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greywulfe -> Phillipine Sea scenario (8/13/2007 5:47:48 PM)
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What a difference a few years makes. As the Japanese, I never had great difficulty defeating the US forces in battle pre-1944.
My first instincts were that attacking large carrier forces in small attacks would be fruitless as they could be dealt with by CAP. I tried nonetheless and was able to score some hits on the Essex group near IWO JIMA, but was far less successful near Saipan. The Essex group eventually turns south and merges with the WASP II groups.
I decided to try another method - this time pulling all forces back out of enemy range to wait until my carrier forces arrived. Once my carrier forces arrived, I moved all my land based forces to GUAM and IWO JIMA and coordinated a massive strike on the US carriers the next day. Despite a huge strike, all cohesive, timed to arrive at the same time, from 3 different directions and with ALL my carrier based aircraft and land forces - the end result was massive losses from CAP and only a few hits on enemy carriers. Of course, their counterstrike devastated several of my carriers.
I guess my main question is how to best deal with these large forces. It seems once the US carriers are all together, their CAP defense were very effective. Do I try an end run and try to hit the Saipan forces? Wait until one of their carrier groups separates from the main body?
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