Can CVE without integral airgroups fly combat missions?

[Dolmon]

I beleive in UV if the CVE did not come with an airgroup it could only be used for transporting squadrons. Is this the same in WitP? ie one of the starting IJN CVE's does not have any planes assigned to it. Will planes that are assigned to it fly naval attacks etc or are they just for transport?

[AmiralLaurent]

UV CVE were able to fly missions, the only problem was that you have to find units small enough to be below the maximum number of planes to fly. That was the main problem with the Long Island, that had to wait for months before she can fly anything except for ferry flight. IJN CVE were large enough to be far more useful. Any land-based Zero units (27 planes) was able to operate aboard this CVE (capacity 27).

I haven't seen a CVE yet in WITP but don't think it's different. Respect the maxium number of planes allowed and the planes will fly.

[pad152]

Easy to add with the editor!

[Mr.Frag]

Japan has plenty of small wings that fit on her little CVE's.

The Yanks on the other hand get CVE's so overstuffed with planes that you need to be very careful with them as they do NOT fly them [:D]

[UncleBuck]

I found that the handy Split unit functions in WitP works great for this. I can transfer off the huge numbers of planes that some of the CVE's come with and then split a Fighter group and a DB group for example and place the detachments on the smaller carriers and fly sorties. You end up with say a Squadron of 40 F6F's you split it, it becomes three groups of 12 to 14 planes each. Load them on the CVE's. DO the same with a TBF or SBD squad and Viola, a 24 plane ship. IT works; I use them for point defense and ASW support on Long Convoys in semi-dangerous waters. Combine it with an ASW group and you are pretty safe. Oh I usually put 2-3 CVE's together and try to keep the Squadrons I split in the same TF. This lets me know where they are, and if one of the CVE's gets damaged and they have to transfer they just merge with their other group.

Hope it helps


UB