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I am still terrible at carrier battles. Any advices, tactics to share?

Thanks

I precise I am only playing small fleets.

This is what I try to do (small fleets):

1. Always have your fleet close to a major support base so that you can operate without losing a lot of efficiency and quickly return to base to increase efficiency after battle.

2. I try to have at least 3 Tactical Bomber Units (range 10) with Naval Air Training in support of my Navy and capable of striking any enemy naval unit(s) which enters into a potential area of conflict. These units should be the first attack wave against enemy carriers.

3. I always use my CVs in groups of 6. Best set up is to have enough CVs to make 2 groups of 6 plus from 2 to 4 spares.

4. I never sortie my CVs unless I have a positive ID of enemy CVs.

5. When I attack, I normally try to sortie with 2 groups of 6 CVs and place them in such a position that my 2 groups attack only 1 of his and is not in range for the 2nd enemy CV group to support. If I am not able to destroy that group, depending on how much damage I have inflicted I may sortie either a) another group of 2 to 4 CVs (whatever I have in reserve) and attempt to wipe them out. If I don't have more CVs and I have done a lot of damage to the group I am attacking, I will attempt to attack them with a surface group of BB's and CA's with the torpedo perk.

So in sum, I wait until the enemy brings out his CVs. Usually this is in support of or against an amphibious landing. I make sure I have all enemy naval units ID'ed, and if they are not ID'ed, I use my Tactical Air and attack them to see if I can get an ID. Once I have an ID on the CV's, I select one group to attack. First strike is Tactical Air and then I sortie my CVs. When I attack a CV group, I throw the kitchen sink at them until I have destroyed it.

The basic tenet is "Destroy the flat tops." Everything else is secondary.

Interesting, thank you. So, you are doing a group of 6 CVs and nothing to escort them.

I am doing stack of 3 CV plus one BB (Screen specialty), one CA (Torpedo specialty) and one DD group.
But it seems not to work fine in carrier battles. Perhaps too complicated.

Are you putting some specialty directly on your CVs? Things like Tactician.

Technically, each "group" has its own support an is escorted. So yep, I group all my CVs together. I don't give them any specialty either. They are the big hammer.

Think about how a CV battle plays out...

You identify an enemy or two CV groups at sea. When you move your first CV fleet to attack, the enemy CV group invariably interdicts your fleet and a CV battle occurs. Both groups will suffer losses of some sort, but each will take a heavy hit in efficiency. Now you move your second CV group into range and another battle occurs. At this point, the enemy group you are attacking has taken 2 hits to their efficiency while each of yours has only taken one.

Now you have one operational point for each of your CV groups. If I have CVs who have taken a lot of damage and are down to say 1 point, I will move these CVs back to base because if they get into another CV attack, they will get sunk.

So even if I lost 2 or 3 CVs by being sunk or having taken a lot of damage, I still have upwards to 10 CVs vs at best 6 enemy CVs. Those enemy CVs have also taken 2 hits to efficiency and most likely, if not sunk, quite a few hits to their strength. When I then attack them with my CVs... well... its game over.

Ah... and also remember if you first attack your target enemy CV group with Tactical Air, they will start the CV vs CV engagement with lowered efficiency.

So as I said before:

1) If there are two enemy CVs in the area, choose one which you can engage first with your land based air.

2) Maneuver your CVs such that you will engage only one of the enemy CV groups, giving you a 2 to 1 advantage.

3) Launch your CV strikes on the victim group... and watch them disappear.