[Panzergranate]

Carriers don't scramble..... they can't.

A pilot waits on deck for his aircraft to be raised to the flight deck on the elevator, waits for it to be prepared by the flight crew, is ushered over to board the fighter, is strapped in and waits to be launched.

Carrier pilots are valeted, so cannot scramble at all.

Hence why there are always Combat Air Patrols circling overhead.

Anybody who's played BS Midway or BS Pacific will be laughing their heads off at the "Carrier Scramble" idea. You should experience just many minutes it takes to launch just 3 fighters from a carrier in the game.

Any incoming bombers will have been, bombed and gone by the time enough fighters made it into the air and up high enough to intercept, by which time it would be pointless.

Having caught out a carrier landing TBFs and desperately trying to clear the decks to launch fighters, I can tell you that myself and another player managed to not only divebomb freely with our Judy divebombers, but also outrun the fighters launched by another carrier that came to deal with us, bearing in mind that the Judy is 65 MPH faster than the F4-F Wildcat. The Carrier we attacked failed to launch a single fighter, despite our bombing attack taking 99% of its health away. We only attacked with 15 divebombers.