Desperate Battles Mission Revision 2
This is meant to be an historical campaign, based on the carrier battles of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (22-25 August 1942) and the Battle of Santa Cruz (25-27 October 1942. I named the campaign “Desperate Battles” because at this stage of the war the US Navy was fighting uphill. That is, they had fewer resources than the Japanese, in many ways inferior aircraft and less experienced pilots. In both battles, the Japanese are the attackers and the USN has to fight a defensive struggle. The dates, times and locations of each engagement (mission) are as close as possible to the actual ones. Ship names, locations and courses as well as aircraft numbers and types are as accurate as possible. Attack angles and targets are set up to give historical results, but you, the player can change history (slightly). The campaign consists of various missions; recon, strike, defensive and land based as well as carrier based. Random chance plays a big role in the numbers of defensive aircraft and in some cases, whether or not a target will be there at all. Call signs and aircraft skins however are not historical. Carrier task forces are set up to sail into a 15 knot wind on takeoff and landing. Using the alternate dps provided for the Usio ships and the FDG alternate files for US aircraft should make this campaign even more realistic and challenging.