ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag
Hardly Ron, but you always looked at just one side of the discussion.
(a)
A group of aircraft attacks a target.
The group arrives together as a coordinated party.
The available cap intercepts.
There is not enough cap to deal with the number of aircraft.
Aircraft get through the cap and reach the target.
(b)
Separate groups of aircraft attack a target over a period of time where cap is rotating.
The available cap intercepts.
There is enough cap to deal with the number of aircraft.
Aircraft do not get past the cap.
Pretty simple stuff eh?
Don't get hung up on the word "overpowered", it simply means greater then the available cap can handle. It has nothing to do with size.
The results are in the pudding Fraggy Boy! [8D] Look at the Air to Air losses after a WITP version of a CV battle and voila. Sheer butchery far beyond any historical example. Bombers are getting intercepted too frequently by a CAP which appears to be capable of multitasking.
Problem is what you term available CAP. Seem to be too many "available" CAP when strikes suffer uncoordination and split for CAP combat purposes (or because of the way the model handles LCU selection during ground attacks or multiple TF selection during naval strikes). CAP should be just as "uncoordinated" due to the necessity of having roving patrols at varied heights at varied points of the compass around TF/base and other factors previously mentioned such as poor or no direction, lack of radar, need for ready CAP etc. I know there is code which tries to emulate some of this but the very fact that the uncoordinated/split strike model exists as it is only undermines it. This results in the massive bloodletting of bombers when historically many were left unassailed (eg DBs at Midway).
It's getting worse! Now I agree with Ron even in the details!![:D]
Until the USN got their act together on how to USE radar, they were unable to even mass the CAP from a single carrier, much less multiple carriers.
As Ron says -USN Doctrine:
prewar: standing fighter patrols at varying distances and altitudes including using scouts (SBDs) for low altitude CAP.
Early war: standing patrols with deck CAP to launch on radar detection.
midwar (tried unsuccessfully in late 42): vectoring of airborn CAP onto raids detected by radar augmented with deck CAP
late war (early 44 on): successful control of all airborn CAP from a TF fighter direction center.
The trouble with CAP until 44 was the inability to consistently CHANGE the orders of fighter a/c in the air. The lack of
1: sufficient comm channels (maybe; I've read that in a couple of places but no one every said what the late war changes were in the radios to fix the problem. See #2 below)
2: sufficient comm discipline (everybody talked at once and mostly about how great or poorly they were doing air-to-air; once the fight started it was difficult to get a word in edgewise in the late 42 battles)
3. Adequate IFF (technical difficultes, short range, poorly trained radar operators and reliability of the a/c sets made ti difficult to tell orange from blue on the radars)
4. Lack of a dedicated CIC with personnel trained to use them in order to fuse all this data and give meaningful orders to the fighters once things got confused.
All of these problems were sorted out by the USN by 44. Prior to that there were consistent probems with trying to mass the CAP from even a single carrier against a large raid.
I have seen nothing that indicates that the Japanese even got started on these problems before they ran out of carrier a/c to control.
