My little trap at Hengchow worked. Tophat sent in the usual squadron of Helens escorted by a squadron of Oscars and my Hurricanes pounced on them, shooting down three of each for the loss of one Hurricane in air-to-air combat and one to operational damage. Then my IL-4cs flew in to hit Tophat's besieging troops and finally my troops at Hengchow got off a strong artillery barrage. I've now pulled back the Hurricanes, stood down the IL-4cs, set the troops back to "defend" and have jumped into the deepest foxhole around as I await Tophat's response.
But that little surprise aside, things went as usual for Tophat in Homan as he sent around 100 fighters and over 100 bombers to hammer the airfield. But for whatever reason, my troops in Homan have started to receive supplies again, so they may well stand up to one more attack, particularly if Tophat gets distracted by Hengchow and eases off on his attacks on Homan for a bit.
One other thing worked in my favor in China; my pilots in Lanchow found their way to attack the Japanese troops at Kungchang again. It would be nice if those pilots would keep that up for a while. It certainly helped at artillery bombardment time this turn when the Japanese accomplished nothing but my Chinese troops were able to hit them hard.
Elsewhere, only about half of my B-17 squadron flew and hit Kai Island this turn. I don't know why the rest of them stayed away. Those who did fly hit the airbase well. So all-in-all this was one of the best air-combat days for me in a long while. At the end of the day Tophat lost 12 planes to 3 of mine.
But Tophat isn't just having problems with the Allied air forces. He is also starting to fight the Game engine. As he was recombining some of his split air groups a group of Sonias vanished. They must be around somewhere because I can't split any more groups this turn than last, but Tophat can't find them. He must be very glad that it wasn't a group of his crack Zero pilots! [X(]
Dave Baranyi
