frank2003 said:
Please, stop counting peas.
A German KG had about 100 bombers, a German JG had about 120 planes, but it doesn´t matter at all. An airunit represents a large number of planes (exceptions are the CAGs).
But it is exactly the CAGs that are the primary subject of discussion here since they are the only type of plane that SHOULD be used on carriers. Vanilla HoI allows players to put on the carriers 1 to 4 air units, of almost any type. Since every single air unit represents 100 planes, that's up to 400 planes in just one carrier! That's totally unrealistic. This has been discussed before in the forums at great length.
Most carriers had less than 100 planes and not all of them were torpedo bombers (to sink ships) but also fighters (to defend the carrier), scouts (to give early warning), and dive bombers (to support amphibious operations). So as you can see, not all of the few planes that a carrier held were actually ship-killers.
One of the CORE FAQs is relevant to the topic for those who haven't read it:
"Q: CAG? What the hell is CAG? Where are torpedo planes?
A: Carrier Air Group is the mixed unit of carrier based fighters, torpedo planes and dive bombers and REPLACES torpedo planes in the building queue. Since the Hearts of Iron game allows players to put on the carriers 1-4 air units, CAG's were introduced into C.O.R.E. to make carrier based units closer to the historical sizes (roughly 20-120 planes, depending on the carrier type).
IMPORTANT! HOUSE RULE: When equiping aircraft carriers with the plane units, players should use CAG's only. Historically, other air units were not able to operate succesfully from the board of a carrier."
Also remember that carrier planes, because they had to be light, small, and have folded wings, did not have the firepower or could carry as much ordinance or have as great a range as their land based cousins. All of these makes them less effective.
Yes, German KG and JG squadrons had 100 to 120 craft, but the last I remember, this conversation was primeraly about the effectiveness of carrier based planes against ships, which the KG and JG groups were not, so their size is irrelevant to the topic.
A secondary topic was the effectiveness of naval bombers. The problem is that historically, naval bombers were not used in flights of 300 to 400 planes at a time, meaning 3 or 4 units in game terms. There were not thousands or even hundreds of naval bombers from the same nation patroling their coasts looking for enemy ships to sink at any one time. But naval bombers are so effective that this is exactly what many gamers resort to. And gamers do not build just 3 or 4 naval bombers units but a dozen or more, meaning over 1200 naval bombers! Worse, they place them on carriers which is wholly unrealistic.
That's just not realistic. Nations builded and used thousands and tens of thousands of fighters and dive bombers and tactical bombers and strategic bombers but the number of torpedo planes and naval bombers was much smaller.
As it is, naval bombers are so effective against ships, that playing as Germany or Italy, a viable strategy is for you to not built a surface navy at all and place all those ICs into building flight upon flight of naval bombers and once they are ready and hostilities break out, you can unleash them to severely cripple the Royal Navy, causing the Mediterranean and the North Sea to be clear of British ships. I know. I have done exactly that in the game.
But that is not what happened in real life. Naval bombers were not as effective in real life as they are in the game, and therefore, Germany and Italy had to built and rely on ships and submarines and mines in addition to naval bombers to hold of the Allied navies.
Even if Germany had chosen not to built the Bismack or the Tirpitz and used their ICs to build squadrons of naval bombers instead, they just would not have been able to sink or even cripple the Royal Navy.
In WWII, most ships were sank by submarines or carrier based torpedo planes and to a lesser extent by other ships and mines. Proportionally, naval bombers did not sink as many ships. But as it is in the game, naval bombers are one of the primary, if not the primary ships-killers. This is just not realistic.
