S3 Series

Since they cannot launch till we destroy a ground target, I want everyone to launch heavy.

I would like our first strike to be against the shipping in the Harbour. Torpedoes would be the order of the day for the bombers and strike aircraft. If someone could get a count of the ships I plan to send 1 torp plane for destroyers, 1 or 2 for cruisers and 2 torps for Battle Ships or Heavy Cruisers. They should not have DAR as it was in testing and only worked at night.

We can go NOE so they can't even see us until the ships start blowing up in Pearl. If ack is up, I will need some Heavy fighters or Vals to take out the ack just as the Kates enter the Harbour area with their torps. If there is no ACK, fighters will stay NOE and when the Kates go into Pearl, they can pop and hit whatever they can, then start climbing. They will have alt over any Yankee Iron that launches when the shipping is hit, however, the ACK may become active so I will assign some people to hit the ACK around Pearl.

The Kate, with a torp and 100% fuel had 80 minutes of fuel at 100% throttle. I would suggest about 80% throttle on the way in to make simultaneous attacks easier to coordinate.

Any thoughts, suggestions are welcome.

Once I have the planning map, I can firm up the orders some more.

<S>

ps. for those of you wondering, Jabo was a little light on bombers/strike and we volunteered at the start of this season to do 1 or 2 frames if he needed us. We are like the Knights, some strike/bombers and some escort.

Would recommend launching the torp cadre 10 to 15 minutes early. Not as fast as the zeke, (yes I know), this will give them cover right after the first boom, and they could then "cap" the enemy airfields keeping them penned up for a while longer whilst the high alt bombers hit targets of opportunity, and allow the strike aircraft to return to the CVs. Will need to test this, but we will also need to know where the strike fleet is located for timing and such.

Swede- S/L 416 Sentai 127 Wing

If there is no dar then why NOE? Just asking to get shot down by AAA with or without it being on. Depending on CV routine we might need to take the economical altitude. Also, they have F4Fs available which I am going to assume means the thier carriers might be closer to Pearl than they were in 1941 providing better QRF. Don't forget Yamamoto intended to sink the CVs and were surprise to not find them there in a stroke of luck and knew the USN could still come knockin'. Perhaps we need more intel on what targets are available. Might need to prepare for a CV hunt.

Should we consider a late frame attack to limit their reaction window? What are the odds/is it necessary to get multiple sorties in?

Couple of things I would watch out.
#1 - Can't see how the Ack wont be shooting at us. Unless the fields are RED and then turned green after? That being said, There are 40mm, 20mm and MG's on the east side of the island that HAVE to be taken out or the torpedo planes die.


#2 - Static ships will go down easy. The key is to hit the hit box with a torpedo. I haven't tested it yet but I get the 20mm cannons will take the static ships down. We need to test the torpedoes to see if we can hit the "right" stop. Also, I assume we will have 2 wingmen so I think 1 person per ship should do it. In fact the AI will probably hit the boats behind the 1st line of boats.

#3 - Do we know IF the torpedoes will even work? Over the last year or so, they have "fixed" the torpedoes. If you are to close they will go under the boats. Do we even know if the torpedoes will work in the arena? I cant try until Thursday or Friday. We may have to bomb everything.

#4 - I love the idea of the fighters going heavy. Have everyone on station then call drop and reek havoc.

#5 - DONT fly NOE. No reason if no US fighters in the air. Stay high to avoid ack. Probably be a low DAR ceiling anyway.

#6 - Please kill the ack (40mm, 20mm and MG's). the 88's are pretty easy to avoid.

Developing the idea USN CVs are in play, it may take a plan of extreme patience. We hold bombs until CV is found to establish cover or send a Torp group over. We can fly over Pearl and they can't do squat until bombs drop. Attack at the same time with as much anti QRF coverage as possible.

Some initial data... Will work more details tomorrow night.

Static ships don't seem to go down by staffing with the A6M2. Also seems they don't go down with 1x 800kg. 2 per ship does the job. Torps work great. hit a static C1 at any given point with a torp. and she blows.

Use of torps. almost means getting NOE even if this is at the last minute (Please correct me if Im wrong here but we need to be fairly low and slow to drop them right?)

F14 is the field with the max number of static ships - 13.

15 has 2, 12 has 2 (Which is hilarious and 27 has 1

14/15 in the same area has 15 between them. Having no details of AI shipping yet cannot tell where or how many there will be.

14 has 4x 40mm, 2x80,
15 has 2x 40mm, 2x80 and 1xMG

It would require a minimum of 3 kates to take these down. (1x 60kg on each 40mm) and 1 x 250 on each 80.

If the rules require 100% targets or close message in buffer then pretty much the historical targets are out given our regular numbers. e.g. 14 would require 43 Kates or 103 VALs to take down. (This is only considering real bombers. I'll test AI bomber performance over the next couple of days and post).

Thanks Noflyz, I was able to drop a torpedo at 250' alt doing 200 mph and it armed after 3 seconds and ran straight and true.

BTW, for us fighter dudes in Kates, what are the wingman commands that we will need to use?

I would not personally worry about the 80's. They very seldom hit anything unless you are flying perfectly level and straight.

I think my post above shows what must go down.

per rules, no attacking CV's this series.

Also, the US can NOT use the CV (or the F4F) unless they have no fields to use on Oahu. So we should be careful to leave 3 fields un-capped if we only want P40's.

Beaver sir,
How far away where you when you dropped? 3 seconds seems pretty close.

(p.s. I always use the cntrl+F12 to get the wingman pop-up to come up. Sometimes we have troubles with the .dot commands)