quote:

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

My guess would be that their morale drops considerably with every interception, so keep up the CAP.

Also check the altitude setting of the japanese transports. Your opponent might come in at maximum height which means less time for your CAP to intercept as they would have to gain heigth first. For intercept it's always better to come from above so maybe set one group close to the enemies height maximum or even 2k above. But then maybe your fighters cannot operate that high, so you need to check the planes stats.

quote:

It's very difficult to actually stop air transport missions in WitP. You can LRCAP the base, and you'll get more, but for whatever reason, most transports (about 90% or more) will get thru. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, I'm just saying that's the way it is.

quote:

there isn't any actual air combat per say, only the vague notice that the transports were intercepted. [/quote

This is "as designed" (dubvious as it is).  The air transport phase is -after- the AM/PM phase, when sweeps and strikes take place.  You will never see an air-combat screen with transports vs. fighters.  All you will ever see is the messages.  But as pointed out, you can't "escort" air transport, because they're not a "strike".

If you own the transports:
Sweep target hex with your own fighters to break up enemy CAP/LRCAP.

If you're defending vs. transports:
CAP or LRCAP the target hex to damage enemy transports.
Sweep won't help you.

Also, it is possible to intercept transports en-route to their destination.  If their path happens to pass over a hex that is CAP'd or proximity CAP (leaking from nearby base), you can also damage transports (but obviously this instance is rare, but I have seen it).

-F-