The one benefit of playing KM BB's, great AA ability.

It's one thing I don't understand why more KM BB's either have no AA guns on at all, or have them and don't use them. KM boats are paper thin, doesn't take more then two salvos from a Lion2 or Montana to have us down.

Set your T slots up, stay just behind the front edge of your BB line, and shoot down enemy planes until enemy BB's come into range of you. Let them come to you, don't go to them. Tired of seeing 39's and 44's go rushing in and get one or two shot, when AA'ing could have made the other side blind.

Now, I'm not saying that is all you should do, or should even be the focus... A BB not doing attack damage is pretty worthless. But if you spend the first 3-4 minutes of the battle doing so, your CV's will have a much easier time gaining air superiority, and then all you have left to do is fire of some HE or AP.

Oh, and lastly, if you see a Lion1 or 2 without a rear gun, quit firing HE. Those multi salvos of 0's and 10's are embarassing.

There are different ways to attack any tactical problem. It depends on the abilities and ships of the players on both sides. In a realistic, military application, a leader or his staff would pick the best course of action and apply it to his units.

The problem here is that there can't be a leader in a pick-up game. Even people I don't like have made some valid points about the application of air power. Some key military concepts at issue here are:

- economy of force (you want to use the resources you got without wasting them)
- objective (having one goal or having prioritized goals with one being the main goal)
- mass ( you want to put all your combat power at the right place and time)
- unity of command (there can only be one leader)


A waste of resources would be scouts sitting parked on BBs and never being launched. Another waste of resources would be AA ships holding fire while fighters duke it out over their heads. The principle of economy of force would dictate that these assets should be scouting while other assets should be employed else where. As LJ pointed out, BBs can't launch scouts if they are fighter camped and as Rehor pointed out, sometimes AA just can't keep the skies clear.

Thus, obviously, the objective of the CV should be to control the skies so the BBs can launch scouts. The problem here is that by doing so, you can't fighter camp the other side. This is the issue of Air Superiority vs Air Supremacy. If the other CV is even somewhat competent and equip with fighters, you can't expect Air Supremacy all the time. You can however chose where you want to control the air, either above your BBs or above their BBs.

Common CV doctrine is to control the air over the enemy, allowing your BBs to shoot based on the fighters sight, and giving up the reasource of the scouts. This violates the principle of economy of force on one hand by allowing the scouts to sit on the deck, however on the other end, it reinforces this principle as otherwise your AA ships are employed. Its LJ's theory of limiting fighter sight that changes this dynamic, forcing scouts to be used by limiting fighter ability.

The best way to overcoming this issue with the current fighters, is to properly utilize the issue of mass. If there are two south and two north CVs, first, they should work in pairs and mass all their fighters in the air above, or in front of their own BB line, then work out, until they are controlling the airspace over the enemy. By massing all the fighters in a sweep using sectors, you can then use the AA to pick off stragglers or occasional border humpers, and the BBs are free to launch scouts for improved vision. You may not have the air supremecy for the entire game, at all locations, but you have superiority over both locations, AT THE TIME IT MATTERS.

This concept will fail every time. There is no unity of command and the CVs will do individually whatever, whenever. My previous issue with another poster here was that a simple note in my mailbox saying "hey, this is what you did and this is how you can do it better" would have been welcome and respected. Instead, flaming, or "CV NOOB" and "VISION" are simple time wasted. BBs calling for air cover and vision at the same time will lead to failure unless you have coordination between multiple CVs.

The final issue to this whole thing is the reality of what happens when your fighters are just beat? There are some CVs out there with L120s and they know how to drag them. All the "CV launch fighter" comments in the world won't fix that. In an ideal world, a leader would be able to direct his assets to over come that. My own opinion is that the fighters shouldn't engage over his own side, let the AA shoot, and instead focus on keeping the battle over the enemy. After all, if you are going to lose, its better to have the enemy waste their fuel tracking down your fighters and on their side and limiting their opportunity for sight, as opposed to your own.