So, I decided to litter the forum with a whole lot of pictures just for the sake of laughing at people with slow download speeds doing something with my time. Here is a little pseudo-AAR!
1922.03.04 - CVL vs. CVL exercise
Excuse my not-horribly-professional presentation, truth be told I did not thought about making this post before the endscreen, so I had to work with the post-battle reports and logs. No sexy pictures of aerial mayhem as such. :\ Anyway - the premise. The idea was to split my four identical CVLs converted from pre-dreadnoughts if I recall correctly into two groups and see what we can do. Weighing 15500 tons, but retaining the original 10" belt an 2" deck armor, I cleared out space for 24 aircrafts. Maybe I could push it to 25, but I decided to install 3x3" DPs and 40 light AA guns instead. For the air wing, for now I went with an almost all-in TB approach:
> 4 fighters
> 10 torpedo bombers
> 10 torpedo bombers
respectively in each and every CVL.
As such, I handed over 2-2 CVLs and one BB for each team, plus distributed a handful of CLs and destroyers, and after paying entry fee to the aquatic amusement park, mock battle began. Immediately realized that I tend to use seaplane search doctrine, and guess who does not have any? Oops. Oh well, I grabbed one TB of each squadron (by the way, I readied them with light loadout and "recon" role, but once selected their checkbox to spot them, the game automatically changed them to "Strike N"), and ordered a search to the east. Why east, you might ask? Because that was the default setting in the "recon and CAP" menu, so I assumed it was the right way to look for the enemy.
If I remember right, my northernmost TB reported back a sighting. Decision is: are we going to jump on that? Now, truth be told, just based on "game rules", I assumed that if I saw something, there is a fair chance that there is just about everything. Either way, arm the squadrons, role: naval strike.
This picture above might be slightly incorrect in the sense that I was most likely unable to spot all 36 of my strike planes at the same time, so strictly speaking, I launched two coordinated waves (well... mini-"waves") as fast as I could - and goddess Fortuna kissed me on my forehead.
Naturally, I did not know this at that point, but the reports were accurate. One of the "enemy" carriers, Suwo, did just eat three torpedoes. I have no way of knowing it wether or not she was unable to operate aircraft anymore, but her planes did certainly not achieve anything noted in the logs if at all got airborne. According to the logs, her complement's 6 TBs were lost due to "operational reasons" (maybe returned damaged?), and all of the rest (4 fighters and 14 torpedo bombers) were "lost on ship". Not sure if this means that she went down with them in her hangar space, or some of them had to ditch once out of fuel.
Now, however, the enemy drifted into visual range - at least the battleship "Hatsuse". 16" AP shells started to soar trough the sky, and the newer, easily more powerful "Hizen" started to get the upper hand.
As the enemy escorts flanked to the north - the direction my carriers used for launching aircraft - I needed to clear that path, but for the time being the danger they posed did not seem to be dire. The "Hatsuse" still very much in fighting condition, however, might have, so I turned the "Hizen" to force the opposition to open up the range. At the same time, one of my TB squadrons, now consisting of eight planes, managed to pick up the severely damaged Suwo fighting with the flooding in the backline and scored one more, the fourth torpedo hit, sealing her fate. Not that I was aware of her condition, mind you.
At about 04:00 (local time: 14:00), the first of the Red Team's air arm finally puts down their business card onto the table. "Hizen" is currently in an all-out firefight with the "Hatsuse", winning decisively, but "Kashima's" TB squadron arrives to the scene and places a torpedo into the battleship's side. CAP directly above was present, as the two CVLs were "slaved" to the battleship, but the ~three fighters were unable to do anything besides damaging a single TB. Explosion. Damage is frightening, flooding is heavy and high speed used for evasion now does not help, but all is not enough of a justification to disengage, as "Hatsuse" still stands valiantly, though with most of her turrets disabled or destroyed. Fighting took place at a distance of about 12k to 18k yards, and 2" turret top plates were just not up for the task where the "Hizen" scored consistently ("04 03:50 16 in 15321 yds Turret A hit T * Turret destroyed (BB Hizen, AP)") Our own TBs were also busy not too much later with... "helping" with the practically already sinking "Hatsuse". Two torpedo hits, but not a lot of commendations for the crew, that's for certain.
No curry just yet, gentlemen (is it even friday?), because look above? CVL "Kashima" did not finish her monologue. Friendly CVL "Shikishima" and light cruiser "Ikutsushima" gets targeted and hit with one torpedo each in quick succession. Damage is under control, but an impressive feat nonetheless, especially hitting a light cruiser at flank speed! "Shikishima", a converted B shakes this off, kind of, but "Ikutsushima" is now capped at 12 knots. Still, retaliation is in order. "Shikishima" and "Tosa" both are frantically rearming and duct taping up any TBs managed to touch down, but we have to think about their northern light force group as well.
So, how should we approach this? While on the north the light cruisers and destroyers are exchanging fire, "Tosa" launches to aid this group, but achieves no results. "Shikishima" meanwhile scrapes together the operational remains of the two squadrons (most are damaged - ultimately, three deemed to be complete loss, one to AA, one shot down by enemy fighters and one operational loss), and sends their exhausted pilots once more onto the horizon, one last time before nightfall. But hey, look at the bright side, now we have space to spot both squadrons! Either way, they manage to find Kashima, but the "red" CVL manages to slip away unscathed - yet again. ...but not before her last strike arrives to the scene of the battleship duel and places a second torpedo into "Hizen" at 6:01! Just fantastic, critical hit, submerged torpedo tube destroyed (legacy ship, mind you), and the newest battleship of the Tenno is now - on paper, thankfully - about to become a pretty problematic corral reef with just a tad bit too much fuel oil for the Greenpeace's liking. She detaches and disengages, fortunately the shock was ultimately bigger than the damage and - with about ~20% reserve buoyancy left - the situation became stabilized fairly quickly.
Meanwhile in the north both participants were engaged in a fairly cautious engagement. I managed to keep them away from the carriers, and were not in a hurry to slam my face into a torpedo for not a whole lot of good reason. Long range "give them a good old college try" torpedoes missed their mark as such, some six inch shells perforated a hole here or there, but nothing devastating. In the upcoming night, the battle
concluded.
Some analysis - though nothing serious, considering it's past midnight over here, and well past midnight in my head
> First of all, shoutout to Tosa's 483. Sentai, the guys downed one of Kashima's "Kyushu Kyofu" fighter from the 447. Sentai! Why is this interesting...? Because the 483rd flies torpedo bombers. Good work, random backgunner!
> First strike won the day, arguably. I had luck, that's bloody certain, but even in the worst case scenaro a minimum of one to two deckload of strike was denied because of the destruction of "Suwo".
> I had negligible fighter presence, and it showed. With a total of ~17% of my force being fighters - eight aircraft to be precise -, maybe six could give CAP at best, which of course, eroded quickly to a mere two mainly due to operational reasons. They couldn't do much despite their best efforts, maybe not even as much as distracting the strike planes. Still, probably better than nothing.
> "Better than nothing" - well, take the numbers as you please. My force downed two aircrafts: a fighter shot down a TB, and... a TB a fighter. My opposition however shot down four of my TBs with their fighter cover. AA managed to pick off
1-1 TB for each side.
> I managed to soak up a fairly respectable amount of damage coming from above overall, but fortunately, the damage was spread out , only "Hizen" took more than one torps. Seemingly I was extremely lucky with my initial three hits on CVL "Suwo", and she even took a fourth to go down. Air force is something to be reckoned with, but is only truly terrifying currently when able to strike a singular target concentratedly. Note, for my TBs I used mainly "speed" as a design priority, to minimize the window the enemy has between sighting and striking. AA and fighters - at least in these numbers... - may not validate a drastic change of this decision for now.
> CVLs managed to steer clear of the surface action fairly well. Big guns also played a crucial role, "Hatsuse" was sunk by high-cal. AP shells exclusively.
> No, seriously, give that backgunner a medal or something.