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#Post#: 201--------------------------------------------------
Rabaul Campaign Heavy Bomber Raids
By: Ethan McKinney Date: September 24, 2018, 11:19 am
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Sorry for this not following the template ...
In the B-24 raid that started our Rabaul campaign, the starting
altitudes of the Japanese fighters made it very difficult for
them to reach the altitude of the heavy bombers before the
Lightnings could pounce on them. Worse, the Zeroes arrived
piecemeal, which if the best possible situation for the
Lightnings.
I have the feeling that it's just not worth it for the Japanese
to try to intercept the bombers. They're likely to take so many
losses, and inflict so few, that they're better of escaping from
the map and allowing the B-24s to make low-odds high altitude
level bombing attacks. Not sure that there's a real scenario
here.
(Need to post extremely extensive photo essay of the mission
...)
#Post#: 204--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rabaul Campaign Heavy Bomber Raids
By: Ethan McKinney Date: September 24, 2018, 12:13 pm
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Photo album of the first raid with heavy bombers. Not sure what
happened to the first few turns, which were mostly the IJN
climbing into position.
HTML https://postimg.cc/gallery/u47ong5i/
#Post#: 215--------------------------------------------------
Re: Rabaul Campaign Heavy Bomber Raids
By: Gordon Christie Date: September 25, 2018, 8:55 am
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A lot of this is deliberate. If the bombers come in at altitude
8 or 9 the majority of the fighters can engage, and it will turn
into a straightforward force on force engagement. If they come
in at altitude 14 it is a bit more complicated for both sides.
The Japanese cannot mass fighters at that altitude to engage,
particularly before the bombers attack. Nonetheless the Japanese
squadrons starting at altitude 12 and altitude 6 can be vectored
into position into to be troublesome-including attempts to
nibble away at the P-38s from positions of advantage (and you
can voluntarily break Zeroes after one pass to dive straight
down to where all their friends are...). US fighters have some
potentially challenging choices as well. If the come down to
pursue the Zeros they can end up in dogfights with larger
numbers of Japanese fighters at something of a disadvantage-and
a lot of the campaign is about attrition-both real in terms of
kills & virtual by forcing the opposition to sortie at at a
tactical disadvantage.
The low altitude medium bomber raids are pretty scripted. As
historically it will be a straightforward, and often quite
bloody, force on force engagement. The heavy bomber raids allow
both sides a bit more scope for nuance and tactical
experimentation. In 6 runs through the campaign we had a variety
of outcomes ranging from some pretty bloody confrontations to
much more cautious fencing matches where there were few losses
on either side. Pushing the bombers up to altitude 14 or so does
limit the effect of bombing, and this can be something of a
moral victory for the Japanese burning US sorties for limited
effect in terms of damage & CVP.
Cheers
Gordon
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