S3 Series

Excellent job by all involved.

The Japanese did not seem interested in opposing the first strike.

Bombers killed ships at 60 and 61 and various other targets and egressed.

Strikes killed moving ships at Point D while 475FG orbited.

352FG found ALL of the enemy circling north of the strikes at very high altitude.

475FG moved north to support.

352FG started to egress south but quickly realized the enemy were not committing to a chase. 475FG joined the fight after 352FG had made several kills. High elements of 475FG chased 10+ bandits north while low elements of 475FG and 352FG dispatched the divided and outnumbered low bandits.

Second sortie, 475FG found a group of enemy Zeroes low trying to attack the inbound strike. They were killed with one loss to 475FG. The rest of the frame was covering for the excellent second sortie by the bombers and strike groups.

Mistakes

I did not anticipate an unopposed first strike and was torn against pulling the FG's out to support sortie 2 or pursuing the very timid enemy north. Finally I let 352FG make the decision for me. They were in contact and I told 475FG we would follow their lead. If they committed we would commit. If they egressed, we would do the same. 352FG can be relied upon to pursue and kill relentlessly and this worked very much in our favor has we did great damage to the enemy we caught.

Mistakes by the enemy

Engaging the P38G at 30K. Apparently they did not do their homework on the new flight models and made the classic mistake of believing altitude is trump in all situations. They paid dearly for the mistake.

The enemy had a superior force present even after the 475FG arrived but did not press this advantage. As a consequence they were destroyed by local numerical superiority as their forces split into low fighters and high runners.

We should keep this lesson in mind. Local numerical superiority is king and we should always endeavor to act in concert during fighter ops.

In the end, the 475FG and 352FG aggressive spirit and TRAINING in the new FM's won a big victory in one of the biggest furballs I have seen in an S3. The P38G is superior in certain ways to the enemy aircraft and the enemy lack of familiarity caused them to choose a fight on the worst terms, at high altitude.

Excellent job by everyone.

Dawger,
You guys were awesome! I never saw a con all night, just buffer kills from the 475th and the 352nd (I think I counted 26 kills for 2 losses).
GREAT JOB!



So.......... thinking out loud here, and only MY thoughts, I would think the IJ are pretty pissed-off about now. After 2 frames of butt kicking I am sure their forums are lit up. We have all been on the bad side of a match-up before and really didn't like it much. So my thoughts are, how about for frame 3, we swap roles. It had been talked about for years but never happened as far as I recall. Make the Buff's the fighters and put the fighters in B24's.

Technically this is against the rules but I would bet that Jabo would allow it. I think it would be a riot to have me, hawk, Gum's,...... flying fighter escort for Juice, Dawger, vulch......... in Big Buffs.

Maybe a way to throw a bone to the guys on the other side. The S3 is about everyone having fun. Right now, we are having the fun part, the 4th, AE, 8th, JG, and 23rd are not having much.

Would be a learning experience for all. I would even post on the general when you post the Rabaul Raid

Is that like in softball when you let me, the large oafish 3rd baseman play SS and then CF .. batting opposite handed... because we are kicking them so badly? Were I on the other end I would take offense at that.

As it turns out there is a partial explanation for the extreme dominance.

Not all of it but something that makes it more lopsided than it should have been.

Sorry to so cryptic but it isn't my place to provide any more detail.

I wouldn't mind the role swap but I think in light of events this morning I think the first two frames of BHP should be stricken from the record and we play out the remainder as a 3 frame series.

I'm not even going to ask.
The problem is that if there was a mistake somewhere, it's the FMT that will be blamed for it.

The Knights also took out ships at 23, 28, 41 and 42.

Yes every target on the list was hit and then some

Sweet! Good plan, good execution.