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I am curious to get opinions from RHS players who have had carrier battles.

Specifically, what I would like to hear your views on - is this;
From what you have seen - what percentage of torpedo bombers and dive bombers make it through CAP and deliver an attack in a 1942-1943 carrier battle?
Or, restated, How effective is carrier CAP at taking on escort and still shooting down bombers?

The motivation for my question is that I am trying to asses the effects of lowering ALL aircraft weapons to range 1.
I know it makes air combat less bloody (a plus) - but does that allow fighters to do their jobs vs. enemy attack planes?

This is a difficult matter to answer.

Complication one: the percentage varies with the side, the forces assigned, and the tactics (as in how much CAP).

Complication two: you are going to overstate the value of mg armed fighters vs hmg and cannon armed fighters - making say an Oscar Ia or a Nate much more effective relative to other planes - if you reduce range to 1. RHS has gone the other way and the results seem relatively to be very good. In particular, lack of range will hurt both heavy fighters and bombers armed with cannon. In general, this seems to favor Japan vs the Allies - although there are also cases it hurts Japanese bombers and heavy fighters too (and in a sense Japan was first with cannon armed fighters in numbers - only Siam mounted them sooner).

Complication three: code execution can lead to situations during a turn a player did not intend - but he has no control over. A carrier force may react unexpectedly, it may lose planes and/or AA due to damage, etc. Naturally these things affect penetration.

In general, in RHS both CAP and AAA are effective, and in two ways: they stop some planes and they degrade those not stopped, reducing the chance of a hit (both functions of code). However, even later in the war, it is not unusual to have at least a tiny number of leakers - and at any time - even in 1945 - if you come in right on the deck you will penetrate with most - both of which are historically accurate outcomes. [Again, I attribute this to code, we only set it up with proper values of weapons and durabilities] But the human factor remains: you can do things like assign too few CAP - or none at all; stay in range of the enemy with exhausted aircrew; ect. In such conditions the enemy will nearly all penetrate - again correct IMHO.

Thanks for the input [;)]