The confusion seems to be in you’re holding back naval ships for naval bombardment. The advantage about scrambling planes is that it forces the attacker to commit all their naval ships regardless if they want to or not. That’s why it is sometimes wise to scramble in a losing battle if the enemy is relying on bombardment for victory. The easiest situation would be when Japan invades the Philippine islands. If Japan was so aggressive that all they brought was two infantry with two cruisers as example. I would scramble the fighter in that situation because while I will lose the sea battle, if you choose to invade the island after the battle, you’re doing it without naval support which gives my defending infantry a better chance at winning.
Can Transports retreat?
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In one of my games I attacked an ANZAC task force (1-Fighter, CV and DD) with 1 japanese dd,1 fighters, 1 bomber and 2 loaded transports.
The match ended with ANZAC loosing the dd and damaging the CV. The DDs hit each other, the ANZAC fighter killed the Japanese fighter and the damaged CV hit the bomber.
At this point can I retreat the Japanese transports since that round of combat was over?
Can the transports retreat and drop their cargo? (Since they are now defenseless I want to get the cargo unloaded)
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My personal guess is they can choose to retreat but can not unload in a different territory than they planned.
Then again my rule book isn’t near me.
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The transports can retreat, but they can’t unload.





