CVE's and replacement air groups????

[captskillet]

From what I have read about WWII CVE's had 2 uses....

#1-Provide air cover for amphib TF's/landings and

#2-Provide replacement planes/pilots for air TF's while at sea.

For them and the replacement air groups you get to accomplish mission #2 do you need to have them stationed on a CVE in a air combat TF????

[Montbrun]

...in a replenishment TF...

Brad

[Damien Thorn]

If I have Kaga and Akagi attacking a base and I have CVE Kaiyo in a replenishment task force, will planes from Kaiyo automatically fly to Kaga or Akagi as they drop below their maximum number?

[Pier5]

I am totally confused over this whole process. There is another thread out there on this subject, but no one seems to know much. There seem to be several possibilities and no one "in the know" seems to respond. As I see it, the possibilities are: (a) It's broke and no one knows it's broke. (b) It's broke and no one wants to admit it's broke. (c) It works, but no one know how. (d) It works, and some people know how, but they don't want you to know, so they can have a PBEM advantage. Whatever.

This is my experience. As U.S. player, I have formed a Replenish task force with CVE Nassau, which carries a replenish fighter unit and a replenish dive bomber unit. If I leave the TF in port one day, the Nassau has 50 F4F's and 50 SBD's. If I leave port, the number drops to 7 F4F's and 33 SBD's. Going back to the "in port" turn, I can see that although I have 50/50 aircraft, I only have 7/33 pilots. Upon leaving port, the excess aircraft vaporize. If you leave the TF in port, the number of ready aircraft varies nearly every turn, as the number of pilots available varies (and this is U.S., with plenty of pilots).

I don't have a clue has to how the aircraft would transfer to a fleet carrier needing replacements. I was never able to get it to happen, but I did not actually try to fly the unit to a carrier as it would appear to overload it.

So I don't have a clue how this works, but get this. 4 partial squadrons of SBD's show up in Pearl, identified as VFB-2/1, VFB 5/1, etc., each with 9 SBD's (I'm not sure of the squadron numbers, but they corresponded to the fighter and dive bomber squadrons aboard four CV's that were attacking Truk and currently based in Kwajalein. These carriers had some losses, but typically 2 or 3 SBD's per ship. Since I had no rational way to get these aircraft to Kwajalein, I let them set in Pearl. When my carriers returned to Kwajalein, the game replaced those lost automatically, upon docking or the next day. The part squadrons on Pearl remained unchanged. Then two more partial squadrons show up, initially with 36 SBD's! and also corresponding to other squadrons on carriers at sea. WTF! But the next day, they were down to 9 SBD's. So now, all my CV's, except the Wasp I think, have a partial squadron which carries a combined fighter/bomber designation and have 9 SBD's. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to experiment with loading some of these on a CVE, as the only two remaining in Pearl are loaded with replenishment squadrons with aircraft that don't exist yet (Hellcat, Helldiver).

I don't mind a bit beta testing this game and was, in fact, an advocate of the early release of the games for exactly that purpose. So I got exactly what I wanted, but without knowing it. Fine. However, I wish someone would come in and organize our efforts.

Pier5

[captskillet]

Pier.... I am in August 43 of the campaign game and have a couple of CVE's in a replenish TF following my semi-deathstar of 2-2 CV TF's around, they are stocked with replacement F6F and Avenger Sq's. The replenish TF also naturally have some AO's I will let you know what I find out about their performance over the next few turns!!!