Epic Journey

[oaltinyay]

Essex escapde 98%floatation damage and %60 sys damage to Rabaul after being hit several bombs... made it to wewak an stayed there - never took part in the war.

[Amoral]

ORIGINAL: stretch

DD Pope just escaped Manila after sitting in shipyard until Jan 5. I ran it full speed towards Jesselton, with Miri already in Japanese hands, because baby KB was messing around Makassar Strait. First attempt it ran into a bunch of AKs and APs with no escort, sank two and took 20 system damage, and bailed out back to the east. I changed routing threat tolerance to absolute and tried again and the next time it escaped to Palembang. Small victories like that really bring me joy.

I have a story from the opposite end of the epic scale. CA Kumano was in a fast transport TF. She ate a sub torpedo in the Macassar straight, but dutifully finished her mission to land troops at the base at the north end of Sumatra. The FT turned into a surface combat group and headed back to Singapore. They crossed paths with an amphibious group fleeing (or reinforcing) Malaya and engaged.

The enemy TF included the liner West Point, which mounted a 4" deck gun. She delivered numerous hits to Kumano and started fires in the superstructure. The rest of the TF sank west point and several other ships, but Kumano continued to burn, and she was lost to floatation damage just shy of Medan. So my heavy cruiser was sunk by an ocean liner with a pop gun. Un-epic.