Strange, I just used torpedoes successfully this morning, sank the cruiser and carrier in one sortie.
The torpedoes aren't the problem, and when done right they deliver a very respectable amount of damage to the target. It is, however, always a one-way trip in the MAs, they lethality and inability for all forms of a task group's AAA to differentiate between a B-17 to TBM and P51 makes it most unpredjiduce. You have only a couple seconds at most for your opportunity to drop, during which you must be at the right altitude and speed, before being whammied.
I find Ju-88s are the best, they're tough enough to survive 1-2 seconds longer than any other torp plane, and you get three of them - enough fodder for you to definitively close the distance enough to get past the foremost destroyer screen, and even occasionally within 500-yards of the CV itself!
^ not a new gripe.
I was thinking this morning of a new thought/gripe with the CV auto-puffy ack while simultaneously trying to avoid it but frustrated at it due to chasing geniuses who can't play with more than a two-card deck (come in high, run back to AAA). I was avoiding it, turning around as soon as the chase lead me into it, but it still persists indefinitely and at a much longer range than what it took to first trigger it. I could see the cons I had chased into it at dot distance, they were well over their carrier climbing. This is what I assumed - the puffy ack I first triggered at distance X and was still on me at distance 2X was their neon sign. No problem I thought, I flew 1-2 minutes away from the carrier now, loosing dot distance and finally all puffy ack, turned back and found them finally leaving the nest. I dive in, they dive out and back to their CV on the deck, I pick up puffy and turn tail to climb at a further distance - and the loop continues, assumption confirmed.
Puffy ack over CVs should offer a few good things to its friendly players, but I was getting sick and fast of how much it was offering my timid opponents in this instance.
