Figure 1 shows the paths of both the aircraft carrier (CV) and the battleship (BB) during the mission. The CV's path (operating independently) is the U-shaped one along the edges of the "Bay". The BB's path depicts not only the ship's actual position at the end of each turn but also the approximate position of the cruisers (CA) and destroyers (DD).
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| Figure 1 - Naval tracks |
Figure 2 illustrates the situation at the end of turn 1. At the top left of the image are the three OPFOR DDs (one is obscured under the OPFOR torpedo bomber VT) that I will refer to as (Squadron) Red A1 and which damaged the northernmost Green auxiliary DD (strength 9). The light cruiser (CL) from the previous mission would be part of Red A1 if it had survived.
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| Figure 2 - Turn 1 |
I didn't remember how to attack the DD under the VT with my auxiliary dive-bomber (VB) so I hit the easternmost one instead (for 4 points of damage). Tactical bombers attack the surface unit below them. If there's an enemy air unit above it they have to be moved to a tile/hex adjacent to the surface unit and then target (click on) that unit, which pushes the enemy air unit out of the way. My core VB (three tiles South of the damaged OPFOR DD) was deployed "airborne" and is moving North to assist.
The Green Team ships are in the process of forming a battle line with the DDs providing a screen for the CAs and BB with the P40 Warhawk (X/F1) moving to cover the two auxiliary CAs in range of the OPFOR VT. The CV launched VF1 (F4F3 Wildcat) and is moving South away from both the OPFOR DDs and VT.
Figure 3 documents a Special Event that in my experience always triggers on turn 5, a naval commander that grants a +2 bonus to attacks against large ships with a range of two tiles i.e. extends to all other of your ships in that range. I chose to assign him to my battleship also because the cruisers will generally be close to it.
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| Figure 3 - Naval Commander Joseph Wright |
Figure 4 depicts Green Team's ships at the start (left) and the end (right) of turn 6. Note how the DDs screen the larger ships blocking the OPFOR's torpedo attack vectors. The heavily damaged DD (4-strength) is moving towards port for repairs. The OPFOR Red A2 (three DDs and one CL - the white radar echo at the top right) is already activated at this point. By the end of the turn the OPFOR has lost the westernmost DD (4-strength), suffered moderate to heavy damage on two others (from 4- to 1- and 13- to 4-strength) and light damage on a third (13 down to 12). That's sixteen points of damage inflicted by eleven attackers: six DDs (two slightly damaged), three CAs, one BB and a Coastal Fort.
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| Figure 4 - Turn 6 |
Figure 5 shows the situation at the start of turn 9. The OPFOR's Red A1 and A2 that started with six DDs and one CL are now reduced to two heavily damaged DDs and one barely afloat CL and will be at the bottom of the "Bay" by the end of this turn. The Green Team has taken moderate to heavy damage to its DDs with two auxiliaries at 3-strength and one at 8-strength (IIRC the 4-strength one from turn 6 after one round of repairs) and two core destroyers down to 7- and 9-strength. Note how the OPFOR split and tried to outflank the Green Team forcing me to use the two auxiliary CAs to screen my core CA and BB from torpedo attack. Not ideal but a calculated risk given how heavily damaged the OPFOR ships were.
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| Figure 5 - Turn 9 |
Figure 6 illustrates the situation at the end of turn 20.
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| Figure 6 - Turn 20 |
From turn 10 until this moment there was no ship-vs-ship combat, the Green Team ships underwent repairs at port and then maneuvered to reform a battle line.
Meanwhile the tactical bombers were busy destroying Coastal Gun A and the OPFOR CV Lexington. This sentence does not reflect the dog's breakfast that I made of those tasks: the Coastal Gun was initially bombed during turns 4 to 6 inflicting 7 points of damage, then the CV was attacked during turns 7, 8 and 10 leaving it at 1-strength; at this point the bombers had to disengage from lack of fuel and damage taken (one of the returning bombers inflicted 2 more points of damage on the Coastal Gun leaving it at 4-strength); after repairs and refueling the Coastal Gun was finally attacked and destroyed during turns 14 to 16 and the OPFOR CV Lexington was bombed and sunk in turn 17 in the vicinity of the northeast Victory Point (two or three more turns and it would have exited the map) in sight of the OPFOR's BB and Red B Squadron (2 CAs and 5 DDs); after viewing the replay I realized the motive for what I thought was the Red B's premature activation: I attacked one of the DDs with the returning VB 1 (SBD2 Dauntless) dive-bomber.
On to what the figure actually depicts.
At the southern edge of the map the OPFOR's CV Saratoga is being pummeled by the Green Team's dive-bombers and will sink in turn 22. Its plane guard DD is too far to provide AA support, the AI might have been duped into trying to hit my CV at the southeast corner of the "Bay" for a faster turnaround; in the CV's hangar is the auxiliary VT repairing and IIRC reconfiguring as a level bomber.
Slightly North two Gunboats guard the VP and despite having been bombed the previous turn by the dive-bombers "en route" to attack the Saratoga are not yet activated. Nearby is an intact Radar Station never mentioned in the briefing which will eventually be destroyed by the core VFs (it has no anti-air defense and the fighters need every last point of experience they can get). Lying in ambush in the shallows northeast of my CV are two yet undetected PT Boats.
The OPFOR's Red B Squadron is spread-out over the top right corner of the image. The only ship actually in sight is a CA, the radar blip to its North is the other CA and the remaining five blips are the DDs. Note the light blue hexagon in the center of the image, that's the visual range of the Green Team's P40 fighter that started the turn in its middle and is barely visible over land directly East of my CV. By a quirk of OOB it (and every other aircraft) is equipped with radar ranging six tiles/hexes and thus has detected four out of the five Red DDs. Likewise one of my scout planes sighted the visible CA and detected the last Red DD at the start of the turn, moved North three tiles (half of its movement allowance) to detect the other CA and returned to its initial position.
Lastly the Green Team ships (top left corner) are deployed in a battle line ready to engage Red B. If you look closely there's eight tiles between the Green DDs and the closest two Red DDs. This is by design: destroyers have a maximum movement and firing range of four tiles so even if the OPFOR's DDs move as far as they can they won't be able to attack my ships; if the AI chooses to move any closer I will then be able to at least destroy one and heavily damage the other.
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