April 1942 Alternate Indian Ocean

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Viper91

Zheng He said:
Remember, ITTL the Allies fixed up a near intact Zero on Ceylon and put it through its paces. They know exactly what it can and can't do. Plus, the P-36 was one of the few Allied fighters that could turn with the Zero and the Oscar.
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I'm guessing also since this theater has been quiet compared to the Solomons and other areas in recent months, the Japanese units here are probably not the best trained or equipped.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
nbcman said:
Boy the Japanese CAP pilots are sure not the A-Team. They are losing equal numbers of planes to obsolete Peashooters. They better have some better pilots coming in those 18 additional fighters or they're toast.
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Curtiss P-36 Hawks, not Boeing P-26 Peashooters. The Hawks held their own with Oscars in Burma during 1943. The beating the clapped out 7.5 MG equipped H75 Hawks took in Morocco against .50 BMG equipped Wildcats was not representative of their ability.
 

Zheng He

A Beaufighter pilot from No. 27 Squadron takes a drink after completing his strafing run against the Japanese destroyers:

Bismarck_Sea_127968.jpg
 

Viper91

So overall, how significant of a percentage of the local Japanese fleet is committed here. OTL Burma was mainly a land offensive. If the Japanese suffer significant naval attrition here, would they even be able to rebuild local fleet units with critically weakening positions elsewhere.
 

Spencersj345.346

Viper91 said:
So overall, how significant of a percentage of the local Japanese fleet is committed here. OTL Burma was mainly a land offensive. If the Japanese suffer significant naval attrition here, would they even be able to rebuild local fleet units with critically weakening positions elsewhere.
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Especially since they are down multiple heavy cruisers as compared to otl.
 

Zheng He

Viper91 said:
So overall, how significant of a percentage of the local Japanese fleet is committed here. OTL Burma was mainly a land offensive. If the Japanese suffer significant naval attrition here, would they even be able to rebuild local fleet units with critically weakening positions elsewhere.
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For this operation it’s a light cruiser and six modern destroyers. Don’t have the exact numbers in my head but probably around 20% of the modern ships.
 

Anarch King of Dipsodes

nbcman said:
Boy the Japanese CAP pilots are sure not the A-Team. They are losing equal numbers of planes to obsolete Peashooters.
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A little confusion here. The Peashooter was the Boeing P-26; these planes are Curtiss P-36 Hawks. Not quite front-line in late 1942, but only slightly inferior to the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, which was front-line.
 

Draconis

Zheng He said:
1300 Hours, 11 December 1942, 120 Miles South of Ramree Island, Bay of Bengal – The two Blenheim Is from 3 PRU were hugging the wave tops and had shaken the Zeroes patrolling over the convoy. Both of the reconnaissance bombers were headed due north and with damage and wounded crew members aboard the pilots planned to divert to Akyab instead of flying all the way back to Chittagong. However, their mission was a success, updated sighting reports were broadcast back to No. 224 Group’s Headquarters and the tail gunners even claimed one of the pursuing Zeroes.

Making matters worse, another enemy reconnaissance plane had appeared over the convoy ten minutes earlier. This was one was barely visible to the naked eye and had twin engines, twin tails, and was clearly faster than the Zeroes. The combat air patrol had already seen it off once only to have it return a couple of minutes later.
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It's nice to see the Lockheed F-4 getting some love here. Pretty much unreachable to the enemy depending on the mission requirements it's easy to see why the Allied HQs' staff would be wishing they had more of them.

reconnaissance-final.jpg
 
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