Escort/Intercept range for Fighters/Carriers

[Chernobyl]

So fighters start with a strike range of 5 and an escort range of 7, which already seems high to me. Then they get an astounding +4 escort range per tech level of LRA. This strikes me as exceedingly high.

I might set it to an escort range of 5 with a +2 bonus per LRA tech. Fighters could still escort from England to Prague or from Saipan to Japan with full LRA tech. As it is, fighters almost always are within escort range.

Recall that in 1940 German fighters had trouble escorting much farther than London (4 hexes from Lille) and that in 1943 American P-47s couldn't escort very far into Germany.

Also, I am not sure Carriers should have long escort and intercept ranges. Especially so considering they have the ability to use "mixed" strike wings and escort their own strikes. They only get +1 escort range and +1 intercept range per LRA tech, but I kinda feel that Carriers/Escort Carriers (despite the name "escort") should NOT be able to escort bombers on their own. It seems unrealistic for Corsairs to be escorting B-24s on their way to Berlin. It also seems unrealistic for carrier fighters to be capable of scrambling and intercepting enemy high level strategic bombers quite far inland.

I would propose actually removing the ability for carriers to intercept beyond a radius of 1 (with +0 per tech level) and remove their ability to escort entirely (except by choosing strike composition to "escort" your own strike). That would represent something like a "Combat Air Patrol" for the carrier and adjacent vessels which is to my understanding the real kind of "intercepting" carrier fighters did in WWII.

What do you guys think?

[CaesarAug]

Yes, in my home-made mod, air units are slightly tweaked. I agree that game-default escort ranges are generous, as well as research increases.

But after pondering your suggestions, I think I’ll further tweak and test the start-game fighter range, escort range, and intercept range to 4, with 4 tech bonuses of +1 for fighter and intercept range (max 8), and a +2 for escort range (max 12).

And as for carriers, the whole idea in this thread was to somehow mod how carrier-based fighters should function, i.e., obviously with the same abilities of land-based fighters but tweaking their ranges for a seemingly more historically realistic gameplay. Other players here, however, have rightly pointed out the game scale and the fact that there is no stacking of units in hexes…

But we have to work within the game engine and editing parameters. I’m thinking of tweaking (yet again!) a carrier’s fighter intercept range to a fixed maximum of 2, that is +0 research bonus, or from game-start carrier fighter intercept range of 0+1+1 max intercept range 2, or perhaps game-start carrier fighter intercept range of 1+1+1 for max intercept range 3.

And carrier bomber range from game-start 4, with 2 levels of research bonus of +1 (max 6), along with carrier fighter escort game-start range of 4, with 2 levels of research bonus of +1 (max 6). Or game-start carrier bomber and fighter escort range of 3+1+1 max bomber and escort range 5.

Admittedly though, disabling carrier fighter escort is interesting for the reasons outlined, though it is problematic. There doesn’t seem to be any way to restrict carrier escort to carrier bombing sorties. Needs further thought.

EDIT: after giving all of this some thought, carriers really should retain fighter escort capability. I’m thinking more in the line of limiting carrier intercept range to 2, carrier escort range to 4, carrier bomber range to 6 (with or without research bonuses, these values would reflect the maximums). And also, limiting carrier intercept and escort missions to 1 per turn for both carrier types. Carrier bombers may get only 1 mission as well or perhaps 2 missions. But all this puts restrictions on the ranges for different missions, the number of missions per type, the more thoughtful use of carrier operation modes, etc.

And so, further play-testing, of course…

[Chernobyl]

Good to know I'm not the only one with similar thoughts.

It's difficult to get everything right. I actually think the naval warfare is pretty good. Compared to other games like HOI where the real-time aspect kind of ruins the naval and air game (you either get bombarded with popups or you miss key battles). Having friendly ports nearby makes a big difference in a larger battle, which is kind of neat. Carriers actually feel mostly right to me.

Corsairs or Sea Hurricanes escorting B-29s flying at 30000 feet is a joke though, as is 27 hex escort range for fighters.