@WILD:
I’ve been looking at keeping the cruiser at 12 IPCs, but it moves 3 spaces (4 from NB). The extra movement comes in handy. Also looking a 12 IPC 1 hit support carrier that holds 1 plane.
Been doing this along with capital ships take 2 turns to build (pay half down) so these 12 IPC ships are getting built. Thinking about reducing BB’s to 18 IPCs, and allowing a damaged carrier to hold 1 plane to help offset the 2 turn build.
I play with small Casablanca Escort Carrier A0 D1 M2 1 hit , sculpt from HBG.
It costs 10 IPCs and I always give her an Anti-Sub Vessel capacity.
When playing with a 16 IPCs Fleet Carrier, 12 IPCs is too high.
However, if all Capital Ships take 2 turns to built, then at 12 IPCs and 1 turn built, it remains interesting.
I see two ways to figure this Half Carrier.
Since it is the same cost as a Cruiser, then make it as Light Carrier (US built 9 of them on a Cruiser hull):
I’m thinking of something like A0 D1 M3-4 C12, 1 hit, carry 1 plane.
If Cruiser gets M3-4.
These were limited-capability ships, whose principal virtue was near-term availability. Their limited size made for seakeeping difficulties in the many typhoons of the Pacific, and their small flight decks led to a relatively high aircraft accident rate. However, being based on a light cruiser, they were fast ships, much faster than the Casablanca-class escort carriers. The cruiser hull and engineering allowed them the speed necessary to operate with the main fleet carrier task groups.
Completed in the course of 1943, and coming into service with the first eight of the Essex-class carriers, the nine Independence-class ships made up a vital component of the Fast Carrier Task Force, which carried the Navy’s offensive through the central and western Pacific from November 1943 through August 1945. Eight of these carriers participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, which effectively ended Japan’s carrier air power. The light carriers provided 40 percent of the Fast Carrier Task Force’s fighters and 36 percent of the torpedo bombers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_aircraft_carrier
Or make her an Escort Carrier, A0 D1 M2-3 C12, 1 hit, 1 plane, ASV same as DD.