Somewhat similar experience as well. Not at sea but over land, 8 planes to escort or even fly the mission, I lead 4 but the AI 4 have the same mission. Often when things go down they are nowhere to be found, sometime you hear them in the landing pattern before 1st contact with enemy is made. I guess I could open the mission in the mission builder and add more paths and waypoints for a flight before the mission start, just so they can hang around long enough but I don’t want to see what the enemy has in store for that mission.