Let us CVs use our fighters to shoot ships!

[Antique_Nova]

UPDATES TO ORIGINAL POST: At the end of this post.

 

I mainly play the US line of CVs and we, especially other CV players, know about the moaning of recent huge AA buffs, lack of torps for US amongst others.

 

But, what I'd like to see is our fighters playing a bigger role than simply spotting ships and shooting down other planes or being shot down. Since we don't get any credits or experience for spotting ships for others, which everyone knows is vital to win every game, especially when there are a lot of DDs about. As someone in this thread has pointed out, CV game play is pretty stale at the moment and in terms of being versatility the Jap CVs kick the US CV's asses as they can do so much more in just about every role. This thread is meant to develop CV game play, while helping to bridge the enormous unbalanced versatility gap between Japanese and US carriers.

 

=== Note about replying to this thread ===

Please do not reply with, "this is a dumb idea" or "only noobs do this and that", because it's pathetic as it contributes nothing to the discussion and is just purely a flame induced comment inviting more flame. Which will be reported. If you think the suggestions in this thread as nonsense or disagree in any way, then write down why, give examples and make your point. Constructively! Sure things can still get heated, but at least a point is being fleshed out.

====================================

 

Allow them to shoot the decks of enemy ships to take out modules, cause fires on the very rare occasion say 10-20% of the time or to suppress the enemy AA modules (mainly this). They should even have the firepower to cause some noticeable damage on the DDs. Say I don't know, 1-2% damage per run. That's probably a little too low for a full 6 US 6 plane squad, but you get my point.

 

And for those who don't believe this thing actually happened. Here's a quote from wiki. (I know it's wikipedia, but it points to seemingly more reliable sources)

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleships_in_World_War_II

 

In the armour section near the bottom of the page, sixth paragraph down.

 

"During the attack on Yamato, according to a PBS documentary, U.S. torpedo bombers were taught to aim for either the bow or the stern, where the protective belt did not extend. For torpedo bombers to make their runs successfully, fighters strafed the battleship to suppress AA guns, and dive bombers wreaked havoc on the upper decks, destroying AA weapons and fire control systems. Pilots were also instructed to focus on one side of the ship, causing massive flooding which was difficult to counteract, leading to the ship capsizing."

 

A few seconds before the end of the link to the clip below, you can see a fighter plane causing a fire and explosion on a ship with his pee shooter. Granted, I doubt the ship was very well armoured, but stuff like that does happen. And I imagine more easily with DDs as fighters have the best accuracy to cause damage with than torps or dive bombers, especially with those torpedoes just sticking out with just the tinniest of armour between them and the air, waiting to be shot.

 

 

And another clip showing a fighter plane strafing a ship's deck. Even if you were fully protected, the flash from the muzzles as the bullets launch at you or near you can block part of your vision.

 

 

 

And just for comedy as I was looking for references:

 

 

UPDATES:

 

These are the additional ideas that have surfaced since the discussion has begun.

 

1. Affecting AA modules and consumables.

Give us a chance to negate or delay (maybe destroy) consumable/s and modules? Say a repair module, a smoke cloud module, defensive fire, AA turrets or delay all consumables or some by 60 seconds. Allowing our bombers fire and flooding damage to continue eating away for a full minute before you can react.

 

Allow us to cause fires with fighter planes and allow them to do some damage to kill stray ships that has almost no health. Too many times I have seen ships limping with 500hp winning games as there are fighter planes still about that can sink it with plenty of time left and nothing else urgent to really do as sinking that limping ship. Say our fighter planes damage could be halved when shooting ships. I'd still go for that, it would make the US fighter setups more viable as our ability to do damage is ridiculously low compared to the japanse and the japanese can beat us in everything. Even our fighter setups as they can bait and strafe us. Bare in mind that is very difficult, but they still have the option to do it! We have no real way to put out the same amount of damage as them with their torp spams. We have DBs, but everyone knows Jap CVs can still cause so much more damage per game.

 

- How would the ship strafing work?

 

The reason why I didn't want it to be a part of strafing is because when you strafe any ship, the ship being clearly the target, the fighter planes carry on for a very long distance. The current strafing distance is simply too long for one ship. Even a Battleship. That is why I propose that when shooting a ship, we should be able to ALT shoot it. That would automatically have the fighter squad do continuous strafing runs back and forth across whichever side you told it to come in from, using more ammo than it would normally as it strafes the ship. Or if would just perform a single special strafing run for ships when you alt click that ship with your fighter planes with a much shorter distance, so the moment it passes over the enemy ship, it stops strafing. Then, I wouldn't have to see my planes continue strafing for half a mile after they've passed the enemy ship, which is extremely wasteful and looks silly. I don't imagine that kind of coding being very difficult to implement, as they already have the animated almost done for it with the normal strafing.

 

2. Damaging the citadel, the antenna and comms tower:

 

Another suggestion to them destroying not only AA modules and causing shorter fires in the rare instance, is the damage they can cause to your citadel, because they look mightily exposed with their glass windows and exposed antennas. Maybe they should be able to severely damage or even destroy your comms and radar, which will simply make all ship positions disappear outside say a few hundred metres or a single square, kinda like when the typhoon's weather effects come in.

 

3. Affecting the flight decks of other CVs.

 

If we are allowed to strafe the decks of ships, then fighter planes strafing the decks of CVs should be able to prevent any planes from launching or landing for 10-15+ seconds minimum with no way to use a consumable to stop that until the fighter squad has has been wiped out or stops strafing the deck of said CV.

 

Also, give us CV players more experience and credits for using our fighters to spot ships. Fighter based load outs as seriously malnourished in credits and experienced compared to bomber heavy decks, because the difference in what we get is ridiculously huge. Which is why I hate using fighter loadouts, because I get so few credits and exp for doing so much to help my team mates. Clear Sky achievement helps, but you don't always get it and it doesn't properly reflecting your spotting skills.

[Meneleus]

Fighters were used to strafe the decks in order to supress or take out AA gun crews. It has been proposed earlier to enable fighters to soften up AA defenses, giving them a role in the game other than scouting and air superiority. I think such a thing is interesting since it offers additional options.

 

I think it is a very bad idea to have fighters do any meaningful damage to ships other than taking out AA defenses, let alone starting fires.

 

Cheers,

 

M

[txtspeak]

Fighters were used to strafe the decks in order to supress or take out AA gun crews. It has been proposed earlier to enable fighters to soften up AA defenses, giving them a role in the game other than scouting and air superiority. I think such a thing is interesting since it offers additional options.

 

I think it is a very bad idea to have fighters do any meaningful damage to ships other than taking out AA defenses, let alone starting fires.

 

Cheers,

 

M

agreed, fighter strafe should damage AA guns and thats all

[RamirezKurita]

Fighters were used to strafe the decks in order to supress or take out AA gun crews. It has been proposed earlier to enable fighters to soften up AA defenses, giving them a role in the game other than scouting and air superiority. I think such a thing is interesting since it offers additional options.

 

I think it is a very bad idea to have fighters do any meaningful damage to ships other than taking out AA defenses, let alone starting fires.

 

Cheers,

 

M

 

​They should also work well against exposed secondaries and torpedoes. Basically anything that isn't kept well behind layers of steel plate.

 

Some fighters were better at dealing with surface targets than others as well, which is something that could be implemented in the game. The US fighters quite liked their 12.7mm machine guns, but most other nations preferred 20mm guns and the German fighters moved onto 30mm autocannons by the end of the war. This is even without going into the dedicated cannon equipped aircraft that saw widespread service, with many of them using 37mm guns, while some even mounted up to 75mm cannons, which could easily be implemented into the game as "fighters" that happen to have very powerful strafe attacks but relatively poor air-to-air performance.

[Antique_Nova]

I think they should be able to do some damage, there are many times when I still have a few fighter squads lying around with a few enemy ships on 500hp, especially in higher tiers. My planes should be able to take it down given all the ammo they still have left with 3-4 mins to go. I think the chances of starting fires should be very rare, but not impossible. The most likely fires, if hit should be DDs.

[Comrad_StaIin]

about 1 dmg per hit so the CV player has something to fap of

[SV_Kompresor]

Fighters were used to strafe the decks in order to supress or take out AA gun crews. It has been proposed earlier to enable fighters to soften up AA defenses, giving them a role in the game other than scouting and air superiority. I think such a thing is interesting since it offers additional options.

 

I think it is a very bad idea to have fighters do any meaningful damage to ships other than taking out AA defenses, let alone starting fires.

 

Cheers,

 

M

 

That is actually a good idea...it would be nice to kill some AA crews (or turrets in our case) with strafing without dealing any actual damage

[Antique_Nova]

 

That is actually a good idea...it would be nice to kill some AA crews (or turrets in our case) with strafing without dealing any actual damage

 

I don't think we need to use the strafing ability to do it, just clicking and letting them shoot at it normally is fine. As the strafing in game uses a lot of ammo and goes on for far too long to be used on one ship. Because you'd barely hit that ship for 1-2 seconds out of the say 8 second strafe.

[Junio_V_B]

More power to CV in a gameplay where a single CV is already a dominant variable? I am clearly not a CV player, but it feels wrong to add damage features to CV when dealing damage from "invisibile spot" was somewhat  nerved for ships like DD. It would more interesting if the ability to deal a different type of damage was traded with some range of action, so for example the planes can be launched at 30km or something like that. 

 

[LetsRockAndRoll]

What, you mean you're actually going to send one of the fighter squadrons you've had orbiting your CV for the whole game into action?

 

[pra3y]

@Junio_V_B

 

How would it be wrong or inbalanced? OP's idea is pretty solid although I disagree with the part on not putting it as part of the strafing ability. Making it a sea/ship level strafe ability would make the ability more player dependent and at the same time prevent it from being abused. The player will have to choose between saving ammo to fight off enemy planes or use it to soften targeted ships.

 

Also people with the excuse that CVs are always "invisible" should understand the mechanics of CV gameplay first before commenting about said "invisibility". The fact that you have to spend more time moving the planes from where you are  to the target, return to ship, rearm and then move again is a limiting factor in itself since that would mean you have lesser time to carry out more attacks against other ship the further your plane travel. Nothing wrong with having fighters damage unarmoured modules like AA guns while doing minimal hp damage to ships.

[Junio_V_B]

@pra3y

 

thanks for the answer, food for thoughts. Yet, as sometimes I play dd I can state that your argument about moving the planes and carrying less attacks is not true (unless you are on one end of the map and the target is on the other...maybe). DD have reload of torps. I always see planes reaching the same target more times than I can with dd, from closer, with a limited issue of dying to it.

So, all considered, for once the IJN DD is already underpowered when compared to a torpedo bomber. What makes a CV deadly though, is ability to perform so many crucial tasks from the quite of a remote spot behind an island. This is the game mechanic and although it makes me uncomfortable more times than not, I understand. Yet, I believe that such a complex and powerful tool should come with some sort of "back of the medal". Giving them a range of action would definitely spice up things. 

 

Anyways, the argument I was trying to make is that just adding another feature to CV without balancing it out sounds odd as CV are already overpowered as they are and can totally swing by themselves a battle. I am not coming out myself with such a statement, if you look at it WG knows it too well and does not allow divisions of CVs.

 

As for the matter of sticking to reality, again the stealth factor CV enjoy in the game is completely fictional.

 

I hope it helps

[pra3y]

@Junio_V_B

I get where you're coming from. But DDs don't just have torps, they have guns, which makes USN and Russian DDs easier to play than their IJN counterpart. However IJN DDs still have better stealth and better longer range torps than them. The cooldown for IJN torps are mostly under a minute until you reach the higher levels like the Shima. Lower tier IJN DDs like the Minikaze can throw out torps pretty frequently and your concealment is pretty low (6.2km) as well.

 

High tier CV like Midway has pretty long plane rearm time plus the fact that its concealment rating is at 18.4km. Hakuryu fares slightly better at around 15+km. Same tier CVs as the Minikaze like the Bogue has 11.9km while Zuiho has 9.2km. Bogue however has one of the slowest speed of any ship and when alone and spotted by a group of enemy ships will definately die. Zuiho fares slightly better as it can run away. Both however have low hanger capacity, once their planes are shot down they're gone. DDs on the other hand can shoot out as many torps as they possibly can, limited only by the reload speed of their torpedo tubes and whether they're unlucky enough for the tubes to get destroyed. 

 

So CVs don't exactly enjoy better stealth, especially at higher tiers. They also have the most trade off in terms of balancing. 

[Antique_Nova]

@Junio_V_B

 

CVs changed the face of sea war fare in WW2, especially after Pearl Harbor. CVs have been the game changer and still are in the game. The whole point of a CV is to do everything better than all the other ships, plus extra and without being ever seen or being out of range. So your frustration seems natural than some over powering mechanic and I know you understand this as you said. However, CVs are definitely not overpowered. CVs have been in fact getting the hardest nerfs for the past year. Especially US CVs, with us losing most of our best loadouts, especially not being able to field 2 torp bomber squads now and the extreme AA buffs on just about every ship.

 

In all fairness though, as a DD you stand no chance against a competent CV player who has their sights set upon you, even if your skill is equal and in this instance, I imagine those both player's skill level is above average and your chances are even slimmer in the higher tiers as there are more bomb squads flying at you. You can only beat them if you get close enough to do your thing without being spotted or sunk in time. Your best bet is to judge where the enemy CV planes are needed the most and then to stay away from those areas, while being useful as only a DD can.

 

Pra3y points out some solid points, the US carriers have ridiculously long rearming times, the Japs rearming times are about half that, if anything, they are better at bombing you than the US with their torps, while the US rely on DBs. Also, about the strafing part, the reason why I didn't want it to be a part of strafing is because when you strafe any ship, the ship being clearly the target, the fighter planes carry on for a very long distance. The current strafing distance is simply too long for one ship. Even a Battleship. That is why I propose that when shooting a ship, we should be able to alt shoot it. That would automatically have the fighter squad do continuous strafing runs back and forth across whichever side you told it to come in from, using more ammo than it would normally as it strafes the ship. Or if would just perform a single special strafing run for ships when you alt click that ship with your fighter planes with a much shorter distance, so the moment it passes over the enemy ship, it stops strafing.

 

Then, I wouldn't have to see my planes continue strafing for half a mile after they've passed the enemy ship. I don't imagine that kind of coding being very difficult to implement, as they already have the animated almost done for it with the normal strafing.

 

Oh and about the stealth, unless I am on the other side of the map to the enemy, I am spotted about 75% of the time.

 

Another suggestion to them destroying not only AA modules and causing shorter fires in the rare instance, is the damage they can cause to your citadel, because they look mightily exposed with their glass windows and exposed antennas. Maybe they should be able to severely damage or even destroy your comms and radar, which will simply make all ship positions disappear outside say a few hundred metres or a single square, kinda like when the typhoon's weather effects come in.

 

I don't have any evidence for the above idea that enemy fighters blinded enemy ships by destroying comms and radar, but to me it seems plausible and I'll continue looking for references to such instances.

 

@LetsRockAndRoll

 

My planes never orbit my CV. Ever.

[Kamataron]

This would make fighter decks more common, CV game play does not need that at all.

Poor CV players with are using fighter decks will not be getting much better results.

 

This is true that during WWII fighters were shooting to ships, the reason of this was not to damage ship itself, but killing it's crew.

When peoples died after attack this could make significant morale drop.. with also translates on how ship performed in battle later.

 

Ships in game do not have any crew measured in numbers or by morale.

There is only a capitan with skills add/increase ship abilities/performance.

 

Peoples should focus on using bombers and torpedo planes instead of making minimal damage to enemy ships using fighters.

Fighter squads with are left idle (because there are no enemy aircraft at sight) can be used in more proper way - scouting flanks for example

 

This will not give more XP/cash but can turn tight of a battle. Unspotted destroyer with achived good position can eliminate more valuable ship including CV.

When spoted earlier team will most likely focus on new threat with is closer.

 

We always get more XP/cash on Victory - scouting can help here a lot.

[Redcap375]

This people is a good idea. Though you need to appease CV Captains (myself included) and other ship captains. I personally believe this would work and wouldn't change the world at the same time.

 

The only way people would sign up for this is that it should only:

 

1) kill crew (AA) nothing else.

2) Has a possibility% to Shake the crew that they would be unable to use the consumable for a very short amount of time.

 

This is a great idea as the CV captains would have to use all of his skill.  Line up all the planes with the fighter planes gun-run at the front. This would take organization, time and patience   This would also be very risky as another enemy fighter strafe would completely chew you up clumped together or the time it would take would make you more exposed. Risk vs reward.

 

CV captains would have a chose between using this tactic or using their fighters for anti fighter duty and/or DD spotting duties. I believe people will still use it for anti fighter/planes duty but it would bring something new, interesting, risky but not at all OP to the game

 

Cruiser captains hat says...

Not a problem.  That just means i will blow fighters out the sky as well as everything else. More XP thank you very much.

 

DD captains hat says...

Crack on.  I dont have any really good AA anyway so do your worst.  That will mean less time in the air spotting me (got to reload) and my air cavalry will get here soon to chew you up.

 

BB captains hat says...

Ok so im not so happy with this really.  CVs are supposed to be my moral enemy even though i have AA coming out of my ears.  But it makes sense i suppose and i do have cruiser support (teamwork).

 

It will have to be a skill though chaps.  Not a Click and its done kinda thing, that would be too easy. Not a game designer but i take it would be hard to do this right?

 

Lets be honest.  In tier 7+ fighters planes will melt anyway doing strafe runs on ships.  Just look at your torps and bombers at the moment. But captains (including myself) would be hovering over the consumable button all the while as you dont know if that sneaky fighter plane is going to do a gunrun or not? Dont want them knocked out for a short while if your wrong?  Makes interesting stuff this

 

WG YOU GOTTA LISTEN TO THIS ONE 

 

 

[Junio_V_B]

hey guys I know I am barking at the wrong door, but it's not trolling; just stating the truth as all of you admit: CV, as it is now in the game, is the single most influencing element of a team. No need to make it even more special, unbalancing it even more, without a trade off.

 

Then again, the presentation of CV in the game is purely fictional; if you want to mention the reality of things, many people would argue that CV were so important in WWII. In fact many other factors influenced the outcomes of several battles and in the end the war itself. 

What sets them apart IRL is that it is the only platform that can provide area defence, and as such it travels with the fleet in tight comp. Main attack capability was, and still is delegated, to other entities. IRL a destroyer doesn't disappear at 7km and you can spot a CV almost OTH, in a good day a good 25 nautical miles out. But this is a game and we stick with what WG gives us.

 

It is nonsense to compare the features of a dd with the ones of a carrier. If you wanted to really compare their effectiveness on the battle field then you can make an educated guess by looking at the leaderboard. If after looking the hard numbers you still doubt about the impact of a CV in the game and hence its being overpowered, well I don't know what to say.

 

Final thought: this morning I was playing a game with a t8 cruiser, I ended up in a team of four with 2 CV (t9 and t10 ) per side, a NC on our side and a Tirpitz and a Shima on the other side (what?). One of the few games where CVs where actually countering each other, and we lost because our BB went insane and started shooting me instead of the Tirpitz ... well we all have irl issues

So in this case the CVs were nulling each other out and the single most influencing element was a BB... just because the CV players decided to go after the enemy CV, which is rare. 

[Redcap375]

Do you own a CV above tier 6 Junio_V_B by any chance? i would look but low and behold your stats are blocked? Doesn't sound like you do.

 

Why do people hid their stats anyway, i never understood this? There is only one reason i can think of...Hypocrites.   Saying how good or bad a car is without even driving it? 

 

No carriers are not unbalanced m8, why do you think there are so few of them? I can shoot tier 9 planes down in my tier 6 71 Skill Cleveland like flies. Imagen a tier 8 CV in a tier 10 battle then? A tirps can take on a Iowa or even Montana, where a Lex is BADLY out gunned by the Midway

 

I'm man enough to admit if i'm wrong and if you do own CVs up to tier 9-10 then i will humbly apologise.  I'm mainly a cruiser captain by-the-way.

 

Why do people hide their stats? 

[The_SDM]

Why do people hide their stats? 

 

Hypocrisy as you said. Or maybe they are embarrassed about their stats, or they are just trolls.

[pra3y]

To be honest I don't really see how it unbalances CV gameplay or make it anymore different. Rather  it makes it more interesting. It gives more variety to an otherwise bland gameplay style. It would be unbalanced if they made it so that the ability does huge damage to enemy ships but I feel that doing modular damage to unarmored parts of the ship, minor statuses (prehaps) and minimal HP damage ( very minimal) is still acceptable.

 

CVs can change a game, but there is only how much it can do, especially at tier 8 and lower, where there is limited hanger capacity as well as the number of plane squadrons you have. A CV can sink 4~5 enemy ships but if the team is potato then even if the CV does perform well it makes no difference. And this doesn't apply only to CVs.Other ship classes can do it to. CVs just have the "range" & "flexibility" to do so somewhat easier compared to other classes, but at the cost I've mentioned in my earlier post.

[warlock07rox]

So we want to make carriers more op so all there planes can damage ships lol and not just the torp and dive bombers sounds real fun especially for ships that have practically no AA to start with.

[Ilya_Wolf]

So we want to make carriers more op so all there planes can damage ships lol and not just the torp and dive bombers sounds real fun especially for ships that have practically no AA to start with.

 

which ships are those?! 

 

I vote for IJN fighters being able to kamikaze at destoyers and hit them like divebombers but more accurate and obviously losing the planes  strafing to damage/destroy some AA/secondary modules would be fun too

[Antique_Nova]

@Junio_V_B

You do know the numbers you quote on the leaderboard are the best CV players. I'd go as far to say that they are the most skillful players in the game as we have more to do than any other ship, but don't quote me 100% on that.

 

Our trade off is that we are the most heavily suppressed ship in game, we are also the least accurately represented in terms of influence and power in the game.

 

@Kamataron

 

"This is true that during WWII fighters were shooting to ships, the reason of this was not to damage ship itself, but killing it's crew."

 

Yes this was true, but they did it to suppress the AA on the decks of ships far more often, as that was simply more useful at the time, because if you are going to bomb a ship. Most of the time, you want to sink it, not scare it for the next fight several days/weeks later in the next fight.

 

"Peoples should focus on using bombers and torpedo planes instead of making minimal damage to enemy ships using fighters.

Fighter squads with are left idle (because there are no enemy aircraft at sight) can be used in more proper way - scouting flanks for example"

 

I suspect that you don't play CVs or play them very often, because I can tell you now, strafing the decks of ships to blind their AAs, cause fires or even shake them or even down their radar capabilities is huge for CV players. It means losing less planes and more accurate bombings. Plus, our fighter squads especially under any competent player are never idle. Our fighter planes should be able to conduct joint attacks on ships as they always did in WW2, but right now they can't do that. They can't even take the flak from the enemy ships for the bombers they want to screen.

 

@Redcap375

 

If we are talking about shaking up the consumables for a short time, why not give us the chance to destroy a consumable? Say a repair, a smoke or delay all consumables or some by 60 seconds. Allowing our bombers fire and flooding damage to continue eating away for a full minute before you can react.

 

I don't know why people hide their stats, but I can tell you now the first 70% of my matches I was a crap player. Now I'm pretty decent and mainly play CVs. Almost 500 games with CVs now in every tier. About to start ranked soon once my independence is fully upgraded.

 

And for anyone saying CVs are OP. Why don't you actually just look at how few CV players they are! If they were OP, far more would be playing them. Except they are very few, especially the higher up you go in tiers as it becomes more evident. Also, if you're talking about CVs being OP near the bottom. I'd like to point out that we have so few planes that if we make ONE MISTAKE, we are fucked. It's game over for us as we will lose the majority of our planes that can do damage or even spot against the enemy fleet and enemy CV. If you are being repeatidly pawned by enemy CVs in lower tiers, it's because of these things below:

 

You're just a bad player, who doesn't know how to play.

You're a new player with little experience and are still learning the basics.

You're making silly mistakes such as charging out with no support and being ganged up on by planes and ships. That is no excuse to blame CVs for being OP. That's you just being stupid and lonely. Lone wolves don't work unless you're a DD.

You're facing a professional or expert CV player who knows exactly what they are doing and probably has a tier 8+ CV and they are using a ship commander with 18 skill points. 

You're facing me and I am the above, except I have a tier 10 Midway ;).

 

 

 

[Phlogistoned]

@Redcap375, The_SDM:

 

Junio_V_B raised som legitimate concerns. By what right do you pull the 'stat card' or 'having played CV much' card?

 

Meet the arguments instead of trying to silence people with bullying tactics.

 

Next I'm gonna start countering arguments with 'have you played 1200 games at MY computer using MY keyboard? No? Then you have no right to say anything' to anyone who challenges my opinion. It is only a very minuscule bit more absurd than what you did, but enough that people recognize it as BS.

[warlock07rox]

 

which ships are those?! 

 

I vote for IJN fighters being able to kamikaze at destoyers and hit them like divebombers but more accurate and obviously losing the planes  strafing to damage/destroy some AA/secondary modules would be fun too

 

Carriers start at tier IV so take you pick there's any number of ships with no or very little AA and most cruisers aren't Clevelands which are op AA ships and still get owned by op carriers