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 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.
  • 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:

  • Universal Anti-Air Cut-in
  • High-Angle mount (main gun or secondary)  
  • Anti-Aircraft Fire Director (AAFD)  
  • Can be supplemented with an AA RADAR  
  • Achievable by any surface ship.
  • Heavy Gun Anti-Air Cut-in
  • Heavy Main Gun 
  • Type 3 Shell  
  • Anti-Aircraft Fire Director (AAFD)  
  • Can be supplemented with an AA RADAR  
  • Only usable by a BB(V) due to Heavy Gun Requirement
  • 10cm HA+AAFD Gun Cut-in
  • A High-Angle mount  
  • Another 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + AAFD
  • Available to any ship capable of equipping a Light Main Gun.
  • 25mm Concentrated Deployment Anti-Air Cut-in
  • 12.7cm HA+AAFD Anti-Air Cut-in
Unique Ships
  • Akizuki and Teruzuki 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:
  • AA RADAR (any kind)  
  • High-Angle mount (any)  
  • Isuzu Kai Ni has a built-in AA fire director that can be used with the following setup:
  • An Autocannon (any) 
  • High-Angle mount (any)  
  • AA RADAR (any kind)  

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 of blasting all of your bombers with AA weapons.

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 will be used in calculations for two types of anti-air shootdowns: percentage shootdown and 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)

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.
Fleet Anti-Air Bonus is currently suggested to only apply to fixed shootdown calculation.

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 in fleet} \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 Modifier
High-Angle Gun Mount  
(Both Main and secondary)
x4
Autocannon   x6
Air RADAR   x3
Anti-Aircraft Fire Director   x4

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

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Percentage Shootdown (in percent)} = \text {Weighted Anti-Air Value} \div 400 }[/math]

  • Alternative suggestion of [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] exists)

[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Fixed Shootdown (in # of planes)} = \text {Floor(Weighted 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). Ignoring all other contributing 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]
Thus, the values for the shootdown are calculated as follows:
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's percentage shootdown} = 221 \div 400 = 0.55 = 55 \% }[/math]
[math]\displaystyle{ \text {Akizuki's fixed shootdown} = \text{Floor(} 221 \div 10 \text{)} = 22 }[/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 56x50% (percentage) + 22 (fixed) + 1 (guaranteed)
= 30 + 22 + 1 = 53
3
Percentage Shootdown Only 56x50% (percentage) + 1 (guaranteed)
= 30 + 1 = 31
25
Fixed Shootdown Only 22 (fixed) + 1 (guaranteed) = 23 33
Neither 1 (guaranteed) 55