Coral Sea AAR's

[Sikboy]

OK, this is a new thread since the other one turned into a he said/she said (and assign gender as you see fit) about some close-to-the-bell (close being either before or after, not making any judgements here lol) fighting.  

The Shillelagh fielded 17 for this Event, and we were assigned as CAP (along with 880 FAA). We sent out some scouts to try and detect the enemy raid. This was serious fun here. Flying along, head on a swivel, searching out dots... it was crazy. I caught a fighter sweep coming in ahead of the raid. I believe it was about 4-6 Zekes. One or Two made a pass on me, but they had bigger fish to fry, and kept going in their original direction. They Engaged the CAP swarm, and managed to knock a few of us out, while also forcing others to a lower than optimum alt.

Our forward planes (with the Strike Group) had spotted an enemy raid way out of my patrol area, so I positioned myself in what I felt was the most likely point of ingress. I totally botched the intercept however, and the raid was not detected by our scouts until it was nearing a CA fleet.  Then all hell broke loose. Wave after wave of D3A1's diving on Our fleet! I ran back to the CV in time to get three of them, two while they were in their dives clawing at them in a desperate race to stop their bombs from falling, or to at least break their concentration and spoil their shot. The othe Val I splashed... I'm not sure what his story was. As I recall, he rolled as if to dive in on the fleet, but then leveled out, and went straight for a while, Not sure if he didn't like his position or what. I was able to catch him on the level and shoot him before he was able to make his pass (I think, I mean for all I know he had dropped 5 minutes before lol).

I stayed aloft while the remaining shills rearmed, and as they came back up, I landed to replenish as well. Somehow I managed to miss all the wires in my tiny wildcat, yet still came to a stop abeam of the island. "What the hell" I figured, and put it in reverse. Now, before I go on, I need to explain that I've never been in this position before. Usually a botched landing on a CV is death for me. I'm either an imprint on the fantail, or over the bow for a drink. So anyhow, I start to roll backwards and I'm thinking to myself "how far back is the re-arm pad?" That's when I blew up. Apparently you need to bring your tail hook back to it's full upright position before hitting the wires.  I was sad that I made it that far just to auger ont he deck, but at least the action was over, so I didn't miss anything.  I also learned a great deal about CV CAP, and I hope to draw that mission again sometime

-Sikboy

[Ripsnort]

You had a CV to land on?  Think Axis got 2 of 3.

The start was painful, disco's, reformations, lost 2 of our 4 scouts to begin with, thats ALWAYS a bad sign.  One of our scouts was "The Hero" (damn if I can remember his name) and spotted first the TF groups, 3 min later, tally on another TF group...then a couple min went by, "CV TALLY!"  WTFG Scouts!

The first two squadrons to arrive MAG-33 was part of and was first "in" with 10 Vals.  Jimbear got the first CV ("Ship destroyed" message, ass-end up!)  Another wave of Vals took out 2nd CV.  Our escorts kept the bad guys off our Val-backs so we could deliver our load.  After that, most were shot down by AA or enemy fighters egressing (What I would do for some RATO or JATO in a time like that!)

Lots of deaths, good one Allies!

[Nifty]

I got shot down in my Val because I was cursing that Puke couldn't join me (I kept getting the message that he was already attached to someone.)   So I only was checking six occasionally, and unfortunately, NOT with the external view.  So I didn't see the Wildcat until it was too late.  Unfortunate, I was looking forward to a 1 v 1 with a 'Cat.     Had one lined up earlier, but wasn't about to chase him back into the ack.   So he only got a little tickle from the BBs before I let him go.