There’s not been much activity on this section of the board and selfishly, because I like reading AAR’s I hoped I might encourage a few more in WWll.
The Raid
Japanese Intelligence had obtained information that the British were using a small bay in the South China Seas to re-supply their submarines and had decided to make a speculative raid on the place.
HMS Thunderer is resting at anchor as she is provisioned for another voyage of attrition.
A flight of Dive Bombers escorted by a single Zero fighter arrives to make the attack.
Little did they know that the Fleet Air Arm was providing Fighter cover for the Submarines.
The Zero is at a much higher altitude than both the defending planes and also his own attacking dive bombers. He is completely outnumbered but still flies to attack the British fighters, American produced Martlet’s, or Wildcats to give them their home country designation.
One Martlet climbs to neutralise the Zero and the other 2 continue to fly level to intercept the 3 Dive Bombers.
The zero dives and fires at the intercepting Martlet but the return fire is deadly and the Japanese plane explodes in a ball of flame.
Before crashing in the sea. Spray flies high in the air as the Zero disappears beneath the waves.
As the Dive Bombers approach their target they are attacked by the Martlet’s.
The lead Dive Bomber makes a turn to the right in order to commence his attack. He is closely followed by the other 2 planes of the flight.
You can see that he’s left the turn until it’s too late and without a minor miracle he’s going to miss the target. The following planes scramble to make the necessary adjustments, turning in a little quicker.
The rear gunners on the Japanese planes are in an ideal position and everyone opens fire on everyone else.
Martlet Green 1, bottom left is shot up pretty badly and after his run in with the Zero, the pilot decides to turn for home
The lead dive bomber has turned in tightly but cannot achieve a good bomb attack solution and so flies on. The other two turn but are still a little high too to make their attack. Meanwhile one of the Martlet’s has Immelmanned and is close behind the bombers.
The sub is diving, you can see the outline is getting fainter. I found the pictures in the file section, 4 separate pictures, gradually getting fainter until it disappears. I don’t know who put them there but if you see this, Thanks.
This Martlet is badly damaged and making his way home. Looks like his engine has stopped, the props not turning.
The sub has almost gone as the next Val drops his bomb and misses, the last Val still has to continue his dive before he can let go his load and then it’s going to land in the sea. The very first plane is returning to have another go but by the time he arrives the sub is submerged and he lets go his bomb just on the off chance and they return home.
The Martlet’s break off the engagement and also head home. Mainly because I needed my table top to create a large dining table to feed the 5,000.
Final view just to show how poor my dive bombing skills are.
Short and sweet but I really wanted to get the planes on the table because even though they are old Wings of War models I’ve only recently acquired them so I enjoyed that. I’ve not much experience with WWll flying and it’s only the 2nd time I’ve tried dive bombing so I probably made plenty of errors but I don’t mind.
Cheers
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