Movement Report

All IJN forces marked in Red.

Blue lines are FYI for Allied Air groups [ in the rules air groups are not shown on the map, but frankly have NO units on the map is just tedious.] So enemy air can be seen by you [IJN].

As you can see at the start of the 0500 turn, a lot of aircraft are in the Southern sector and amazingly after counting and re counting we had no intercepts/ same hex entries. The US plan is to set a cordon to sweep West to East.  With flights being truncated due to return times back to Oz.

 

I chose the IJN search pattern based upon using the Southern map edge as a daylight search limit (2 hex range at high altitude), the Mavis plans arrived at 0500 and will sit on station 1 turn then in daylight track East in search then head naturally North and return towards home fields covering as much ground as possible.

Further East, night take offs allowed planes to be on location along the path of the IJN CV Task Forces in the hope of spotting the USN first.

Only 1 aircraft was spared to scout south of Henderson Field.

 

The AP (troop ships), ducked into the channel west of the China Strait. This proved fortuitous as the American flights missed and overflew them. These American planes will also fly a 2 hex spread pattern, and return, so this will be a decision point for the Pollster to elect where to head in order to dodge the  Planes. Note the USN flight paths are predetermined by me, so you might get lucky…or not. I thought the night range was one hex, not 0 hexes!

I shall report on the preparations for the bombing of Port Moresby shortly.

In the mean time, daylight is just an hour away and CV’s are steaming in all directions!!