Aircraft never registers hits

[Larz6235]

I am playing the Solomon's Island scenario as the American's. Whenever I attack Japan ships with Naval Air trait, unit hits are never registered and I only take losses. Same for Ground Attack. I attack a unit with a Dive Bomber with the trait of close support and I never register a hit and only take losses. For the entire scenario. I have stopped purchasing air units as they are useless. Same for Air to Air combat planes. The Japanese bomb a surface group with land bombers and my two fighter groups so nothing. They don't interdict, they have Full supply and oil etc. Nothing shows them participating in the reports.

Also, what is the difference in FULL Support and Mission. I have looked in the manual to see what icon represents FULL VS Mission.

Any thoughts would be helpful. Frustrating.

[eskuche]

Full support means planes will automatically fly with (and against) ground attacks but not naval attacks. It also means (if left on mode (1) naval during enemy turn) it will interdict ship movement and I believe convoys if in range.
Edit: mission mode means you have to manually give it missions by right clicking an enemy unit for it to do anything.

Air will do 0-1 damage to ground units and usually 0-2 against naval units. You need to set up for success, including good weather, full recon, and good effectiveness. Only the first attack against ground will take off strength. The hidden effectiveness of planes is attacking the effectiveness of enemy units. This is most apparent when you really hammer a unit with 4-6 attacks a turn. You can see the combat value drop a few points just from that. This preps for the infantry assault.

Effectiveness damage from all sources are not shown to the opposing player (probably for balance reasons?) and is not obvious that you are taking a lot more effectiveness due to blocked attacks. I'm not sure people have worked out the math, and I think Alvaro wants it relatively obscured, but what I think happens is that when any unit takes damage, such as from an airstrike, the damage rolls against the defense value. Even if it bypasses that, I believe it has a 40% chance to be converted into (how much?) effectiveness damage. Again, this is most useful when the opponent doesn't have access to main supply recovery.

[AlvaroSousa]

In that scenarios air units are half the size of the main scenarios to better reflect the air forces in the region.

[Larz6235]

So does the Naval Air do the same thing as Ground Support. Reduce the effectiveness even though they may not register a hit? That would still be useful.

[AlvaroSousa]

Compare the two units with the 2 different advancements. Naval air does better vs ships, ground support does better vs land.

There is also effectiveness. Part of the decision points of the Solomons is running supply moves at night.

If for 4 turns you run supply to your air unit in some crappy port 1 island +24% effectiveness and the enemy doesn't that is a huge advantage.