To the Empire Eternal Intermission: Carrier Air Power & You

A slight break from the action as I just want to put down how absolutely mind-boggled I am by the AI.
So, as we left in our last chapter, I was at war with Japan, I managed to sort out the slightly screwed up alliance situation with a bit of save-file hacking, but I'm still at war with Japan...and so far things have been going...less historically than I was expecting.
I think I found the reason why.

Out of idle curiosity I booted up the save as Japan and took a look at their research and carrier fleet, and this is what I found.

The thing to notice in this picture is the blue box marked '1922 CAG', as in '1922 Carrier Air Group', the first step in the line which would take them down to the dreaded 'Zero'. So...if they haven't started down that route...then...what are they putting on their flat-tops?

The answer is...nothing. They are sailing around a whole load of aircraft carriers with absolutely nothing on their decks.

Even Germany knows that the flat part of aircraft carriers are supposed to have aircraft on them...ok, the aircraft are pretty terrible, and there's no RADAR or anti-aircraft protection, but it's a start!

This is what it's supposed to look like, not the most recent of my carriers but it's got anti-aircraft, a CAG and a RADAR attachment.

(And also a zombie admiral...I really should replace him considering he died seven years ago...)

So...I thought I'd look at the United States of America, the pinnacle of air/naval technology, surely they would...


Never mind.