Better luck for the RN carrier force 1939-1941

But IIRC in December 1941 the standard US CVBG was 72 aircraft in 4 squadrons of 18. That is one fighter, one scout, one dive bomber and one torpedo bomber.

Yes air group numbers went up but generally - helped by the new folding wing F4F-4 Wildcat and there being fewer TBDs - but at Coral Sea the air groups were as follows

Lexington- 35 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, 12 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, 19 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters (67)
Yorktown- 35 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers, 10 Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, 17 Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat fighters (63)

To be fair the USN treated the Dauntless in the same fashion as the British ahd treated the Skua - as a fighter bomber with 2 fwd firing .50 cal Brownings in the cowling but at Coral sea the IJA strike flew over them and their performance was found to be inadequate as a fleet defence fighter (superb as a Dive bomber!).

One of the learnings from the earlier battle for the USN was that the carriers were operating apart and sent strikes independently meaning that the 38 Wildcats of the 2 ships had to be split between 4 places at the same time and therefore the numbers proved to be inadequate - at Midway the 3 USN Carriers had 79 fighters between them and Enterprise / Hornet operating together could combine their CAP - making their fighter compliments several times more effective at Midway compared to Coral Sea.
 
The point I was trying to make is that pre-war the RN and USN underestimated the number of fighters that they would need. OTOH as the war progressed fighters could carry heavier loads and evolved into fighter-bombers.

It wasn't meant as a criticism, it was one of those things.
 
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