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4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: One of three USN DDs ordered to patrol Koepang tangles with an IJN sub en route.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Three Fletcher stick their nose in a hornet's nest.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: While DS is approaching Koepang from the SE, a CVE Mini DS is approaching DS from off Broome. Convergence of power and grave danger to the escort carriers, if Dave moved KB this way.

I like the way you do this AAR with a global map pic and text boxes. I think I'm gunna flatter you through imitation. [:D]

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Fletchers low on ammo take on a powerful combat TF. Fletchers are good but not that good!

ORIGINAL: durnedwolf

I like the way you do this AAR with a global map pic and text boxes. I think I'm gunna flatter you through imitation. [:D]

It took me years of tinkering to develop my way of presenting things - I'm a slow learner. Glad to have you or anybody else emulate.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: I was wrong. All four YMSs were sunk, not just three. This last one provided info on a second powerful combat TF.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: A USN sub hits an enemy DD that wasn't part of the two combat TFs in action at Koepang. This might be part of KB. The smoke it was blowing before the sub fired might have been from the high speed runs KB made against Port Headland, some two weeks ago.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: ASW continues to work on enemy subs (but not as effectively as I'd wish).

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Early in the a.m. air search phase, Japanese aircraft find the major Allied TFs.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: CVE Mini DS wards off a couple of strikes from Koepang.

(Up until this moment, I thought from reading the Combat Report that the enemy strike had come from Broome, a level 3 airfield. And, in entering orders yesterday, I felt pretty sure that DS, parked right next to Koepang, would draw any attacks from that airfield.)

More on the edge of my seat from this AAR than I am about the hurricane... And I am in Florida right now!

Hoping for the best on both accounts,
T Rav

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Allied carriers launch the first big strike of the day, and find KB sitting in port at Koepang.

This is curious. Being in port halves fleet CV operations. If he wanted augmented CAP from LBA, why not stand off at a distance and send a bunch of the carrier's aircraft to the airfield? I dunno. There's probably things going on here that I'll never know.

Allied aircraft performed pretty poorly - flak seemed to throw them off, which is common. A bunch of the bomb hits were 500-pounders carried by TBMs (why, I don't yet know). CV Katsuragi took a 1k-pounder. Two of the 500-pounders that hit Kaga penetrated the flight deck. CV Aso took a penetrating hit but there weren't reports of major explosions (later, she's going to report Heavy Fires/Heavy Damage, so I hope to find out why.)

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Second Allied strike gets chewed up.

My strikes are more fragmented that usual. Usually, I have about 5-6 CV/CVL in a TF, but this time I have more like 8-9. That may have triggered coordination penalties. Next time, I'll use three fleet carrier TFs rather than two.

ORIGINAL: T Rav

More on the edge of my seat from this AAR than I am about the hurricane... And I am in Florida right now!

Hoping for the best on both accounts,
T Rav

Good luck, T Rav.

My sister and brother-in-law live in Cutler Bay. They lost their house in Andrew, and it took them two years to rebuild.

If anything, I would have put the KB behind Koepang, maybe to the hex NE (map) in shallow water. Long ranged (21 hex with a torpedo) Nells with torpedoes farther back, maybe they would come in at the end when your CAP is fatigued and AAA ammo is lower.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: First enemy strike package handled by Allied CAP.

P.S. This CAP isn't as robust as it should be. This was the first thing that made me wonder if my two fleet CV TFs are in different hexes, somehow. There's no way that could happen, but I'll continue to look.

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Victorious suffers an ammo explosion. Uh oh (but RN CVS are notoriously tough.)

4/1/44

Battle of Timor Sea: Small strike fizzles.

The two big Allied carrier TFs did end up in different hexes. This "isn't possible" and I've never seen it before with the current configuration, but nevertheless it did. There wasn't any reaction, so I can't imagine what happened.

That hurts, because most of my CAP is set to range 0.

On the other hand, my bacon might've been saved by KB being in a port hex and by CVE Mini DS drawing several decent-sized strikes.

Crazy, unexpected, inexplicable, impossible stuff happens....just like it should.

I know what happened. One of the big carrier TFs retired due to threat from proximate combat TF. I saw those messages early on and figured it was the YMS/DE types doing the fleeing.

Wow. That's a twist on what I'd foreseen and allowed for.