Possible screw with the Pacific war?

[Uncle_Joe]

Paul, thanx for the feedback.

Really what I was fishing for was whether this was something that had been seen and dismissed as not a problem or or whether it was something that hadnt truly been encountered/analyzed and thus, required more study.

The more I play, the more I'm convinced the Pacific war works out very nicely overall. I think once the island Op Fire glitches get fixed, it will be darned perfect for a game of this scale and scope (which is REALLY impressive given how easy it is to play once you get into it).

About the only real issue I see is the above Heavy Fleet AA issue when researched. FWIW, my testing is showing that the simple fix (reduce World Standard to 3) is working out better than reducing the AA factor to 3 and leaving the Standard at 4. I believe there should be some real risk involved in sending planes into sustained combat operations (ie 3 months worth), so having the AA at 4 allows some attrition of Air Groups, without seeing them wiped out wholesale by the Battleships as they are with 5 AA.

Obviously I cant test whether it works out OK by allowing Aircraft damaged by AA to still shoot. Intuitively, I dont think this is as good of a solution because the attrition to the Air Groups will still be hideous and that just does not feel right for Carriers vs 'naked' Surface Fleets. Even if a few BBs went with them, its still not enough incentive to want to lose all your planes doing so. It will also open the door up to 'sucker punch' attacks where you send 1 Carrier plane to attack enemy Carriers just to draw the counter-attack into your waiting BBs to slaughter them....that just screams against everything that actually happened in the Pacific campaign.

At any rate, as time permits, I would just like to know if this is an issue that had cropped up before, and if so, what is the reasoning behind allowing the BBs that much AA capability, especially early in the war. If it hasnt popped up before and solutions are being looked at, I'd be happy to test any you might want to suggest and/or pitch in 'peanut gallery' analysis.

Thanx for your time!

[Paul Vebber]

I'll leave it teh playtesters who helped out a lot more than me to comment on whether it was discussed. I just don;t know having come into the mix at the end.

[PDiFolco]

IMHO and given early war history (Tarento, Pearl ...), I'd suggest that both BB AA attacks and World standard be reduced by 1 to 3, BUT that AA World standard for Light Fleet be increased to 4.
This will make BB rather sitting ducks when attacked by CAGs - and only heavy research can make them stand - and make Light Fleets the real AA threat for airplanes. This feels right, historically the BBs were never very effective at AA (it wasn't their role), but depended on CL for this.
Obviously that can screw up some other balance, so it has to be tested ..[:'(]