[2022] Fighters Consumable

There is a wind-up time when the Fighters are deployed before they begin to Patrol. If you're deploying your Fighters when enemy planes are 7-10km away, you're doing that correctly.

Next comes the interaction. There is roughly a 2 sec "Latch" time where the Fighters will see a threat in their area and then start to chase it. When they get close enough and enough time has passed since enemy planes came into range, they begin to shoot and kill 1 enemy plane per Fighter. If you are attacked by a long-range weapon like Skip Bombs and Long-Dropped Torps your Fighter may not have enough time to "Latch" to engage and shoot. If you are attacked by a Russian CV, Fighters do not attack enemy planes which has used their weapons, so once the RU CV attacks they are no longer Fighter targets.

Fighters will work best against Dive Bombers and situations where you are sailing away from the attack angle to prolong the engagement window and give more time for the Fighters to do their work. Otherwise, Fighters will prevent CVs from being able to make a follow-up strike in most situations as the additional plane loss should damage second-strike capability.