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Why would one use naval air movement when one can simply wait until the naval movement phase to have his bombers protected by ships? I have read the relevant pages in the manuals, but it is still foggy in my mind. [&:]

I would guess that the naval air movement represents aircraft looking for enemy ships, whereas naval movement represents one's ships(including carriers)moving around searching for enemy ships or avoiding them or doing specific missions like transport. But in both cases both naval aircraft and ground aircraft within range can intervene.And since aircraft can only fight only once per turn, it seems to me like the naval air movement (if a battle ensues) removes aircraft from the possibility of intervening during the naval movement phase...

Am I missing something?

Well, firstly, it's usually the planes protecting the ships, not the other way around; there's really nothing a ship can do to protect an airplane, from either flak or from an enemy fighter.

But secondly, if you react a plane in (I forget the technical term) you only get half range, not the full range you get on a naval air mission. If you want to get into a high box, you're probably going to have to go a full naval air.

Historically maritime air patrols where instrumental to reconnaissance (ever played WitP?). In game terms that NAV gives you a +1 to the search number for the sea-box section it is in (which also helps other units in that sea-box section, he is the MPA for that task force so to speak), ref. 11.5.5. Further it enables you to chose naval air combat (alway first choice), ref 11.5.7. So it is valuable to establish NAV presence in a sections you have valuable units in, as it raises you chances to act / be not surprised as much.

Although many plane counter types in WiF can have Air-to-Sea factors, remember that only NAV counters (the ones with the diving plane silhouette) give you the +1 to your search box. This represents the extra training for navigating over the ocean and bombing ships, as compared to other aircraft groups that would typically fly missions over land.

Also, you can only react naval air into a sea zone if you already have a unit there....which my lead you to flying a plane first, in hopes of reacting others in later. So you can use an air mission to get your short-range, single engine fighter to the highest box it can reach, and then should combat begin later in that impulse or a future impulse, simply react in with one of your NAV units without using up a precious air mission.

Also aircraft at sea can participate in any combat in that sea area as long as they remain in a search box. Even if they are used to initiate a search in that sea zone, which changes them to a disorganized status - they still are in the sea zone eligible to participate in any combat their search box is included in, but they can't be used to initiate another naval search that turn.

A further capability of aircraft at sea is that during a Naval Air Combat, after each round of results each side has the opportunity to abort the Naval Air Combat. But they only abort from that combat, clearing through any enemy bombers in the process, and return to their search box and are still at sea. They do not have to return to a hex on shore at that point, though they do when they suffer an Abort result during Air Combat.

Confused yet? Ask more questions....

ORIGINAL: henri51

Why would one use naval air movement when one can simply wait until the naval movement phase to have his bombers protected by ships? I have read the relevant pages in the manuals, but it is still foggy in my mind. [&:]

I would guess that the naval air movement represents aircraft looking for enemy ships, whereas naval movement represents one's ships(including carriers)moving around searching for enemy ships or avoiding them or doing specific missions like transport. But in both cases both naval aircraft and ground aircraft within range can intervene.And since aircraft can only fight only once per turn, it seems to me like the naval air movement (if a battle ensues) removes aircraft from the possibility of intervening during the naval movement phase...

Am I missing something?

At the beginning of the war, almost all the leaders of the major powers considered battleships the queens of the sea. Churchill goes on and on in his 6 volume set on WW II about who has what battleships and where they are. Gradually the naval commands learned that air power was the real secret to controlling the oceans. By the middle of the war everyone was counting how many carriers there were and where they were positioned. Land based air became crucial, which is the main reason the US occupied Greenland and Iceland - to be able to base air units there to patrol the North Atlantic. It's also why the Japanese were on Guadalcanal, and why the US didn't want them to be there.

In game terms, putting an air unit in a sea area gives you a presence and lets you intercept enemy naval units moving through the sea area. That can be a fighter, as mentioned in a post above. Having naval air bombers nearby to join (naval air support subphase of naval combat) in any naval combat is nice. But their range is halved (as mentioned in a post above) which reduces the section box number they can reach.

The real question is always: what do you want to do in the sea area? Attack coastal hexes via invasions or port attacks? Prevent the enemy units from doing that? Prevent the enemy from passing through the sea area? Once you know what you want to do, then you can decide whether to use ships or planes. And likewise decide whether to commit them early or late.