Airbase vs Naval Air Station

[JagdFlanker]

what is the difference between an Airbase vs a Naval Air Station?  i searched the manual but there is only 1 mention of Naval Air Station, on page 41:

The Base column shows the naval air station, airbase or ship that launched the aircraft

[keris]

Pretty sure it's just flavor text in the naming of airbases. They all operate the same as far as I can tell.

[aeson]

Might be location (home territory vs colonial possession) - playing as Italy, I've noticed that all of my airbases on the Italian peninsula are "Naval Air Station (placename)" while all of my airbases on colonial possessions are "Airbase (placename)."

[ramjb]

Naval stations are located on your home country. Air bases, elsewere. Just flavor text as others have said; NAval Stations are a bit cheaper to build, expand and maintain (makes sense, being in your home country), otherwise they are identical .

[garychildress]

Agree. Playing as Japan, I've noticed that bases on the Japanese mainland are called "naval air stations" and bases in possessions are called "air bases".

[spacenerd4]

It can get annoying as the US with Maine though.

[oldpop2000]

Jun 7, 2019 7:44:24 GMT -6 JagdFlanker said:

what is the difference between an Airbase vs a Naval Air Station?  i searched the manual but there is only 1 mention of Naval Air Station, on page 41:

The Base column shows the naval air station, airbase or ship that launched the aircraft

In real life, airbases are non-navy, usually USAF, airfields and many times with support facilities. Naval Air Stations are the Navy equivalent of those airbases. They are generally, on the coast, with airfield and support facilities. The Navy has an Naval Air Station in Italy named NAS Sigonella. Some former Naval Air Stations are now Naval Stations such as Norfolk, Mayport, Point Magu which is Naval Base Ventura County etc. Generally it means that the air wings were removed from those bases. The airfields are still active and their might be Naval Air Facilities. Ok. Can't tell you how the game does it, but I'll hope I am close.

One interesting question: what if the nation's naval air force is combined with its land based air force. In other words, the air force controls the aircraft and the carrier aircraft. 

[wlbjork]

Then you end up like Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, with neglected carriers

But yeah, IRL the US switch between terminology depending on whether aircraft are assigned full-time or not. I don't think this is the game criteria though.

[oldpop2000]

Jul 29, 2020 20:44:39 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

Then you end up like Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, with neglected carriers

But yeah, IRL the US switch between terminology depending on whether aircraft are assigned full-time or not. I don't think this is the game criteria though.

Ok, then what is it?  What is the answer?

[jwsmith26]

Here is some information about airfields and squadrons based at the various types of airfields.

In RTW2, a Naval Air Station is any airfield that is located in the home country. An airbase is any airfield that is located outside of the home country. For instance, Kolberg is a German NAS while nearby Danzig (located in East Prussia) is an airbase.

There are some differences between NAS and AB. AB are more expensive to operate than NAS. For instance, an active NAS with 80 a/c capacity will cost $69 per turn to maintain, while an active AB with 80 a/c capacity costs $99. The distance between an AB and the homeland does not influence this.

Building an airfield from scratch (that is, from 0 to a capacity of 20) takes 2 turns for a NAS but 4 turns for an AB. The cost to build the new airfield costs $700 regardless of whether it is a NAS or an AB, but an AB will take 4 turns at $175 per turn, while a NAS will take 2 turns at $350 per turn. However, once built, the time required to expand an airfield is the same for both NAS and AB.

The cost to maintain aircraft is the same whether based on a NAS or on an AB or on an aircraft carrier.

When creating a brand new aircraft squadron the location does not seem to matter to the rate at which the squadron is populated with aircraft, that is NAS, AB and aircraft carriers are equally likely to receive new aircraft to populate a newly created squadron. There is quite a bit of variability in this process and the rate of increase can be influenced by the availability of a particular aircraft model and by the number of new squadrons of a particular type that have been recently created.

Aircraft located at an active NAS or AB will gain experience at approximately the same rate, with a lot of variability built into the process. Carrier-trained or normal squadrons that are located on a land-based active airfield will gain experience at approximately the same rate. However, carrier-trained squadrons will gain experience at a faster rate if they are based on an active aircraft carrier than they will if based on an active land-based airfield.