Aircraft weirdness around Java

[Slippery42]

I'm playing a scenario 1 game as the Allies against the AI on the current non-beta patch, and I've run into two situations where I'm either encountering a bug or (more likely) a gap in my knowledge of the game engine that I'd like filled.

First (and most critically), my carriers aren't flying strike missions when stationed near Java (still under Allied control). I have two TFs, one with Illustrious and the other with Yorktown and Enterprise shadowing a pretty hefty surface combat group containing BBs that my B-26s at Oosthaven can barely scratch. I've been shadowing this TF for about five days, and no strike missions have flown from either carrier TF. Land based bombers are fine, and the patrol missions from the carriers are flying, as my scouting reports have come from SBDs. My TFs have not been more than 5 hexes away from the target, it's within their max range, I double checked to make sure everything was set to naval attack, carriers have max sorties/torps available, and morale is max for just about every group. There's no CAP over the target, and we're west (by the game map) of Java by 5-10 hexes, so if there are penalties for operating from on/near shore, they shouldn't apply, right? Am I doing something wrong here? It seems odd that I'd be this consistently unlucky if bad weather or groups getting lost are factors.

Second, what causes an immediate "air to air combat done" to occur? I've had strikes of 20+ unescorted Betties completely bypass 50+ plane CAPs from Batavia and surrounding bases and make successful strikes on shipping there on a consistent basis. My CAP shows up in the combat screen, but it doesn't even get a single firing pass before the "air to air combat done" message shows up, and it seems to only consistently happen to me over this base. The same thing happens during the "post air attack combat" phase, as well. What variables should I check to prevent/mitigate this?

[Crackaces]

Second, what causes an immediate "air to air combat done" to occur? I've had strikes of 20+ unescorted Betties completely bypass 50+ plane CAPs from Batavia and surrounding bases and make successful strikes on shipping there on a consistent basis. My CAP shows up in the combat screen, but it doesn't even get a single firing pass before the "air to air combat done" message shows up, and it seems to only consistently happen to me over this base. The same thing happens during the "post air attack combat" phase, as well. What variables should I check to prevent/mitigate this?

LoBaron would be much better to answer this .. but from my perspective I have noted this behavor when the target hex is far away from the hexes the aircraft come from thus thte speed of the interceptors is not enough to catch the strike package. This happends at night very frequently as there is some penality for interceptors beyond the normal detection/interception.

One has to understand that in this game the detection occurs not intutively at the first contact such as a ship and/or base where the strike package is crossing but at the target. Then CAP/LRCAP is calculated. A layered defense in depth is penalized severely in this game and thus the paradigm is to set your CAP/LRCAP as close to the target as possible. That said, LRCAP over ships by rule is penalized.

As a newbie I was quite frustrated by this algorithum because my intution was to set CAP as close to the bases where strike packages were coming from not the targets. Soon I learned to postiion assests as close to the things I want to protect as possible. If I am protecting ships at sea with LBA I postiion the ships within a hex or two of the base with fighter assests

My uneducated thoughts ...

[Puhis]

I'd say CAP is flying totally wrong altitude. If bombers fly low, CAP should also fly low.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: Puhis

I'd say CAP is flying totally wrong altitude. If bombers fly low, CAP should also fly low.

If the CAP and target hex are one of the same .. then I agree this is the problem. I find CAP alt > 5,000 of the strike package to start producing results like this ..

[Slippery42]

Thanks, folks. At one point, I did mess with altitude a bit, but I don't think I put anything as low as 5k feet. This has also frustrated me in previous games when kamikazes became active. For some additional detail, I had at least 25 fighters based in Batavia, another 50 two hexes away in Oosthaven, and an air combat TF with its fighters two hexes east of Batavia. Another thing I noticed when taking a closer look: none of the base forces in Batavia are equipped with radar. I imagine something like that contributes a fair bit.

As for my problem with carriers not flying strike missions, it seems to have been alleviated with a reboot - disbanding and reforming the TF. Not a big problem against an opponent like the AI - it tends to send its BBs into very vulnerable places on a regular basis [:D]. If I ever gather the courage to try a PBEM, however, I could see it could being troublesome.

[Puhis]

Combat report show detection range and time. Without radar detection range is usually poor, so even if the altitude is right fighters don't have much time to intercept.