Serious need to rethink how Carriers work

[sfbaytf]

Having your carriers fighters waste time and energy sweeping over useless targets was tolerable in the past, but around the Japanese Home Islands its begining to seriously undermine the game completely. If your opponent has a few ships nearby the allies will send sweeps and strikes in the face of overwheling odds and take useless losses. No commander would send in a bunch of small easily overwhelmed strikes to take out a few worthless ships well in range of 6+ major Japanese airbases packed with fighters.

I've already destroyed about 2000+ airframes on the ground in the past month or so and have had the equivalent of 3 Turkey shoots in which I shot down over 650+ enemy planes in the past week. The Japanese can build fighters up the ying yang and you can't have your carriers do stupid things where you can't control it.

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands and you can't set your carrier planes range to 0 or 1 because that's going to leave you terribly vulnerable, but having idiotic strikes sent in to attempt to destroy a few worthless boats that are going to be Capped by 250-500 Japanes fighters is insane and very unbalancing.

Up till now it was tolerable, but in these circumstances its not. Now I have a bunch of depleted squadrons and I can't operate my carriers near the Homeislands because I can't have them launching dumb strikes. Now I'm vulnerable to a counter strike beacuse of fatigued and depleted squadrons.

[ETF]

650 planes in a week. WTF? WOW

[Mynok]

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands

Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

[sfbaytf]

That's not 650 planes in a week. We're talking 3 seperate engagements where 600+ Japanese aircraft shot down! We're looking at 1900+ gunned down in a weeks timespan. I'm gettin this off the daily stats of enemy planes shot down. I don't doubt the validity of the reports as the recon flights confirmed the before and after count of planes based at the airfields.

With no carriers ops around the home islands-no operation Downfall...

[sfbaytf]

So no General Sherman march to Tokoyo?

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands

Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

So no General Sherman march to Tokoyo?

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands

Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

The good General had a great advantage in that he could "march" to as well as through Georgia. Even he would have to invade before he could march to Tokyo [:D]

[sfbaytf]

Well at this point its a good bet that the big green destruction machine better known as Mr and Mrs Godzilla is going to pay the Japanese Home Islands a visit. In spite of the countless thousands of planes I've destroyed, I'm already counting a thousand or so more waiting to be slaughtered so I'm expecting that if and when the time comes there will be plenty of toys the Emperor will hurl at the fire breathing monsters.

I've been warned that the Home Islands have been reinforced by 14 or so divisions and numerous other smaller units. I also know that the Emperor has numerous carriers and airplanes on them. Also inspite of the brutal surface duels around Amami Oshima, I'm sure the Imperial Navy still has surface ships left.

I fully expect the swarms of Cylones Japanese aircraft to continue to show up for a fight. Had this been stock WitP, the game would probably be over as it would just be a brutal ground slugging match. Now it just comes down to Abomb or Godzilla vs Japan and its limitless supply of airplanes and massive ground armies.

When all is said and done I expect to be operating Bearcats and F-80 fighter jets and I'm sure my opponent is furiously working on some wonder weapons of his own.

I have no interest in playing just to claim a "victory" by the game rules. If it goes past 1945 and I lose by the rules I don't care. This goes till one of us cries uncle, and I don't see my opponnent anywhere near that point and I don't have any interest in dropping A Bombs at the moment.

[HexHead]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands

Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

"Serious need to rethink..."

No. I am a noob, but let my humble self observe:

* Carriers are not meant to achieve air superiority.

* Carriers are desgned and operated to achieve naval superiority and control, along with ASW, of the sealanes.

* The 'punch' from a carrier raid can overwhelm the CAP of a small AF in the Seas, but is outnumbered by continental LBA.

Mynok is correct and succint. There's a reason we took Saipan and Okinawa. The next step was to have been Kyushu for...airfields!

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: HexHead

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You have to operate your carriers near the Home Islands

Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

"Serious need to rethink..."

No. I am a noob, but let my humble self observe:

* Carriers are not meant to achieve air superiority.

* Carriers are desgned and operated to achieve naval superiority and control, along with ASW, of the sealanes.

* The 'punch' from a carrier raid can overwhelm the CAP of a small AF in the Seas, but is outnumbered by continental LBA.

Mynok is correct and succint. There's a reason we took Saipan and Okinawa. The next step was to have been Kyushu for...airfields!

are you talking about the game or reality? Hope you´re talking about the game because I wonder what the USN did in real life with their carriers.

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: HexHead

ORIGINAL: Mynok




Um...unless you are invading, I see no possible reason for this.

"Serious need to rethink..."

No. I am a noob, but let my humble self observe:

* Carriers are not meant to achieve air superiority.

* Carriers are desgned and operated to achieve naval superiority and control, along with ASW, of the sealanes.

* The 'punch' from a carrier raid can overwhelm the CAP of a small AF in the Seas, but is outnumbered by continental LBA.

Mynok is correct and succint. There's a reason we took Saipan and Okinawa. The next step was to have been Kyushu for...airfields!

are you talking about the game or reality? Hope you´re talking about the game because I wonder what the USN did in real life with their carriers.

I think what he is referring to is that WWII carriers were tactical assets, not strategic. Their primary function was to support invasion forces and keep the SLOCs open. Once invasion forces had gained control of an airfield or two, carriers were typically withdrawn for resupply, replensihment and maintenance.

Carriers were good at conducting hit and run raids against heavily defended areas but they weren't particularly suited to lingering off the coast of heavily defended areas such as the Home Islands. Carriers did operate off the coast of Japan very late in the war but most of their operations were of the hit and run variety. Also the critical aviation fuel situation and pilot quality issues in Japan at that stage helped reduce the threat to the carriers.

Chez

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: HexHead



"Serious need to rethink..."

No. I am a noob, but let my humble self observe:

* Carriers are not meant to achieve air superiority.

* Carriers are desgned and operated to achieve naval superiority and control, along with ASW, of the sealanes.

* The 'punch' from a carrier raid can overwhelm the CAP of a small AF in the Seas, but is outnumbered by continental LBA.

Mynok is correct and succint. There's a reason we took Saipan and Okinawa. The next step was to have been Kyushu for...airfields!

are you talking about the game or reality? Hope you´re talking about the game because I wonder what the USN did in real life with their carriers.

I think what he is referring to is that WWII carriers were tactical assets, not strategic. Their primary function was to support invasion forces and keep the SLOCs open. Once invasion forces had gained control of an airfield or two, carriers were typically withdrawn for resupply, replensihment and maintenance.

Carriers were good at conducting hit and run raids against heavily defended areas but they weren't particularly suited to lingering off the coast of heavily defended areas such as the Home Islands. Carriers did operate off the coast of Japan very late in the war but most of their operations were of the hit and run variety. Also the critical aviation fuel situation and pilot quality issues in Japan at that stage helped reduce the threat to the carriers.

Chez

yes that´s what they did, but isn´t this exactly the opposite of what I´ve highlighted above: Carriers are not meant to achieve air superiority? They moved somewhere and did achieve air superiority. Without air superiority, all those invasions would have been pummeled, or at least hit hard.

[John Lansford]

The carriers operated with impunity off the coast of Japan from mid-1945 onward, attacking anything they wished.  This doesn't sound possible in AE due to the immense extra plane bonus the AI has.

[wdolson]

The Japanese had a huge stockpile of aircraft they were holding back for the invasion of Japan.  They only used a relative few on the US carrier raids because fuel was in short supply and most missions would be one way (by design or due to inexperienced pilots going up against seasoned CAP).

This is a strategic decision the Japanese made in the real war which a player doesn't have to make.

Bill

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

The Japanese had a huge stockpile of aircraft they were holding back for the invasion of Japan.  They only used a relative few on the US carrier raids because fuel was in short supply and most missions would be one way (by design or due to inexperienced pilots going up against seasoned CAP).

This is a strategic decision the Japanese made in the real war which a player doesn't have to make.

Bill

And even with this less-than-maximum effort, the USN lost sufficient carriers to the yards to repair damage that the number of a/c they could put over any given target was dropping in spite of the last of the Essex class coming on-line. If the Japanese had thrown everything at the carriers the situation would have been much worse, but that would not have effected the course of the war a bit since land-based a/c were perfectly capable of dominating the invasion beaches if there was no massed kamikazi threat.

[HexHead]

Carriers cannot establish air superiority. Yes, that is what I described - I thought it was clear. A CV can ruin your day, but not your week. Even a dozen carriers (call it 1200 planes of all types) are not going to contend with a real continental air defense - the numbers are against them.

The single biggest factor in Japan's defeat was cutting her economic throat. If Third Fleet had patrolled off the HI in 43, they woulda come home in a rowboat.

Any AFBs here go poking their nose in the hornet's nest with airdecks that they can't replace quickly? I'll bet you gather intelligence and recon carefuly before committing carriers near serious LBA. Don't get the capabilities of island AFs mixed up with land masses who can scramble four lvl 9 AFs to counterpunch.

[sfbaytf]

The original problem was idiotic sweeps being launched by carriers against a couple of ships in ports well within range of 6 major Japanese airfields packed with fighters. The strikes from the carrier was 7-8 hexes away-the max range. There needs to be a way to turn his off.

Keep in mind I control Nago and Amani Oshima and have plenty of P-51's, P-47N's and Corsairs operating from them. I also have an airfield on Ishigaki operating fighters so it's not like I'm sending in carriers without support. At this point and this situation all strikes must be careful and deliberate. You can't have your carriers doing stupid things on autopilot.

[HexHead]

You can't turn it off, you'd have to edit code. IIRC, the "documentation" says that unTargeted Groups have hardcoded priorites about ships and other targets within their attack radius.

[Alfred]

Of course you can "turn it off".

(a) Shorten the range of the planes if you don't want them to hit the bases.
(b) Change the missions assigned to the airgroups.
(c) Embark different airgroups onto the carriers.

But then, if you don't want to hit the bases, why do you have carriers in the area?

Alfred

[sfbaytf]

Then perhaps a button could be added at some point to change or suspend the coded priority targeting. The shotgun approach begins to break down in this situation and could easily be "gamed" to severe disadvantage to one side-I'm not implying that was done in this case. When operating in Home Island waters it becomes very imperative for the allieds to be able to use he sniper approach-make each shot count.

[sfbaytf]

If you set the range to zero or one you're making yourself extremely vulnerable to counter attack from enemy carriers. You change the target then once again you open yourself up to attack from enemy carriers and ships. By this stage of the war American carrier task forces had sophisticated combat information centers and could gather, analyse and disseminate information gathered and make reasonably intelligent targeting decisions.

There are plenty of good reasons to operate your carriers close to the home islands-especially if you intend to invade.