Part 2 – Raid on Tarawa

Getting Started
In Part 2, we will build on the lessons in Part 1 and design a mission in which we conduct a bombing raid against Japanese ground targets, engage a few enemy fighters, assist a crippled bomber home and return safely to our base.
Ready? Let’s start.

Begin by clicking the New Mission button in the upper left-hand corner. This will bring up the window shown here. For this mission, click on ‘Airbase’, scroll down to ‘Tarawa – Bititu I’, highlight it, and then click on ‘OK’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




The map now places you at Tarawa, flying north in a Zero. Tarawa is going to be our objective. Before we change planes and lay in our waypoints, let’s zoom in on the base and set up our targets.


First, place your cursor on top of waypoint #2 and right click. This brings up a pop-up menu. Select ‘Delete’ and left click. Now, drop down to the buttons along the bottom and left click on the plus sign (+), changing your cursor into a magnifying glass. Place the cursor directly on top of Tarawa and click. This will begin our zooming in on the island.
Do this four times until your image looks like this one.

As you look down on the island you’ll notice that in addition to the landing strip there are a number of other features already placed at the base. Over to the left we can see a wharf, while in the center are aircraft revetments and some buildings.

Default infrastructure such as this, comes with each airfield and can be bombed and destroyed during a mission. However, you can’t set a ‘Must be destroyed’ goal on the default infrastructure. We will take advantage of these existing structures when setting out additional targets.

Place your cursor on top of the wharf and click four times to zoom in. This will give you a close up of the area surrounding the wharf.


Placing Infrastructure & Targets
We’re going to place a Japanese vessel at the wharf. On the tool bar above the map press the ‘New infrastructure’ button. It’s the button that looks like a bullseye and cross hairs. Even though we are going to place a ship we do not use the ‘New ship’ button as we did in Part 1. That button is for moving ships. Since we are going to place a stationary ship it is considered to be infrastructure.
 
 


After clicking on ‘New infrastructure’ move to the left side of the screen, under ‘Class’ select ‘Ship’ then scroll down to ‘HIJMS Tidori class Torpedo Boat’ and select it.
 
Place your cursor at the wharf along side one of the docks and left click to set the torpedo boat, then right click to turn off the feature. Since the wharf is already oriented North (0°) you don’t have to change the orientation on the boat. You may have to move the boat back and forth a little to get it just right. Move it by left clicking and dragging it where you want it. Make sure all of it is in the water when you are finished.
 
Go to ‘Goal’. You have three choices here, ‘Must survive’, ‘Must be destroyed’, and ‘None’. You’ll recognize these as the same sets of goals we had for ships and aircraft in Part One. If you select ‘Must be destroyed’ then destroying this object becomes a goal for the mission. If you fail to destroy this object, no matter how many other things you destroy or how well you fly the mission elsewhere, you cannot fully succeed. By the same token, if you select ‘Must survive’ you will fail the mission should that object be destroyed no matter how well you do on the other parts of the mission. By selecting ‘None’, the status of the object does not affect the mission outcome. You can destroy it if you like but not doing so won’t count against you.

Most of the time you will probably select ‘None’. This gives you more flexibility in flying the mission. Don’t make the mistake of selecting ‘Must survive’ for all of the enemy infrastructure you place. I’ve seen this many times on downloaded missions. If your mission is to destroy an enemy fuel depot but the entire infrastructure placed there is marked ‘Must survive’ you will never successfully complete the mission unless you don’t hit anything. It’s your mission and you’re free to design it any way that you want but give some thought to how to use goals to enhance the flying experience. For this mission set the goal of the torpedo boat as ‘None’. You can destroy it if you’d like but it isn’t necessary to complete the mission.

 


 Now, click the ‘New infrastructure’ button again. This time select ‘Infrastructure’ instead of ‘Ship’ as the class. Select ‘Crates, Stacked’ and place them above the beach, behind the wharf. Place two sets side by side. Right click, then follow the same procedure to select a 20mm Japanese antiaircraft gun and place it along the shore line as well. Set the goal for each of these items as ‘None’.
 
Be sure to pick a Japanese antiaircraft gun. You are going to fly this mission as an American. If you select an American antiaircraft gun it won’t fire at you so be sure it’s Japanese. When you’re done the wharf area should look something like the illustrations below.
 
I have labeled the infrastructure we added for you on this illustration. These labels will not appear on your screen.

Wharf before adding infrastructure

Wharf area completed


Now let’s move over to the center of the airfield and add some more targets. First zoom back out a little by clicking on the minus (-) sign twice. Then either click on the ‘Pan’ button (shaped like a hand) and, while holding the left mouse button down, drag the image to the left, or back out a couple of more clicks then zoom in on the center of the airfield. Either way you should end up with an image that looks like the one on the following page.


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© Grumpy's Lair 2004