John 3rd
Posts: 17178
Joined: 9/8/2005 From: La Salle, Colorado Status: offline
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Thanks to a lot of planning, some great advice from several players, and the American Navy entering into the Japanese lair, a great aerial victory occurred on December 6, 1943. The CV TF were three hexes apart but then the Americans reacted and closed the range to two and the fight was on! The American attacks were carried out in 10 waves of aircraft. It was a strange attack: six of these attack groups were unescorted bombers that were all shot down, three groups had 10 F6F or less, and only one came in with any strength (124 F6F). Not a SINGLE plane got through to launch a torpedo or drop a bomb! Following this victory, the Japanese shift to the attack! BANZAI!! In a massive shuffling of planes the following bases are filled with these combinations of aircraft (north-to-south): Sapporo 36 F and 40 Bombers Ominato 136 F, 27 DB, and 136 B Sendai 89 F, 27 DB, and 18 TB Gumma 91 F and 90 B Tokyo 272 F, 27 DB, 61 TB, and 140 B LBA Total: 624 F, 81 DB, 79 TB, and 406 B The KB shifts some of its victorious Zeros out for something with TEETH! Onto the carrier decks land 55 DB and 136 TB to augment the 525 Fighters. I reduce CAP to 40% so a large number of planes will fly CAP as well as strike. American Options: 1. Run with the Fleet--Dan could high-tail it out with his battlefleet and leave his AP/AK/TK/AO vulnerable to slaughter. or 2. Mass everything together and HOPE his remaining Hellcats can survive the pounding. I figure that he will take Option 2 for the 7th and see what happens. I order the KB to move east to be positioned to hit his support fleet and box him in with my LBA. We'll see what tomorrow brings! Here is the VP Record for Dec 6th:
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