Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Protecting Pearl - Part 3

Introduction
In this mini-campaign, Crowe and Raven have protected the airfield and saved the naval yard.

Now the radio squawks, "They're going for the battleships!"

Our heroes race toward battleship row. 

The Opposing Forces
Once again I am using my imagi-nation air forces as substitutes.

From left to right.
  • Battleship Row (yes, I know it's just a destroyer. It's a substitute)
  • Crowe (top) and Raven in P-40s
  • The Zero escort
  • Three Kate torpedo bombers

The Dogfight
Crowe (top) bears down on a Kate. He fires and it goes up in flames.
But he hears the rattle of machine gun fire. The escort sprays his P-40 with bullets. He is damaged!

Ignoring the danger, Crowe continues to pursue the bombers. This time, the Zero's fire rips into his plane. He bails out as his P-40 falls from the sky.

Raven gets a bead on a Kate and shoots it down.

The remaining Kate gets within range. Anti-aircraft fire bursts around it as it releases its payload. The torpedo runs straight and true, smashing into one of the battleships. The explosion sinks the ship.

With its mission accomplished, the attackers break off.

Conclusion
Despite shooting down two Kates, it was not such a good day for Crowe (who parachutes successfully and gets rescued) and Raven. Chalk this one down as a loss.

Overall, they won two scenarios and lost one. Call it a minor victory.
 

Another Chance
My original pictures came out poorly so I got my minis out for a re-shoot. Then I decided to run the scenario again. This second chance was simultaneously less successful and more successful than the first run-through. Less successful because they were wildly inaccurate and only shot down one bomber. More successful because the Japanese were also less accurate - neither American got shot down and the bombers missed the battleship.

I decided to post the original attempt because it was more exciting.

2 comments:

  1. How experienced would the American pilots be at the end of ‘41? Indeed, how experienced would the Japanese pilots be? Presumably some of the Japanese aircrew would have gained experience in China. I seem to recall reading that, in general, many of the aircraft “kills” were attributed to a relatively small number of very experienced pilots whereas inexperienced pilots took a long time to gain experience (if they weren’t shot down/killed in the meantime). Of course, that may not necessarily be true of the situation at Pearl Harbour.
    I trust you had a good Christmas and here’s hoping ‘23 is an improvement.
    Cheers,
    Geoff

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  2. Good question. For the purposes of the game I just assumed that all pilots were average. I still gave the Zero an advantage for aircraft quality. Before this scenario, the dice favored the Americans

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