I wish to announce a new special mission, "Home Islands", which will be the Bomber Night appetizer this Friday, August 27. It should start about 55 minutes or so before Bomber Night.
The mission uses the stock "Kyushu" map. It attempts to recreate some of the B-29 raids upon the Japanese Home Islands during the summer 1945. Along with the nighttime, (relatively) low-level, fire-bombing raids, B-29s also continued to be used at times for daylight, high-altitude raids upon industrial areas. This mission also recreates USN naval bombardment raids on Japanese coastal areas during the same time period. This is a special mission,that features 24 AI B-29s, organized in several spaced-out formations of 3-aircraft flights. The AI bombers don't drop on the actual Red target objectives, but do fly past each of them.
The planeset for this mission is USAAF/USN v. IJA/IJN, comprised of:
Blue -
J2M5 Jack
Ki-46-Otsu-Hei Dinah
Ki-84-Ib Frank
A6M5c Zeke
G4M1-11 Betty
Ki-21-II Sally
B6N2 Jill
D3A1 Val
v.
Red -
B-29
P-51D-20NA Mustang
F6F-5 Hellcat
F4U-1D Corsair
Red pilots can opt to either: (a) fly escort in P-51s, with a high-alt airstart, for the AI B-29s and any human B-29s; (b) fly a B-29, with a high-alt airstart, and bomb industrial targets, either individually or by joining one of the AI flights; or (c) fly a Corsair or Hellcat and defend the USN fleets. No bombs or rockets are allowed with any of the Red fighter planes; only the B-29 can take bombs (either 12x1000lb or 20x500lb). Red aircraft can either land on the rear non-spawn carrier (but don't try that in a B-29
), or at two airbases on the large island in AE31 and extending into nearby grids (think "Iwo Jima"), with a fighter landing base on the northwest and a bomber landing base with extra-long runways on the southeast.
Blue pilots have a choice of either: (a) flying the Jack, Frank or Zeke, without bombs (but with air-to-air rockets allowed), with a high-alt airstart, in an effort to intercept the AI or any human B-29s and escorts; (b) flying the Dinah with the upward-firing gun, with a high-alt airstart, in an effort to intercept the AI or any human B-29s and escorts; (c) flying the fighters from groundstarts, with bombs allowed, to go after ship targets or attack the carrier aircraft, or climb up to the bombers and escorts; (d) flying the Betty, Sally, Jill, or Val to attach the USN fleets. Loadouts may differ at different bases.
Blue's objective is to either kill most of the AI bombers, or instead destroy most of the USN ships (in a naval bombardment fleet close to the coast and a separate support fleet out to sea). Red's objective is to destroy targets in industrial areas in Fukuoka and Kita-Kyushu. Not all buildings have targets. Focus bomb drops on the large silver-topped factory buildings. The targets are set up to limit collateral explosions (i.e.- dropping a single bomb doesn't destroy 12 city blocks).
Each side has radar, with Blue having land-based radar and Red having big-ship-based radar. All aircraft show as white (to reflect lack of effective IFF), your own aircraft is not shown (so no GPS), and there is a 2-minute refresh delay (to reflect delays in processing and transmission).
Screenshots of the basic lay-out, target areas, etc. are included below.
