A beginner's manual for operating aircraft

[brygun]

Mar 31, 2020 11:08:05 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

After 1925 you can also increase your carrier training capacity by converting a large 25 knot AMC into a training carrier. You can inexpensively build such a ship with the slowest required speed, cheapest engine type, short range, minimum main guns, no armor (of course) and no extraneous equipment such as directors or AA weapons. Such a ship (or any carrier) can be placed into Reserve status during wartime, which will prevent it from being committed to battle, but will still allow the planes carried to train normally.

In a similar way my current generation carriers are the my leads, with the 2nd set as the support and the 3rd as either further support or on reduced aircraft to keep my possible numbers up.

When I new, thus often larger, carrier is built I tend to pull the fair/good/veteran airgroups off the existing now "older" carriers to man them. The replacements thus put the "poor" training level on the 2nd tier carriers.

Given the numbers we seen in this thread having 1 - 2 "training carriers" seems to resolve the management issue.

[alant]

I'm having problems with multiple generations of aircraft and a severe lack of aircraft production (I build a LOT of carriers and land bases).

Currently I have some carriers with few/no fighters, not because I don't have fighters in inventory, but because the game insists on replacing "old fighters" with new models that are not available.

This is from a game using the 1936 mod, which starts out with empty airbases and little in the way of aircraft production or on hand inventory. My bases remain nearly empty because I don't dare send my limited stocks of fighters, dive bombers or torpedo bombers to ground bases and risk diverting them away from carriers. Only Medium Bombers and Flying Boats going to my ground bases at this point.

Here is the Aircraft Type report, also showing my carriers. 57 Grumman F3F sitting in limbo and ZERO F3F B on hand. Is there a way to force the squadrons to equip with F3F until there are more F3F B's in inventory? Note that neither F3F nor F3F B are obsolete. Does that mean they are both in production? Should I make F3F obsolete to drive up F3F B production?  Will that cause the squadrons still equipped with F3F to switch to F3F B immediately, resulting in a worse mess? 



Here's the resulting mess on USS Princeton my newest CVL to enter active service. Independence has full bomber squadrons, but only 5 of 16 fighters, Cowpens has 0/16 fighters assigned. CV's Wasp and Intrepid were just launched this turn. Pretty sure any new fighter squadrons I build on them will equip with F3F B.



What can be done to increase aircraft construction?


Here's a link to a related thread where I asked about (but have not received any comments) late game implications of non-cascading obsolescent models and large fleets of CVs.

nws-online.proboards.com/thread/5460/equipping-aircraft-squadrons-new-models?page=1&scrollTo=78304

[brygun]

I've also wondered at time about priority replacements for some squadrons while keeping older planes at others. For instance carriers getting the latest fighters while land bases in over seas colonies only get the latest fighters once the carriers are on the equipped.

[silverfalcon]

Could anyone with that information at hand describe the workings of land based aircraft? I find them extremely unreliable and never quite know what to expect and mostly seem like compete waste of money.

I remember perhaps once or twice for a campaign (from 1900 to 1945 or so) some flying boat finding and attacking TR and that is all (despite having all types available to test them out). When I used "suppress enemy airfields", I never got any mention of my medium bombers attacking any airfield. Sometimes it seemed that requested land based CAP came, but that was a coin toss.

When I needed them the most, they were nowhere to be found. I took TR defense battle near to Bergen in hope that bombers and flying boats from my AF would help a bit, instead I had to drag enemy towards my one submarine to cripple one of enemy BCs. For the whole battle, I have seen some flying boats fly by, but node of them did anything while the order of the day was to attack enemy ships.

Even more frustrating was my battle of Baltic Sea, when both me and Russians had quite a lot of land based Air Force (me on the two Finnish ports).
First issue was that I was deployed with my prime battleship to hunt TRs in Aircraft infested space, without CV support (I had CV and 2 CVLs in the area). I said to myself: "Glad I have invested into a lot of land based fighters, so it might not be a complete disaster."
I immediately requested CAP over my BB and ran towards Finnish port. I have sunk 2 boats on the way matching the objective, but the CAP never arrived. Instead, just next to Aland Islands waves after waves of enemies arrived. This was in late 40s so there could be no excuse of too poor range on the fighters, they had at leas 3 times the range.

So I wonder if there are ways to check and inf necessary unstuck the land based aircraft. The CV based aircraft are quite OK, but the land based one are puzzling.
I also wonder if it would be possible to call land based CAP to more than one groups if there are more than one airfield in range. So far it seems to me that it is not possible.

It's also sometimes puzzling whether all ships can be brought into one group to share the benefit of cover.

[alterego45]

I'd like to learn how land-based aircraft are supposed to work too. Not how to populate them, but what they're good for.

I spend a lot of money on airbases, with maybe 500 a/c in a region where I am strong, but none of my land based a/c have ever been involved in an engagement in any game I've played, even up to the mid-50's which is usually when I check out.

I will get sub kills with flying boats on occasion, but if that's all these bases are good for in practice then it's much more economical to spend the money on corvettes.

In my experience if you have an airbase the game will refuse to give you an encounter within 500 miles of it. And if the base does appear to be in range, it will never do anything. That applies to AI airbases as well as my own.

What they do contribute is operational losses. Several engagements a game I'll fight the enemy fleet to a draw, only to get hung with a loss because my airbases have managed to prang 17 aircraft in 4 hours of twilight patrolling or something ridiculous like that.

IMHO carrier based aircraft are overrated too, but land-based planes are over the top. What's the deal with them? Where do you build your bases that they are helpful and how many planes do you put in them?

[maxnacemit]

LBA works best in 3 places: the Mediterranean, the Baltic and north of Europe. Out of these, the Mediterranean is prohibitevely expensive to cover(especially if you remember that if you're there, you're not the richest nation in the game), which leaves the Channel, Germany and the Baltic. If you don't have ports in any of these places, you can safely ignore LBA.
Of course, this ignores stuff like the Red Sea or the Caribbean, but my experience rarely involved fighting in the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean as few nations can, or need to, post large forces there.

[diehard]

Thank you, still learning how to be effective running CV

[gurudennis]

Dec 28, 2021 13:24:23 GMT -6 maxnacemit said:

LBA works best in 3 places: the Mediterranean, the Baltic and north of Europe. Out of these, the Mediterranean is prohibitevely expensive to cover(especially if you remember that if you're there, you're not the richest nation in the game), which leaves the Channel, Germany and the Baltic. If you don't have ports in any of these places, you can safely ignore LBA.
Of course, this ignores stuff like the Red Sea or the Caribbean, but my experience rarely involved fighting in the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean as few nations can, or need to, post large forces there.

There are some notable exceptions to this guidance:

1. LBA can be very effective for Japan (or its rivals) in Northeast Asia. After a while you get a feel for the areas that get heavy battle traffic and can stack them with bombers to devastating effect. Obvious chokepoints include the areas around Port Arthur, Tsushima and the Northern tip of Hokkaido.

2. A remote possession that is strategically important to you (e.g. oil rich, or major base in foreign waters) needs an airbase with lots of DBs or whatever the technology of the time allows. It can be decisive in helping you fend off an early invasion before your main force arrives. Build at least some coastal guns there for the same reason.

3. As a corollary to (2), any possession that often sees invasions (e.g. American island possessions in the Caribbean) or gets raided (e.g. Northeastern USA) can benefit from land-based bombers even if you have a permanent presence in the area.

[ck07]

How do I manage AV air groups? When I try it says "Select a carrier."

[hawkeye]

Jun 2, 2022 4:03:58 GMT -6 ck07 said:

How do I manage AV air groups? When I try it says "Select a carrier."

You don't.
AVs do their thing mostly on their own.

At the very start of the battle, before advancing time even once, select the AV and click on the air-search icon (3rd from the right at the top, the one that looks like a plane with a circle).
In the pop-up, you can adjust the arc that will be searched and the range to which the planes will search. 
For AVs, the CAP thingy is meaningless, since your AV doesn't carry any fighters.
After doing that, the AV will stop to launch float-planes.
Those will fly out and return on their own, covering the specified arc.

Note: If you don't set the arc/range, the planes will cover the default arc out to maximum range.

Note2: You can do the same for land air bases and actual carriers (CAP _does_ play a role here, if you have fighters at the base or on your CVs). Be aware that any fighters you allocate for local cap (over the base or over your CVs) will not be available to provide CAP over other formations.

[ck07]

Air group management question: I have two DB squadrons which acquired *s while deployed in a non-home area. So, as with a ship, I brought them to my home area. 6 years later--and one equipment replacement later--they still have the *s. I have tried putting them on CVs which were on AF, RF, and MB, plus putting the squadrons in Reserve--each for >= 3 months.

Does anyone know how to get rid of a * on an air squadron?

[aeson]

Jul 6, 2022 14:22:44 GMT -6 ck07 said:

Air group management question: I have two DB squadrons which acquired *s while deployed in a non-home area. So, as with a ship, I brought them to my home area. 6 years later--and one equipment replacement later--they still have the *s. I have tried putting them on CVs which were on AF, RF, and MB, plus putting the squadrons in Reserve--each for >= 3 months.

Does anyone know how to get rid of a * on an air squadron?

An * on a squadron of aircraft indicates that the squadron is considered elite based on past performance (kills, bomb hits, or torpedo hits scored in the current war, maybe also the preceding war if that was recent enough); if I recall correctly, you should have gotten a message along the lines of "the daring pilots of [torpedo squadron] have racked up the impressive total of # bomb hits," "with a total of # kills, the [fighter squadron] has gained a reputation as one of our most proficient air units," or "the [dive bomber squadron] is one of our best attack squadrons with # bomb hits on enemy ships" on the turn that the squadron gained the asterisk. This isn't something you want to be rid of.

[ck07]

Jul 6, 2022 15:30:51 GMT -6 aeson said:

Jul 6, 2022 14:22:44 GMT -6 ck07 said:

Air group management question: I have two DB squadrons which acquired *s while deployed in a non-home area. So, as with a ship, I brought them to my home area. 6 years later--and one equipment replacement later--they still have the *s. I have tried putting them on CVs which were on AF, RF, and MB, plus putting the squadrons in Reserve--each for >= 3 months.

Does anyone know how to get rid of a * on an air squadron?

An * on a squadron of aircraft indicates that the squadron is considered elite based on past performance (kills, bomb hits, or torpedo hits scored in the current war, maybe also the preceding war if that was recent enough); if I recall correctly, you should have gotten a message along the lines of "the daring pilots of [torpedo squadron] have racked up the impressive total of # bomb hits," "with a total of # kills, the [fighter squadron] has gained a reputation as one of our most proficient air units," or "the [dive bomber squadron] is one of our best attack squadrons with # bomb hits on enemy ships" on the turn that the squadron gained the asterisk. This isn't something you want to be rid of.

Thanks. Since a * on a ship is bad,  I thought these were too. They are indeed elite units.

I think I had better ask: What does a * on a shell hit report mean?

[aeson]

Jul 7, 2022 10:46:40 GMT -6 ck07 said:

I think I had better ask: What does a * on a shell hit report mean?

Armor penetration.

[ck07]

Jul 7, 2022 11:14:44 GMT -6 aeson said:

Jul 7, 2022 10:46:40 GMT -6 ck07 said:

I think I had better ask: What does a * on a shell hit report mean?

Armor penetration.

So absence means not. I couldn't always tell since there is often damage without a * and--I think I've seen--sometimes not with one. Thanks.