Coral Sea, the japanese dream!

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This is a rather short account on the Coral Sea battle i had in my PBEM with Sanch. We started with scenario 13, for those who can't remember it's called turning point and starts at first of may 1942. I played the japs. The allies had Yorktown and Lex in the area, the Japs Shokaku and Zuikaku with Shoho for support. Also invasion tf's for Buna, Gili Gili, Lunga and Tulagi are loaded. The rest of the pacific is fairly quiet but I put about 100-150 Betties and Nells in rabaul with about 150 zeroes for support. A nice little surprise for the yorktown and lex. I was hoping that sanch wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to hit my Buna invasion fleet. His planes from PM however could reach it also. So i moved Carrier division 2 to protect them. For two days several raids were launched and cut down by the zeroes on cap. However the zeroes did suffer losses and i retired my carriers towards rabaul.

Now i hoped that sanch would send his carriers into the strait between new georgia (is that the island rabaul is situated on?) and NG. There they would be hit by my LBA, which, knowing that the fighters squadrons on Lex and Yorktown are understrength in the beginning, would have a good chance of putting a fish or two into the carriers. However, while my carriers were one day away from rabaul he sailed into view on the OTHER side of the PNG [:(] He hit my buna TF with all he got, the 12 zeroes on LRCAP from rabaul were brushed aside and 60+ dauntlesses droped presents on the decks of japanese ships. CL yubari was sunk and a few AK's Ap's.. with most of the ships left damaged.

I retreated the ships but already at the same turn in transferred my zero squads to rabaul, divided up a landbased zero daitai there with high exp and disbanded it into the carrier squads, bringing them up to strength.

The same day my betties and nells launced from rabaul, but almost half of them failed to locate the TF and those few who made it didn't get a hit either. The same thing occured the next day. ... and the third.

Needless to say i was getting pissed. My nell's and betties were taking heavy losses from flak and my zero escort was ineffective. However they did manage to take down quite a few wildcats with each run.. something that would pay off on the fourth day of the battle when my carriers returned.

The Lex and Yorktown had stayed there, on the other side of the PNG lower half just two hexes from Buna, pounding the port from there once or twice. Now i took advantage of the fact that they couldn't use the reaction movement to move overland [;] and sailed to the other side four hexes out. Extended range for his bombers, but normal for my kates [:D]

The US carries got in the first strike, Shokaku and Zuikaku got two bomb hits but the Shokaku was undamaged and the Zuikaku got 2 sys and 4 fire damage.. (it would add up to 3 sys in the end [:D]) They also launched another strike on the shoho which was in the same hex but in another TF and got 3 bomb hits on it.. totalling 26 sys damage when the fires had gone out. The cap of zeroes did take a heavy toll on the fighters however. So when the massive japanese counterstrike hit the american carriers they were greeted by a whopping two (or was it three) american fighters [8|] Yorktown and Lex were hit, hit hard, and then the LBA strike from rabaul put another 3-4 torpedoes into each. The allies had a bit of luck though as they were covered by thunderstorms in the PM phase.. that didn't prevent the Lex from sinking that evening tho.

The next day found the Yorktown still in the same hex iirc.. with no capability of air operations. The japanese carriers were at a 5 hex range but still managed to put quite a few bombs on her deck and she sank later that day [:D][:D][:D]

Now i did take quite heavy losses on my bombers from the flak.. but you can't make omlette without breaking a few eggs.. and what a fine omlette it was [;)]