Help with CAGS

JGD14 said:

Is it better to:

...

Make groups of 2 CAGs for each carrier and assign a leader to it;

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This is the most efficient way in terms of stretching a limited number of quality leader to cover as many CAGs as possible.

JGD14 said:

Make groups of 1 CAG and assign a leader to each (meaning each CAG has two airforces attached to it); or

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This is the opposite approach, which would only make sense if you had at least as many good leaders as you have CAGs and wanted the advantage of many different traits being represented in each CTF's air complement.

JGD14 said:

Make groups of 2 x the number of CV's in the fleet and assign a leader to it? (assuming 3-4 CV's per fleet)

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I am fairly sure this cannot be done. The fleet must remain "splittable", which it would not be if 2 different ships were "sharing" the same CAG group. I am pretty sure that if you tried to order a stack of 3+ CAGs to 'Rebase to carrier', they would just sit on the tarmac of their current airbase and do nothing. I am not at all sure the 'Rebase to carrier' order would even show up, now that I think about it.

JGD14 said:

I typically just use CAG's for CAG duty and engage other fleets because I don't really have the patience to micro a CV fleet about to naval strike other fleets for the small periods of time I can see them.

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That is my preferred method as well. CAGs on CAG-duty have two very important advantages over CAGs on a naval strike mission:

1. They have their stacking penalty halved, and...

2. they can operate at full effectiveness with only 1 org left, and can resume fully effective operation by regaining just 1 org after they have been reduced to zero (albeit not for very long).

Another useful thing to do is to make twice as many cags as you have Carriers, in high action areas, you can then swap out depleted/disorganized Cags for a fresh one and stay at max combat power, Cags don't get a organization penalty when rebasing to a carrier.

szcott69 said:

Another useful thing to do is to make twice as many cags as you have Carriers...

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I suspect you meant to say four times as many cags as carriers....

Limiting CAGs to just CAG duty is underutilizing an awesome weapon! Especially if you are playing as Japan!

China campaign: Send CAGs on ground attack runs! Exp is Exp! Game doesn't distinguish experience. I tend to drag China campaign into 38' just for the the experience. My CTF admirals and CAG leaders tend to be maxed out in levels by the end of it. Unit experience tends to be high too.

Port strikes: CAGs on port strike are awesome! Love watching a fleet run to the "safety" of a close port after initial engagement. Send those CAGs to finish the poor bastages off!

Naval strikes: only do this in areas where I suspect heavy submarine activity. CAGs do a pretty decent job on ASW duty.

Please make sure your CAG doctrines (CAS/Naval Air Doctrine trees mostly) are updated fully or else you lose org really fast after just one air mission. This tends to turn players off on CAGs if they aren't familiar with them.

Hope this helps some!

LordBhaal said:

China campaign: Send CAGs on ground attack runs! Exp is Exp! Game doesn't distinguish experience. I tend to drag China campaign into 38' just for the the experience. My CTF admirals and CAG leaders tend to be maxed out in levels by the end of it. Unit experience tends to be high too.

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An excellent suggestion. Maybe not so useful for a more industrially powerful nation like USA, but for Japan this seems a wonderful way to make your CAGs more deadly in those years before you have to face a serious naval opponent. Thanks for this one!

LordBhaal said:

Port strikes: CAGs on port strike are awesome! Love watching a fleet run to the "safety" of a close port after initial engagement. Send those CAGs to finish the poor bastages off!

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This one requires a bit of caution. It is a good idea to check just what is docked in that port before ordering CAGs to port strike. Every single ship will fire back with its AA weaponry, so if there are already a lot of ships in there when you chase a relatively small fleet into that port, you might get a nasty shock when you launch that port strike. And one must also be careful not to badly damage a CTF's whole air complement, as this could leave the CTF vulnerable to sea attack.

LordBhaal said:

Naval strikes: only do this in areas where I suspect heavy submarine activity. CAGs do a pretty decent job on ASW duty.

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They can do a better job of ASW while on CAG duty, combining their own sub detection and attack ratings with those of the CTF's escorts. And if you want a land based air unit for ASW work, then NAVs are far and away the best choice. So on this one I disagree. Though of course if you have idle CAGs, why not?

Pro_Consul said:

That is my preferred method as well. CAGs on CAG-duty have two very important advantages over CAGs on a naval strike mission:

1. They have their stacking penalty halved, and...

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This is not true. It's pretty clear:

- CAGs get their stacking penalty halved when doing a naval bombing on the seas (not a port strike). This means while CAG Duty, Naval Strike from Carrier or Naval Strike from land. In all missions their stacking penalty is halved.
- CAGs on CAG Duty don't get their stacking penalty halved when we speak about air fighting. So where in the naval bombing they get it halved, in the air battle they don't.

So basically a CAG only gets the stacking penalty halved when running naval strike (which is one of the two missions which CAG Duty automatically does).

JGD14 said:

Make groups of 2 CAGs for each carrier and assign a leader to it;

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How do you achieve that? I tried different ways (during CAG duty/no order; based on carrier/airfield) but it doesnt seem to work like for other air/land/sea Units.
Appriciate any help :mellow:

ludomaniac said:

How do you achieve that? I tried different ways (during CAG duty/no order; based on carrier/airfield) but it doesnt seem to work like for other air/land/sea Units.
Appriciate any help :mellow:

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Select two CAGs that are based in the same Carrier Task Group, then merge them like you merge an artillery brigade with an infantry division for example. However, you can't make bigger groups of two CAGs, because they then don't fit anymore on the carriers.

Sometimes the "Reorganize" and "Combine" functions don't show up unless one of the two groups already has more than one brigade attached, especially when trying to add a brigade to a HQ. This might also be a factor when grouping two single air units. Pressing the "R" key bypasses the problem.

Another possibility is if the carrier is a CVL, not a CV, in which case it can only support one CAG. There might also be an issue where two CAGs are based on different carriers within the task force, in which case you've got to rebase one to the other carrier before you can combine them.