Childs class AVDs and Java Sea

Seaplanes and tenders/carriers are some of my personal favorites, and I've been extremely happy to finally have a ruleset that actually gives them use beyond convoy fodder or an off the board asset. (GQ3 may or may not as well, but I haven't put the time into learning that as I would like).
I've been reading In the Hands of Fate (www.amazon.com/Hands-Fate-Patrol-Decembe...jacket/dp/1557505470), and it mentions that the Langley was just the flagship of Patwing 10, and that there were actually three other tenders assigned as well. One was an extremely old and run down sloop that had been part of the Asiatic fleet forever, and was tasked with looking after the Utility Squadron (which I think is actually what you've got grouped with Langley in the OOB, but since you've got Cats in there as another choice, it really isn't something to be upset about). The other two tenders were converted four-stackers. USS Childs was one of them (and I don't recall the name of the second, and don't have the text to hand right at the moment). Since there are actually models for these ships on Shapeways (along with the other two classes of four-stacker auxiliaries) I thought maybe a statcard and the option to swap out the Langley for a few points less for one of the Childs class AVDs would be fun. From what I read, the conversions traded the center two 4" guns, the 3" gun, the torpedo tubes, and the forward engine room for the needed equipment as well as housing for aircrew. Apparently they also picked up some additional .50cal mgs. The image is a sample from google books, it has hopefully all the ship specs you would need. :cheer:

destroyerhistory.org/flushdeck/avd/

Interesting! And just a small effort in adding this ship and its statcard. I'll see what I can come up with. As you may have noticed I have the replacement cards for the other 'errors' (emile bertin and giuseppe miraglia) ready, but since it has become quite a 'thing' to upload the large zip-files to the site I'm waiting a bit untill I've collected enough additions and fixes to make it worth the effort. In the meantime I'm busy putting together a ship list for the guadalcanal OOB's (just preliminary work) so I'll probably be adding the datacards for those ships also while I'm at it

Would you put the Childs seaplane tenders in the slot for Langley; ie. Instead of the seaplane tender slot, or as an option in the scouting section slot? This would enable a player to put in two seaplane tenders in one list...

From what I've read, The Langley and the two Childs were both largely responsible for the Catalinas. But the cats were generally armed from boats in the case of the seaplanes and on land primarily in the case of the amphibian models that came later in the war. Langley was big enough to bring them on board for major work, but I don't think she routinely did so for refuel and rearm. This is a long, and lack of sleep influenced and roundabout way of saying I'd put the Childs into the tender slot as an either Langley/ or Childs option, primarily for the sake of simplicity. Now if you really did want to make the ABDA list even more unique (as in, only list that gets to field two seaplane tenders at once), you could always put the 1-2 Do-24's /or a Childs and 1-2 flights of PBY-5s as a significantly more expensive option. Note that I love seaplanes to a fault, and by extension tenders too, but I feel like from a pure design perspective, the simplest option to implement is going to be the better one.

I've changed the OOB to include the above seaplane tenders. New datacards are also on their way to the webmaster to be put on the site, keep an eye out for the 1.3.1 version updates of the files.