Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2002 4:33 pm
At the end of "By Hook or by Crook" - see AAR section - I had captured everything short of Truk & decided to pay a visit to the harbor there to sink the remaining warships & misc. ships of the IJN (with no thought for invasion, since I reckon there were at least 200,000 men on the island.)
I put together a massive Carrier Task force with 4 CVs, 4 CVLs, & 3 CVEs, covered by 4 CLAAs & the rest CLs (to get me up to the 25 ship maximum). We proceeded to the hex south of Truk with 90% CAP & waited for the Jap airforce to make its appearance. They did & we shot down every single plane they sent at us (over 400 in a two day period).
That's the good news, the next day I sent every single Dive & Torpedo bomber I had on port attack. My planes reached Truk (all 400 of them) and the Jap AA immediately shot down almost 250 of them, damaged most of the rest, and we only managed to put one bomb on top of a submarine.
In the end, I was left with 11 carriers, with only 10 bombers between them. It was a turkey shoot. I was left with running back to Rabaul to pick up replacement planes & pilots and repeating the process at least five times before finally doing enough damage to make it worthwhile.
That much concentrated AA is deadly on any size attack.
I put together a massive Carrier Task force with 4 CVs, 4 CVLs, & 3 CVEs, covered by 4 CLAAs & the rest CLs (to get me up to the 25 ship maximum). We proceeded to the hex south of Truk with 90% CAP & waited for the Jap airforce to make its appearance. They did & we shot down every single plane they sent at us (over 400 in a two day period).
That's the good news, the next day I sent every single Dive & Torpedo bomber I had on port attack. My planes reached Truk (all 400 of them) and the Jap AA immediately shot down almost 250 of them, damaged most of the rest, and we only managed to put one bomb on top of a submarine.
In the end, I was left with 11 carriers, with only 10 bombers between them. It was a turkey shoot. I was left with running back to Rabaul to pick up replacement planes & pilots and repeating the process at least five times before finally doing enough damage to make it worthwhile.
That much concentrated AA is deadly on any size attack.
