WesWorld

Quoted

What are the strategical and tactical implications of the battle and the outcome

Not a lot really. The RSAN missed a chance to inflict heavy casulaties on the Argentine Navy but they still have control of the South Atlantic.

Quoted

What deductions can be made from the battle to put into future plans and carrier design?

More aircraft for more effective strikes. Personally I feel that the CAP was far too effective given the lack of radar direction and poor visibility. It would be extremely difficult to 1; spot the incoming aircraft 2; manage to intercept from the CAP's orbit. Still, it shows that it's valuable to have fighters in the air at all times. How practical it is for continuous operations though I'm not sure.

Quoted

How did the aircraft perform? How could they improve?

Difficult to say really. I couldn't pick out any single thing to improve on.

Quoted

Was the AA armament as effective as supposed?

Probably more effective than previously supposed. For a fairly light fit of 37mm and 20mm with heavy AA without proximity fuzes they seemed to be shooting down aircraft left, right and centre. Compared to the early actions in the Med in 1940/41 where heavier concentrations of fire was pretty ineffective...

Bharat response:

Question one

The Strategic situation stays the same; RSAN rules the waves. Tactical can't respond due to lack of knowledge in regard to the plans of both navies.

Question Two:

Agree with RA assestment. CAP was too effective and Bharat pilots will train with SAE pilots to learn their tricks. Also the losses will be noted. For Bharat would mean an increase in the number of aircrafts assigned to Maldives, Diego Garcia and Port Blair. The tactics and plans don't change much. The carriers' purpose in Bharat's plan is to attrition the enemy, something it was done here by the destruction of a cruiser.

Question Three:

same as RA. They did their jobs.

Question four:
If we go with this results people will be happy with their current AA batteries for a while. maybe a slowing down of intermediate caliber AA batteries.

Question one: Agree that strategic situation remains more or less the same though now the SAE needs to be more wary of enemy CV's when it conducts operations, having failed to "nip it in the bud" so to speak.

Tactically, this battle showed that fighter escort is vital for the attackers to survive, either taking down harassing fighters or harassing enemy ships AA battery's, not really a surprise there. On the flip side CAP's will have to become more effective (though in this particular case they were, chalk it up to luck I suppose), Radar will ultimately solve alot of the issues allowing CAP's to be more effectively vectored in on attacking aircraft. I'm also unsure as to whether or not the SAE attack aircraft split up for multipul attack angles or simply was broken up by the harassing fighters, it appears to be the later.

Question two: As Gavin said more aircraft for more strikes. One way to do this, and Atlantis and Chile have taken a hard look at, is to design smaller light carriers dedicated to CAP and recon, allowing the larger carriers to operate more strike aircraft or simply set up a stronger CAP in general. In short more hulls and aircraft.

Question three: Again as Gavin said, they performed the task adequately, tactics and moral played a large role in success or failure. The only recomendations I could make would be faster torpedo bombers with more tactical flexibility. The FMA I.Ae 4S twin-engined torpedo bomber seemed to be quite a versatile aircraft and could be a design to build on but its rather large. A smaller duel role aircraft could be usefull.

Question four: Again seems unanimus, AA was slightly better than you would think but mutual support from other ships could be the factor, case in point Fortleza lacked mutual anti-air support and was sunk. One thing alot of people overlook with mutual anti-air support is the freindly fire issue. It wasn't uncommon for U.S. gunners to spray their own ships caught in the crossfire with AA fire attempting to shoot down attackers. Hard for me to tell if this could be an issue with the Argentinian fleet as the details of their formation escapes me.

Quoted

Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
One thing alot of people overlook with mutual anti-air support is the freindly fire issue. It wasn't uncommon for U.S. gunners to spray their own ships caught in the crossfire with AA fire attempting to shoot down attackers.

Indeed, at Pearl Harbor the American's rushed defenses did a great deal of damage on their own; the damage to Honolulu was almost entirely from AA fire that weren't fused properly, and there are several accounts of overzealous defenders being more dangerous to their neighbors than to the Japanese.

You probably have a real point here. In general we probably put to much emphasis of the defense of a single ship.

I also think the friendly fire factors is more than we had it in our stories - although there had been some incidence, some probably even not noted (blue-on-blue sinking of a sub etc.).

Probably the next team scripting a full scale war will learn from that.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Probably the next team scripting a full scale war will learn from that.

I guess that's my cue!