Matrix Games Forums

There are a couple of questions I would appreciate help with.

A carrier squadron cannot be disbanded. To upgrade carrier devestators, the unit has to be withdrawn, which requires another squadron with the same aircraft at that base. I therefore transferred two carrier squadrons to the same base and withdrew one of them. I am waiting for this to return in 50 days with Avengers.

That leaves with a combined devestator squadron of some 26 planes. If this was my LAST devestator squadron, I could not withdraw it, since there would not be another squadron with the same plane available. I could not disbandit, since it is a carrier squadron. How can I upgrade it to Avengers? Do I need to return the carrier to Pearl to do so?

Next question? I tried to transfer this LAST devestator squadron back onto a carrier, but not carrier was displayed in the list of destination ships. At that time I had 5 carriers at anchor in Noumea. When I created a taskforce with these carriers, I was able to transfer this squadron to the carriers. Is this the correct situation?

Next question? Is there benefit in transferring carrier squadrons to other baes/ships before returning a carrier to pearl...if there is no chance of aircraft upgrade. Keeping the SBD squadron in theatre would allow the super loading of carriers with an extra SBD squadron.

You don't need to withdraw/disband units to upgrade. It's automatic as long as the unit to be upgraded is within the air range of the new type from Noumea of Brisbane. Carrier squads additionally have to be docked in port. As long as you have sufficent Avengers in the pool (1.33 squad max size for allies, 1.25 for Japs) your devastators will make the switch. There's no downtime, although there probably should be.

Is there benefit in transferring carrier squadrons to other baes/ships before returning a carrier to pearl.

Your guys in theater can still be used for other missions while the CV is away getting fixed which means training continues to grow. Anything you can do to make them better means bombs/torps on target next time around.

A word of advice from one who has learned the hard way. Messing around with CV aircraft allocations is a sure way to trouble. A year and a half of playing this game has taught me that there are just too many things that can go wrong, particularly when you're playing the Allies, whose carriers are loaded almost all the way to the gills after entry of the F4F-4, anyway. You can get disappearing squadrons, odd pilot allocation numbers, overloaded carriers, and any number of other aggravations. For example, U.S. fighter squadrons assigned to the big carriers have a capacity of 36 aircraft. You move them to a land base, the limit becomes 24.

Pulling IJN squadrons off a damaged carrier helps augment your LBA effort, but remember how thin your experienced pilot pool is. The more you lose while the CV is away, the worse your pilots are going to be when she returns.

I play the same way as the ancient sailor who wanted to hear the Sirens: "Lash me to the mast and let me listen, but stop your ears and leave 'em alone," sez I.

Of course, you frequently get those situations where fragments of squadrons divert to land bases when their carrier is so damaged that they can no longer land on her. I suggest pulling these together the best you can and, if the carrier someday returns to the theater, put the fragments back on to mate up with their parent unit (or, if it so happens, put the parent unit back on to mate up with the fragment).

Believe me, you'll have a lot less to worry about and far fewer weird things happening. I believe that the game was designed in anticipation of players not re-allocating carrier air assets or augmenting them with what were historically land based units.