Nightstalkers were tasked with sinking ships in the middle of the slot.
Based at 58 it was a long flight in our TBD's. about 1/3 of the way there we had multiple reports of cons at 33 & multiple zeros ahead of us in the slot. We decided that it was just too hairy to try and get through there on our own.
We thought over our options and proceeded to head north and look for the static shipping targets listed up there. It was still a long flight, but we carried enough fuel and those hamsters in the cage behind the propeller dont eat that much...
We found the ships 4 destroyers and 4 transports at 7.8.5 location... torpedoed all 4 destroyers, however they had hidden ack emplacements underneath them which fired even after the dd's were blown up.
returning to the carriers (which were running away east) we were worried that our TBD's might be slower than them... but we eventually landed and re-upped with more torpedoes to finish off the transports.
On the way to target there was talk of an enemy CV near 33. We decided to fan out and scout for a cv near the static shipping. Just as we were contemplating turning south towards 33 Mtdew stumbled across the carrier formation. We formed up together in 2 ship elements and headed to target.
AAA was incredible... shells coming down from above as they were firing in tall arcs... Mtdew & Bfrog took out the first CV... Hobo & I were holding back to see if we needed to hit the same one... We saw the big explosion and diverted to the second one. Unfortunately we took a bad line to target and rather than turn towards the screening destroyers we bore in on the CV at a bad angle. Combine that with a the AA and not having enough lead we missed
we were almost out of AA range when we were jumped by angry zeros with markings of the 23rd.we were eventually all shot down. Apologies to the Japanese swine who were robbed of kills as we were too low to bail out... 2 of us ditched but were not shown as shot down. It was not to avoid being shot down as I had no elevator or rudder or flaps....and Mtdew drug a wing in the water, which came off but the TBD wasnt going fast enough to destroy itself in the water.
Totals are as follows:
4 Static Destroyers sunk
1 CV sunk
5 airframes lost.
Thanks Weis for stepping up, apologies if our choices made it more difficult to (as gums has said) "herd the cats"