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Post by Adseria on Mar 20, 2020 7:56:32 GMT -6
I'm curious; has anyone here actually tried deploying seaplane tenders in battle? How useful were they? Do they provide any additional usefulness over just fitting battleships and cruisers with floatplanes, or are they the mostly-useless liability that I think they are?
Let's get this out of the way right at the start; I'm not talking about building them specifically to convert them to CVLs/CVs, I'm talking about building them to use as a seaplane tender right from the start.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 20, 2020 8:09:05 GMT -6
I'm curious; has anyone here actually tried deploying seaplane tenders in battle? How useful were they? Do they provide any additional usefulness over just fitting battleships and cruisers with floatplanes, or are they the mostly-useless liability that I think they are?
Let's get this out of the way right at the start; I'm not talking about building them specifically to convert them to CVLs/CVs, I'm talking about building them to use as a seaplane tender right from the start. Well, most of the nations in the game are in geographical areas with enclosed or narrow seas. For me, that means that land bases with seaplanes are more useful if I put range as a priority. Now, in the Pacific, a seaplane tender could be useful if wars were fought in that expanse of ocean. In Southeast or Southwest Pacific, those islands can do the same thing with land based seaplanes. Land based air is unsinkable and can be repaired. Carriers are very fragile weapons and easily mission killed.
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Post by dohboy on Mar 20, 2020 8:10:55 GMT -6
It is nice not having to have your warships stop to launch (before catapults) or recover scouts. I seldom use them though.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 20, 2020 8:19:55 GMT -6
It is nice not having to have your warships stop to launch (before catapults) or recover scouts. I seldom use them though. It is not real safe to stop a ship to launch a seaplane or floatplane. In time, floatplanes were found to be more of a hindrance than an asset. They took up room and added weight that was needed to deploy light and medium AA guns as aircraft became more of the weapon of choice. I haven't seen that in the game, but it is something to consider. The geographical areas that I consider using land based air more frequently are A. Baltic B. North Sea C. Sea of Japan D. Yellow Sea E. Mediterranean. Other areas can include the Indian Ocean. I don't know about the Red Sea.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 20, 2020 8:40:21 GMT -6
Carriers are very fragile weapons and easily mission killed. So, you prefer airbases, then carriers, and then tenders as a last resort? Or would you put tenders above carriers?
Honestly, I'd probably put carriers higher than airbases. Sure, airbases are unsinkable, but they're also immobile, which is a big disadvantage; if something can't move, and you know where it is (which, in this game, you always do), you know that all you have to do is put your planes in range and target it, and they'll always find it. With carriers, there's always that question of "what if that contact of one carrier, one cruiser and three destroyers turns out to just be Neosho and Sims?" And, even when they do find your carriers, well, carriers are just as capable of flying CAP as airbases are. More, if they don't have to worry about scouting.
It is nice not having to have your warships stop to launch (before catapults) or recover scouts. I seldom use them though. You seldom use catapults, or you seldom use floatplanes?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 20, 2020 8:55:11 GMT -6
Carriers are very fragile weapons and easily mission killed. So, you prefer airbases, then carriers, and then tenders as a last resort? Or would you put tenders above carriers?
Honestly, I'd probably put carriers higher than airbases. Sure, airbases are unsinkable, but they're also immobile, which is a big disadvantage; if something can't move, and you know where it is (which, in this game, you always do), you know that all you have to do is put your planes in range and target it, and they'll always find it. With carriers, there's always that question of "what if that contact of one carrier, one cruiser and three destroyers turns out to just be Neosho and Sims?" And, even when they do find your carriers, well, carriers are just as capable of flying CAP as airbases are. More, if they don't have to worry about scouting.
It is nice not having to have your warships stop to launch (before catapults) or recover scouts. I seldom use them though. You seldom use catapults, or you seldom use floatplanes? The mobility of carriers is a myth in enclosed and narrow seas or along littoral zones. The carrier as I have stated is a very fragile weapon. It's primary purpose is to provide a mobile airfield, which if hit and and damaged now mission kills that carrier and its purpose. The immobility of air bases is also a myth. If you build a main airbase with dispersal fields and auxiliary air fields then the air base is mobile. You can disperse your fighters and other aircraft, moving them around to force the opponent to look for them and attack them. As to priorities: I would put air bases first in certain geographical areas, that I have listed, then aircraft carriers. In other larger ocean areas, then the carrier becomes the priority. You cannot set a single priority list that works everywhere. It does not work.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Mar 20, 2020 9:06:11 GMT -6
I usually build two AVs as soon as they become available. When you are operating only CVLs it is useful to not need to expend their limited aircraft on searches. I'm not fond of fitting seaplanes to warships, it's an expensive way to take planes to sea and I generally find a better use for the tonnage. Prior to developing swivel catapults, deploying seaplanes from warships can be very disruptive to tactical maneuver. I prefer concentrating those assets in a cheap, expendable ship so I can use my seaplanes without concern that their use might compromise my ability to maneuver at potentially critical moments.
However, there are tradeoffs. AVs are not necessarily deployed in every battle, while distributing an equivalent number of seaplanes among warships makes it more likely that some will usually be available. The time period is also important. When AVs are available in the teens and 20s they will often be usefully deployed in large battles. After about 1930 their frequency of deployment starts to decline. I just scrapped my last AV in 1943 after it sat in port through my last dozen large encounters.
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Post by dorn on Mar 20, 2020 9:19:41 GMT -6
I usually use seaplane tenders, having 1 - 2 ships.
It helps scouting, especially early when aircraft from airbase do not have range.
Relating to using seaplanes on warships, I use them almost on every cruiser, sometimes without hangar to save weight. But they are useful as later when you remove them you can use weight saved on AA suit. I did not use seaplanes on capital ships, I have just tried for the first time and it seems quite good. It gives you better awareness no matter of carrier present and especially early it save you carrier planes for strike. And later you can use weight for MAA and LAA.
However downside is that it is quite expensive. The ship costs more, maintenance is higher and on top of it you need to pay maintenance costs for aircraft, so it can easily be several millions per ship lifetime which is certainly quite a lot for cruisers.
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Post by pvtbob on Mar 20, 2020 9:26:09 GMT -6
I like to build about 10 of them when they first become available and then use AVs as raiders after about 1930 or so
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Post by dohboy on Mar 20, 2020 11:09:18 GMT -6
You seldom use catapults, or you seldom use floatplanes? I seldom use tenders, I use floatplanes on most ships CA and larger. I try to think ahead and not launch them at the wrong time, and I make them ditch sometimes instead of stopping to recover them.
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Post by dohboy on Mar 20, 2020 11:25:33 GMT -6
One major reason I put floatplanes on most ships is the range many battles start at. The ability to continue searching after the "no contact between fleets" in 1.18 helps that a bunch. There were many battles before where it was impossible to get within sight of the enemy before the scenario ended, if you could get a contact report from a scout you weren't on the short clock. I may cut the number of floatplanes I use in the future.
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Post by rimbecano on Mar 20, 2020 12:46:45 GMT -6
I use AVs quite heavily early on, but still at least to some degree into the late game. My preference tends to be to launch floatplanes from AVs (if present), then cruisers, and lastly from capital ships, so as to limit the amount of time more capable combat ships spend on flight operations. I only launch scouts from carriers if I have no floatplanes present, so as to save my carrier bombers for strikes.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Mar 20, 2020 19:57:16 GMT -6
I built an AV fleet early on just to experiment with float-plane raids, and despite managing to launch a 70 plane raid from a half dozen ships they accomplished virtually nothing- just like one would expect from 1917 IRL.
Since then I do not build AVs, and instead once I get 1100 ton destroyers every destroyer carries 1 floatplane. If I have to have a ship slowing down to launch and recover, I'd rather it is a high-acceleration DD than a larger ship. Set floatplane search priority and never* worry about searches again.
* no guarantees or results are warrantied by GarrisonChisholm Ltd.
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Post by JagdFlanker on Mar 20, 2020 21:00:06 GMT -6
Since then I do not build AVs, and instead once I get 1100 ton destroyers every destroyer carries 1 floatplane. If I have to have a ship slowing down to launch and recover, I'd rather it is a high-acceleration DD than a larger ship. Set floatplane search priority and never* worry about searches again. * no guarantees or results are warrantied by GarrisonChisholm Ltd. page 57 of the manual: Each class of ship has limitations on how many floatplanes may be carried: - DDs and KEs cannot be equipped with floatplanes.
when the game was first released i equipped my KEs with floatplanes - until i read the manual and saw this
i think i mentioned it in the bug thread back then that i could equip KEs with floatplanes, and i *think* it was fixed? else the 'rule' has changed since the manual was last updated
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Post by rimbecano on Mar 20, 2020 21:03:36 GMT -6
If I have to have a ship slowing down to launch and recover, I'd rather it is a high-acceleration DD than a larger ship. For my part, what I'd most rather is that it be a ship with no other duties (that is, an AV). Failing that, I'd generally rather it be a small ship, but I'd also generally rather it be a single ship than multiple, and I'd rather have floatplanes available over a broad range of potential force compositions in combat, so pretty much everything but my destroyers carries some number of floatplanes, generally in proportion to its size, and when I get prompts to launch floatplanes, I accept or decline for different ships according to what's optimal for the force composition present and the search pattern being used. Very often I actually task whatever element I have set to the scouting role to perform the launches, so I've experimented at times with CAVs (heavy cruisers with outsized floatplane contingents), and I've also converted old capital ships that were too small for an effective CV conversion and to large, period, for a CVL, generally involving the removal of a turret or two and a machinery upgrade to get the ship classified as a BC, if it wasn't already, so that it's more likely to show up in scouting forces. Destroyers don't get floatplanes because I feel more need for other things aboard them.
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