The Hosho is amazing.

[python_vs_ruby]

Wow, just wow... Hosho is amazing. I was vs. a Langley, 2 planes, 3 crits, 4 kills, 4 floods, 20 torpedo hits! 122K damage, 1410 base XP, with multipliers 5288 XP. 122K base credits, with multipliers 366K.

Sunk the Langley, a St. Louis, a Kirov and a Wyoming.

As well as hitting another Wyoming with 4 torpedo's and yet another Wyoming with 2 torpedo's.

[Gavroche_]

Hosho is amazing, you strike power doesn't significantly improve until the Taiho.

[python_vs_ruby]

Which I am soon to get! Fully upgraded and working on the grind section of Shokaku!

[hiroshi_tea]

both the tier 4 carriers have their merits.  they're exceptionally strong ships for their tier and i'm glad you'r having fun!    Welcome to CVs

[10T0nHammer]

It frustrates me how well a Hosho can shut down a Langley.

[Sinboto]

The mother of carriers, unless you count argus like I do, is a beautiful woman and a mighty warship. 

[amaROenuZ]

It frustrates me how well a Hosho can shut down a Langley.

 

Shift-click + American fighters = Profit.

 

IJN CVs can't keep up with the Langley, Bogue, or Indy squadrons at all. They get torn to pieces by skilled strafing. It's especially bad with the Langley, since the Langley gets more planes, similar strike potential, and there's no way to pin the Langley's fighter squad if he plays it smart.

 

Then you get to Tier 7, and the situation flips, with IJN fighters running roughshod over USN fighters.

[10T0nHammer]

 

Shift-click + American fighters = Profit.

 

IJN CVs can't keep up with the Langley, Bogue, or Indy squadrons at all. They get torn to pieces by skilled strafing. It's especially bad with the Langley, since the Langley gets more planes, similar strike potential, and there's no way to pin the Langley's fighter squad if he plays it smart.

 

Then you get to Tier 7, and the situation flips, with IJN fighters running roughshod over USN fighters.

 

....have you even played both CVs? Not only are IJN heavily out performing USN CVs at equal tiers (seriously, not 1 CV beats an IJN one) but the Hosho's fighters are just better than yours. They have more health, they do more damage, they have better turn radius, they can keep up with your empty bombers, they can out play your planes because they are just so slow and turn poorly. Even with the 6-4 advantage, the Hosho get a 4% chance to win the air battle (as in Hosho 100% vs Langly 96%), and it just outright does more damage per game thanks to the number of bombers.

 

Also Langley planes cannot keep up with Hosho Bombers, especially if they are empty

[hiroshi_tea]

my stats in the hosho and langely are pretty dang similar and I'm nearing 100 games in both of them.  

 

Fighters:  Hosho's are faster and better get into the back line of strike squadrons and strafe them down.  However they're paper and will suffer unreasonable losses to tail gunners if you engage the strike squad and will lose pretty badly to Langley fighters in a dogfight.

Langley fighter squads are slow but beefy, and have the option of both dogfighting and strafing with no issues.  Their strafe does more damage than IJN due to their fighter density.  In Dogfights, my Langley fighters will beat a full 4 fighter Hosho squadron with 1-2 plane losses max.  And if i lead with a strafe, then I will assuredly win with no losses.  If I keep the Langley fighters with my strike blob, they do a fine job of defending vs Hosho interception.

 

Strike:  IJN torps do less damage than USN torps.  Hoshos will usually get 2 torp hits per TB drop - so a full strike will usually mean only 4 torp hits.  Hosho also has a very tough time chaining flooding due to the low flooding chance on aerial torpedoes.  But the TBs are fast and they also cycle faster than the USN counterpart.  Their speed lets them dodge interception very well and they cannot be caught on the return trip.  

Langley TBs have a tighter spread, and their torps do more damage than the Hosho's.  An average drop will net 4 hits and since the torps do more damage than IJN ones, the strike capability as actually stronger than the Hosho's 2 TBs.  Langley also has a bomber which can reliably set fires - so if the torpedoes cause flooding, then the Langley can reliably chain that damage over time effect with a fire for even more damage.  The down side to the Langley's strike is that the planes are slower and more vulnerable to interception and that the cycle time is longer than that of the Hosho's.

 

These all balance each other out pretty nicely and there's definitely a give and take relationship.  The Hosho has more room to "outplay" a Langely, but the Langley has enough raw power to hold of any Hosho tricky business if enough attention is paid to the map.

[tremor3258]

The Langley getting an extra strike squadron helped it, but the cutdown on reserve planes as a result means it's more vulnerable to mistakes (though that's a danger for either T4 CV).

 

Both of them are good, but the Hosho's a lot of fun.  The extra speed for the carrier itself is a big advantage over the Langley's effective speed of 'rowboat'. 

[devastator5000]

Honestly I'm suprised people think Hosho is good, for me she was the worst ship to play zuiho was fun ryujo is a T6 CV so it's as good as MM want's it to be, but you would constantly lose your fighters too the Langley and Auto dropping TBs suck, had yet to learn manual drop.

 

Edit: I played hosho before the strafe update

[ForgMaxtor]

Wow.  Nice show.  My best score in the Hosho is a little better than half that.

 

Currently, my WR isn't great in either the Langley or the Hosho, though my Langley WR especially is probably dragged down a fair bit by early games in a CV where I was just learning the interface.

 

Until recently, I've definitely felt like I could do more in the Langley, but lately I'm warming up to the Hosho.  I think the Hosho has a steeper learning curve which makes it a challenging ship for noob CV drivers.  Those 4-plane squads are fragile and can easily get wiped out if you're not careful about where you move them, when and how you engage.  But once you get comfortable with e.g., Manual Drop and Fighter Barrage mechanics, do I think performance potential in the Hosho is higher.

[sartt]

It frustrates me how well a Hosho can shut down a Langley.

 

Because the devs destroyed the US CV line patches ago?

[Mesrith]

After losing my first 3 Hosho games despite averaging 80k damage over that span, I've been able to turn it around with a solid win streak.  I can't really judge it compared to my Langley because I've gained a lot of carrier experience since then, but it feels like a strong little ship.