Aircraft Carrier consumable: Defensive AA Fire (On Tier 9/10 CVs)

[Ascender]

Japanese fighter builds, at least on tier 9 and 10, are quite forgiving being 3-2-2 and 4-2-2, so you always have 2 torpedo and 2 divebomber groups. The Americans are a lot less forgiving particularly on Bogue (2-0-1) and Independence/Ranger (2-0-2) with the Lexington being in a similar position to the Japs with 2-1-1, while they then revert to 3-0-2 for some reason. I don't know, the Americans are weird like that.

 

Fighters to me represent a self-balancing ability for carriers which is sorely underdeveloped. As I said, they deal fine with strike planes for the most part, but when you get to tier 10 their ability to deal damage remains the same but the health of strike planes increases considerably. To underline that fighters can be very good and useful I have once shot down 101 aircraft with my 3-2-2 Taiho pre-nerf (when fighters still had very good DPS values), while doing equally good with Shokaku (76 max) and Hiryu (64 max) which were 2-2-2 setups. During all this my damage values are still very respectable, and considering that I almost always just let divebombers do their thing and focus on fighters and torpedo bombers these numbers suddenly become a lot more significant. Because, as you said with the American carriers, DBs alone do not make for a good game the vast majority of the time.

 

Let me illustrate my problem with fighters, the only way I can think of calculating their total damage potential is to multiply their DPS values by their Loadout values. This gives the Japs around 2600 from tier 6 to tier 10 with for example, A4N 2730, A6M2 2585, A7M1 2520, J7W 2640, J8N1 2610. The Americans tend to hover around 3000-2900 with similar values, with the F2H ending at 2880. If we compare that to the huge leaps of health the torpedo bombers make, it is easy to see how fighters become less and less effective as tiers go up. The Japs could get torpedo bombers with up to 2845 health and the Americans up to 2868. Then if you combine the fact that the Japanese have smaller fighter groups, rear gunners also take a toll on fighters, and it becomes easy to see how a fighter with 2500 damage potential has no problems beating a plane with 1400 health but a plane with 2600 damage potential has great difficulty beating a plane with 2800 health.

 

Anyways, I have already posted too much in this topic so I will rest my argument at that. I'm just frustrated that my Hakuryu is worse than the Midway in every possible metric, the torpedo bombers have less health and the torpedoes do far less damage, the fighters do less total damage, have less health and are slower, the ship itself is a lot more vulnerable to incoming torpedoes (I tested this in a training room) and has a lot less health and anti-air. Every time I came up against a Midway I just felt useless, both in strike setup where I was unable to effectively defend myself against 6 fighters and 12 torpedo bombers or fighter setup where I would punch away for 15 minutes to end up having shot down only 50 aircraft because my fighters continuously run out of ammo and need to cycle back (and the Midway's 136 hangar capacity would make it never run out of planes even if he just threw them away all game long). And all of this was already a problem to me even before they nerfed everything from fighter DPS to torpedo spread and launching angles. It's just not enjoyable to feel being at a perpetual disadvantage. I enjoyed every carrier immensely in the past, particularly the Taiho which had leet fighters, but the Hakuryu has been a let down from the very day this game launched open beta.

[BitByBit]

I think that skill would be interesting to avoid the gameplay GerryHYH stated : "Brainless ball ( specially midway) of planes that come at you to snipe you". It would increase the depth of the strategy and comitment this types of attack would imply and also the response ( lets not forget the CD , and how the ability works).

 

Ill start by saying that, I disagree with what was said in some post that it's a 50/50 chance to know if you are being sniped or not. It IS posible to know when it's coming but it is NOT posible to counter it, only to mitigate the damage to some extent, let me explain:

If you do not see planes in the first 2-3 mintues of the game.... that means something fishy is going on in the borders of the map. The problem is that with this information you cant do much .

 

Lets put two scenarios: 

 

Firstly, lets forget about t9 below carriers since their concealment allow  to stay closer to the fleet to some extent and also the MM bracket for that tier is more populated. Something the Midway and the Hakuryu are not that good at doing, specially with all those pesky t10 BBs ready to send you to citadel city. Second, lets assume we have no escort, this that might seem crazy ( you know because this is supposed to be a team game) actually happens more than often at t10s for two reasons mostly: 

 

1. People just dont care, they want to do damage. T10 Carriers have between 16-18km detection.... this means in order to be safe we need to be around 22...24 km away from the "CLOSEST" enemy at that range no cruiser can shoot. So maybe for the first wave sure but then the cruiser will move on, noone likes sitting for 20 minutes near a carrier that as people said might or might not get attacked.
2. In t10s specially after 0.5.1 and particularly at late night or early morning ( even mid afternoon sometimes... pretty much the whole day....) you end in battles with 3v3 , 4v4... etc. This incomplete teams sometimes spwn really spread across the map so early escort is imposible. Not to mention that sometimes there are no cruisers in the  composition.

 

Now for the sake of tactical discussion lets assume the two situations where 1 carrier tries to snipe the other.

 

• Midway vs Midway : In this scenario, you are gambling completly if he is in fact going to snipe you, you have to do the same. And this guys... is the whole Extent of your fighting capabiltiy. Pretty much the start of the game is as follows,  you move your planes in a stright line from your starting position to other position to initiate the attack as to trick your enemy carrier ( so he doesnt know where you really are) then you just , as we say in starcraft, 1A  to the enemy meaning you blob your planes and send them. Whoever gets LUCKY and find the other carrier first won. You just lock the enemy fighter with your fighter and torpedo Bomb him to death. ( ofc u can border abuse to some extent still.... like many cv players do some even posted here but i wont mention them )
• Midway vs hakuryu : This scenario allows for more gameplay. But its basicaly the same as before and everything depends on how long the midway fighter locks your fighter. Pretty much the same blob goes towards your ship, the midway has superior AA to the hakuryu ( pretty much 2x the DPS = 2x chances of downing a plane) this means the midway has the upper hand in an AA defense scenario. Midway fighteers engage hakuryu first group ( 2nd hakuryu fighter is waiting or trying to engage the group) the midway fighter finish the 1st hakuryu fighter , locks the 2nd. drops on the carrier and wins. This scenario can be reversed but the chances of a hakryu drop on a midway are way less due to the strong midway AA.
• Hakuryu vs hakuryu: we are back to the mirror match of the first point. Hakuryu fighters lock each other . the first to find the enemy wins.

 

 

I tried to explain this for those ppl that didnt play 1000+CV games. 

 

Long story short, it is posible to know if you are being targeted. But the counterattack is quite limited. In fact, its non existant. You can try to dodge the torps and minimize the dmg but that means his 2nd wave will be 100% sucesful and then he has free air rign. I dont think thats how CV vs CV should be. 

 

I agree that Cvs should be punished for not having their fighers close (out of position) when they are being engaged by the sniping blob. But  I think with the current state of the game even if your fighters are back, unless the enemy really doesnt care the amount of ammo on the fighters is not enough to actually kill the incoming blob, in some cases like in mirror matches, you just dont have fighters "free" to attack anything due to the new Taunting mechanics fo fighters.

 

Now the question i want to solve from theorycrafting stand point is " what would having AA charges (ability) actually do?"

 

I think it would give 40 sec of free air. 

 

Every good CV players knows how to fight the defensive ability skill. So basicaly they will know exactly when its up and that will be used to deterrent the fight. This will mean in the next 40 sec uou need to land and service your planes ( if u are a midway) , or just service and launch if u are hakuryu. 

 

I think this will balance the discrepancies in AA between the midway and the hakuryu. And help tilt the balance between carriers in terms of AA.

 

I love to theorycraft and talk about this issue so whoever shares that interest im open to discussing more about it 

[RamirezKurita]

How about we simply wait until the RN armoured carriers get added into the game, and give them the AA defensive fire as a special? That would go well with their concept of escorting the fleet and would help balance out their relatively small amounts of aircraft. Having a much smaller airwing wouldn't be so much of an issue if you effectively have a free Atlanta on the team.

[BitByBit]

How about we simply wait until the RN armoured carriers get added into the game, and give them the AA defensive fire as a special? That would go well with their concept of escorting the fleet and would help balance out their relatively small amounts of aircraft. Having a much smaller airwing wouldn't be so much of an issue if you effectively have a free Atlanta on the team.

 

The problem of going with the fleet specially at high tiers is that you get focused by enemy BBs at long range and your armor is thin enough that you get citadeled sometimes even from the front or the deck. I do angle my hakuryu and midway when im in this situations but you still get heavy damage plus one of the problems of going with the fleet is that the moment you enter the engagement range of cruisers you wont be able to land or takeoff from the carrier since there will be too many fires.

 

 Going with the fleet in the general sense of actually sailing 2-3km from them under the short -medium range AA ring is just not posible. The idea is that you follow them from a safe distance like 5-6km+ and  when you see the planes incoming you ask for a cruiser in the front line to turn and hug you.

 

We do this because we are priority targets, with weak armor ( even the armored carriers like midway , and hakuryu / taiho takes a lot of damage) and our fighting capabilities are reduced to 0 if we get fires on deck that can be then exploited by other carriers. 

 

Something to remember when talking about carriers is : We do have high speeds 33knots+ , but we have 1,2km turning radious thats about 30%  more than BBs of the same tier. True that our rudder shift is shorter, but that means that even tho we initiate the turn faster we are locked in the turn for way longer. Also since we lose about 11-12knots when we turn. A lot of cruisers ask me to keep with them when they are changing course and its just imposible when i turn i go down 13k knots for a long time, while cruisers -even tho they also lose speed in the turn- do it faster.

 

 

TLDR ; going close enough to the fleet as to be in the 3,5km mid range AA bubble is suicidal

[RamirezKurita]

 

The problem of going with the fleet specially at high tiers is that you get focused by enemy BBs at long range and your armor is thin enough that you get citadeled sometimes even from the front or the deck. I do angle my hakuryu and midway when im in this situations but you still get heavy damage plus one of the problems of going with the fleet is that the moment you enter the engagement range of cruisers you wont be able to land or takeoff from the carrier since there will be too many fires.

 

 Going with the fleet in the general sense of actually sailing 2-3km from them under the short -medium range AA ring is just not posible. The idea is that you follow them from a safe distance like 5-6km+ and  when you see the planes incoming you ask for a cruiser in the front line to turn and hug you.

 

We do this because we are priority targets, with weak armor ( even the armored carriers like midway , and hakuryu / taiho takes a lot of damage) and our fighting capabilities are reduced to 0 if we get fires on deck that can be then exploited by other carriers. 

 

Something to remember when talking about carriers is : We do have high speeds 33knots+ , but we have 1,2km turning radious thats about 30%  more than BBs of the same tier. True that our rudder shift is shorter, but that means that even tho we initiate the turn faster we are locked in the turn for way longer. Also since we lose about 11-12knots when we turn. A lot of cruisers ask me to keep with them when they are changing course and its just imposible when i turn i go down 13k knots for a long time, while cruisers -even tho they also lose speed in the turn- do it faster.

 

 

TLDR ; going close enough to the fleet as to be in the 3,5km mid range AA bubble is suicidal

 

I was thinking more about staying within the 5+km range of the 4.5 inch DP guns on the majority of the RN carriers, rather than trying to stay within the short range self-defence AA bubble, particularly as defensive AA fire provides massive buffs to DP artillery. Staying several km behind the backline battleships would likely make sure that most enemy ships will be out of range, and most of the ones that get close would struggle to penetrate properly unless a brawling battleship charges straight at you (as even the old Illustrious class had notably better belt and deck armour than the New Orleans class cruisers, and their decks weren't far off unmodernised WWI era battleships, which isn't bad for a carrier that likely belongs in T7-8. I know that the original armoured designs for the Malta-class were notably heavier, overall the armoured RN carriers are probably going to be about 2 tiers ahead in terms of armour).

 

The idea would be so that carriers wouldn't need a cruiser escort themselves, they would instead be able to effectively function as the cruiser escort for other ships, particularly as they tended to have similar AA batteries to late-war cruisers. Rather than having a cruiser come from the mid lines to protect the carrier, allied battleships would instead fall back to the carrier for AA support in the event of air attack.

[Reyte]

I dont think its a good idea. Strikeloadouts are a gamble, u ve more strikecappability, but less defensabilities in case enemy planes target you. AA consumable would make strike CV even more powerful since they would gain even more value compared to fighter cv.

 

I rarely see the first attempt beeing 100 % succesful in T-9/10. More than 2 attempts I generally dont seem worthwhile since it wastes so much time.

 

How many times i ve seen my CV running to the border of the map, not even tryiing to stay with the fleet..... Cruiser are there for giving aa ability, thats their thingy!

If we now give it also CV we could give it BB aswell. AA consumable for everyone!!!

 

If u cant stand beeing sniped u might change ur loadouts or playsstyle. After all u would only a even tiered bb(OK IZUMO NOT)/ or aoba/clevland and all the higher tier cruiser to stop an attack or make it inefficient.

 

TL;DR

Strike CV are a double-edged sword. Something which can erase ships with ease shouldnt be allowed to be survive easy against his on kind.

 

[BitByBit]

I dont think its a good idea. Strikeloadouts are a gamble, u ve more strikecappability, but less defensabilities in case enemy planes target you. AA consumable would make strike CV even more powerful since they would gain even more value compared to fighter cv.

 

I rarely see the first attempt beeing 100 % succesful in T-9/10. More than 2 attempts I generally dont seem worthwhile since it wastes so much time.

 

How many times i ve seen my CV running to the border of the map, not even tryiing to stay with the fleet..... Cruiser are there for giving aa ability, thats their thingy!

If we now give it also CV we could give it BB aswell. AA consumable for everyone!!!

 

If u cant stand beeing sniped u might change ur loadouts or playsstyle. After all u would only a even tiered bb(OK IZUMO NOT)/ or aoba/clevland and all the higher tier cruiser to stop an attack or make it inefficient.

 

TL;DR

Strike CV are a double-edged sword. Something which can erase ships with ease shouldnt be allowed to be survive easy against his on kind.

 

 

I agree with you Reyte that , strike setup shouldnt have Air superiority aka control of the map. And its true we might still have to adjust. But I honestly dont want a game based on a lucky oneshot where skill is not really involved, since we Cant refit on the fly. Id rather have the skill control the game. 

 

Also  WG explains CV as if they are an RTS game... as in Real Time Strategy kind of way of playing. And top down view is not really RTS its just .... same as BBs different aiming , different handling but its still a BB with different kind of view and mechanics.

 

This is where I want the RTS kind of scenario to come in, with deep tactical decisions. BB also make tacticals decisions, where to go... who to shoot, etc. But I think carriers could go further ahead.

If we look at games like starcraft..... there are many different ways of attack , many different choices: choices that go for a win early game others for mid or late game. Simplified it just means where you balance your reasources to do the BIG attack. But of course all attacks have a counter if spoted properly and even tho theres always some luck involved if two players are equally skilled and one of them spots the enemy tactic it can be countered. This is what strategy games are all about... same as SC we can put many others... like Company of Heroes or Age of Empires etc.... 

 

Im not saying that we should give defensive AA ability to carriers, honestly id be happier with Repair party ( so we can repair dmg of the first drop, and it would still be useles if u are spoted by the fleet cause by then u are pretty much dead and having a repair doesnt really help you....but ppl will QQ too much , capital ships with Repair ability stronk) but I think there should be a deeper strategical battles between carriers.

 

Assuming the enemy is Strike , balling your planes and going for him in hopes to catch him first and kill him, its not really a good way of playing. 

Seeing the enemy fighters ( being air supriority or strike , or standard...) out of position and deciding to strike him.... well i have no problem with that, one player was more skilled than the other and knew when to exploit a fail in his defense. This is how CV vs CV should be. Fighter positioning is already quite complicated.... even at t10 a mistake of 5 km in your fighters means you are in serious problems since the planes would need 1 minute to reposition plenty of time to reach and drop losing minimal planes.

 

Long story short, what you say makes sense Reyte strike setups means little defense a lot of anti ship capabilities , while air superiority swaps those . The problem for me is, in my case, if this oneshoting keeps going on with all the border hugging involved etc ( true that they slow down but since now the drop zone is bigger droping closer near the edge is way harder cause the cursor and thus the aiming circle is locked further away) then only one build will be worth doing in solo t10 CVs games..... and imo thats kind of sad because it reduces versatility... we are limiting the options and not based in teamplay or .... decision or skill just because some players decide that lotery style of play is worth it, if it pays off they win instnatly cause they killed the enemy CV so they dont need to outdmg anyone if it doesnt they waste 3 minuts of the game.

 

 

About RamirezKurita:

 

 

I was thinking more about staying within the 5+km range of the 4.5 inch DP guns on the majority of the RN carriers, rather than trying to stay within the short range self-defence AA bubble, particularly as defensive AA fire provides massive buffs to DP artillery. Staying several km behind the backline battleships would likely make sure that most enemy ships will be out of range, and most of the ones that get close would struggle to penetrate properly unless a brawling battleship charges straight at you (as even the old Illustrious class had notably better belt and deck armour than the New Orleans class cruisers, and their decks weren't far off unmodernised WWI era battleships, which isn't bad for a carrier that likely belongs in T7-8. I know that the original armoured designs for the Malta-class were notably heavier, overall the armoured RN carriers are probably going to be about 2 tiers ahead in terms of armour).

 

The idea would be so that carriers wouldn't need a cruiser escort themselves, they would instead be able to effectively function as the cruiser escort for other ships, particularly as they tended to have similar AA batteries to late-war cruisers. Rather than having a cruiser come from the mid lines to protect the carrier, allied battleships would instead fall back to the carrier for AA support in the event of air attack.

 

 

There are two major problems in your idea. Ill call that 5km+ ( longest being des moines with 5.7) Long range AA  since each carrier has different guns and im bad with Imperial system xD.

 

Most Long range AA , montana , desmoines , midway have very little DPS. We are talking about 55-60 DPS. With defensive fire ability it can go up 9x so in the best scenario we would have 540 DPS which is an impressive number considering the whole AA of midway (with all the guns) is about 650. The problem is in order for you to be in range of covering a BB , cruiser ,etc  you need to be somewhat close to them... lets say 2.5km so the planes have to fly under that Aura for enough time. Each calculation( Aka roll) is done every second... this means that to kill a full group of planes sometimes u need 30-40 seconds (im always talking about t10, usually is less but im just using this as example). T10 TBs fly around 156 knots  with around 2800 HP each plane, translated into international system 156knots is  aproxiamtely 80 m/s .... and the chance of taking of a plane is DPS/survivability*100, assuming u dont have more guns than those , 560/2800*100 = ~19%. This means in 10 rolls / 10 seconds, you  would kill 2 planes as average, which is not bad, but 10 seconds is 800 meters.

 

I think you can start to see the problem, if the enemy carrier is dumb enough that choses to engage ofc he will lose planes but if u are too far from the target u are covering (as in lets say 4 km), by the time he reaches your target u wont kill more than 1 or 2 planes out of 12. IF he is smart and he chooses not to engage and instead fly his planes 15km from you (at t10 i bet the Malta if its introduced whatever armor he has will have 15km sea detection at least) you will be spoted and... its true that they could be really well armored but then a yamato will just aim for you at 20km ( an dnot just a yamato everyone and their mom that sees you) and you willbe sent to citadel city quickly.

 

This right here is, in my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes cruisers make. They keep going at 4km away from the BB they wanna escort because they are afraid of getting hit, and its true the AA defensive ability will disrupt the drop but their AA is totaly unefective at that range.... unless they get lucky rolls. In order for your AA to have time to work u need 30 seconds at least so this means the planes must be AT LEAST! 4km away from u when u start engaging them ( if you sit behind the target you want to protect at 3km+, you wont be effective at all). Some streamers even say that the Midway planes are "TOO FAST" , which its true they are turboprop planes if im not wrong so yes they are faster than the t8...t9 etc ( Ijns are the same , just IJN doesnt have midways xD) but that just means since your AA also goes up that u need to get closer to the BB.

 

TL;DR : Being close to the fleet is really dangerous, trying to give AA cover makes it even more dangerous regardless of how armored your CV is , even yamatos and montanas get citadeled at that range  so imagine what they could do to a carrier with 60k HP

[Hauptbahnhof]

Bad idea. Carriers are supposed to feel like glass cannons when their own ship is engaged by either air or ships. If they don't have fighters or fleet support they should be toast.

 

The Japanese Carriers sunk at Midway certainly didn't have any AA consumable that magically made them impossible to hit.

[Exocet6951]

 

Haha, this I agree. A single catapult fighter can pin down my 7 Jet Bomber squadron is hardly realistic is there?

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I just had to 

[II_Nemesis_II]

Sailing with the rest of the fleet, asking cruisers for help, using fighters accordingly. That is small portion of skills needed to effectively control an aircraft carrier. Making it dumbed down, by giving CVs ability to completely negate the ONLY threat for them in the early to mid game is not a good idea for me. So no sorry I am against that. Everything which makes gameplay dumbed down is bad.

[DJ_Die]

Actually why not do the same thing they did with US DDs and tie AA consumable to a module? In this case the air superiority one? This way it would make strike CVs unable or at least less capable of outmanoeuvring AS CVs fighters and sniping the CV and thus free the fighters for other duties

[BitByBit]

Bad idea. Carriers are supposed to feel like glass cannons when their own ship is engaged by either air or ships. If they don't have fighters or fleet support they should be toast.

 

The Japanese Carriers sunk at Midway certainly didn't have any AA consumable that magically made them impossible to hit.

 

You do Understand that .... youcant really translate reality into this right? I mean..... in real combat scenarios CVs werent 20 km away from their enemies..... specially since just the yamato had almost 40km range..... and Carriers had their own escort. 

 

So if u gonna go iwth the Real feel of things . I want to be able to oneshot carrier swith 1 bomb in the hangar bay or 1 torpedo like happened to the Hornet. I also want to have my very own personal escort group. I also want.... maps 300kmx300km and 2h timer.... and then sure wecan talk realism....

 

I dont mind reading interesting ideas but lets forget about realism in a Arcade game.

[viceadmiral123]

No. AA ability should be for AA cruisers. Also remove it from DDs.

[Hauptbahnhof]

 

So if u gonna go iwth the Real feel of things . I want to be able to oneshot carrier swith 1 bomb in the hangar bay or 1 torpedo like happened to the Hornet.

 

You can do that perfectly fine. Ever heard of magazine detonations? Yes Carriers have them too...

 

 

 I also want.... maps 300kmx300km and 2h timer.... and then sure wecan talk realism....

 

 

2 hour timers is a bit excessive considering all ship and airplane speeds are around 2-3x real onces, so I think that 40-60min is enough for bigger battles to unfold. But as "historical events" or higher realism game mode that sounds like ideas that could be fun to explore.

[Reyte]

No. AA ability should be for AA cruisers. Also remove it from DDs.

 

This.

 

Ofc dds are overperforming...better nerf them!

 

American dds need to get somewhat close in order to perform s. Something which threatens them to get killed by planes. So it was justified to give some american dds an aa consumable. Its actually quite great to ve a jack of all trades style destroyer (ofc in close combat nobody performs more well than american dds, but how often do u get knifefights?) So u can ve a destroyer which can actually defend ur own team vs enemy destroyers, have some useful torpedos and good guns at medium to short range and defend other ships apart form himself against plane attacks. What a useful ship! If i remember correctly the dd has to give up his speedboost in order to actually get the aa consumable, but i might be wrong. So correct me if i am wrong and we got some dedicated american dd player around here.

 

But no, you as cv player want to nerf a relativley helpless class of ships. Just so u can easly kill them.

 

Some CV player seem to show a very ugly attitude towards other classes of ships.

 

[FloRead]

USN DDs have to choose between engine boost or AA defensive fire. Another important thing to note is AA defensive fire does not boost all your AA dps, only the longest ranged AA on the ship. That is not a lot of AA dps still for any USN DD.

 

In the upper tiers, the game needs more AA defensive fire, not less. This nerf to the number of charges of AA defensive fire that ships can have is a very very bad change.

[Santos47]

It would be ok with AA skill, but with skill reworked. Right now this skill is ridicule enough. 

[viceadmiral123]

 

In the upper tiers, the game needs more AA defensive fire, not less. This nerf to the number of charges of AA defensive fire that ships can have is a very very bad change.

 

Why is it a bad change? Because stacks of cruisers can't spam it mindlessly all 20 minutes and now actually have to take turns?

[FloRead]

Because it's harder to move your planes away and let the 40s AA defensive fire expire? Because cruisers get insta-sunk by a carrier if the said cruiser does not activate AA defensive fire? 

 

AA defensive fire has a recharge of 3 mins. Too often I have forced a cruiser to trigger AA defensive fire and then return later to sink it because I know I have that 3 mins window of safety.

 

Cruisers are supposed to be AA defensive shield of the fleet. Let it perform that role.

[praetor_jax]

I ve never quite understood why they made the AA ability a limited use consumable to begin with? o.0

[viceadmiral123]

Because it's harder to move your planes away and let the 40s AA defensive fire expire? Because cruisers get insta-sunk by a carrier if the said cruiser does not activate AA defensive fire? 

 

AA defensive fire has a recharge of 3 mins. Too often I have forced a cruiser to trigger AA defensive fire and then return later to sink it because I know I have that 3 mins window of safety.

 

Cruisers are supposed to be AA defensive shield of the fleet. Let it perform that role.

Cruisers are supposed to do many things, one of which is to use the AA panic ability to increase bomber spread. BBs at high tiers already have better AA, and the cruiser is there to provide strategic decrease in bomber accuracy. At 180s timer, cruiser can use defensive fire again faster than a CV can cycle planes. A limit on defensive fire charges should come as no surprise.

[Elenortirion]

The Japanese Carriers sunk at Midway certainly didn't have any AA consumable that magically made them impossible to hit.

 

the japanese Carriers (two biggest ones at least) sunk because of some US dive bombers that had extreme luck to be in perfect place in perfect moment when both of them were preparing to launch their strikes, US torpedo bombers were anihilated by japanese AA defences.

[japanese fighters were really low while dive bombers remained tunill the very last moment undetected by japanese ships]

[actually all japanese carriers that sunk at midway sunk because dive bombers atacking them got spotted way to late]

 

should those dive bombers arrive just a minute later - they would not wreck those carriers so badly...

 

putting short history lesson aside and on topic - I see what good things such a change could bring but both sides have imo somekind of right, so I'll remain neutral to that idea because I can't really judge which sides arguments are outweighting which

 

[btw am I the only one that noticed that by in-game description hakuryu is supposed to have better armor than taiho but has it actually thinner? it's nearly half the armor shokaku posseses... and I find it funny that at t8 IJN carriers have peak of CV's armouring which with each nest tier successively drop...]

[Hauptbahnhof]

 

the japanese Carriers (two biggest ones at least) sunk because of some US dive bombers that had extreme luck to be in perfect place in perfect moment when both of them were preparing to launch their strikes, US torpedo bombers were anihilated by japanese AA defences.

 

Both of these are myths.

 

1.) USN had read the Japanese code and knew exactly when and where the Japanese would attack so they were waiting for them. The Japanese were totally unprepared.

 

The USN threw everything they had at them, first land-based tactical bombers, then land-based strike crafts from midway, then carrier based torpedo planes and by the time the divebombers showed up the Japanese defenses had been totally overwhelmed by a morning with never-ending attacks, and failed.

 

Japanese commanders that were responsible decided to cover up the extent of how surprised and unprepared they had been, to hide the embarrassment. So they made up story about "failing" scout planes that didn't detect the US forces and "luck" / not spotting the incomming strike as the major factor for the defeat has persisted into history until very recently when translated post-war interviews have surfaced. They didn't detect the incoming strikes because they weren't looking at all or even considering there could be US Carriers nearby!

 

 

2.) Japanese AA defenses were really bad, they didn't use many ships for screening at all, and had inferior guns. It was the Japanese famous A6M2 Zero fighters that slaughtered the torpedo bombers, not their AA. The Japanese AA couldn't even elevate high enough to shoot at the approaching dive-bombers at all once they started their dive and came into effective range (3-4km away)...

 

So if you want a historical game how about we make dive-bombers immune to 100% of the AA firepower from Japanese CVs when within 3km? Pretty much the exact opposite of defensive fire cooldowns.

 

 

 

Historical Carriers were glass-cannons and to some extent they are still that in WoWs. Not quite to the extent where the divebombers alone from a balanced deck setup can kill enemy Carreirs on a single attack run (like Midway)... Which is probably for the best, but they shouldn't be more tanky then they already are.

[Elenortirion]

 

Both of these are myths.

 

1.) USN had read the Japanese code and knew exactly when and where the Japanese would attack so they were waiting for them. The Japanese were totally unprepared.

 

The USN threw everything they had at them, first land-based tactical bombers, then land-based strike crafts from midway, then carrier based torpedo planes and by the time the divebombers showed up the Japanese defenses had been totally overwhelmed by a morning with never-ending attacks, and failed. [1]

 

Japanese commanders that were responsible decided to cover up the extent of how surprised and unprepared they had been, to hide the embarrassment. So they made up story about "failing" scout planes that didn't detect the US forces and "luck" / not spotting the incomming strike as the major factor for the defeat has persisted into history until very recently when translated post-war interviews have surfaced. They didn't detect the incoming strikes because they weren't looking at all or even considering there could be US Carriers nearby! [2]

 

 

2.) Japanese AA defenses were really bad, they didn't use many ships for screening at all, and had inferior guns. It was the Japanese famous A6M2 Zero fighters that slaughtered the torpedo bombers, not their AA. The Japanese AA couldn't even elevate high enough to shoot at the approaching dive-bombers at all once they started their dive and came into effective range (3-4km away)...

 

So if you want a historical game how about we make dive-bombers immune to 100% of the AA firepower from Japanese CVs when within 3km? Pretty much the exact opposite of defensive fire cooldowns. [3]

 

 

 

Historical Carriers were glass-cannons and to some extent they are still that in WoWs. Not quite to the extent where the divebombers alone from a balanced deck setup can kill enemy Carreirs on a single attack run (like Midway)... Which is probably for the best, but they shouldn't be more tanky then they already are.[4]

[1] flying fortresses proved extremely bad for ship bombarding and Us torpedo bombers got decimated by both fleets AAA and japanese superior escort fighters, US bombers were sent in huge dissarray which is speaking badly about USN considering that USN knew japanese plans ahead.

 

[it is confirmed by the USN pilots that did so that their wing went in other direction that ordered because wing leader decided that command was wrong and japanese carriers had to be somewhere else]

 

spout plane is different thing there was a malfuction of one of cruisers scout aircraft catapult and japanese commander made the mistake of waiting with reconaiisance for it to be fixed

 

[2] they were considering enemy carriers to be nearby - more so - whe whole atack on midway was in fact an attempt to force USN to send their carriers to defend it so they could possibly eliminate all enemy carriers in one big battle - other thing failing to spot enemy aircraft in first divebombers wave because of being focused on torpedo bombers that were atacking and even totally other thing is that in second wave USN send their bombers with order to approach with sun behind to avoid being spotted because of japanese that would have to look into the sun when looking in their direction

 

[and yet other thing taht yokrtown was destroyed with much lesser forces that USN lost in their first atack]

[3] sure but apply it to every ship not just japaneese because USN Carriers also had hard time hitting those - and also as we are on it - how about giving japanese aircraft passive ability that after carrier got sunk and no ammo is present to ram it into some hostile ships huh?

 

[4] and then Taiho is known as the most technologically advanced carrier and most armored one as well.... so bad in-game she has much thinner armor then preceding shokkaku....

 

also about history - I base my knowledge of it on multiple sources and in case of midway battle - on full blown battle analisis made by historians that were neutral to the confilct whom based those analisys on the sources from both sided crossreferencing them to find out what really happened, and when you just jump out with "it was all japanese covering because they screwed" I have weird feeling that only thing you read on the case was US books which are not less of propaganda than japaneese when you are basing knowledge on the alone....

 

PS. to clarify - when I said "by AA defences" I do not mean AAA alone - fighters also are a part of Anti-Air defences

 

back on topic though - as I said both sides of teh argument have good points and as I have stucked for now at Zuiho with my CV experience I cannot really tell how it'd affect high-tier battles

[Seedling]

Rather then Defensive Fire, why not give carriers the Smoke Screen ability? Probably a stronger one then DDs, because CVs are huge, but with the added catch that planes cannot take off or land while in a smoke screen. AA would have to be disabled or the cv gets spotted anyway, and they are big and cumbersome enough that manual drops still have a chance of hitting a concealed cv.