Japanese Surface Fleet Scenario 2

[piechev]

The surface combat ships operating out of Shortland in scenario 2 seem to have a magical ability to avoid detection, which prevents me from destroying them with my aircraft. Each time I play the scenario, I get maybe one crack at them with my carrier aircraft. I injure them but usually don't sink anything. I cause enough damage to them that they usually don't go back to Lunga for bombardment. But I want to finish them off, so I put all my patrol planes at 100 nav search and 100 altitude. I get sightings of the fleet from coastal watchers, but, when it comes time for the air operations phase, the fleet is not seen and my secondary air missions take place. How can I force an air attack against those guys? After the game, I view the positions of the Japanese forces, and the fleet is docked at Shortland.

[thantis]

Make sure you have your bombers set for PORT attack if you think they've docked. Also, your search altitude should really be higher (due to the curviture of Earth you see more the higher you go - 5000ft plus is usually good).

Your aircraft out of Lunga (medium bombers, B-25s & B-26s) should be able to shred the Japanese ships docked at Shortlands. In my current game I managed to sink about 20 APs, 10 TKs, 25 DDs, 5 CAs, 2 BBs, and many AGs using the port attacks.