Aerial Combat

The following classes can participate in aerial combat: standard carriers, light carriers, aviation battleships and cruisers, seaplane tenders, carrier submarines, Akitsumaru Kai, and certain special enemy vessels.

Note that recon planes cannot participate in aerial combat.

Aerial Combat Stages

Stage	Notes
Fighter Combat	Battle for air supremacy. Determines if Artillery Spotting and/or Contact are possible.
Anti-bomber Combat	Number of bombers shot down by fighters is affected by the result of the previous phase
Anti-Air Cut-In	An Anti-Air Director may cause heavy damage to enemy bombers
Fleet Anti-air Defense	Fleet defends against enemy bombers
Bombing	See Damage Calculation for details

Fighter Combat

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Fighter Power} = \sum^\text{All slots} \text{Floor(} \sqrt{\text{Number planes in slot}} \times \text {Plane anti-air stat} \text{)} }[/math]

• Fighter planes, and specific Torpedo / Dive / Seaplane bombers with an +AA stat participate in the Fighter Combat.
• Recon planes (carrier based or seaplane recon) will NOT participate in Fighter Combat.
• The allied fleet and enemy fleet's Fighter Powers are compared to determine the result of Fighter Combat:

Fighter Power (FP = Own Fighter Power, EFP = Enemy Fighter Power)	Result	Text Display	% Shot Down	Contact	Artillery Spotting	Night Spotting
FP ≥ 3×EFP or Enemy Failed Detection or EFP=0 and Planes launched	Air Supremacy (AS+)	制空権確保! Seikuuken Kakuho!	0~90%	Allied only	Allied only	Allied only
3×EFP > FP ≥ 1.5×EFP	Air Superiority (AS)	航空優勢! Koukuu Yuusei!	0~80%	Both sides	Allied only	Both sides
1.5×EFP > FP ≥ 2/3×EFP or Aerial Combat Stage did not occur	Air Parity	No text displayed	0~60%	Both sides	Impossible for either side	Impossible for regular combat nodes Both sides for PvP as well as Night Combat Only nodes
2/3×EFP > FP ≥ 1/3×EFP	Air Incapability	No text displayed	0~40%	Both sides	Enemy only	Both sides
FP < 1/3×EFP	Air Denial	制空権喪失! Seikuuken Soushitsu!	0~10%	Enemy only	Enemy only	Enemy only

• This calculation does not take into account any anti-air weaponry equipped on ships. Carrier anti-air stat is also not considered.
• The percentage of planes shot down applies for both sides' respective outcomes, and is calculated per slot.

• For example, securing Air Superiority means allied planes shoot down up to 80% of enemy planes, and the enemy under Air Incapability will shoot down up to 40%.
• As this is applied per slot, 80% of one enemy bomber group can be shot down while a second has 0% shot down.

• Contact can be triggered by having at least 1 carrier scout plane, seaplane scout, and/or torpedo bomber equipped. It increases damage during the bombing phase depending on the accuracy bonus of the squad triggering Contact.
• Even if allied planes secure air supremacy, planes can still be lost (up to 10%), and the subsequent anti-air defense stage can eliminate more bombers.

Enemy Ship Fighter Power

Enemy Ship Type	Fighter Power	Enemy Ship Type	Fighter Power
Light Carrier Nu-Class	8	Armored Carrier Demon	44
Light Carrier Nu-Class Elite	24	Armored Carrier Princess	48
Light Carrier Nu-Class Flagship	23	Floating Fortress	27
Standard Carrier Wo-Class	10	Escort Fortress	29
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Elite	27	Southern War Demon	41
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Flagship	28	Southern War Princess	47
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Flagship 2	84	Northern Princess World 3-5	76
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship	102	Northern Princess World 3-5 (HQ < 85)	72
Battleship Re-Class	94	Northern Princess World 3-5 Final Form	109
Battleship Re-Class Elite	107	Northern Princess World 3-5 Final Form (HQ < 85)	105
Aircraft Carrier Demon	96	Anchorage Water Demon	0

Bombing

Contact

• Contact takes place during the Aerial Combat phase. It increases bombing damage for all allied bombers.
• When successful, an image of the squadron performing contact is shown in the opposing fleet's formation indicator, with the text "触接中".
• Trigger conditions:

• More air control than Air Denial
• At least one carrier scout plane, seaplane scout, or torpedo bomber equipped.

• Seaplane bombers, Type 3 Spotter, and Ka-type Autogyros cannot perform contact.

• It's thought that each carrier scout plane, seaplane scout, and/or torpedo bomber slot equipped is given a chance to trigger contact. Once successful, the bonus applied is chosen at random with weighting from all eligible equipped planes.

• Different types of planes have different trigger rates. They are roughly estimated as (if only one is equipped):

Type	Basic Attack Power	Notes
Opening Air Strike	Modifier × (Bomber's Dive Bomb or Torpedo stat) × √(Number of Planes) + 25	Number of planes is post anti-bomber combat and fleet anti-air defense Modifier is 1.0 for dive bombers, either 0.8 or 1.5 (50% chance for either) for torpedo bombers Calculated per slot.

Type	Contact Rate
Torpedo Bomber	~2%
Night Scout	~5%
Seaplane Scout	~20%
Carrier Scout	~50%

Contact Damage Modifier

• The damage increase depends on the +accuracy bonus of the squadron performing contact.

Accuracy Bonus	Damage Modifier
+0	112%
+1	112%
+2	117%
+3	120%

Notes

• Type 2 Recon Aircraft is useful in the case that the bombing damage bonus is desired while not removing the chance for T-disadvantage, due to its high trigger rate.
• With contact, the maximum attack power of bombing (before defense, critical and ammo) is around 180. With some luck, it's possible to sink even Ru-class Flagships (Armor = 99) in one strike without a critical.

Anti-Air Cut-In

An Anti-Air Cut-In

Certain equipment combinations will provide a chance for an Anti-Air Cut-In (AACI) during the aerial combat. When activated, the cut-in CG (shown on the right) would appear before engaging the enemy fighters, but does not appear to affect the resulting air control state (AS+, AS, Air Parity or Denial). Although there's currently no conclusion on how it's applied onto the Fleet Anti-air Defense formula, a general consensus suggests the effectiveness scales with the AA stat () of the ship triggering it.

Requirement

• One of the following sets:
  1. Heavy Main Gun, Type 3 Shell , plus Anti-Aircraft Fire Director (AAFD)
     • Can be supplemented with an AA RADAR
     • Only available for BB(V)s due to Heavy Gun requirement.
  2. High-Angle mount (main gun or secondary) plus AAFD
     • Can be supplemented with an AA RADAR
     • Achievable by any surface ship.
  3. 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD plus AA RADAR
     • Can be supplemented with an HA mount or another 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD
     • Available to any ship capable of equipping a Light Main Gun.
  4. 25mm Triple Autocannon Mount (Concentrated Deployment), AA Gun (any) , plus AA RADAR
     • Achievable by any surface ship.
  5. Either 12.7cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD or 90mm Single High Angled Gun, plus AA RADAR
     • Can be supplemented with an High-angle Mount + AAFD
     • As both 12.7cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD and 90mm Single High Angled Gun are considered secondary guns, only ships capable of equipping them may use this setup.

• Akizuki has a built-in AA fire director, which allows her to trigger AACI without an AAFD with the following setup

• High-Angle mount (any) plus either or both:

• RADAR (any kind)
• High-Angle mount (any)

• Maya Kai 2 may trigger AACI with a unique setup:

• 25mm Triple Autocannon Mount (Concentrated Deployment), plus High-Angle mount (any)

• Can be supplemented with an AA RADAR

Notes

• 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD, 12.7cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD and 90mm Single High Angled Gun can substitute for a regular High-angle mount. Their built-in AAFD functions when paired with an AA RADAR.
• Slots otherwise empty can be equipped with anything else without disabling the Anti-Air Cut-In.
• A maximum of 1 ship will perform AACI per battle (regardless of how many ships are capable of doing so, or whether it is a Combined Fleet engagement), and due to AA stat of the ship performing the cut-in affecting the number of planes shot down, it may be desired to limit the number of ships with AACI setup.
• Successful enemy AACI will not display; typically, greater than normal losses of planes after a battle can be attributed to enemy AACI.
• Does not affect the determination of Air Superiority.
• Cannot shoot down pure enemy fighters, as usual.

Effect

• Provide an AoE blast on all the incoming enemy bombers, from the ship who is triggering it. (source 1, 2, 3)

Trigger Chance

• AA stat () of the ship performing the cut-in (equipment bonuses included) affects trigger rate. The correlation seems to be about +0.4% trigger rate for every point of AA ? (source 1, 2)
• Air radars provide marginal bonuses on AACI:

• For HA + AAFD setup, Air radar on CA does not increase the trigger chance on a large scale ??. (source)
• Type 13 Air radar Kai on Akizuki (and other DDs?) increases the trigger chance by ~10%. When AACI was activated, it also helps with shooting down more bombers. (source)

With an AA Cut-In from a ship with high AA stat (), it is possible to obliterate all incoming bombers before they inflict any damage, and even prevent opposing carriers from shelling since they have 0 bombers left. In PVP Exercises, opposing fleets can do AA Cut-Ins, but the animation is not shown.

There are reports that enemy ships in map 6-2 might be capable of doing AACI. Other than that, there is currently no enemy ship capable to blast all your bombers with AA weapons.

Fleet Anti-air Defense

Each enemy bomber slot is assigned at random to a defending ship. Those ships then, for each assigned enemy slot, have an approximately 50% chance to shoot down enemy planes. The number of planes shot down is given by the equations below:

[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Shot Down} = \text{Floor((Ship AA } + \text{Floor(Fleet Anti-air} \times \text{Formation Modifier))} \times 0.2125\text{)} }[/math], where
[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Fleet Anti-air} = \text{Floor(} \sum^\text{All slots}\text{Equipment AA Bonus} \times \text{Equipment Modifier)} }[/math]

The "Fleet Anti-Air" bonus is the sum of every equipment slot of every ship in the fleet (including the defending ship).

Equipment Modifiers

Equipment Type	Modifier
46cm Triple Gun Mount	0.25
High-angle Mounts	0.35
AA Radars	0.40
Type 3 Shell	0.60
All other equipment	0.20

• Any equipment that gives an anti-air bonus will contribute to shooting down enemy bombers.
• The ship chosen to defend against bombers is not necessarily the ship targeted by that slot.
• The ship selected to defend is not necessarily the target of the bomber. Any allied ship, including submarines, may be chosen to defend against bombers.
• The forward sliding and machine gun animations seem to have no correlation with the calculations.
• These calculations only apply for the allied fleet's anti-air defense; enemy fleets seem to use a different formula.