Owners of the Kaga ship what

[Number9Pounder]

Owners of the Kaga ship what do you think of its performance?

[Carrier_Ikoma]

6 minutes ago, Number9Pounder said:

Owners of the Kaga ship what do you think of its performance?

 

Her strike pattern is incredible. Already played Hiryuu so I was used to the limitations of undertiered bombers. If you get a good strike on someone, they're just doomed. Obviously her fighters are weak, so take the fighter perk and all the fighter mods and strafe a lot.

 

That said, the weakness of her planes can't be understated. One match in particular, I was low tier but doing relatively well. And my team was winning. But a unicum  (USN and KM) BB div that had been holding back finally decided to join the battle. They each split up and pushed a separate point. Easy pickings for a CV, right?

 

Nope, my planes couldn't even get into max drop range before being annihilated. (Not that there were any other ships left to try striking at that point, so no reason to not at least try). And they went on to win the match.

 

tl;dr great pattern but high tier AA will completely destroy you

[AdmiralHattori]

Kaga's greatest strength is her torpedo striking ability. If you face an AS Ranger, Hiryu, and especially Saipan; you can struggle if the enemy CV player understands map control and strafing since you only T6 fighters. If you can't win air, you can't really do much with TB unless you pick the right fight to sacrifice your fighters just to get a good strike. She is a one-sided carrier which means you either dominate or get destroyed in the air.

 

If you get a game with Kaga where the enemy CV isn't bright and enemy team is dispersed, KAGA WILL DESTROY ANYTHING IN HER PATH IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DROP THOSE TORPEDOES.

 

Kaga's pace is very slow because of the larger squadron (like playing Midway) so you probably can get an average of 4-7 attacks per game while something like Hiryu will get 5-9 attacks.

 

Kaga is very slow and has awful air concealment which means you will get randomly spotted and too slow to run unless you sink your pursuers. Combination of slow servicing time, forced to play at the back to avoid detection, and T6 TB speed; Kaga requires you to make every attack count or you will spend most of the time waiting.

 

Although Kaga is fearsome in damage, a strong Saipan will always shut down a strong Kaga.

[Number9Pounder]

On 6/29/2017 at 7:10 PM, Carrier_Ikoma said:

 

Her strike pattern is incredible. Already played Hiryuu so I was used to the limitations of undertiered bombers. If you get a good strike on someone, they're just doomed. Obviously her fighters are weak, so take the fighter perk and all the fighter mods and strafe a lot.

 

That said, the weakness of her planes can't be understated. One match in particular, I was low tier but doing relatively well. And my team was winning. But a unicum  (USN and KM) BB div that had been holding back finally decided to join the battle. They each split up and pushed a separate point. Easy pickings for a CV, right?

 

Nope, my planes couldn't even get into max drop range before being annihilated. (Not that there were any other ships left to try striking at that point, so no reason to not at least try). And they went on to win the match.

 

tl;dr great pattern but high tier AA will completely destroy you

 

thanks for the info

[Number9Pounder]

On 6/29/2017 at 7:34 PM, AdmiralHattori said:

Kaga's greatest strength is her torpedo striking ability. If you face an AS Ranger, Hiryu, and especially Saipan; you can struggle if the enemy CV player understands map control and strafing since you only T6 fighters. If you can't win air, you can't really do much with TB unless you pick the right fight to sacrifice your fighters just to get a good strike. She is a one-sided carrier which means you either dominate or get destroyed in the air.

 

If you get a game with Kaga where the enemy CV isn't bright and enemy team is dispersed, KAGA WILL DESTROY ANYTHING IN HER PATH IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DROP THOSE TORPEDOES.

 

Kaga's pace is very slow because of the larger squadron (like playing Midway) so you probably can get an average of 4-7 attacks per game while something like Hiryu will get 5-9 attacks.

 

Kaga is very slow and has awful air concealment which means you will get randomly spotted and too slow to run unless you sink your pursuers. Combination of slow servicing time, forced to play at the back to avoid detection, and T6 TB speed; Kaga requires you to make every attack count or you will spend most of the time waiting.

 

Although Kaga is fearsome in damage, a strong Saipan will always shut down a strong Kaga.

 

 

thanks for the info

 

[HazeGrayUnderway]

Incredibly fun CV with significant strengths and weaknesses.

 

If you like nuking the f--k out of ships as a CV, Kaga is your boat.  Her default spec delivers heavy punishment and you have enough fighters to be a nuisance.  You're not going to sweep the skies clear with those Tier VI fighters but they get the job done in intercepting enemy bombers or clear the way for your bombers.  They're good enough for example, in engaging enemy fighters trying to protect a target so your own bombers make a cleaner attack run.  I've seen Kagas do this so many times to nuke the opposing CV despite having fighter defenses.  I've seen Kagas destroy Full HP Rangers in ONE attack run despite having their fighters protecting them doing such focused attacks.

 

The torpedo drop pattern, especially in manual, is unusual but you get used to it.  What makes it so good is that it has a very dense drop pattern towards the middle.  Even ships angling away from the drop are still going to eat an unusual amount of torps.  If your drop is "close enough" or "great" then you cannot help but rack up a lot of hits.  This is where the bulk of Kaga's damage comes from, up front damage from her 12 TBs.

 

The weakness of Kaga comes from her having Tier VI planes on a VII CV.  You can lose a lot of planes very quickly if mismanaged or going in on high AA rating ships.  North Carolina will absolutely MURDER your planes and you'll be lucky to drop 2 torps before they're all shot down.  Imagine an AA Cruiser like Atlanta, Cleveland, Prinz Eugen, Adm.Hipper with Defensive Fire.  Kaga has to be like other CVs in being patient before going after those high AA threats.  Let the battle wear out the targets' AA mounts.  The saving grace is Kaga has a large reserve of planes and lots of it dedicated to the bombers which expect high losses.

 

Where I see Kagas struggle against also are against AS Hiryu, AS Ranger, or any spec of Saipan.  

 

Kaga can go toe to toe with Strike Hiryu in the air.

 

She can overwhelm from sheer air units Stock Ranger.  Strike Ranger is a free kill.

 

But AS Hiryu, AS Ranger can be a bit problem because of either having more numerous fighter units (3 Tier VII fighters in AS Hiryu) or stronger fighters (2, strong Tier VII fighters in AS Ranger).  Saipan is just dangerous in the air to most CVs she typically encounters with her very fast, durable, Tier IX Corsairs who can strafe out without losing a plane.  That unique strafe mechanic on Saipan is the only one in the game like that.  Fast flying Tier IX Corsairs vs Kaga's Tier VI planes?  NO CONTEST.

 

There's also the chance Kaga can be thrown into a Tier IX match and the AA there can be very deadly.  All the Tier VII CVs will struggle in a Tier IX-heavy match and Kaga is no exception.

 

Overall, Kaga is a very fun CV catering to nuking targets.  You have 12 TB access, which is the only CV in the entire game below Tier IX.  Taiho, Hakuryu have 12 TBs at those tiers.  Even when Graf Zeppelin arrives with her 15 torp bombers, she is Tier VIII and will deal with Tier VIII-X AA.  Tier VIII CVs see a lot of Tier IX-X AA and that's not fun.  Kaga at Tier VII doesn't see all that, just Tier IX max at the off chance.  Otherwise, Kaga realistically is bullying Tier V-VI ships incapable of handling her attack power.