Campaign Start and Early Turns

The refight of Guadalcanal has kicked off.

Here is a summary of the first few turns

The Japanese base force starts on Guadalcanal in their 3 bases, The total strength of this force is a battalion. They also have 16 sea planes with them. They are diamond 1, circle 1 is a Japanese sub circle 2 is a Japanese sub

The US fleet starts on the east side. They are given the numbers 1 for Air Support Force, 2 for Task Unit from old TF 16, 3 for Task Unit under Rear Adm. Noyes and 4 for Task force 62 South Pacific Amphibious Force and escort.

To save time i will not include all early map images.

Day 1 Day phase

weather is good

2 Japanese subs move on in patrol and the US task force travels towards the islands. All aircraft are out of range.

Day 1 night Phase

the weather is cloudy

The US task force continues its journey and the subs move on patrol, one heads south while the other goes towards the islands. They move into range of long range scout planes from the islands.  Luckily the clouds and darkness of night help obscure the ships and all parts of the task force are missed.

Day 2 Day phase

The weather is fine.

The US ships continue their journey towards the islands, almost within range to launch air strikes

Making up for the previous failure the Japanese pilots spot 2 elements of the task force, 1 and 4 (the air support force and the Amphibious Force).

The flying boat reports the position of element 1 and is not intercepted by the CAP. After reporting the position of element 4 the flying boat is intercepted laying the ground for the first battle of the campaign.

The flying boat is on its way back to the island so the American fighters will start behind it. The flying boat has an average ranked pilot while the 3 American pilots 1 is a rookie and 2 average skilled pilots. (I forgot to take photos of this small combat  for which i apologise)

In the first round the American fighters move up and the lead fighter lets off a mid distance burst, which only dose superficial damage to the flying boat. The flying boat returns fire from its turrets but only does superficial damage to the lead fighter. In the next turn the American fighters move up to almost point blank range and open fire. First the leader fires and causes significant wing damage and kills the tail gunner. Next the average skilled wingman opens fire. His bust is very effective and causes the flying boat to violently explode in the sky, killing all its crew.

However, the explosion is so violent it causes all 3 fighters to loose control. The fighter which shot down the flying boat (A. Morgan) recovers almost immediately, and the flight leader regains control after descending from height band 5 to 3. The rookie of the squad has no such luck. Still struggling with his plane he gives up and attempts to bail out. He manages this just before the plane hits the sea. The pilot (R. Collins) is uninjured and is soon picked up by a destroyer and returned to his carrier.

Not a great start to his combat career.

The result of the first battle is one of the 16 or so flying boats based around Guadalcanal has been lost with all of its crew, the second carrier (Wasp) has been forced to use one of its replacement planes but its pilot survived.

These reports also mean the subs will head in that direction, and leave the base commander with a difficult choice. The American carriers will be in range to strike his base in a few hours and his light AA defence and uncovered planes will be very venerable. He could order them off the island to a safer base away from the carriers but he may face criticism for his choice. Another option is to order them to strike at the Americans. The slow and lumbering flying boats will be very venerable to any CAP but they may do some damage before they are all shot down.

In the end, unwilling to face criticism from his superiors he orders all the remaining flying boats to attack at dawn.

Day 2 Night

The weather is windy and cloudy

The American task force continues to move towards Guadalcanal, all the Japanese forces there can do is wait and prepare. Meanwhile the local naval forces are beginning to gather to resist the attack. Soon a small force under Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa will be ready.

Day 3 Day

The weather is windy

The flight of flying boats takes off from Talugi and heads out to hunt for ships, meanwhile the first bomber wings and their escorts take off from their air fields and head for the air base.

12 Flying boats manage to take off in 4 wings of 3 planes each head out. They soon spot the 1^st Task force element in the area and approach. They are intercepted by 3 wings of fighters (maybe the rest are escorting the bombers) at a distance of 16000 yards from the fleet.

 The next blog post will show the resolution of the flying boat attack. as well as the bombing effects.