The situation is the attacker wants to launch fighters (from land for argument sake) and bombers to attack a target. For the 4 fighters to reach 2 CVs must move 2 spaces towards the battle. However, the path is blocked by a DD 1 space away, the CVs must move through them to get to the recovery point 1 space past the DD.
I am guessing the DD must be attacked in order to make it a legal move and can’t be attacked by either CV as they would then have to stop there and wouldn’t be able to participate.
The question is: do you have to do more than 1 round of combat with the DD using other assets? If so, does order of battle matter? Lets assume you expected to lose the fighters anyways, you did great and had surviving fighters left over. If you attacked the DD once then retreated and it survived, the CVs would then not be able to move to recover the fighters and this by your choice. Lets assume 3 lurking enemy BBs with air support were ready to counter-attack and you don’t want to lose a CV to recover fighters that are ultimately doomed anyways.
Your assumptions are correct, and to answer your question it would be perfectly legal to retreat and doom the fighters if the destroyer is not sunk in the first round. However, if you did sink the destroyer and clear the path for the carriers, a sufficient number of them must move to pick up any surviving fighters.
My foe was not aware of this rule. Since my 4 fighters scored 3 hits along with my 9 attacking bombers 3 hits against all 6 of his fighters scoring hits I might suggest we redo that round! Thanks Krieg!
