I’m surprised the term interceptor isn’t thrown around more.
From a gameplay perspective, I think the older CG(N) are most needed for the carrier battle group. The Ticonderoga with AEGIS and VLS is capable to defend against an insane amount of missiles (rightfully so). This somewhat lessens the reliance on the fighters for fleet defense and therefore player involvement (since we will be participating in this from within cockpits). Adding the Arleigh Burke will increase the number of VLS AEGIS ships in the CVBG in such a way as to make it practically impregnable in DCS, which will make any fighter involvement pointless. I think the Cold War cruisers (Belknap, Leahy, California, Virginia or even the Mk 26 Ticonderoga) would offer a better balance gameplay wise. Providing credible air defense for the CVBG while still being somewhat more reliant on fighters to thin out threats.
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Very true. Not to mention, even Adams-class and Farragut-class DD/DDG/DLG’s and Knox-class DE/FF’s had some AAW capability, and would be VERY fitting for Cold War scenarios going from the 60’s onward.
Also, my ultimate dream would be for Long Beach. I would LOVE to see her in game with a Forrestal and some escorting time-correct DD’s and FF’s.
And for the love of all that is holy, can we get some fleet oilers as well? That could make for fun mission building as well.
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Absolutely. NATO’s Northern Flank and The Soviet Far East Military District.
Good to remember that these potential great battles east and west, were really just a means to an end. If won by US & NATO it would have enabled us to gain access to the Soviet Navy’s Bastion Areas—the ocean space where their SSBNs were operating by the late 1980s.
Threatening that part of the Soviet’s nuclear triad would? I think the idea as that they would rethink their actions in Germany/Western Europe with an eye towards a less kinetic solution. 
Or it might have pushed them to start firing those SLBMs before they lost them. 
We will never know.
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@MBot, aren’t the carrier escorts supposed to be placed further out?
While I see both versions of the Bug as not being anywhere near the equal of the Turkey when it comes to fleet air defense, I think we do need to keep in mind that modern deployments are consisting of 4 squadrons of the aircraft, coupled with a better readiness rate than the Turkey. 48 aircraft and assuming that 8 are down at any time leaves you with 40 aircraft with which to do a variety of things. For example, you could have some aircraft hold in closer for fleet defense while sending out others to run an intercept – and each aircraft could potentially have up to 10 AIM-120, though more likely to be 6-8 with bags.
The formation is based on the threat. If you have more than 1CG, placing one 50 or so Nm down the threat axis is probably prudent. You always keep one CG back as the “shotgun”. That CG is also “AW”, the Air Warfare Commander in the Navy’s Composite Warfare Commander doctrine.
The other units may or may not have a position in the air defense screen formation since they may be doing ASW or ASUW, etc. Depends on the threat.
An AESA radar on every bird, eight AIM-120Ds, and a more capable surface to air system backstopping you do a lot to make up the difference. Still need to be pretty good about your CAP placement though.
Of course my new anti-ship tactics for the Dynamic Campaign Engine work for both sides equally. Here I quickly set down a Russian Surface Action Group and defined it as a campaign target.
Upon generating the next mission, the ATO came up with this semi-KISS wheel involving 4 flights of 4 Hornets armed with two Harpoon each.
After launching from the carrier and forming up into flights overhead, the elements push to adhere to attain a simultaneous TOT.
Heading out.
32 Harpoons are launched.
Slava opens up with SA-N-6.
A few missiles get through. Slava and Kutznetsov are hit once, a Krivak is hit twice and a second Krivak is sunk. The late Soviet ships are tough nuts to crack, but with one ship sunk the next mission should be slightly easier. Unfortunately I cannot carry over damaged ships (or even damaged sub-system) from one mission to the next. That would be very cool.
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Probably yes, I didn’t pay a lot of attention when setting it up. My experience from playing CMANO is that ASW generally favors wide formations, to get the subs far out before they can threaten the juicy stuff in the center, while air-defense generally favors close formations, to maximize mutual protection.
One hard lesson I learned in CMNAO is that nuclear weapons dictate wide formations 
I once had an escort a couple of miles from the HVU eat a nuclear tipped SS-N-7, only to observe the blast taking out half of the task force.
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Unfortunately I cannot carry over damaged ships (or even damaged sub-system) from one mission to the next. That would be very cool.
Maybe the reasonable compromise is to place the damaged ship in port for 1 to n days of emergency repairs? Or limit fleet speed in next mission due to damage. Or, if you really wanna get complicated, ship damage could be recreated at the start of the mission by having an immortal AI unit spawn next to the ship in question, fire limited ordnance, and then despawn.
The only workaround I can think of is setting off an an explosion on the unit at the beginning of the next mission roughly equivalent to the number of missiles taken. Given how DCS models damage though, 
, caveat emptor.
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Maybe that kind of randomization is fair though… sometimes the damage control parties get a handle on thing, sometimes the fires/flooding gets out of hand. Though I guess the fleet formation might be an issue when a ship may or may not still be present just after the scenario starts to run.