Resolved: carriers are only useful for scouting

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Because their planes do diddly against ships. In a recent fleet engagement I had, I certainly expected my 6 tac bombers to do more than score a few single point hits on the enemy fleet, but nope. Maybe it's because planes are only engaged with the enemy for a brief portion of the turn, perhaps only giving themselves like one shot, and then back to the carrier, while in a ship vs. ship engagement, both sides can hammer away at each other for the entire turn. And ship vs. ship combat does seem incredibly bloody (I lost 5 BB's, 5 CA's, 2 CV's and 2 DD's in one turn last night-one turn and they're all gone, every single one, only had some minor damage going in).

[Boris Balaban]

It would be nice to have lots of water, little land then the carrier is a floating island to search.

[Deadmeat1471]

im gonna test this out, will comment if i find any lil tricks to do so.

[Deadmeat1471]

When looking at this, i tend to agree, i think the tac bombers need better ship attack, say 5 or so to represent historically the advantage of carrier based planes. This way, a battleship has about 10, a fully staffed carrier (3 tac bomb 1 fighter) would have 15, this seems fair, if possibly underpowered still.

What do you guys think? i dont see the reason for such underpowered air naval ability.

*Also a tip, have fighters go forwards slightly and aft on a looping patrol order (CAP), im not sure if fighters scramble and take off if the group is attacked, but it can provide a scouting bonus and preemtive defence against enemy bombers anyway.

** hm, i think i realise now, with air forces you can bombard from long range and remain there, its working quite well im finding.

[Makris1821]

i dont see the reason for such underpowered air naval ability.

I think the problem is game balance. If you give tac air its historical strength against ships, then you have a very strong and versatile weapon. One solution to my mind is to make two different types of tactical air arms: one naval air, and one ground support. The naval air could be assumed to have a large percentage of torpedo bombers, and dive bomber pilots trained and experienced in naval attacks. This could be made to be much stronger than the current tac air against ships, but heavily nurffed against land targets.

I think the ground support planes could be buffed a bit against land units in this case (including reducing their casualties), and heavily nurffed against ships. In this way you get much more effective air units, but the costs double (because you have to make them for both land and sea), or you have to choose which medium to specialise in, which makes them less powerful overall as a weapon system.

Also, I think we have to remember that at least until quite recently air power was not very effective at night and useless in bad weather. Since these things aren't modelled in the game, weaker tacair than was historically the case could be seen as an abstraction for this.

I'll probably do a mod for this at some point once we get a few more versions into the game.

[Deadmeat1471]

'One solution to my mind is to make two different types of tactical air arms: one naval air, and one ground support'

I think this is a great idea, it would solve the problem entirely!