First of all, when you are deciding on which country CV you are going to choose, there are
three things to look at. They include the sailor abilities, the aircraft abilities, and
the payload ability. Each country has different strengths and weaknesses in each of these
combinations, so choosing the country for you comes down to what you are looking for. I
am primarily a CV player myself, so I will discuss what I find to be most important.
---------------------
The Sailors
---------------------
Quite honestly, the sailors are going to be the most important factor that will be taken
into account. When rolling for sailors, it depends on what class of pilot you are looking
for. Base 12 fighter/11 bomber is ideal for fighters, and since bomber stats are very
important to keeping fighters alive (according to Adalbert's ability guide), the 12/11
perform better than elite 13/9.
Bombers are a little easier. +12 or the elite +13 bombers are recommended, and all other
stats are up to you. Obviously a higher repair/restore will help slightly, but not in a
significant way.
Taking a look at the following graphs we can see which countries produce the best bomber
sailor growth:
From these graphs, it becomes quite obvious that as a TB, the UK bombers have the best
growth. IJN isn뭪 very far behind with their TB뭩 being classed earlier at level 33.
This shows why both RN and IJN torpedo bombers become AAW immune quite quickly. For the
DB뭩, IJN again are leading the way, but the KM DB뭩 ability comes in as a surprise second.
Fighter ability is a little more difficult. Because the fighter ability caps relatively
low, just about everyone hits the cap by level 120, earlier if you BVE. For this reason,
I뭭e decided to not even look at the fighter ability, but focus only on the bomber stat
growth. Bomber stat is the one that keeps your planes AAW immune. This stat also helps
against fighter planes as well. Think of a fighter as a tiny ship with high AAW values
(the fighter stat). Once both fighters hit the ability cap, they have equal AAW attack,
so basically the fighters who die are the one with the lower bomber stat. Since the
bomber stat has a very high cap, having as much bomber is recommended.
There have been numerous tests done in the past on different threads showing exactly if
you should keep your fighters as the first fighter class, or if you should up them to ACE.
NEVER promote to squad leaders. In my experience, every fighter pilot should stay as the
first tier fighter. You gain the most crew that way and you get to keep the highest
bomber stat. It뭩 a win-win situation.
The following graphs show the bomber ability for each country classing only as a fighter,
and also classing them on time as an ACE pilot:
From these graphs it shows that IJN is the best country sailor wise for fighters, followed
by the UK and the last three all finish with the same Ability. Now, like I said before,
the bomber stat is one of the most important stats to keep your fighters flying.
Promoting to ace effectively reduces the ability of your fighters by about 18%. If you
take into account crew size, the real bomber ability your sailor loses is somewhere around
the 27% mark. This is quite significant in my book.
------------------------
Aircraft Ability
------------------------
Next would be the actual aircraft ability. The most important stats in my opinion are
speed, fuel capacity, and durability. Fighter뭩 attack power is less important because it
gets added to your fighter growth ability. This means if you fighters are way over the
fighter cap, putting them in Tier 1 planes might not hinder your ability at all (except
for the lack of fuel).
The following graph shows each country뭩 ability compared to each other:
This makes things a little interesting. In the TB planes, the French have a very large
advantage on fuel capacity. This obviously makes it easier to get to a specific target,
more leeway on avoiding fighters, and even have a chance to land your planes back on deck.
The only other difference is KM has an advantage on AP defense, so it뭩 planes are
slightly harder to shoot down with AAW.
DB wise, the French still hold a very large fuel capacity advantage over every other
country. The RN finally gets a defensive boost to their planes here, so it뭠l take an
extra second or two to shoot down their planes with fighters. Those few seconds might
make or break the game.
Fighter planes are a little counter intuitive. To balance out the French fuel capacity
dominance on the bomber side, they are severely lacking fuel in their fighters and have
the lowest DP and AP defense. Other than that, the fighters are basically identical,
which is why the sailors themselves play the largest roll when choosing a country. The US
and IJN have a slight speed advantage, so catching those pesky bombers are that much
simpler for them.
-------------------------
Payload Capacity
-------------------------
This topic is useless to a fighter only setup, but is helpful for anyone using one or more
bombers on a carrier. The following chart shows the bomb damage for each country:
Again, the French have a considerable advantage on both HE and AP bombs. The KM and IJN
aren뭪 too far behind, so any of these can be a good choice Dive Bomber as well.
Torpedo bombers are a little different:
From this, we can see that it is the MN who have the highest torpedo damage, and the RN
are the runner up. Couple this with their AAW immunity, and either would be a good choice
for a Torpeodo Bomber.
-----------------------
Summery
-----------------------
So looking at the data, it can still be confusing deciding which country you would want to
play. From what I뭭e discovered this is how it boils down to:
US:--Not bad at anything. Great sailors, good planes, good payload.
UK--Great bomber stat. This means AAW immunity and harder to shoot down. Not the best
offensive capacities though.
IJN뾐ot surprisingly one of the best CV to go. High bomber stat, decent but fast
fighters.
KM뾕egarded as the best fighter CV. High fighter stat means it will hit the cap earlier.
Great planes, good bomb payload.
French뾉ood for an offensive CV. Untouchable fuel capacity, extreme payload damage, but
lacking in the fighter category.
Now, to throw my bias opinion into the mix. I, along with about 90% of the community
think that fighters are VERY important to being a successful CV. High performing fighters
can clear the sky of enemy fighters, allowing battleships to scout and you to bomb. If
enemy fighters are dominating your team, you have a much lower chance of winning the game.
Please, don뭪 rely on locals. Again, my observations are for end-game, but you can learn
so many tactics that you need to be a great CV by using T1 and T2 fighters in-game. Play
in blitz when you have T1뭩 because it뭩 more balanced (not to mention you get so many
more credits in blitz). Tier 2 is a step up, but you won뭪 be dominating until you뭨e at
a decent level anyway. This is just my little rant to try and persuade you from going
primarily bombers in battle. My fighters are hungry either way.