Wildcat squadrons

[Hartley]

Why is this squadron putting 12 planes in reserve, when there are 38 pilots ,and the max size is 36 ?

[spence]

Why is this squadron putting 12 planes in reserve, when there are 38 pilots ,and the max size is 36 ?

Can't tell you but I had a squadron do the same thing today. I can however say that the day before it was rotating all 36 planes through its CAP rotation. I pulled the ship in to port, disbanded the task force and set the squadron to rest. When I looked again it had 12 planes in reserve.

[fcooke]

UV will knock two 36 fighter sqds down to 24 active planes if you put them both on the same CV......

[spence]

The CV in question carried only the normal VF, VS, VB and VT sqdrns.

[bilbow]

Can't tell you but I had a squadron do the same thing today. I can however say that the day before it was rotating all 36 planes through its CAP rotation. I pulled the ship in to port, disbanded the task force and set the squadron to rest. When I looked again it had 12 planes in reserve.

What the game is telling you is if you want to stuff your carriers with fighters contrary to the practice at the time there is a penalty to be paid. Sounds good to me!

[pasternakski]

What the game is telling you is if you want to stuff your carriers with fighters contrary to the practice at the time there is a penalty to be paid. Sounds good to me!

Yes, sir. I find that, particularly for the Americans, leaving carrier air group allocations alone works far better than messing with them. I think that this is built into the game (probably as a carryover from PW).

The Japanese are a little different story because they usually have so much more operations room on their carriers, but you still need to be careful not to disrupt the "natural order of things," otherwise, you run the risk of strange aircraft and pilot allocations that can work very seriously against you at critical times.

The inability to split squadrons into conveniently-sized groups in UV makes these experiments in CV air group reassignments and alterations especially hazardous to your health.

[Hartley]

So it's a bug, that it doesn't revert back to 36 once you take out 1 of the squadrons ?

[DJAndrews]

So it's a bug, that it doesn't revert back to 36 once you take out 1 of the squadrons ?

No, if you replace or get rid of the extra 24 plane VMF squadron, the VF will revert to 36 active planes. I sometimes use this configuration even with the 12 planes in reserve. They come out of reserve to fill vacancies as their buddies get shot down.

You're risking a lot of planes (trapped below decks) if this CV goes down. I only do this when I'm covering an invasion where there is no major Val or Kate opposition. One squadron flys CAP, the other LRCAP over the beach. The CAP usually will stop Betty attacks but beware, they will attack the CV if there is enough of them set to naval attack with escorts. It not nice facing 60 M2s and 40 Bettys with a 12 plane Wildcat CAP.