from Brooke, CO, IJAF, and pilot in A3 Squadron
5 or 6 bomber aircraft dropped on target, destroying 10 objects. With some luck, all 10 will be large buildings, as those are what we get bombing points for.
2 bomber aircraft made it back to Bangkok and 16 were shot down.
6 allied squadrons lost more than 50% of their planes, and four IJAF squadrons lost more than 50% of their planes.
Although a lot more people showed up before T-0 compared to mission 1, which helped calm some chaos at the start, to be full, the IJAF needs 90 pilots. 75 registered for this mission. 50 showed up. That left us 40 planes short, which added its own chaos. A1, A2, A3, and N3 were extremely shorthanded. The mission I had come up with was not the mission we could run, so I adjusted it in flight.
Once in the air, we formed the bombers up into one group, and brought A2, A3, and N3 in as close escort, with A1, N1, and N2 as detached escort. HQ and LR were given free reign to go where they thought best.
We were forming up decently on our way west out of Bangkok, but got contact with allied fighters early. The allies parked one P-40 at 20k above our bombers, and in our focus on getting our formation together, it took a long time before fighters were ordered to go up there and drive off or destroy that P-40. It stayed right above our bombers, in dot range, but outside of icon range, so it wasn't immediately noticeable, not showing up as an enemy icon. I think people would have automatically gone to get it if it had been close enough to ID. It shadowed our bombers for about 20-40 minutes and vectored enemy fighters in on the bomber location.
As a result of this and the fact that we didn't have as many fighters to fill out our defense around the bombers, as our bombers headed west, the allies were able to get a few P-40's at a time into our bombers. Even though it was only 3-4 at a time and we outnumbered them by a lot locally, we just couldn't stop them. Those 3-4 P-40's at a time took out almost half our bombers before we made our turn north in column 7. Unlike last time, when detached escort killed the allies as they committed fighters piecemeal, maybe we didn't have the number of escorts this time to accomplish the same. Or maybe they came in at too high an altitude -- see below about that.
On our way north, a few more allied fighters went after the bombers here and there. Usually it was only one or two at a time. They still probably managed to down a bomber, but didn't accomplish the carnage wrought during our flight west.
Things then were very quiet and ominous as we made our turn NE to head to Rangoon. We had lots of fighter aircraft around and, at this point, still had 9 bombers -- half our formation. We even managed to round them all up together after the disorientation of so many attacks while heading W and N.
About 5 miles from the Rangoon cities, though, while the bombers were in their sights for the drop, we got hit by a flight of enemy aircraft. They came in about bomber level, but they clearly had up a huge head of steam. Again, we didn't manage to get them quickly. They got 3-4 of the bombers before they could drop, and they got about 3 more after drop during the first part of egress. That left 2 bombers, which successfully made it all the way back to Bangkok.
1. This mission hinged most heavily on one event: the allied P-40 sitting at 20k over our bombers for 30-40 minutes, vectoring in his comrades.
Regardless of the rules legality of this (Dok is aware of it and will figure it out), we *could* have taken care of it ourselves. If anyone icons enemies up high over the bombers or anyone thinks we are being shadowed, we do need our squadron leaders or flight leaders or pilots using their individual initiative to get a couple aircraft up there and at least drive them off.
2. Another important aspect of this was P-40's getting in on the bombers in low numbers yet still being unstoppable by close escort. I have some ideas on how to reduce this effect for next time. We'll talk about it in the strategy discussion on the bulletin board. It is so very hard to figure out a good mission plan if people don't show up on time (mission 1) or do show up mostly on time but the numbers you plan for are half what you get (mission 2). For mission 3, let's have people show up on time, and I will plan for only half attendance as I concoct the mission.
I also know that there were a lot of complaints this time (much more than last time) about altitude violations. If you've got film of gross altitude violations, send me the snippet of that from dots range until they overfly you (not the whole film of the mission). I'll look them over, and if I think they're significant, I'll pass them on to Dok.
3. The number of objects destroyed by the 5-6 bombers dropping on target seems very low. Bomber pilots, was this due to all the changes in the way bombsight calibration is done these days? I know the method seems to have changed in one of the recent AH updates, right before or during Rangoon '42, and a lot of folks didn't know about it today. Why such a low number of objects?
It was a good effort. Actually, despite all the troubles, we were in pretty good shape up to the time bombers had bombsights on Rangoon cities. But in total, this mission didn't go as well as mission 1 -- it is a learning experience for us. Our score on it will hinge upon how many of the objects destroyed by the bombers are larger buildings.