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In the Battle of Midway the Japanese and American fleets never saw ship-to-ship action and instead each fleet had its carriers continuously launch aircraft which sought out and attacked each others' ships.

Is this tactic possible for BFG? Keep your ships out of firing range as much as possible and launch assault craft and bombers to destroy the enemy fleet?

For example, at 1500 points, a Space Marine fleet can have two Battle Barges and four Strike Cruisers launch a total of 14 squadrons of Thunderhawk Gunships (which act as combination of fighter and assault boat). Against enemy ships, the Thunderhawks can do hit-and-run attacks with a +1 to the die roll thus doing hull point damage on a roll of 5 or causing a fire on a roll of 6 which can cause hull damage.

Would it be feasible for the SM fleet to stay out of range of enemy ships and just keep launching Thunderhawks to attack the enemy fleet?

By the time the enemy did come to close with the SM fleet, it would be damaged and close in is where the SM fleet excels anyway.

What is your opinion?

When I was playing actively, this was a very powerful technique that our Chaos player used. Almost every one of his ships was a carrier of some sort. The waves of bombers where almost unstoppable.

For Space Marines, I'm not so sure how well it would work, but it might be worth a try.

They used to be common with chaos fleets back before there was a limit placed on how many squadrons of attack craft you could have in play.

Now you want to close so that you can cycles your attack craft.

Even in the old days its pays to get in your 60cm lance range, thats qulality firepower any decent chaos player doesnt ignore.

I would say that a true CV vs CV battle like Coral Sea or Midway is a bit unlikely in BFG. The problem is, unless you are playing on a REALLY big table, an opponent will be able to close within direct fire range relatively easily using AAF and the like. A carrier fleet will likely not be able to do enough damage to prevent an enemy fleet that is determined to close range from doing so.

And as djones and Orlanth pointed out, the SM aren't the best fleet to attempt this strategy with. Chaos have access to more efficient carriers (in terms of cost, launch capacity, and weapons), and the Tau are actually the one fleet who seem to be designed to fight this way, with their huge carrier capacity, resilient bombers, and weak direct combat abilities. Also, in my experience, Thunderhawks are pretty under-whelming against capital ships. Great escort killers, though!

14 launch bays is not enough to win the ordnance battle. Given, Marines have a high leadership for leadership and Thunderhawks are resilient.

But remember that enemy may still brace versus t-hawks and they can shoot them with weaponry as well. Plus own ordnance.

The strength of the Marines is up close:

Boarding - Teleports - T-hawks

As stated, under the older ordnance rules, this was a very valid play style.... even for Imperials:

http://www.tacticalwargames.net/archive/force/brgone/index.html

Count the attack craft squares! One issue though is that a single wave of many bases can be vulnerable to strikes, as in some cases a single hit knocks out the entire wave.

Another thing to consider: T-hawks, although resilient, are slow compared to most other types of ordnance. This is not real suitable for "Battle of Midway" tactics, where the attack craft would seek out the ships themselves, as most ships can at least match their speed, if not best it. As said by others, Thunderhawks are best when used in conjunction with other knife-fighting-range tactics such as boarding, teleport attacks, and boarding torpedoes.

They also work pretty well as a screening force against other ordnance, and I think that is where they come in handy the most when playing an attack-craft-heavy opponent.