's recon, and accordingly dealt with; in the way that the AI would skip strikes over relatively unimportant targets, if the presence of CAP over them is detected;
