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.

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

Formula for calculating fighter power (works for all fleets):

[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]

Notes regarding this phase:

Fighter planes and specific Torpedo / Dive / Seaplane bombers with an AA stat participate in the Fighter Combat.
Recon planes (both Carrier-based and Seaplane) will not participate in Fighter Combat.
The allied fleet and enemy fleet's fighter powers (as well as whether detection was successful) are checked 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 or Failed Detection	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 Flagship 2 (partial red takoyaki planes)	100	Northern Princess World 3-5 (HQ < 85)	72
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Flagship 2 (red takoyaki planes)	103	Northern Princess World 3-5 Final Form	109
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship	102	Northern Princess World 3-5 Final Form (HQ < 85)	105
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship 2	108	Aircraft Carrier Demon	96
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship 2 (partial red takoyaki planes)	126	Anchorage Water Demon	0
Standard Carrier Wo-Class Kai Flagship 2 (red takoyaki planes)	132	Harbor Princess	80
Battleship Re-Class	94	Harbor Princess World 4-5 Final Form	53
Battleship Re-Class Elite	107

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

Ship Type or specific ship(s)	Req'd Equip 1	Req'd Equip 2	Req'd Equip 3	Req'd Equip 4	Guaranteed Shootdown Bonus	Notes
All surface ships (Everything except SS)	HA + AAFD	HA + AAFD	Air RADAR	-	4	Possible highest activation rate (except setups specific to certain ships)?
	HA + AAFD	Air RADAR	-	-	4	-
	HA	AAFD	Air RADAR	-	3	-
	HA	AAFD	-	-	2	-
	25mm Triple Autocannon Mount (Concentrated Deployment)	Autocannon	Air RADAR	-	3	-
Battleships (BBV/Fast BB included)	Heavy Gun	Type 3 Shell	AAFD	Air RADAR	6	Special attacks impossible (both day and night)
Battleships (BBV/Fast BB included)	Heavy Gun	Type 3 Shell	AAFD	-	4	Artillery Spotting attacks impossible; Special nighttime attacks possible
Akizuki & Teruzuki	HA	HA	RADAR	-	7	Low priority Surface RADAR works for these two setups
	HA	RADAR	-	-	6	Low priority Surface RADAR works for these two setups
	HA	HA	-	-	4	Low priority
Maya Kai Ni	HA	25mm Triple Autocannon Mount (Concentrated Deployment)	Air RADAR	-	8	Artillery Spotting attacks impossible; Special nighttime attacks possible
Maya Kai Ni	HA	25mm Triple Autocannon Mount (Concentrated Deployment)	-	-	6	Daytime cut-in attack possible (main+sec); Special nighttime attacks possible
Isuzu Kai Ni	HA	Autocannon	Air RADAR	-	3	Isuzu Kai Ni uses this cut-in even if HA is replaced with HA+FD Special attacks impossible (both day and night)

HA = All high-angle mounts.
HA+FD = 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD, 12.7cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD, 90mm Single High Angled Gun
AAFD = Anti-Aircraft Fire Director (Type 91 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director, Type 94 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director)

Notes

Can trigger from either fleet in a Combined Fleet situation.
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 Air RADAR.
Slots otherwise empty can be equipped with anything else without disabling the Anti-Air Cut-In.
If Isuzu Kai Ni is equipped with her special setup but with an HA+FD instead of regular HA, she will still use her special setup which has a lower bonus than the universal HA+FD w/ Air RADAR AACI.
A maximum of 1 ship will perform AACI per battle (regardless of how many ships are capable of doing so).
Priorities exist if multiple ships can perform AACI; for example, all of Akizuki/Teruzuki-specific setups have high bonus but low priority. Because the AACI triggered affects the bonus to bombers shot down, it may be desired to limit the number of ships with AACI setup.
Does not affect the determination of Air Superiority.
Cannot shoot down pure enemy fighters.
For opponents:

In Exercises, enemy can perform AACI, but the cut-in animation will not display even if one was performed.
It is not known whether abyssal ships can perform AACI at this time.

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)

Fleet Anti-Air Defense (old formula, outdated)

Note: This section's info no longer applies and is preserved as historical information. See here for the current formula. Click the Expand button on the right to see the old formula.

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 (old formula)

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.

Fleet Anti-Air Defense (new formula)

Note: The formula for this section is for the player's side. The formula for abyssal ships is strongly suggested to be different.

After plane loss from fighter combat is calculated, for each enemy bomber slot ( / / ), a random ship (defending ship) is assigned to defend against that slot via AA fire.

Fighters are not subject to AA fire from ships.
The ship performing AA fire is not necessarily the same ship that the bomber will attack; the ship performing AA fire may not even be a surface ship.

The defending ship's weighted anti-air value and the fleet's total fleet anti-air value' are calculated and used in the formula for the two types of anti-air shootdowns: percentage shootdown and fixed shootdown.

Fleet anti-air value is only used in calculation for fixed shootdown.
Both shootdowns have 50% chance to succeed; failing means no planes are shot down for that part of the calculation.
Percentage shootdown will be done prior to anti-air cut-in and fixed shootdown calculation.
Friendly units additionally get a guaranteed shootdown of 1 plane (per slot) after the percentage/fixed shootdowns; this applies even if both percentage shootdown and fixed shootdown fail. (Enemy fleet does not get this 1-plane guarantee)

AACI adds to the guaranteed shootdown count if triggered.

There was a bug causing the formation anti-air modifier and fleet anti-air bonus to not function; this was fixed on June 26, 2015.

For each ship, the formula for its weighted anti-air value is calculated as follows:

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Weighted Anti-Air Value} = \text{Ship's Innate Anti-Air Value} + \sum^\text{All equipment slots} \text{[ Equipment Multiplier} \times { \text {Equipment's Anti-Air Value} + 0.7 \times \sqrt{\text{Equipment's Improvement Level}} } \text{ ]} }[/math]

where equipment multiplier is shown in the table below:

Equipment Type	Equipment Multiplier
High-Angle Gun Mount (Both Main and secondary)	x4
Autocannon	x6
Air RADAR	x3
Anti-Aircraft Fire Director	x4

The fleet's fleet anti-air value is calculated as follows:　

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Fleet Anti-Air Value} = \text {Floor( Formation Modifier} \times \sum^\text{All ships} \text{Ship's Fleet Anti-Air Bonus)} \times 2, }[/math]

where

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Ship's Fleet Anti-Air Bonus} = \text {Floor( }\sum^\text{All equipment slots} \text {Equipment's Anti-Air Value} \times \text{Equipment Modifier )} }[/math]

The Formation Modifier and the Equipment Modifier are shown below:

Formation	Formation Modifier
Line Ahead Echelon Line Abreast	x0.77
Double Line	x0.91
Diamond	x1.2

Equipment Type	Equipment Modifier
High-Angle Gun Mount Anti-Aircraft Fire Director	x0.35
All other guns Autocannon	x6
Air RADAR	x0.4
Type 3 Shell	x0.6

Multipliers for equipment not listed are not confirmed at this time.

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Percentage Shootdown (in # of planes)} = \text{Floor(Weighted Anti-Air Value} \times 0.9 \text{)} \div 360 \times \text{Number of Planes in Slot} }[/math]
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Fixed Shootdown (in # of planes)} = \text {Floor[(Weighted Anti-Air Value + Fleet Anti-Air Value)} \div 10 \text{]} }[/math]

Example of shootdown calculation

Akizuki (Innate AA value of 116, equipped with two 10cm HA+FD *+6 and an Type 13 Air RADAR Kai) is defending against Aircraft Carrier Princess's torpedo bomber slot (with 56 planes). Assuming the formation is Line Ahead and no other AA factors such as Anti-Air Cut-In, fighter combat, and bonus from other members in fleet,
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's Weighted AA Value} = 116 + 4 \times (10 + 0.7 \times \sqrt{6} ) \times 2 + 3 \times 4 = 221 }[/math]
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's Fleet AA Bonus} = \text{Floor(} 10 \times 0.35 \times 2 + 4 \times 0.4 \text{)}= 8 }[/math]
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Fleet AA Value} = \text {Floor(} 0.77 \times 8 \text{)} \times 2 = 12 }[/math]

Thus, the values for the shootdown are calculated as follows:
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's percentage shootdown} = 221 \times 0.9 \div 360 \times 56 = 30 }[/math]
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's fixed shootdown} = \text{Floor[(} 221 + 12 \text{)} \div 10 \text{]} = 23 }[/math]
The shootdown takes place in the order of percentage, then fixed, then guaranteed, so there are 4 possible outcomes:

Which Shootdown successful?	Shootdown calculation	Aircraft Carrier Princess's Remaining Torpedo Bombers
Both Percentage and Fixed Shootdown	30 (percentage) + 23 (fixed) + 1 (guaranteed) = 54	2
Percentage Shootdown Only	30 (percentage) + 1 (guaranteed) = 31	25
Fixed Shootdown Only	23 (fixed) + 1 (guaranteed) = 24	32
Neither	1 (guaranteed)	55