Canoerebel
Posts: 21100
Joined: 12/14/2002 From: Northwestern Georgia, USA Status: offline
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To come up with a plan for Day 2, I first mulled over what Dave can do and what he might do. He has damaged carriers, but his carriers apparently only used half their aircraft. He has a big airfield. He has lots of combat ships. Perhaps 50/50 he commits strongly vs. DS, either combat TFs alone or in combo with carriers. On the chance that his damaged vessels retire, subs will move forward, taking station between Koepang and Soerabaja (they've been there before, and Dave installed a lot of air and sea ASW, so this isn't a long-term mission). Allied strike aircraft are a mess and many carriers have no torpedoes left. It thus appears that, by default, DS's mission must be defensive, temporarily. Accordingly, it will retire to escort damaged vessels to Darwin and to link up with the Broome-area CVE TF. Many remnant strike squadrons were moved to airfields. Many LBA naval squadrons were moved to the carriers. And all DS fighters set for CAP, none for escort. If DS and Mini CVE DS unite tomorrow, they'll have about 900 aircraft, some 300 less than DS had when this day started. Three or four combat TFs to detach from the Herd, steam to Roti to (try to) intercept outbound enemy TFs, and then to retire to Darwin.
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