Japanese AVs

[BlackVoid]

I remember from UV that there were a few AV class ships that could operate outside ports. Tried a search on this topic for WITP in the forums and it came up empty.

How do I know which ships are capable to do this in WITP? I want to employ powerful sub hunter/killer groups and use the AVs in the groups. There is also a problem that these ships cannot be put in an ASW task force.... At least with the few I tried.

What would be the best way to use these AVs for ASW? Jut use them around ports? I had the idea of escorting some large convoys with these.

[BlackVoid]

I'm talking about IJN, AFAIK allied AVs cannot operate on the open ocean.

[String]

Well.. they usually have an aircraft capacity of 12 or 8 and have their own floatplane airgroups... jakes and petes mostly iirc

[tsimmonds]

CS can operate their float a/c at sea.

[BlackVoid]

I know that CS can. Do you mean AVs cannot?

[Rendova]

I believe only CS can operate while at sea, the difference with some IJN AV's were that some had their own air groups, while others had none (similar to the USN) but either way they needed to be in port.

[Captain Cruft]

The AVs do fly their planes whilst at sea. For one, you have a Max Sorties figure. Secondly, you can see the pilots' fatigue/mission ticking up.

Personally I prefer to leave them in port though. Too valuable to risk in convoys.

[tsimmonds]

I believe AVs can operate their A/C from any coastal hex, but not from open sea hexes.

[WhoCares]

I think (japanese) AVs can launch flights while on sea - I use them in my big resource/oil convoys to the homeland for ASW.
If they can't be put into ASW TF you can always put them in a surface TF with your ASW ships - of course, this way you lose the sub detection advantage of dedicated ASW TFs.
Another option would be to put them in a surface TF, with an ASW TF following it. This way, you might get the advantages of both worlds, a sub that attacks the surface TF would be attacked by the escorts and the probability for an attack by an ASW TF would be increased due to the 'detection'.

[DuckHunt]

Hi,
either put them in big transport TF for ASW duty or use them to set ASW air patrol zones on key areas where you know your transport TF will often pass.
For example at the beginning of the game, you have 3 AVs in Taiwan, following your initial landings, dock them in Batan Is and Vigan, Appari with ASW set to range1. So your convoys going from Takao/Tainan/Pescadores to Vigan/Lingayen will have ASW air cover on their way in/out.

This combined with ASW TFs will effectively allow you to encage the battle area.
Of course later on, you can consider moving this ASW web to other critical zones.

As for the one (or two, dont remember) in Japan, use it to escort the big convoy transporting the 4th or 56th division, afterward same use as the others.
All in all these are very valuable ASW assets, use them agressively.

The only good US subs are the submerged ones... permanently [;)]