I am here for your amusement
Well your narration is certainly colorful.[:D]
OK, I took a few notes.
Why are my A/C performing so poorly? Well you have no morale, training or experience. In addition your leaders are probably poor at best. His airpower is at its peak. Every thing he owns is top notch, at least for now. That's it in a nutshell.
TF's using top speed. Only in an emergency, which I guess you could say is what you have. Just remember ships will accumulate damage PDQ in this mode, and you may not have enough fuel to reach your destination as at full speed its burned pretty quick.
That was not the KB you found near Mindanao, but simply a CVTF with one CVL. Technically the KB, Kido Butai, means something along the lines of 'main force'. What you found couldn't even be termed as a 'mini KB'.[:D]
A ship classified as an HDML stands for 'harbor defense motor launch'. It really doesn't even belong at sea unless its running from something.[:D]
Cats, or PBY's are really a useful asset and there never seem to be enough of them. Don't throw them away trying to stop something you can't anyway. Withdraw them and train them to search the seas. Remember you won't be able to attack that which you can't find.
The good thing about ground attacks that is not visible to you is that it can increase your opponents' fatigue and disruption. As you say it can also slow him down, both through fatigue/disruption and the fact that it can force a mode change in his march from 'move' to 'combat' which is generally slower.
Don't mean to burst your bubble, but those sub 'hits' you noticed around the HI are probably FOW.
Torps. The reason your 'string bags' (short for those flying creates the Brits call torp bombers) are not using torps is that they are not being supplied with them and you have to do that. Find an HQ or unit at their base (Singers) and supply it with torps. There are two ways to do this. One on the unit screen you'll see a button for torps if the unit can supply them. Click it and add 20 torps at a time until you reach a limit you want, this will cost some supply. Alternately you can click on the units TO&E button and set a number of torps you want the unit to maintain at all times. This will take a turn and again cost some supply.
Your opponents' use of night attacks against you in the PI tells me one of two things. Either he doesn't fully understand the power of the Japanese airforce, or he's moved his Zero's from Formosa. With his Zeros' in Formosa he can hit you with virtual impunity. Using his Zero's with drop tanks he could sweep and then escort his bombers and you'd have very little chance of stopping him. So let him keep his night attacks.
One last thing and I really want to hit this one hard. Ease up on the Brits and their tea, you know how sensitive they are about that. [:D]
