The Great Trukiana Turkey Shoot

[Firebomber47]

After sinking the Jap CVs at the outset of my first campaign game, I paid a little visit to Truk, expecting my carriers would get hammered by Jap land-based aircraft. To my delight, I found out that, early in the game, Truk has virtually no aircraft based there! As a result, I placed my CV force a couple of hexes to the southeast of the base and gave my carrier aircraft free reign. The result was over 100 Jap ships sunk and not a scratch on my CVs. Just before departing, I detached my screens of cruisers and destroyers (keeping back a handful of DDs to protect my CVs from Jap subs) and formed them into a Surface TF. This TF was sent to Truk (risky, what with the minefields there) and proceeded to expend their magazines sinking Jap ships. A couple of the more feisty Jap ships got in a lick or two on my ships, but the minor damage done was more than outweighed by the crippling blow done to Jap shipping. I felt it was important to vacate the location prior to 6/5/42, as I thought the next wave of Jap CVs would be arriving soon (as they did - the CVs historically sunk at Midway, which of course is assumed to have never happened). All in all, this was an enjoyable exercise which netted me lots of ships early in the two campaign games I have played so far. Of course, a human opponent could simply move the Rabaul bombers to Truk and decimate the American CVs, but against the AI it works quite well. It reminded me of the US slaughter of Jap aircraft in the Marianas (the legendary 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot'), except in this case, the targets were much bigger!

[bigred]

Yes, you need a LIVE opponent.