S3 Series

Gents,

I was unable to make frame 1. I would appreciate any and all thoughts on what worked and what we could do better for Frame 2.

Dobs wrote this about Fr. 1

It appears that from frame one, even though we had 12 fighters out patrolling the skies. We seen the enemy on radar and got the SCRAMBLE orders long before out initial 12 were able to spot them.

I suggest maybe having the early planes just get to altitude above the shipping and protect the rest as we climb out after the scramble order.

Thanks, Doc.


This from Tracer:

77 tried to help our comrades in need, but were about 10 seconds too late. We though we had more help around us when we engaged but it evaporated quickly and soon it was the 352nd vs 6 of us. That being said I'm not sure results would have differed much if as a group we poured it on instead of high tailing it out of there. Reference jlord's first 2 videos. It's almost infuriating to hear so many of them say "he hammered the hell out of me" and nothing come of it. Not being able to efficiently kill the enemy nullifies any sort of performance advantage we work towards.

What was the altitude of the SBDs? Probably best to stay low, force the fighters to come to us and take as many bombers as possible.

From the series rules... "the IJN may only launch 12 a/c to patrol the Truk area at T+0."

Scouts are optional the way I read it. (Jabo, please correct me if I'm wrong.) IMO, radar gives more than sufficient time to mount a reasonable defense IF...


-We give up the idea of fighting at 9000 m, and use their aggressiveness against them. This is a far different animal than ETO, so our thinking must change. The rare air environment caters to the F6F-5's strengths, not ours, and is probably what the Allies expect us to do by habit. Why give it to them? I really don't see a need to go above 1500 - 2500 m, the bombers are NOE. Staying low forces the Allied astronauts to make a decision. Remain a non-threat in the nose-bleed safe zone, or commit to a low E fight against an angry axis turn-fighting swarm and possible ack?

-Keep the entire axis force in visual range of each other at all times. We simply don't have the cruise speed to cover significant distances and effectively back each other up. Think sardine ball that can shoot back. Don't be bothered by bandits on oxygen and dare them to dive into us. We have the agility at lower altitudes to dodge any and all high speed attacks, at will. If they're gullible or frustrated enough to enter a low E turn fight with a ball of A6M's working together, then we have the advantage. Doubly so with numbers.

-As tracer suggested, keep it over our turf. There's nowhere to go over open water, and no chance of outrunning a F6F-5 over a long distance at any altitude. Don't put ourselves in a position where we might have to go far. We also know exactly where the bombers will be going. Intercept is much easier if we're already over the target. If they do close a large field, it takes only six SBD/TBD kills to equalize the score. They cap our field? We wait for them to run out of fuel, then feast on the remaining bombers. Fuel divisor is set to 0.75.


Be one with the armed sardine...

Send 12 up to get high and west of Truk.

Scramblers stay below 5,000 feet where we nullify the enemy ability to dive away and force the enemy into a turn fight.

Once they come low the 12 can come in from the top.

We showed our hand putting the 12 scouts on enemy radar very early.

They will be a lot more nervous if they know we have 12 airborne but off radar

From what I saw as the Frame developed, we should not have strayed outside of the Ring, they have ack which can make it difficult for their fighters if they get too low.

I might point out that the TDB has NORDEN bomb sights, so they could bomb from on high. That would leave them above our effective intercept heigth. The idea of putting the first gropu just West of the ring and high could be used to our advantage of the TDB's come high and the rest of us are at 10K' or so, the fighters would come in to feast, leaving the TDB's unescorted up high.

Being used to coloured dots, the GCI is pretty useless once the groups merge. All I could see was a swirling mass of white dots.

You weren't alone in your confusion with the white dots Beaver. I noticed a FNG rolling early because he saw white dots on the dar and automatically assumed his squad was up. An understandable mistake when one is not aware of neutral dots being used on dar. Our own GGI was constantly asking for posreps later in the frame. From my limited perspective of our success during the frame, it appeared most if not all of the Axis victories were at relative low alts. I'm saying from around 4km and down.

The Zeke is an excellent low altitude fighter if one uses patience. And that blind spot in the F6F's rear canopy can be used to great advantage. Just my personal experience with the Zeke, but usually you're just wasting ammo if you fire from outside of 2.5 range and that's pushing it. If one can, it's best to wait until D2 or closer before opening fire.

And Dobs, I agree 100% on the bird cage canopy. Pretend you're a canary; it tends to help.

rat...

Lots of good thoughts posted. A few random thoughts:

Another point is it is very helpful for deceased pilots to pull up a lawn chair on the outer atoll especially at
24, 25 and 31 and simply monitor when the ack is/is not firing. You can tell if it is shooting low or high, and goes
a long way helping GCI who is looking at a mess of white dots to determine if bad guys are nearby. TK found more than
one sneaky jabo low in the mess of white dots by not logging once dead and monitoring ack.

I put zeke canon convergence at 275, and try only shoot from d2 as Rat points out. Just remember when you drop your
droptank to make sure your cannon is reactivated. Don't ask me how I know this!

http://youtu.be/kzAmoUQOoF8

In a dive, always chop zeke throttle to zero. It allows maneuvering, keeps the wings on, and gives you that
unexpected jump forward at the bottom of the dive when you slam the throttle forward. Also keep the barrel roll
in mind in a dive with an angry F6F with you. Keep vis on him as you wide barrel roll and often you get a sweet reversal
with him now in your gunsights.

Keep the initial high scouts inside the atoll, force the F6F's to come down if they wish to fight us on our terms down low,
and be patient. The hyper aggressive enemy will eventually have to come down if all they have is empty sky at 35,000 ft
where they dominate. Make them either play our game down low, or bore empty holes at 35,000ft watching their strikers
die in the buffer.
Hang in there IJN!
<S>

Is sitting on runway considered "launched"? He have our 12 man limit for airborne ops but it might be worth screwing with their heads if we all went otr but didn't roll.