[JacksonsGhost]

Originally Posted by Jumoschwanz

Jackson, I would give the mission a high difficulty rating, especially if you are going after the bombers. I don't think the mission is to take down any bombers though, or it should not be. Your field is being attacked and your wingmen are under fire from zeros, so I don't think any real pilot would take off and leave the airfield and their wingmen alone to fly away and attack bombers.

But I did just that a few times and I did go after the bombers, but because they start in the air by the time you intercept them they are approaching Pearl Harbor, and with them flying in formation with tail-gunners I think the best anyone is going to do is to get maybe one shot down before they are peppered to death by the tailgunners and before the rest of them reach Pearl Harbor anyway. I scored some hits on the bombers but the low firepower of the p40b does not do well at taking out aircraft with safe deflection shots in one pass.

As soon as my engine is started I turn the aircraft to the left and take off between two parked P-40s and I head right for the mountain-range to shake-off attacking zeros. Then I figure my real duty is to cover my wingmen who have just taken off behind me if there is anything left of them. Just fighting the zeros attacking the field is enough of a challenge.

If you take enough fuel and evade the zeroes then you can attack lots of bombers which have probably already dropped their loads, I was doing this and I ran out of fuel, I looked and by default it had only given me 30%, next time I took 50%.

Thanks for the reply and advice Jumoschwanz. Glad you had some challenge too! 30% fuel is fine for me for this mission though. I never live long enough to run out!

Some interesting points with this mission are:

• The briefing asks you to hit aircraft before they hit their targets (with the bombers targetting Pearl), but the actual target set in the mission file is to defend Bellows airfield as you suggest.
  
• Unfortunately, the Defend Ground target settings don't work properly in the current version so you will be credited with a successful Bellows defence even if you just sit there and die, provided you wait ten minutes for the credit to kick in. I've adjusted the settings on mine so you at least have to disrupt the attack a bit to get the mission credit!
  
• I happen to be reinstalling at the moment and tried this mission a few times at 4.07 standard. The P-40s don't seem to come under attack straight away, allowing all three to get into the air safely. So I guess when the mission was first designed it was a whole lot easier to at least get off the ground!
  
• Sadly, the way it plays now is actually closer to the real history. In reality one pilot was killed climbing into his cockpit, the second was shot down just as he got airborne, and the third went down after a short one-sided fight.