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It is a shame that the aircraft carriers that supported Dragoon – the invasion of the South of France - are not represented in the game. 9 escort carriers participated in the operation. They mounted 72 Hellcats plus some 40 Wildcats with the remainder of the aircraft Seafires. Thus some ~180-200 aircraft are MIA in the game. That is a lot of air frames to lose for an invasion.

I've thought about adding the squadrons in as land-based; but that is not really accurate either and I would have to add the aircraft to the generic data as well.

Can the devs add the carriers to enhance the accuracy here?

https://www.historynet.com/when-hellcat ... twaffe.htm

Gen Dad.

Game just doesn't get into the weeds of the naval part, so they're abstracted as part of the Amphib HQs:

17.3.5.2. Fighter Intercepts and Amphibious
HQ Naval Patrols
Fighters that are available for automatic intercepts of
enemy air missions may intercept air group units flying
naval patrol missions, and these intercepts will reduce
the amount of naval interdiction produced by those air
group units. In addition, Amphibious HQ units project
fighter naval patrols into sea hexes within 2 hexes of
the amphibious HQ unit, representing carrier based
aircraft. These fighter naval patrols can lead to any naval
air patrol missions (automatic or manual air directives)
suffering aircraft losses. This will also tend to reduce
enemy naval interdiction in the protected hexes. Aircraft
lost because of these Amphibious HQ unit fighter naval
air patrols will be counted as operational losses.

I guess I can see why they had to abstract the naval element of the game. Just the number of German U-Boats involved would number in the hundreds.

Seminole,

Thanks, I had missed that part of the manual. I still don't think it is enough, though. The Hellcats were making strikes inland against rail - so they are still partly missing from the game.

Gen Dad.

I'm pretty sure there are both Hellcat and Corsair in the generic data if you really want to add them.

Cary

Indeed they are.

Hellcat.

The Hellcat F.I is an F6F-3; so not the F6F-5 types in use by the US at the invasion of Southern France - still a good start for a mod. RAF no. 800 squadron seems to have been using the Hellcat F.I. Having escort carriers protect the amphibs is an abstraction - but in the invasion of Southern France it seems that there were more aircraft than needed to protect the ships and interdiction missions were being flown inland from the flattops. Also note the lack of weapon sets on the F.I; F6F-5 should have a loadout similar to the P-47D-25 but with only 6 rockets. The complaint here is that you have a detailed air game that is suddenly missing ~200 aircraft. The U-boat abstraction is another matter - I don't know how to handle that & it seems the Allied player can divert aircraft from the U boat war at will.

Gen. Dad.