Sorry for the big bellybutton pictures, B17 had the right idea there lol.
I spent a lot of time working on this mission this week. Probably more time than I've ever spent preparing for a Squad Ops (even when I was Side CO lol). You need to make note of that for later.
Shillelagh Upped 10 Pilots in TBMs, loaded with Torpedoes. We were part of a split Attack on the IJN CV, with the AKs going in high and fast, while we came in with torps. Given that I wanted to climb to 20k, Iron and I thought it would be best if the AKs went in, then rendevous with us after their drop. The Shills were going to Rally way to the south to avoid Japanese fighters.
Due we had two of our Flight leaders (out of 4) disco on takeoff, so we began to orbit to form up and wait for them.
Yet, despite our fairly remote location, we ran into a bunch of Zeros!
After a prolonged dogfight with the Zekes, the Calvary (played by the DoW, big
guys!) showed up and cleared us for a return to Henderson. We lost 5 planes, but we took out 5 Zekes.
We had dumped our Ord during the fight, so we landed at Henderson to rearm.
Here's where you can't tell that I spent any time preparing for this. We couldn't find the Re-arm pads at Henderson. Someone said "is that a pad under that netting? No. As it turns out, not only is there no re-arm pad there, but a TBM wont fit under it. Porked my Engine and ended my flying for the evening. I joined d345 as a Gunner.
We had 4 TBMs remaining, and they set off to locate and attack the IJN fleet, which no longer had a CV, thanks to the AKs (WTG!) On the way there, Runny had to turn back due to fuel shortage (being unable to rearm with the rest of us, because of damaged gear), but we located the Fleet and began to form up for an attack.
In the end, IGshill sank a DD, and everyone survived the attack... then, in hollywood movie fashion, as we were celebrating the sinking of a Japanese Destroyer, a big black puff of flack decimated d345's TBMs. Poof! and then there were three.
Runny bought it trying to land his damaged plane, leaving only -IG- and -SN- to land safely.
Of 10 TBMs, we were reduced to 3 (once they replaced my prop and rebuilt my engine lol). But we hear that replacement pilots will be here shortly.
-Sik