Originally posted by Kweassa
[sarcasm] Right, Mako... I think it's obvious to everyone that 'retreating' the CV is what only ack-huggers and 2-bit cowards would do. A really skilled L33T vet would never do such a thing. He would up a (usually disadvantaged in performance) CV-based plane and fight with the most powerful land-based planes even against bad odds, and keep on fighting, until the CV is sunk. Since the CV keeps on sinking when you fight like that, it could only mean that the CV is too damned weak! [/sarcasm]
Any time you can sink a carrier via machine gun fire and light cannons, something smells. You could strafe an Essex class CV with every Bf 110 in the Luftwaffe and not affect its water tight integrity one iota. In Aces High, you can sink a CV with several 110s.... To sink a ship you must degrade the hull integrity below the waterline. That's not possible with the popguns mounted in fighters. Another fact: No aircraft carrier was ever sunk by heavy bombers. I can't find a single instance where a major surface ship underway was sunk by heavy bombers. It's too damn hard to hit a moving target. But, not in Aces High where we have a super-simple, super-accurate laser designating bombsight that that can put a bombload on a single hanger from 30,000 feet. In the real world, getting 20% of your bombs within 1,000 yards of the target was considered exceptional. CV damage is over-simplfied, being cumulative, but disregarding effectiveness of the weapons. With the current damage system, you could sink a CV with a .45 cal pistol assuming you had an inexhaustable supply of ammunition.
Having spent several years flying off of carriers for a living, I could write a 10 page essay on what's not right with the game regarding ships and carrier ops.
For example, the CV turns, and any aircraft rolling on the deck will continue straight, as if the deck was some magical frictionless material delivered to earth by aliens. We have arresting wires that will slingshot aircraft off the rear of the flight deck. Our CVs don't roll or pitch. There's no burble of turbulance off of the CV's superstructure. The total number of anti-aircraft guns is only a fraction of what were installed on a CV. When a CV turns, it spends several minutes zig-zagging back and forth while the escorts reform. In the real world, the CV turns to a new course and only the escorts maneuver to regain their assigned stations.
Sorry, but the CV ops aspect of the game is pure arcade.....Worse that the GV aspect, and that's saying something.
My regards,
Widewing
