Posted by Spooky
You just have to use your long range Betty & Nell for night bombing the US ports. In this case, the US night CAP is nearly inefficient (at least before the arrival of the night fighters) and the operational losses not that heavy so if you manage to bomb a port with US CVs in this port - Bingo !!! I just got 4 CV damaged this way (30-40% sys damage) in just 2 raids
It is very nasty stuff.
If the Japanese hold Lunga with a good sized airbase and supplies, they can make Noumea untenable, for a time, as a holding port through night time raids once they have their 100+ Bettys/Nells available.
The way to do it under 2.30 is to strike every few nights (no regular pattern). The non-combat air losses will be sometimes heavy (as can the actual combat losses if the port is packed with FLAK) but the rewards can be enormous. IIRC, another advantage is that the allied player can not avoid it completely by porting ships to other bases as his ship reinforcements arrive there.
If timed with heavy sub operations around Noumea, it can be devastating.
Allied countermeasures are :
Bomb the crap out of Lunga as it is the only base that can effectively conduct the ops (unless Luganville has fallen, in which case you're probably stuffed anyway).
Pack in every AA unit in the South Pacific.
Port your BBs there - they are impervious to anything but superficial bomb damage and their massive AA contributes to the port defence.
Do not rely on nightCAP. They will rarely do anything except abort up to a squadron of bombers. Unfortunately, this goes for the 2 specialist nightfighter squadrons as well.
Ahistorical fun.
