Should carrier bomber planes be merged into one type?

[Beagá]

Let´s be honest. No one builds CAS for carriers. It can´t support the ground and is pathetic versus ships.

So why they don´t go the route of Stellaris to an extent and merge CAS with NAVs? There, fighters and bombers were merged into strike craft. Yes, I am aware that it is an abstraction but from a gameplay POV I would say, go for it. Throw all the dislikes you want, I´m in my cozy trench so I say come at me

Or if CAS can be made useful, let´s discuss how.

 

[blahmaster6k]

One mod I play with gives CAS way better naval targeting, but lower naval attack, and gives torpedo bombers lower naval targeting, but higher naval attack. Due to the way targeting calculations work, I imagine the intended effect is that torpedo bombers are better against slow ships with less evasion, and dive bombers are better against fast ships with more evasion.

 

[King Of Heroes]

It's actually the path Japan was going with the B7A Ryusei, intended to replace both the Suisei dive bomber and Tenzan torpedo bomber by being able to do both jobs.

 

[GSP Jr]

I don't mind having the different types, but agree that Carrier CAS is pretty lame,
Possible give a buff for having all three types on a Carrier, a 'coordinated attack' ?
Or really, the whole air system needs work to allow land-based to carrier-based air battles, like in, you know, the whole bloody Pacific Theatre.

 

[Louella]

There are a whole lot of things wrong with carrier aircraft, and how they interact with the rest of the game.

Carrier CAS being largely a waste of time is only part of it.
There is little point in building Carrier CAS to be used in an anti-shipping role, because carrier NAV are more effective at sinking any and all enemy ships.
Carrier CAS can be used to support naval invasions, but involve a great deal of micromanagement to achieve this (parking the carriers in a zone close enough, assigning the air wings etc), and afaik this can't be automated (unlike ships assigned to shore bombardment duty).

As standard, the AI will only build carrier fighters & carrier NAV on newly-constructed carriers. Only a handful of ships owned by AI countries will ever have CAS on them, (a few of Japan and the USA's starting carriers).
The air wing composition should be affected by naval doctrine, but it is not. There is no ingame way to change composition for AI countries, only by changing definitions and equipment files outside of the game.

Carrier dive bombers & torpedo bombers, should have different attack abilities, esp. against different kinds of ship, but they do not. All air attacks ignore armour, which means that tech developments such as better torpedoes (or even having torpedoes in the first place), isn't an option, and neither are AP bombs.
So there's no difference, except in amount of damage, between a dive bomber that can only carry relatively small bombs, and the torpedo bombers that dropped torpedoes, or large bombs.
Dive bombers equipped with bombs & rockets should be more efficient at convoy and small ship attacks, whereas you'd prefer Torpedo Bombers to attack heavy warships. As an example.

Carrier aircraft cannot attack land targets - which was one of the planned objectives of the Pearl Harbor Raid - to attack the oil tanks and repair facilities, making the port unusable by the US Navy. This wasn't done in history, but in HOI4, it's not even possible.

I've got some ideas about how it might be possible right now to change a few of these things though, need to experiment.

 

[Anaraxes]

HoI3 had the "CAG" airplane, a mix of all three.

Probably better to fix and improve the usefulness of CV CAS against land targets than to eliminate it. Early on in a war, when you're still contesting the sea lanes, you might well equip your carriers as pure navy-killers. Later on, you might find lessened effect versus enemy capital ships an acceptable tradeoff for increased versatility, or even build carriers just to support your invasions and coastal fights, similar to a reason to have BBs in your fleets.

 

[Fulmen]

One mod I play with gives CAS way better naval targeting, but lower naval attack, and gives torpedo bombers lower naval targeting, but higher naval attack. Due to the way targeting calculations work, I imagine the intended effect is that torpedo bombers are better against slow ships with less evasion, and dive bombers are better against fast ships with more evasion.

Won't this still result in the same either-or mentality we have now, since then it'll just boil down to which is more effective: taking the big ships out first, or the screens? Hence, do you stack planes that are good against the former, or the latter?

 

[mursolini]

Imo just redo the air tree.

Get rid of Nav tree, make carrier CAS be both dive and torpedo bomber, and come of CAS tree.
Also introduce a variant of TAC specialized in naval attack, like Japan and Italy (and Germany) had.

There, issue solved. Might as well add a variant of strategic bomber, float plane, with unlocked scout mission.

 

[Riekopo]

No they should definitely not. They should be improved. I've written extensively about this and Carrier combat in general. See my threads.

 

[GSP Jr]

You might have thought this would have been addressed in Man the Guns. My bad I guess.

 

[Harin]

You might have thought this would have been addressed in Man the Guns. My bad I guess.

Man the Guns was for the Battleships. A Man the Planes DLC will be needed for the Carriers.

 

[Baldos]

One mod I play with gives CAS way better naval targeting, but lower naval attack, and gives torpedo bombers lower naval targeting, but higher naval attack. Due to the way targeting calculations work, I imagine the intended effect is that torpedo bombers are better against slow ships with less evasion, and dive bombers are better against fast ships with more evasion.

I tried to find this MOD.....what is it's name?

Thank!

 

[blahmaster6k]

Won't this still result in the same either-or mentality we have now, since then it'll just boil down to which is more effective: taking the big ships out first, or the screens? Hence, do you stack planes that are good against the former, or the latter?

I don't think it's as simple as that, perhaps it would against a predictable AI or a multiplayer group with a particular meta, but in a more balanced and dynamic hypothetical scenario, or an ad-hoc multiplayer group where no one knows what everyone else is likely to build, I feel like it would turn into a rock-paper-scissors type of scenario in which whatever is best depends on what kind of ships the enemy is building. This will still end up with the planes winning, since switching over plane production is way faster than changing a naval build, but the point stands i think.

 

[blahmaster6k]

I tried to find this MOD.....what is it's name?

Thank!

The mod is called ULTRA. It's a historical accuracy immersion mod headed by @Vorondil . I can't open up the game right now but IIRC 1936 CV dive bomber has something like 18 naval targeting and 9 naval attack, and CV Torpedo Bombers have something like 11 naval targeting and 15 naval attack.

 

[Cavalry]

If it doesn't broke, don't fix it. AI don't use CAS CV. Human often not too. So why fix it? If they merge, the NAV-CAS may broke the game by human!

 

[Baldos]

The mod is called ULTRA. It's a historical accuracy immersion mod headed by @Vorondil . I can't open up the game right now but IIRC 1936 CV dive bomber has something like 18 naval targeting and 9 naval attack, and CV Torpedo Bombers have something like 11 naval targeting and 15 naval attack.

Thanks!

 

[Beagá]

If it doesn't broke, don't fix it. AI don't use CAS CV. Human often not too. So why fix it? If they merge, the NAV-CAS may broke the game by human!

But if the AI is programmed to not use It, it's proof It isn't working right...

Merging fighters and bombers in Stellaris worked properly. And It was in the same situation - they couldn't decide if ships should use bombers or fighters.

 

[Meglok]

One mod I play with gives CAS way better naval targeting, but lower naval attack, and gives torpedo bombers lower naval targeting, but higher naval attack. Due to the way targeting calculations work, I imagine the intended effect is that torpedo bombers are better against slow ships with less evasion, and dive bombers are better against fast ships with more evasion.

There are a whole lot of things wrong with carrier aircraft, and how they interact with the rest of the game.

Carrier CAS being largely a waste of time is only part of it.
There is little point in building Carrier CAS to be used in an anti-shipping role, because carrier NAV are more effective at sinking any and all enemy ships.
Carrier CAS can be used to support naval invasions, but involve a great deal of micromanagement to achieve this (parking the carriers in a zone close enough, assigning the air wings etc), and afaik this can't be automated (unlike ships assigned to shore bombardment duty).

As standard, the AI will only build carrier fighters & carrier NAV on newly-constructed carriers. Only a handful of ships owned by AI countries will ever have CAS on them, (a few of Japan and the USA's starting carriers).
The air wing composition should be affected by naval doctrine, but it is not. There is no ingame way to change composition for AI countries, only by changing definitions and equipment files outside of the game.

Carrier dive bombers & torpedo bombers, should have different attack abilities, esp. against different kinds of ship, but they do not. All air attacks ignore armour, which means that tech developments such as better torpedoes (or even having torpedoes in the first place), isn't an option, and neither are AP bombs.
So there's no difference, except in amount of damage, between a dive bomber that can only carry relatively small bombs, and the torpedo bombers that dropped torpedoes, or large bombs.
Dive bombers equipped with bombs & rockets should be more efficient at convoy and small ship attacks, whereas you'd prefer Torpedo Bombers to attack heavy warships. As an example.

Carrier aircraft cannot attack land targets - which was one of the planned objectives of the Pearl Harbor Raid - to attack the oil tanks and repair facilities, making the port unusable by the US Navy. This wasn't done in history, but in HOI4, it's not even possible.

I've got some ideas about how it might be possible right now to change a few of these things though, need to experiment.

Both of these quotes have good ideas to improve and balance CAS and NAV. To them I would add lower the defense of NAVs, if we are considering them torpedo attack planes. Planes loaded with torpedoes lost a lot of agility. USN Avengers "flew like a truck, for better or worse" according to wiki.

CAS did attack ground targets, very effectively in the later war to the point of raiding the Japanese coast. Improving the ground attack ability of later CAS is an option.

You can't really justify merging NAV and CAS based upon historical use. Both the Japanese and USN (and RN since they used a lot of USN designs later) flew dedicated attack and torpedo planes throughout the war. Doing this would only be a programming surrender saying we can't code this to work.

I think a change of giving "CAS way better naval targeting, but lower naval attack, and gives torpedo bombers lower naval targeting, but higher naval attack.", along with some tweaks to lower NAV defense and increasing CAS ability to do ground attack would be the right direction.

I do agree with @Louella that the system to use carrier CAS in a ground attack roll is far too cumbersome and micro-intensive in SP play, and almost impossible to use in a time sensitive MP environment. There needs to be a carrier CAS ground attack order that is a quick click and go button.

 

[cursorhiker]

Even with those changes, the low numbers and low efficiency would mean those CAS would be fairly useless. A four-carrier fleet with up-to-date tech can carry - say- 120 dive bombers if using fighters, torpedo bombers, and CAS. With low mission efficiency you might get 50% of them in the battle if you upgrade range. 60 CAS is nothing in game.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

60 CAS is nothing in game.

Depends on the actual area and combat width: sometimes, it is all you can fit into a single battle.
I don't disagree, though: in its current form, mission efficiency butchers whatever chance you have at using CAS for naval invasion support (50% is also pretty generous, btw), even if you bother to do all the required micro. Not to mention the relative ease of having thousands land-based planes readily available on tiny islands... I feel like the entire air warfare will have to be reworked to make carriers be fit for such a role.