TBF Avenger and other planes

[Furio]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I see that differently:
It was a grave mistake to have own planes in the process of rearming while there was a potential American strike under way - and if doing so, then it was sheer folly to not have a massive CAP present.
The first enabled the enemy to strike the carriers with deadly force even with a few hits, the second made it highly propable for the above to happen.
The existing CAP beeing distracted by the Devastators for me is not as decisive (though it helped) - it would IMHO not have mattered if the CAP were at altitude -as three squads of dive bombers arrived nearly at the same time(some fine piloting on that day by American crews).
And it would likley have been enough to hit every carrier once/twice -Akagi as an example, and later in the war there were other carriers that sunk after one or two hits because the hits started inquenchable avgas fires.

Any disaster is the end result of a long series of mistakes, some minor, some major, some decisive. IMHO, Devastators at Midway were decisive, but even if they only helped, fact remains that secondary planes often play a major role. Il2 is so good, and still better than newer sims, because it already has several of these types. Some new ones will simply add to this richness. According to my taste, of course.