April 15th, 1943
The British resume their attacks on our NLF unit heading to Akyab today.
In China, our pilots that are training fly sweep over Chungking. The enemy P-40Ns take down several of our Oscars. Now that our stocks of Tonys are sufficient I am going to start putting the combat training pilots into Tonys so they can survive longer and become good pilots to be moved to the front. I think I am done building Oscar IIs (haven't built any for a while as is)
The score for the combat over Chungking was:
Japan: 1 A6M3, 2 A6M2, 16 Oscar II, Total 19 fighters.
Allies: 10 P-66, 13 P-43A, 18 P-40N, Total 41 fighters.
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Combat training in China[/center]
I might have mentioned it before, but for anyone interested, here is my training process for pilots. I don't think it is as gamey as bombing ground troops with fighters but it certainly takes more time and effort.
1) A unit is filled with untrained pilots (25-35 IJA, 35-45 IJN). They are then put on training in Osaka or Tokyo. 90% training for fighters, 100% for bombers. The units are put into the oldest aircraft I have. Nates, Claudes, Ki-36 DBs, biplane torpedo bombers, etc.
2) Once they reach an average experience of 55 (all pilots in the unit are usually around 50-60), the planes are upgraded to front line airframes (naval pilots go into A6M3 or A6M2, save the A6M3a for the carriers). Then the fighters are sent to China where they fly sweeps over Chungking until they are around 70-80 experience. The bombers are sent to 2nd line bases and placed on ASW or naval search at 100%.
3) Once naval bombers are up to 65 or so, they are sent to either front line bases, or their pilots are transferred to carrier units and then refilled with untrained pilots. The fighters (once at 70-80) are either sent whole to the front, or have their pilots transferred to other units or carrier units as needed.
I do try to put one or two untrained pilots in veteran units also, as it seems they gain experience pretty fast when surrounded by vets. A couple units have also ended up with more average (50-60xp) pilots than I would like due to one circumstance or another.
To transfer pilots around, I use two interior bases in Japan that I took all the AV support out of and I just fly the unit back and forth, leaving a fragment and then I move that fragment to Tokyo, it repairs and then I fly it to where the target unit is and disband it. Takes about 10-15 days to drop a unit to its last plane, and then I refill it with newbies.
Sorry for the dissertation, just thought I would post that in case anyone was interested.
