rotor911
Posts: 40
Joined: 12/13/2004 Status: offline
|
I just read magazine article with unusual level of detail (exact number of planes, precise losses) about the Japanese raids against Dutch Harbor (Aleutian Islands) in June 1942 and I noted several interesting things. First, I'm impressed by WITP : the numbers of planes and losses reported in the article could have come straight out of a combat report. On the contrary, several facts were rather different from what happens in my games. - the escort fighters straffed systematically the target, with some results, even during port attacks. - D3A dropped their bombs from 1000 feet, not 2000, at least during this particular attacks - Recon and naval search missions were a lot more dangerous during this campaign than they are in WITP : several floatplanes, both Japanese and American, were shot down by enemy CAP (nearly all those which found something in fact). You could even think reading the article that naval search was the most dangerous mission during this war. - B17 naval attacked VERY low (1000 & 2000 Lb bombs at 900 feet!) - last, but not least, the fact which intrigued me the most : the zero of a pilot named Koga Tadayoshi being damaged, he tried an emergency landing on an Akutan island. He was killed but the plane was intact. Found some weeks later by the Americans, he was quickly brought to Seattle and studied in detail. And this event, says the author of the article, is the most important of the Aleutian campaign because it "allowed Americans to developped the tactics which ended the Zero invincibility". In June 1942.. Looks like the "Zero advantage", in the author's opinion, lasted much longer than in WITP.. Voila. The magazine is "Histoire de Guerre", February issue, and there's a site. Yes, it's in French.
|