My CAP doesn't provide support for my BB

[seree]

well i'm japan and in middle 1930 happily slaughter france fleet in eastern asia until this one particular BIG battle. I have 8 BB in my fleet with 2 CV and 2 CVL but due to some questionable battle generator i have only CL and DD just enough to protect my fleet carrier. i know that i outnumbered their fleet 2 to 1 (last epic battle i just sank their 3 CV and 2 BC) but this time i'm attacking at their homewater so i know that my ship are vulnerable to TP bomber.

Up to the point, I set my CV and CVL division to each fly CAP over my battle division (Set CAP medium and Set CAP priority at each BB division) but some how my plane get dumb and just stay above my CV for an hour !!. Until train of TP just finish off my BB one to one and i need to reload my save. My question is WHY!! and what did i do wrong ??. Sometime it just work perfectly sometime it don't !!. feel sad for this

[hereticalhermit]

Been having a similar issue in my current game. 1945 Germany. The battle generator has decided to not only start me with the entire BB line within range of their airfields 30 minutes before dawn, but also includes one of those obnoxious ‘you can’t issue orders until the game lets you…’. resulting in my battleline happily steaming at 16 knots further and further into the deathzone with no chance to change course for far too many turns. My two carrier divisions are good at providing CAP for themselves, but seem unwilling to do so for the battle line. Even when I tell every carrier division to divert CAP to the battlefleet, plus having the battlefleet request land based CAP.

I haven’t yet managed to get out without losing at least two BBs before getting out of range. Really, really wish the battle generator worked off a new scenario template once air power becomes a thing. I’m remembering why I quit my last game in 1944… it’s monumentally frustrating to watch the last several hours of work and planning get dumped unceremoniously into impossible scenarios. I don’t mind the random aspect and lopsided missions you get. I DO mind having an entire squadron of battleships starting so far inside enemy air coverage they can’t get out without getting bombed and torpedoed to pieces. Scenarios that worked fine in 1915 don’t work as well in 1945. Which is a shame, because I really enjoy the carrier-based part of the game, but fighting anywhere in Europe is often just an exercise in frustration unless you get lucky and can fight the French in the Bay of Biscay. Your own airfields being hidden behind an automated system that you’re never sure is working properly or not probably doesn’t help the feeling of frustration.

[nimrod]

Jun 21, 2021 4:42:48 GMT -6 hereticalhermit said:

I haven’t yet managed to get out without losing at least two BBs before getting out of range. Really, really wish the battle generator worked off a new scenario template once air power becomes a thing. I’m remembering why I quit my last game in 1944… it’s monumentally frustrating to watch the last several hours of work and planning get dumped unceremoniously into impossible scenarios. I don’t mind the random aspect and lopsided missions you get. I DO mind having an entire squadron of battleships starting so far inside enemy air coverage they can’t get out without getting bombed and torpedoed to pieces. Scenarios that worked fine in 1915 don’t work as well in 1945. Which is a shame, because I really enjoy the carrier-based part of the game, but fighting anywhere in Europe is often just an exercise in frustration unless you get lucky and can fight the French in the Bay of Biscay. Your own airfields being hidden behind an automated system that you’re never sure is working properly or not probably doesn’t help the feeling of frustration.

Totally agree! I will add that I would like to see standing CAP and search planes that are well into their flights (sighting reports in hand or very close to be reported) at the start of a day or morning battle post 1930.

I have had the same issue as Seree as well, in 5 out of 6 battles as Japan vs. GB where I'm attacking Hong Kong I could not get CAP for my BB / BC line.

[jwsmith26]

There are three ways to assign CAP coverage to a BB division, though not all are always available.

If your Main Force includes both battleships and carriers, a carrier division will provide CAP to the BB division if the "Role" of the carrier division is set to "Support" and the "Lead formation" is set to be the BB division. You can provide CAP support to any other divison that is attached to the force that the carrier division is attached to, such as a destroyer division. You cannot provide CAP support to any division that is not in your force - a carrier in the Carrier Force cannot use the Support role to provide CAP to a divsion in the Main Force.

You can also provide CAP coverage by using "Provide CAP to" field on the carrier division screen. Using the drop-down list you can provide support to any division in your fleet, regardless of which "Force" it is assigned to. For instance, using this method a carrier division in the Main Force could provide CAP to a BC division in the Scout Force.

The third method is probably the least reliable. You can "request" CAP support from land bases. As happened repeatedly in history, this may or may not result in friendly CAP fighters appearing over your ships. Only one division from your entire fleet may make this request. Many factors can affect the chance of this working. Even if you do get support, remember the distance the fighters may need to fly, resulting in sketchy coverage at best. What you do prior to the battle can have an impact here as well. If you choose to suppress enemy air prior to the battle in a location with densely packed airbases, such as the Mediterranean, it is very likely that the resulting attrition will cause insufficient operational land-based fighters on the first day of the battle to form a target CAP mission (land-bases will typically repair all damaged aircraft by the second morning if the battle goes that long). Of course, depending on your air strength versus the enemy, suppression might prove to your advantage even if it prevents land-based CAP coverage because this also means the enemy land-based air may have a hard time finding sufficient aircraft to launch strikes. I use this method all the time to neutralize land-based air when it appears that my ships might end up deployed close to enemy airbases.

Keep in mind that any time target CAP is used there will be a delay in providing coverage because the fighters have to first be readied, spotted and then fly to the vicinity of the battleships. They will also have less time in the air over the BB division because of the time and fuel required to reach the battleships. Because of these factors, even in excellent conditions, there will likely be breaks in the coverage. Also keep in mind that any target CAP is likely to be a shared resource. The carrier or base providing the distant CAP coverage will almost certainly try to maintain a CAP over itself. This means that only 50% of the fighters will be available for target CAP. With perhaps half of those devoted to target CAP in transit or being refueled at any one time, the number of fighters actually in the air over the battleships can be quite small.

[nimrod]

Jun 22, 2021 10:25:12 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

You can also provide CAP coverage by using "Provide CAP to" field on the carrier division screen. Using the drop-down list you can provide support to any division in your fleet, regardless of which "Force" it is assigned to. For instance, using this method a carrier division in the Main Force could provide CAP to a BC division in the Scout Force.

jwsmith26,

Thank you for your in-depth reply. I can't speak for others, but what I quoted you on is exactly when the fighters don't show up for me.

I suspect that when the CAP level is set to "emergency", that the fighters might be restricted to cover just the CVs / CVLs. Are you able to confirm or deny the suspicion?

My suspicion is based on sometimes getting CAP over my BB's / BC's when I do as you wrote and set the CAP level to normal or low; and I've never seen CAP move off of the carriers when set to emergency. CAP level set to high also seem to restrict CAP to the carriers, but I rarely use high as if I'm close to an airbase I reflexively set CAP to emergency.

Regarding the fueling / transit time - understood. Frustration / misunderstanding is occurring when over the course of a day's battle, my four CV's will usually have about 60-80 fighters in the air covering them and another 40-60 on the decks being fueled / repaired, and no fighters are moving to the main battle line that is within visual distance of the CVs to about 80 miles away when they are told to do so via the "Provide CAP to field". 

[jwsmith26]

Jun 22, 2021 14:18:07 GMT -6 nimrod said:

Jun 22, 2021 10:25:12 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

You can also provide CAP coverage by using "Provide CAP to" field on the carrier division screen. Using the drop-down list you can provide support to any division in your fleet, regardless of which "Force" it is assigned to. For instance, using this method a carrier division in the Main Force could provide CAP to a BC division in the Scout Force.

jwsmith26,

Thank you for your in-depth reply. I can't speak for others, but what I quoted you on is exactly when the fighters don't show up for me.

I suspect that when the CAP level is set to "emergency", that the fighters might be restricted to cover just the CVs / CVLs. Are you able to confirm or deny the suspicion?

My suspicion is based on sometimes getting CAP over my BB's / BC's when I do as you wrote and set the CAP level to normal or low; and I've never seen CAP move off of the carriers when set to emergency. CAP level set to high also seem to restrict CAP to the carriers, but I rarely use high as if I'm close to an airbase I reflexively set CAP to emergency.

Regarding the fueling / transit time - understood. Frustration / misunderstanding is occurring when over the course of a day's battle, my four CV's will usually have about 60-80 fighters in the air covering them and another 40-60 on the decks being fueled / repaired, and no fighters are moving to the main battle line that is within visual distance of the CVs to about 80 miles away when they are told to do so via the "Provide CAP to field". 

nimrod , I conducted some tests after reading your post. My testing indicates that using the "Provide CAP to" will work, but only when you assign CAP to a division in the same Force as your carrier. In a fleet that included a Main Force, a Scout Force and a Carrier Force I was able to successfully assign CAP from a carrier division attached to my Main Force to protect my carriers, my battleship division and a CL division, all at the same time. The game provided roughly equal size CAP forces to the battleship division and to the carrier division, while a smaller number of fighters flew CAP over the light cruiser division.

When I tried to use the "Provide CAP to" command to assign CAP from my Carrier Force to protect the BC division in the Scout Force, no fighters were allocated to the BC division. It appears that this is a bug - this function was added specifically to allow CAP protection to be assigned to any division. I'll be reporting it on the beta test forum.

Here are some other thoughts. Though I had over 90 fighters available on my two test carriers doing nothing other than flying CAP, at times the CAP protection over the battleships dipped to a mere 10 planes. At other times there were as many as 30 fighters circling over the battleships. The carriers were between 35nm and 85nm behind the battleships. At this range and with these planes, a fighter typically could spend about 2.5 hours over the battleships and about 20 to 40 minutes in transit time. Readying, spotting and take offs could consume another 45 minutes. Other factors can interfere with target CAP. The player might change the CAP priority setting in the midst of a battle. The distance between ships can vary greatly over the course of a battle. All this makes it very difficult for the AI to create a consistent fighter presence over a distant division. The game does a pretty good job with this complicated task (which I am very grateful not to manage) but if you aren't fielding 90 fighters totally devoted to CAP as I was in these tests, it is very likely that some of those low points in the CAP coverage can get very low indeed, including periods during which no fighters are present.

I'll also mention that even with CAP priority set to Maximum the carriers maintained a fighter presence over the battleships in my tests.

[nimrod]

jwsmith26,

Sounds good and thank you for the in-depth response. I really appreciate knowing that ships need to be in the main or same formation as the CVs (the bug) and also that maximum cap should have fighters over non-CV ships. I'll be paying close attention to the formations; might need to download Torts formation management mod.

The big frustrations I've had are sporadic / piecemeal 5-10 FB that really disrupt my fleet maneuvers. Having even a few (3-5) fighters on CAP seems to really help; I think it forces the enemy FB to dump their bomb load.

Thank you again!

[jwsmith26]

Here's something else to keep in mind when assigning CAP and target CAP - a squadron, or a section of a squadron, that has accepted a CAP mission will not change that mission until it returns to its carrier and is struck below. A fighter on CAP will fly until it expends 1/2 of its fuel or runs out of ammo. When you give a CAP order, the fighters selected by the AI to fulfill that order will probably be committed for the next 3 to 4 hours

Let's look what happens if you suddenly realize that you need to protect a CA division on turn 100 of a battle. You set the "Provide CAP to" field to point at the CA division. When you run the turn the AI will look at how many fighters are available, take into account your CAP intensity setting, decide on the importance of the target to be protected and then assign a number of fighters to carry out the new CAP order. The AI will not grab fighters that are currently airborne and send them off to cover the CAs. It will only assign fighters that are unready (possibly including fighters that later become unready if the order remains in effect).

At this point the AI has simply assigned a set of fighters to fulfill the CAP request you have set. The fighters must now be readied, spotted, launched and then wing their way to the cruisers. A squadron that is almost certainly smaller than you hoped will finally arrive over the CA division about an hour after you issued the order. But all that assumes there are actually fighters sitting in the hangar in an unready state. If there aren't any (because you've sent them all off on a strike, of course) then nothing happens until some fighters return to the carrier, land and are struck below to become unready again. Often this results in the AI sending fighters off in a whole string of little two-plane sections to protect the distant ships as fighters straggle home. Your CAs might be out on a limb, unprotected for hours if every fighter is committed.

If you have other ships that need CAP coverage it really pays to think out how you want to divide your limited fighters before the battle even starts. Once the action begins and planes are in the air it becomes quite difficult and quite slow to redirect your CAP.

[nimrod]

jwsmith26,

Thank you for the insight and detailed response. I'm sure it will take some time to get up to speed on the details of what works best operationally both in terms of CAP but also in regards to setting up / dealing with the formations; it will be fun though.

I've generally built BC's with very few BB's and CA's. AS such, during fleet battles it looks like I usually had my "battle line" in my scout force. With the main force usually having just a BB / BC or two. At the start of battle, I would assign CAP to battle line in the scout force, and set the CAP level as desired (proximity to enemy airbases, how many enemy CV / CVL were built, and if my fighters were FB or dedicated fighters).

I haven't been changing the assigned ship formations unless their is a damaged ship or formation that was likely to come under significant air assault; for example bringing up the rear or which didn't have sufficient DD / CL escorts. This is when I would sometimes get CAP over the ships. Again, this should be fun being able to actually get some CAP over the different formations.

[appalachiangamer]

Along this same line with the randomizer putting your ships to close to enemy ports, I find this happens a lot with carriers. With long range planes and carriers there is no way you'd steam to within 60 nm of an enemy port before launching....it happens a lot and does not seem dependent on what country you play. It is also annoying playing say Austria Hungary where you are at war with Italy and your forces for some odd reason start off the coast of Africa (which is Italy controlled) to steam to a target in Eastern Italy (which is across from Austria Hungary)....