@PGsquig Thanks for the reply!
I’ll share some quick backdrop to my query: I’m about to play a couple friends who are newish to A&A. So I want to play well, but I’m going to do a couple things to help handicap myself so as to not make the game unenjoyable for them. First, I’ll play the Allies without any bid. Second, instead of going all out with a KGF or KJF strategy, I intend to play and fight against both. I want to build up a USN Pacific fleet to challenge Japan, as well as using the British to mostly support Russian (or perhaps via Africa) in challenging Germany.
So I realize I’m asking for the optimal non optimal…
I find myself questioning whether CV’s and Fighters are the way to go as far as pure fleet dominance. Taking the starting IJN fleet versus the USN fleet (assuming the Brits don’t go for SZ37, and the IJN don’t go for Pearl Harbor, I started using a battle calculator.
My results are showing that for the USN, building pure subs is the way to go. Not the CV/Fighters. In fact, building 34 IPC’s of a CV+2 Fighters seems to drastically underperform compared to 5 subs.
Of course, subs will not help with subsequent land invasions, but, to gain initial control of the oceans, it seems that subs are the way to go?