I found this interesting

[Mike_B20]

Just found this combat report of the Enterprise at the Battle of Midway.

It throws some light on how the planes were armed, strength of escorts and CAP and also the method for maintaining CAP and the time the CAP spent on patrol.


http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/shi ... idway.html

[Thrashman]

Very cool. Interesting that they loaded several planes with 500 and 100 lb bombs.

[Rainerle]

Notice how they talk about heavy AA and strong, effective fighter opposition, something that is wildly disputed in these forums.

[Snigbert]

Very interesting article!

Notice how they talk about heavy AA and strong, effective fighter opposition, something that is wildly disputed in these forums.

I think any time you fly into AA or CAP it seems heavy...any amount is too much from the pilot's view point

Keep in mind the Captain isn't exactly getting objective reports from his pilots either. Although judging from the numbers of planes lost and assuming the Hornet and Yorktown also suffered heavily, it must have been a considerable amount of CAP and AA.

[crsutton]

Very interesting read-especially the mixed use of 500 and 1000 lb bombs. (Expect calls for a patch:-0 ). Also interesting to note is that despite all of the CAP operations, only one wildcat was lost operationally. Pretty skilled group of pilots there.

Also, the claims for sunk ships is fairly accurate. I expected higher claims.

[Mike_B20]

The Yorktown's combat report for the Battle of Miday,

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/shi ... idway.html

contains some fascinating comments by Buckmaster and his staff on all sorts of facets of CV operations.

I found the comments regarding the relative performance of the F4F-4's and F4F-3's, and the advantages of 10,000 feet over 18,000 as CAP altitude particularly interesting.