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I have looked through the book and several online FAQs but cannot find anything explaining ship repairs in UV... After several encounters with the IJN near Gili Gili I have numerous ships damaged and was wondering if its quicker to send to Pearl for repairs, or sit them in a large port and let them repair there.. Does anyone have any numbers on this ?

Xargun

That's an easy decision for the Americans; send all your damaged ships home. They only come back stronger and you will get equivilent ships in the meantime.
For the Japanese if you send a ship home you may never see it again. The only reason the Japanese have for sending ships home is to deny them to your opponent as victory points. Keep them if they are in any way useful.

Actually there is no easy answer. Ships will repair flotation very quickly in any good size port. System damage, however, will repair very slowly. Smaller ships such as subs, DD, PC will repair sys damage at a fair rate in a port and can be left there. They will repair pretty fastHowever large ships will repair painfully slow. As the Americans, it pretty much pays to send all damaged ships home to Pearl. They repair pretty fast and will come back with better equipment. As said before, for the Japanese you will have some tough decisions to make.

The game allows you a maximun number of ships, so if you send a lot of ships back, then your chance of new ships getting released increases. As the Japanese player, I send most damaged ships back if the date is before Dec 31, 1942, I have a game going in scen 19 where I sent all five BBs back for repairs. In return, I got the both Japanese super BBs and four CAs, plus an assortment of CLs and DDs. After the new year, I am not so sure, as it is my understanding that Japanese ship allotments decreases with time.

One big factor is the ship allotment % that you and your opponent set in the options menu before starting the game. If you allotment is at 100% then, you will get some ships back but not all. If it is set higher (as we frequently do) then you can expect lots more ships releases and can send ships to repair.

The other questions is what strategy are you following? If you are looking for a quick auto win, then you might want to hold onto a carrier with 25 sys damage and use it in the fight. If you are planing for a long fight and setting up a defensive perimiter to fight for the bases you hold, it might be wise to send that carrier home for the long haul. This also dictate how you will use your ships in the game as even in Pearl or Tokyo, carriers and especially BBs take a long time to repair.

I agree with what people have said above, but would add the following: If you send a ship home it will repair and become available according to the following formula. Days = Sys Damage times Ship type, plus return time. The value for ship type varies. AP/AKs, DDs, CLs and other small ships have a value of 1. Cruisers have a value of 2, carriers 4 and BBs either 5 or 6 (can't remember which). Return time is 11 days for Japan and 19 days for the Allies and represents the time required to return to Japan or Pearl (a reduced speed due to damage is ignored). Note that this gives the time for the ship to become available. When it will arrive back depends on when the ship is released by high command, plus the time required to travel back to Truk or Noumea.

I've done some tests and ships typically repair at about the same rate as suggested by the formula above if the damage is within bounds (eg. less than about 60)and a size 5 or greater port is used. There is a advantage to retaining ships for in-theatre repair, so long as you have already completed all the AA upgrades (allies only, Japanese AA upgrades are insignificant). This is because ships will function virtually without penalty at sys damage of 10 or less. By releasing a ship at sd of 10 and considering a travel time of 11 days from Japan, you get a ship back three weeks earlier than is possible by sending it home.

As the Allies, you have so many ships by the spring of '43 that repairing in-theatre is pointless. The new ships you receive in return will be almost invincible (a Baltimore Class CA has an AA value of 3300, more that twice that of a normal BB, late in '43).

I think there must be a further refinement for ship size within a class. For example my smaller CVs like Hiyo repair twice as fast as Kaga. Similar for Kirishima class BB vs Yamato.

Quark

You could very well be right. I've never tracked a CVL or the Yamato

Another factor to consider is commitment level, It is possible to keep the Japanese level on high by sending all damaged ships back to Tokyo no matter what year. In 1942 I will send most damaged ships back to tokyo even if they are only above 10 sys damage. CVs are a special case, If they are below 30 I will keep them for repair in a size 9 base otherwise I send it back to Tokyo. BBs take so long , I send them back.