That's an impressive amount of detail!
If you wouldn't mind, would I be able to bug you, if I do end up putting what I have in mind together, for a little more info?![]()
Beside the obvious question of why, I'm thinking the delay has to cause problems with the Kido Butai's fuel reserves.
You might lose 50% of the aircraft, although I doubt it, history demonstrated that it took a lot of effort for the Japanese to take out P-40s (there is very little information on the P-36, but it was a slightly older design that hadn't been given many of the improvements that the early air war over Europe showed were necessary so...). Most of the pilots would survive, some might even mange to get shot down twice in a single day, rather like the Luftwaffe had happen on more than one occasion. One of the few nice things about fighting over your own territory.
What kind of info? My source has aircraft types (I lumped all P-40Bs and Cs together, for example) and squadron.