Carrier question

[Reepicheep]

Do air fleets use air attack or naval attack when attacking carriers? Carriers seem tougher than air fleets when engaging in combat with jets, even though carriers have no HQ support. If air fleets use naval attack against carriers, that would explain it- since naval attack isn't increased by jet tech.

[Dan Fenton]

I have heard that air fleets use Naval Attack versus carriers. I have also heard that Naval Attack does not improve with improved Jet Technology advances.

Therefore in this game, Carriers seem to have an odd advantage over air fleets in air combat, which is contrary to historical air combat.

[Reepicheep]

No wonder carriers can be such monsters! Given that air fleets will not do much damage to naval units in general, experience stripes on a carrier mean a great deal more than stripes on a jet; and they can get them more easily because ground units can't hurt carriers. An experienced carrier with jet tech and overstrength will still inflict the amazing casualties inherent to upper-level jet combat, while taking relatively few casualties (which is borne out by my experience).

That explains why Panzer39's jet-equipped carriers were pounding the daylights out of my own jets....

[Edwin P.]

In my view, the carrier advantage reflects the fact that they are a moving target, unlike land airbases.

Also, a carrier has to return to port for repair whereas an air fleet can be repaired at his airbase.

[ October 23, 2003, 09:24 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Reepicheep]

Using naval attack makes sense if the carrier itself is being attacked; but I suspect carriers are treated as naval targets regardless of the situation- i.e., if the carrier is attacking an air fleet, or if it is involved in interception combat (either offensive or defensive). Given that the carrier and the planes it carries are not separated in the game, that may be an abstraction of sorts to reduce the unrealistic sinking of carriers when they aren't participating in the actual fighting.

[Panzer39]

Originally posted by Reepicheep:

Given that the carrier and the planes it carries are not separated in the game, that may be an abstraction of sorts to reduce the unrealistic sinking of carriers when they aren't participating in the actual fighting.

I hope SC 2 fixes this by making half of the value the carriers and the other half the air wing. This way a carrier could not be brought down below half strength when attacking, and could not attack when half strength.