My current ships - Ryujo class carrier

Hi folks!

Today, I'll talk a bit about my favourite carrier so far, the tier 6 Japanese "Ryujo" class. Japanese carriers have smaller squadrons than their US counterparts, but instead more of them, making them somewhat more flexible in their attack patterns.

Strengths

Ryujo has a fighter wing, two dive bomber wings and a torpedo bomber wing, three planes each. The torpedo bombers are the heavy hitters, but, as usual, require babysitting to target, while the dive bombers sort that out by themselves once they've got their targets set.

Besides the planes, Ryujo has a decent amount of artillery, which can be used in a pinch against ships getting too close quite effectively. She's also quite quick, if you need to make a run for it.

Weaknesses

Being a converted cruiser, rather than a purpose-built carrier, she has a rather small set of planes in spare, so with two dive bomber squadrons, you tend to run out of planes easily towards the end of the battle. This means you can't attack head-on into larger groups of ships, especially if they have a decent amount of AAA.

Once the enemy is closing in on her, Ryujo won't last long, so it's best to carefully position out of range.

Playstyle

I usually open with the fighters on scout duty, to get a quick overview of the enemy fleet positioning. Meanwhile, I'm sending the dive bombers out together on the flanks, and once I've spotted the vanguard, drop some bombs on the leading destroyers. That minimises the loss of planes in the opening moves, when the enemy fleet is still concentrated, and makes some dents into the ships most likely to become dangerous.

Once the fighter wing has spotted the enemy fleet, I'm pulling them back, as to not to waste them on enemy AAA. If the enemy fleet has their own carrier, I'm keeping an eye on their bomber wings, and send the fighters to intercept, while keeping them away from strong AAA. Don't position them too close, otherwise they won't have much effect - best place to intercept is halfway between the enemy carrier and mine.

Once the fleet is spotted and the dive bombers have their targets, I'm sending the torpedo bombers out as well. I can be a little more reckless with them, since there's only one wing. I either send them after one of the damaged destroyers, or after the heavies following suit.

Some human carrier players can be quite tenacious in insisting on carrier vs carrier battles. I usually ignore that kind of nonsense, since that means I have to send my planes all the way across the map, through enemy AAA. The amount of damage I can do in a battle depends on how quickly I can cycle (deploy - attack - return - rearm) the bomber wings. So I usually use the dive bombers to keep the destroyers at bay, and torpedo bombers to help out with that or quickly snipe damaged enemy ships.

One of the most important aspects in this game is - unsurprisingly - sinking ships. A ship with a single health point usually still has its full firepower, whereas a sunken ship obviously does not. Carriers, given their huge range, are very good at taking out wounded enemy ships, tipping the balance of firepower in your favour.