Carrier force - how to use in 20s and early 30s

[dorn]

I have situation in early 30s when aircraft starts to be powerful but still not enough to be dominant. 

However game usually give carrier force support of battlecruisers. I usually at this time let carrier force be close to other forces to support each other. At one time situation of my scout force (6 heavy cruisers) were critical as being under fire from 3 battlecruisers. My 2 fast battleships were just behind enemy battlecruisers trying to catch them. After some time I force enemy battlecruisers turn south away of my force and saved 4 my heavy cruisers. However at that time another 2 enemy forces of battleship and battlecruiser appeared any being relatively low on ammunition the risk of losing my battleships as original force of 3 battlecruisers turned against my battleships again seem imminent.

At that situation I have several options:
1. fight with 2 battleships (less than 40 shells per gun) against 4 enemy battlecruisers and battleship - quite risky losing both precious battleships and probably even some cruisers
2. turn away my battleship with very likely losing up to 6 heavy and light cruisers which were damaged and unable to reach enough speed to escape
3. use my carrier force with 2 battlecruisers which has only 280 mm guns, but under 22000 yards (visibility was bellow that) they have same level of protection as my fast battleships. But as my flagship was carrier it could put her at risk

I choose variant 3 as both variant 1 and 2 means risking substantial part of my fleet and in variant 3 I risk only my carrier. 
However my carrier was hit by two 6" shells which starts conflagration among my aircraft. At the end carrier must be abandoned. 

My question is, how could it be prevented. It was quite common in the Mediterranean that carrier operated with battleships with battleships engaging enemy ships and carrier stay just several nautilic miles away, out of danger. But how I can do it in RTW2, when my carrier is flagship and I cannot order my 2 battlecruiser in support division to engage enemy ships and stay away of carrier?

note: another thing which worsening the situation was that in my previous turn I have event telling me something is wrong with our bloody torpedoes. I choose to solve it by in this battle a lot of them were dud so my air attack done by torpedo bombers were somewhat ineffective. And same was true for destroyers. 50 % of torpedoes was dud and do not explode.

[captainloggy]

It's a shame that divisions can't be transferred between forces, so you'll have to go on either Rear Admiral's or Captain's mode to take your BCs off AI control. Regarding ther torpedoes, I wouldn't expect them to be totally fixed across the entire fleet very quickly, let alone in one month, I think you'd actually get a notification that the issue has been resolved by some means.

[rimbecano]

I'll note that if you use captain difficulty, you *can* give orders to your carrier's escorts independently of the carriers, which is handy for exactly this sort of "Ran an Feind" scenario.

I like the concept of limited direct control at the higher difficulty levels, but there are enough corner cases that I generally just play in captain mode, but leave everything but my lead division on AI control unless there's some emergency where the AI won't take tactically obvious actions.

[cabusha]

Mar 15, 2020 18:10:47 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

I'll note that if you use captain difficulty, you *can* give orders to your carrier's escorts independently of the carriers, which is handy for exactly this sort of "Ran an Feind" scenario.

I like the concept of limited direct control at the higher difficulty levels, but there are enough corner cases that I generally just play in captain mode, but leave everything but my lead division on AI control unless there's some emergency where the AI won't take tactically obvious actions.

Yeah, that's normally how I play it anymore too.  I really dislike intense micro in this game (and it doesn't handle it well) but there's definitely times when the force generator bones you, and you just have to take a hand yourself.  

Just don't get into torpedo run micro with DDs, for that way lies the darkside. 

[euchrejack]

It might not be applicable, but I had a mission where my lead force was a battleship and two light carriers were on support, away from the battle. Early on, my battleship lost all its turrets. I alternated between just staying at extreme visual range with the enemy fleet of about 4 BBs and 4 BCs, and going out of sight. It worked well, the battleship was able to keep track of the position of the enemy fleet, and the carriers were able to launch several strikes, leading to heavy damage on 2 of the enemy capital ships. This was around 1926.

[generalvikus]

If visual range was 20,000 yards, then what caused the carrier to get within 6 inch gun range of an enemy cruiser? On Rear Admiral's mode, couldn't the carrier be kept at a maximum of 40,000 yards from the enemy force, with your own battlecruisers 20,000 yards from both the carrier and the enemy? Of course if you're playing in Admiral's mode you're in trouble in a situation like this, which is why I don't play it. 

[dorn]

Mar 15, 2020 18:10:47 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

I'll note that if you use captain difficulty, you *can* give orders to your carrier's escorts independently of the carriers, which is handy for exactly this sort of "Ran an Feind" scenario.

I like the concept of limited direct control at the higher difficulty levels, but there are enough corner cases that I generally just play in captain mode, but leave everything but my lead division on AI control unless there's some emergency where the AI won't take tactically obvious actions.

I do not want to play in captains mode. I hate the level of micromanagement.

May be during 20s and 30s the flagship is one of escorting capital ships would help and be more in line with history.

[dorn]

Mar 15, 2020 23:59:52 GMT -6 generalvikus said:

If visual range was 20,000 yards, then what caused the carrier to get within 6 inch gun range of an enemy cruiser? On Rear Admiral's mode, couldn't the carrier be kept at a maximum of 40,000 yards from the enemy force, with your own battlecruisers 20,000 yards from both the carrier and the enemy? Of course if you're playing in Admiral's mode you're in trouble in a situation like this, which is why I don't play it. 

I went down to 10000 yards, so within range of 6" guns.

I am playing Admirals mode, sometime Rear Admiral. 
Neverthless same issue has AI so if you reach AI carrier force, they will try to run away but does not try to slow down enemies by using escort as the whole carrier force try to stay close each other.

[rimbecano]

Mar 16, 2020 0:20:26 GMT -6 dorn said:

I do not want to play in captains mode. I hate the level of micromanagement.

As I said, you don't *have* to micromanage everything in captain mode, you can just set everything to AI control at the start of battle and maneuver your force entirely by giving orders to the flag division, but you get the *option* for more flexibility in a crisis that the AI can't handle.

[vonfriedman]

In Thunder at Sea (TAS) there was a useful command: detach, which allowed to create a naval division independent from the original one.
There could be doubts about the degree of cooperation and therefore about the efficiency of the detached division.
But it is even more questionable the credibility of an aircraft carrier which leads, as flagship, other ships armed with guns in a surface action.

[aeson]

Mar 16, 2020 0:22:35 GMT -6 dorn said:

Neverthless same issue has AI so if you reach AI carrier force, they will try to run away but does not try to slow down enemies by using escort as the whole carrier force try to stay close each other.

In a scenario such as that, try setting the role of one of the escort divisions to Independent and ordering the rest of the escorting surface combatants to follow it.

Also, you can change the lead division of a force once per engagement if you right-click the force header, select 'Status', and press the "Change Lead Division" button, though the divisions that can be selected as the lead division are restricted to some extent and I don't know if you can shift the flag of the Carrier Force to an attached battlecruiser division or not.

[dorn]

Mar 16, 2020 9:03:23 GMT -6 aeson said:

Mar 16, 2020 0:22:35 GMT -6 dorn said:

Neverthless same issue has AI so if you reach AI carrier force, they will try to run away but does not try to slow down enemies by using escort as the whole carrier force try to stay close each other.

In a scenario such as that, try setting the role of one of the escort divisions to Independent and ordering the rest of the escorting surface combatants to follow it.

Also, you can change the lead division of a force once per engagement if you right-click the force header, select 'Status', and press the "Change Lead Division" button, though the divisions that can be selected as the lead division are restricted to some extent and I don't know if you can shift the flag of the Carrier Force to an attached battlecruiser division or not.

Thanks @eason, I forget this, I will try next time but probably in some time as it was my only carrier and the new one will be not ready than 1 year even if she is in accelerated construction priority.