[Mass Combat] PLAUSIBLE army diversity in settings

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by downer

It might just work. After all, TL 8 carrier groups are not primarily a weapon of sea warfare, they are a way of projecting air superiority. If that is not what you want, you wouldn't need them. The specialized planes outlined above would be sufficient to sweep the seas clean of battleships and carriers, and might serve as a deterrent to enemy naval deployment, and convoi warfare is a matter of lighter units anyway.

That's only true insofar as you draw a sharp line between naval aviation and sea warfare, or if you read far too much into the shortage of recent serious naval warfare. Carriers are the premiere weapons of sea warfare, because for a multitude of reasons airplanes are much better strike and recon assets than shipboard weapons and sensors can be.

Of course, if you don't need to annihilate an enemy navy you can also use them to project air superiority in support of land operations. They're good for that too.

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

I'm not saying they can't have carriers. I'm just reluctant to give them special bonuses in the naval area, since I think a +1 aerospace TL (or nearly so) is pretty scary already.

You're giving them the largest economy on the planet, I gather, paired with a merely average navy. Do you mean 'average' for a great power?

I'd suggest that their navy would lean heavily to light carriers. Assuming that they can operate their favored aircraft off relatively small decks. They can lean on the 'just plain better than you' factor to compensate for the relatively small aircraft complement. A light carrier is roughly cruiser-equivalent so having a number of them doesn't constitute a huge navy, but if your planes are overwhelmingly superior each one is probably at least as scary as anyone else's fleet carrier.

And if they do get in a serious scrap they might roll out escort carriers: dirt cheap, slow light carriers designed for convoy protection.