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I've decided to try to bolster up France's meager air force with a carrier air unit from Béarn, operating from land bases. In each phase, the aircraft shows up in the unit select window, but I have never been able to actually send it on a mission. This goes for all kinds of land bombing operations, as well as fighter support or interception. Is this by design, and if so, why does it show up in the selectable unit window?

It should be noted that I experience the same thing with a Japanese carrier air unit in China. They are all in supply.

The carrier planes can only fly missions other than rebase from a carrier and then land on a carrier again. During the rebase phase of the game carrier planes can freely rebase among the carriers in port,they are not then subject to the air action limits. Carrier planes can fly from a carrier to a land hex in range and perform strikes or support there, then return to the carrier.

Seems like I remember Paul stating that this was an exploit in the rules that MWiF no longer allows.

So, WAD as far as I know. About it showing up in the window? Someone else will have to touch upon that.

mo reb

ORIGINAL: FreddaH

I've decided to try to bolster up France's meager air force with a carrier air unit from Béarn, operating from land bases. In each phase, the aircraft shows up in the unit select window, but I have never been able to actually send it on a mission. This goes for all kinds of land bombing operations, as well as fighter support or interception. Is this by design, and if so, why does it show up in the selectable unit window?

It should be noted that I experience the same thing with a Japanese carrier air unit in China. They are all in supply.

Lars is correct (post #2 in this thread). The units showing up in the Selectable Units form is a bug - cosmetic, but annoying.

If you are playing with the Pilots optional, you can put the Bearn's pilots to use for France by withdrawing the CV Plane from the map and then the next turn putting an aircraft from the French Reserve Pool on the board.

The Bearn generally gets interned by the USA ultimately anyway, though if you draw the 4 range plane, it can be very useful fighting the Italians for a few turns if they are active in the war.

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Lars is correct (post #2 in this thread). The units showing up in the Selectable Units form is a bug - cosmetic, but annoying.

Roger that. Good to know.

ORIGINAL: Missouri_Rebel

Seems like I remember Paul stating that this was an exploit in the rules that MWiF no longer allows.

I'd like to hear the reasoning behind it being an exploit.

CVPs generally cost half of a FTR and some of the later game CVPs are just as good as regular FTRs so people were using them from ground bases in places they couldn't get to from a CV - essentially getting more FTRs at 75% of their normal cost (including a pilot). Plus many felt that although there were cases of CVPs fighting from ground bases plus non-CVPs being launched off CVs in order to reinforce a land base (like the Wasp ferrying CW planes to Malta, FREX), overall from this games strategic focus, it was considered ahistorical for CVPs on land to do anything but rebase.

But the very worst abuse was taking all the old crappy starting CW CVPs with a range of 3 and putting them along the African coast purely for the purpose of flying naval air interception into the zero box of a sea zone and giving a bonus of 4 surprise points to the Allies protecting their CPs from sub attack. So the Germans or Italians need to waste 4 surprise points if they find the CPs, just to call off air-to-sea combat. Meanwhile the good planes needed to provide that protection would be off fighting on the front lines. The crappy CW CVPs with a range of 2 would fulfill the same abuse on the European scale map and don't forget in MWiF that is the scale world-wide!

Edit: The difference in build cost was supposed to reflect the fact that CVP units contain a lot less planes then their ground-based counterparts. So there was another argument against their use from land and being treated the same as full size air units.

I've fixed the problem of the carrier air units showing up in the Selectable Units list when they shouldn't. You'll see that in the Update for version 1.0.4.