Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

70 Exp, 99 Morale, 4 Fatigue, Ld Air 63) Altamaha - 27x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 5000 feet
73 Exp, 99 Morale, 3 Fatigue, Ld Air 62) Long Island - 18x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 5000 feet
70 Exp, 99 Morale, 4 Fatigue, Ld Air 63) Prince William - 28x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 11000 feet
68 Exp, 51 Morale (, 7 Fatigue, Ld Air 57) Suwannee - 21x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 11000 feet
68 Exp, 51 Morale !!, 7 Fatigue, Ld Air 57) Chenango - 21x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 12000 feet
68 Exp, 99 Morale, 4 Fatigue, Ld Air 64) Nassau - 28x Wildcat, 80% Range 0, 14000 feet

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

It looks like you leaned pretty heavily on the VRF groups. I have done that in our game in western Oz as you know, and they die like flies. My pilots are six months greener than yours, but I wonder if there's some inherent penalty in using VRFs for combat as a whole unit rather than just individual replacements?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

It looks like you leaned pretty heavily on the VRF groups. I have done that in our game in western Oz as you know, and they die like flies. My pilots are six months greener than yours, but I wonder if there's some inherent penalty in using VRFs for combat as a whole unit rather than just individual replacements?

That sure would have been nice to know, I guess. If there's a penalty, I mean.

It's not mentioned anywhere.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Also, I noticed how many you stationed at 5000 feet. More than I would, but I'm terrible at the air game. It shouldn't take 30 minutes to move from 5000 to 13,000 feet, but maybe there's an organization/chaos roll that magnified the morale hits when you have to re-station upwards? Didn't cross-tab which were at 5000 and which had low morale. Just a thought.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

The CVE Nassau got tagged with one 100kg bomb. How much damage did it do? 5%? --never mind, we cross posted.

That is pretty impressive damage for a 100kilo bomb! Of course it would have bounced off anything with armor.

Where did all the Japanese planes fly from?

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO the problem is the 80% CAP setting. So at dawn, 80% of the fighters are in the air - for a couple of hours.
Then they have to all land at approximately the same time to gas up. That means a queue and holding patterns.
They get down and have to wait their turn at the pump. The pilot has to go in for a whiz and a quick snack/chug a coke, and pay the cashier for the gas.
Ready to go 30 minutes after landing but there is a queue for takeoff.
Finally take off 40 minutes after coming down, and an hour after entering the holding pattern.

Meanwhile, the interim CAP has been the 20% residual aircraft not sent up at dawn.

Repeat this about three times more during the day, with raids arriving at the worst possible time (as they always do).

I consider 50% a high CAP setting and will go to 60% only in an emergency - the CAP decays pretty fast by PM air phase.

But then, I can't claim to be a master of the air war either so take my opinion as a suggestion to be considered.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IMO the problem is the 80% CAP setting. So at dawn, 80% of the fighters are in the air - for a couple of hours.
Then they have to all land at approximately the same time to gas up. That means a queue and holding patterns.
They get down and have to wait their turn at the pump. The pilot has to go in for a whiz and a quick snack/chug a coke, and pay the cashier for the gas.
Ready to go 30 minutes after landing but there is a queue for takeoff.
Finally take off 40 minutes after coming down, and an hour after entering the holding pattern.

Meanwhile, the interim CAP has been the 20% residual aircraft not sent up at dawn.

Repeat this about three times more during the day, with raids arriving at the worst possible time (as they always do).

I consider 50% a high CAP setting and will go to 60% only in an emergency - the CAP decays pretty fast by PM air phase.

But then, I can't claim to be a master of the air war either so take my opinion as a suggestion to be considered.

That may be how CAP works in real life.... but is that how it works in the game?

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ORIGINAL: obvert

This is correct about the high percentage CAP settings. Probably worked better in previous versions of the game where strikes were not so spread out, but if they arrive in all of these little packages, you have to have some planes on stand-by. So the highest I usually go is 50-60%. Wildcats though are not quick to get up either.

Also, the Wildkittens won't fare well against Tojos, which were escorting on most of his strikes in decent numbers. Your CR states how many of your CAP were available, but not how many were up in time. Watching the replay I'd bet you'd see fewer F4F-4 up than the escorts arriving for most of these strikes, and since the Tojos and even the A6M5 trump the Wildcat in speed and maneuver, some bombers will get through.

Then the CVEs themselves are only moving at 17 knots flank with relatively poor flak. Anything than gets through has a good chance to put a TT in the water and anything in the water is likely to hit. Against your CVs with their speed and greater flak the hits would probably be 50-70% less.

To top it off you had thunderstorms which usually work in your favor as the defender, but in this case seem to have kept the bleeding CAP from finding the strikes and maybe even the local CAP from getting to them in force.

I worry about this playing PDU-off. Wildcats forever!!

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter

You guys are really confusing me on CAP.

I have always operated under the impression that 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is in the air, 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is on the ground at the ready and 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is being processed.

If I set the squadron to Escort with 70% CAP, ONLY the 70% will ever get into the air in the CAP role.

The other 30% is allocated to Escort and if there are no bomber missions from the base that turn the 30% will rest and NOT join the other 70% in the CAP role.

So, if you want more planes in the air on CAP you have to increase the CAP percentage.

Is all of this incorrect?

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

I recall seeing a post that said that units that are still in "Carrier Capable" status rather than "Carrier Trained" suffer some degrade of their performance. That would likely apply to the VRF squadrons early in the war since it takes something like 3 or 4 months on the carrier to become fully trained (in carrier ops, not in air missions). I don't know what the penalties for not being fully trained are, but slower turnaround and launch operations seems reasonable. I think there could also be coordination issues, which may include coordinating with shipboard radar controllers to make the intercept. All just speculation on my part.

HansBolter - You pose some good questions to which I do not have any answers. Your model of how CAP missions work in the game programming could be correct, or partially so. I look forward to the more experienced players responding!

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ORIGINAL: Sangeli

I don't think this issue is particular to just CVEs; lost in the combat reports was a small strike of 8 Vals and 9 Tojos against 65 fighters. 7 of the 8 Vals managed to drop bombs which is simply unacceptable from a USN point of view.

What caught my attention the most about these combat reports are the tallies for how many fighters are airborne, on standby, and being scrabbled. If you look at those numbers instead of the supposed "total" of all the fighters engaged in CAP the result makes a lot more sense. Very few fighters in any of the battles were listed as airborne so from that angle it is an understandable result.

Another thing I picked up on was the number of CVE fighters that were diverted to CAP over the hex. Has anyone ever tried using LRCAP of fighters on CVEs on its own fleet? I know that for LBA that LRCAP does a better job protecting fleets than does CAP. Would be interested in seeing some testing on optimal fighter configuration on CVEs because it seems everyone gets burned by them except the Japanese!

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

You guys are really confusing me on CAP.

I have always operated under the impression that 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is in the air, 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is on the ground at the ready and 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is being processed.

If I set the squadron to Escort with 70% CAP, ONLY the 70% will ever get into the air in the CAP role.

The other 30% is allocated to Escort and if there are no bomber missions from the base that turn the 30% will rest and NOT join the other 70% in the CAP role.

So, if you want more planes in the air on CAP you have to increase the CAP percentage.

Is all of this incorrect?

So far as I can tell, the only guys that won't fly are those that are set to Rest. If you have 50% CAP and no other settings, those other 50% are still available to be scrambled to intercept.

My assumption, born out by the numbers I see in combat reports, has always been that whatever percent is assigned to CAP is in the air. This is then subject to being worn down from successive strikes and whatnot.

In small cases, I've seen this exactly - 16-plane Brit units on 50% CAP, 30% Train, 20% Rest always had 8 planes in the air against raids or sweeps. 25-plane units with 80% CAP, 20% rest always had 20 planes in the air and reported in the combat replay text.

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quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

quote:

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

You guys are really confusing me on CAP.

I have always operated under the impression that 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is in the air, 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is on the ground at the ready and 1/3 of what is allocated to CAP is being processed.

If I set the squadron to Escort with 70% CAP, ONLY the 70% will ever get into the air in the CAP role.

The other 30% is allocated to Escort and if there are no bomber missions from the base that turn the 30% will rest and NOT join the other 70% in the CAP role.

So, if you want more planes in the air on CAP you have to increase the CAP percentage.

Is all of this incorrect?

So far as I can tell, the only guys that won't fly are those that are set to Rest. If you have 50% CAP and no other settings, those other 50% are still available to be scrambled to intercept.

My assumption, born out by the numbers I see in combat reports, has always been that whatever percent is assigned to CAP is in the air. This is then subject to being worn down from successive strikes and whatnot.

In small cases, I've seen this exactly - 16-plane Brit units on 50% CAP, 30% Train, 20% Rest always had 8 planes in the air against raids or sweeps. 25-plane units with 80% CAP, 20% rest always had 20 planes in the air and reported in the combat replay text.

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So that would mean that if you set Escort with 50% CAP and want the other 50% to scramble you had better NOT give any bombers at the base a mission.

Surely the 50% not set to CAP, can't both Escort AND scramble?

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

I think the issue is that the game knows that the fighters have to refuel and rearm, so that if you have 80% CAP you'll hit the first strike hard but you have no planes on stand-by to come up later. I've always used a 50% or lower CAP for CVs and it's worked pretty well for me on the Japanese side. For the Allies, I'll have to see.

The other major factor not yet mentioned here is their distance setting. A CAP set to range 0 will perform better in that hex than a CAP set to range 1-7. I usually have some of the CVEs performing a 0 hex CAP to make sure something is up in force immediately.