Talk:Summer 2016 Event/@comment-26294760-20160828190332/@comment-3131745-20160828195207

Equipping fighters and bombers (even LBAA) on the same LBAS provides some AA protection for the bombers and also shoots down enemy planes, and you can see the difference on the bauxite bill. Works much the same way as when you equip planes on your carriers.

When you know you're gonna face an enemy with air power (Wo-class, Nu-class), what do you equip your carriers with? Full bombers? Full fighters? A mix of each? Works the same for LBAS, except they have an order of attack, if you have several bases: LBAS1 -> LBAS2 -> LBAS3.

For example, on E4 node I. One could equip the LBAS to send there with full bombers, but the bauxite bill would then hurt like hell and the Himes, if still not chuuha'd, would bring down the hammer on the fleet, because they would still have bombers left. Because sure as hell a bomber is not nearly as effective at shooting down enemy planes as a fighter or interceptor is, not even the LBAA bombers.

In order to disable the Himes on node I, one has to either chuuha them before their respective shelling turns, or wipe out all of their bombers during the opening phase. My personal opinion is that it's a lot easier to wipe their bombers, through sending at least two LBAS to thin out their numbers (first full fighters, second 2 fighters 2 bombers), and then relying on the fleet air power and AACI to wipe the survivors. Let the fleet shelling deal the heavy damage, the LBAS and fleet airstrike deal with the enemy bombers and escort mooks. And that's how to S-rank E4 node I, at least up to Normal difficulty.

The air battle nodes are different. The point is not to sink the enemy fleet, but to survive the airstrike. Indeed, there's no shelling nor torpedo phases, only airstrike. So, for air battle nodes, the best LBAS loadout is full fighters - or, in the case of E4 nodes L and M, 3 fighters and 1 flying boat to extend the range. Sending one LBAS, split between the two nodes, thins out the numbers and allows the fleet air power and AACI to deal with the survivors, increasing the fleet survivability when there isn't much fuel left for evasion. This doesn't wipe all the enemy bombers, but shoots down enough to negate most of the danger, improving the chances reaching the boss safely.