Aircraft carriers

for 18 IPC you can have 3 powerfull defending unit to protect your fleet (using already existing fighter). The Battleship can absorb one hit but only return fire once. An AC with 3 figther will defend at 3, 4,4 try to beat that.

If you want to control the atlantic go with AC. The other good thing is that it allow your fighter to help in amphibious assault far from territory you already control. The figther can land on them after the attack. I very rarely buy Battleship but very often AC.

I agree with FW, and if you want to get creative you could cause some problems for the American transports sending troops to the UK, and maybe even annoy Washington itself.

i believe aircraft carriers are over rated. they may be able to carry fighters yes. however there is enough land areas to take the fight to the sea and able to land back on the land. also if you want to controle the seas buy subs and battleships. the subs are cheap and the battleships can carry the firepower. if you get 3 subs and 1 battleship you should have a great start to a good navy.

They are generally a very bad idea.

US and Russia have jobs elsewhere
Germany only needs it for taking America (risky but fun)
UK should only consider it if they expect a really long game.

Aircraft carriers are simply a waste of IPC’s in my opinion. The Allies can access (pun intended) any sea zone with land-based fighters, so simply having two fighters based in a sea-zone is worthless. If carriers could accomadate bombers…

the only use for a carrier i can see is for two purposes, one for allies and one for germans.

Allies to help retake Africa (because once you have africa you dont really need an AC for Med, and England is there for Northern Europe)
  Germans to eventually take America or Canada, one of the places to help you just get a foot hold with some fighter support, Iceland is there for the bombers.

Oh, a german Aircraft Carrier- equipped with two fighters, of course- can change the tide in A&A:Europe quite significantly. In combination with destroyers, you can easily guard the Convoy Routes, intercepting those bold attempts on liberating them with one ship (which occurs quite often with my fellow players), freeing your submarines to raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer their weasely black (or grey) guts out at the US’s East Coast. “I love the smell of burning fresh- built ships in the morning”, me says ;)

If you can afford a Battleship, use it as the “boogie man”- somehow most players fear to attack a Battleship because of its 2 hit points. Let it roam the seas with your carrier (and bring a destroyer against these pesky subs) and voilá! It’s a far too great threat for shipping lanes to go unchallenged, and challenging it costs IPCs your opponents desperately need to stem your flow of Panther tanks rumbling for Moscow.

Besides, AC simply rock model- wise.

Thanks for that last post Yarrick. Im the only one of my freinds who has the guts to play as the germans, must be something to do with having to fight three people at once  :wink: , and iv never realy had eneough money to build up a large enough fleet to control the atlantic but ill use your way next time i play.

As Germany an AC bought on G1 pays off. The western allies will like to destroy it and build ships instead of landing troops. Good deal!
It´s costy but buys time. On turn one Germany destroys all british ships and afterwards it may sail out.
Should Germany be lucky and keep more than two subs after the attack on the brits it has a nice little fleet. It may considerto unify it with the med battleship. When the allies are to strong the fleet may escape to the med. It´s a nice little lure. And as it generally seems impossible to contest a convoy zone without it after T2 it also hurts the allies. Well- at least a little…

As the allies the US or UK has to buy one to secure a combined fleet. Elseway Germany is invited to attack it with fighters and bombers. 
To have the same defense value one must build 3-4 dest. A carrier is the more cost effective defense.

I find that the only game ive ever use an aircraft carrier in is a game when i was the Germans attacking US. It was a game we were just playing out for fun because ihad already taken Moscow and UK. I think, in general for Europe the land mass is too close together to really warrant the use of an aircraft carrier.
    But Pacific is another story :)

i think to have 1 ac with 2 fgts attached provides a valuable defense to your feature fleet. the defense roll is solid for both the ac and the fgts plus any other ships you have in your fleet. i like to have at least 1 per nation but usually no more than that.

Problem with aircraft carriers, and this is in all versions of Axis and Allies, is 1 supersubmarine (or regular submarine) that hits kills the carrier and potentially both defending fighters.  Sure, the sub is almost definately going to die as well, but common!  38 IPC for 8?  Who wouldn’t take THAT trade?

Well there are no supersubs in Europe or Pacific. Plus, I know a lot of people play without tech anyway.

aircraft carriers seem to be somewhat useful.  as FW190F said, they are good at defense.  if u look at the math, you gain 3-3-4 at 38 IPC when playing basic AA.  Also, carriers make decent assault platforms for attacking aircraft.  if youre really into navy stuff in your game, theyre probably useful in combination with subs and destroyers and battleships.  personally i never got around to it since my basic naval strategy is depending on my available cash and opposing air power, either go for a ton of battleships or build submarines and get the supersub tech advance.  personally i think AC are a waste of time, and a better use for your airpower is to go with the longrange aircraft and heavy bombing tech advances and bring down death from the skies simply by hopping between friendly land territories and blowing up land, air and sea unit all the way around.  whatever thats my 2 cents.