USN Fleet Air West Squadrons

[The Gnome]

I'm in September '42 in Scen 1 and I have a huge number of Marine squadrons in San Diego. The problem is their experience is pathetic, and the pilot replacement pool seems to get weaker and weaker. So far I have been playing a defensive game, and have solidified my supply routes to Oz, turned Pago Pago and Noumea into fortresses, and am reading a winter push into the Solomons.

What do you guys do with them? Use them as training squadrons? Train them up and spend PP to ship them out? I'm not stretched completely thin on LBA, but more is always better.

[Misconduct]

Train them up then ship them out. At least 60 experience because you need to get guys with 80 experience to rotate back to training.
Right now I have close to 170 pilots with 81 experience or more, and I would say 85% of them are training new pilots. I believe the average pilot
coming out of training right now sits around 60-65exp. So don't be afraid to get them in combat.

[Misconduct]

Oh answer your second part, Dont bother spending the PP on them until they get past 55exp, once they get close, go ahead and unlock them, ship to pearl for little more training.

[The Gnome]

Good stuff, I was leaning that way. What I wasnt doing was rotating my 81+ pilots back for training, thought that was more for the japanese side. I have a bunch of pilots who can go home now. Thanks!

[Misconduct]

Oh you got to rotate every pilot period early in the war, don't worry about loses because those 81 exp pilots will train up better replacements then leaving those guys in combat and get killed then you can't use them period!

[CaptBeefheart]

Misconduct--Do you put those 81+ pilots in designated Stateside "training" squadrons or do you mean putting them in TRACOM? Because, unless something has changed with the last patch or I missed something, putting them in TRACOM only seems to accelerate the production of newbies (which I don't need) without improving their average experience coming out of TRACOM.

Thanks,
CC

[The Gnome]

Is there an definitive answer on whether is helps the allies to rotate 81+ exp pilots home? In another thread I heard that was for the Japanese side and un-needed for the allies.

[Sredni]

I put my 81+ xp pilots in tracom once they reach Ace status (for the fighters at least, the other pilot types don't seem to xp up very fast at all anyways). I just like the idea of saving all my elite ace's and using them to train future pilots.

Havn't really noticed any material benefit tbh though. Pilots coming out of the newbie pools are still incompetents who have an irresistible attraction to the ground with 20-35 xp. Mostly just an ego thing I guess for now.

bleh. Thousands of newb pilots, all with crap xp. I wish we could send them back to flight school until they reach 50 xp.

[Q-Ball]

The Allies don't really need pilots in TRACOM. TRACOM makes pilots come faster, not better, and you get all the pilots you need. In fact, I am not sure the Japanese need pilots in TRACOM either.

It does seem to help, though, if you have one or two elite pilots mixed in with a unit of rookies in training. The manual says they will train faster, and they seem to. That's the best use.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: Misconduct

Train them up then ship them out. At least 60 experience because you need to get guys with 80 experience to rotate back to training.
Right now I have close to 170 pilots with 81 experience or more, and I would say 85% of them are training new pilots. I believe the average pilot
coming out of training right now sits around 60-65exp. So don't be afraid to get them in combat.

How long does it take you to train pilots up to this level when they've just come out of the training pool ? And how are your training squadrons set up, how many +80 exp pilots do they usually have etc ? That would be quite interesting info as I'm still figuring out how to set up my pilot training.

[jcjordan]

Historically the VMF/VMB1xx units were the training groups & the others were overseas units so typically I use them as my training groups on the WC & the others get sent overseas. I'm not fully sure the reason but might have to do with exp setting of unit in db when it comes in but my groups have been in the 50-60 exp w/ 40-50 skill pilots when they come in with a few "named" pilots in the group even though the reserve pilot pool says exp is in the 30's. When I get a pilot trained up in one of the groups, I'll send him to the reserve pool & then at some point, I'll use the request a veteran to pull him into a forward unit that needs him.

[traskott]

.... So, at the end, if you have to deal with a campaign...will you send the 81+ pilots to TRACOM or not ? I have no a clear opinion about that...

[USSAmerica]

I'm starting an Allied campaign vs the AI, and I plan to send 1 or 2 high experience pilots back to the squadrons I'm using for on map training, via the reserve pool and the "get veteran" function.  I'm not going to worry about TRACOM and trying to crank out newbie pilots at a faster rate.  Sounds like they will be coming fast enough already.

[Misconduct]

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

ORIGINAL: Misconduct

Train them up then ship them out. At least 60 experience because you need to get guys with 80 experience to rotate back to training.
Right now I have close to 170 pilots with 81 experience or more, and I would say 85% of them are training new pilots. I believe the average pilot
coming out of training right now sits around 60-65exp. So don't be afraid to get them in combat.

How long does it take you to train pilots up to this level when they've just come out of the training pool ? And how are your training squadrons set up, how many +80 exp pilots do they usually have etc ? That would be quite interesting info as I'm still figuring out how to set up my pilot training.

Right now what I did was early in the war as allies, I started shipping as many 81 exp pilots home as I could, frankly they were going to get wacked sooner or later from being out classed, my training squadrons have at least 2 81+ exp leaders in it, mainly to help improve the training which I have noticed leaving a high leader in the squad does help.

Right now I have 40+ 81 Exp in TRACOM, (10 Navy, 10 airforce, 10 british, 10 australian)
I haven't worked out all the bugs in examining my Pilot pool, and the training, but I am noticing I don't get 30-35 exp pilots coming from the pool, but 50-60 regularly. Which after a few missions in a squad with 4-5 81+ exp already they boost high exp quick.