Sandbox/2018WinterReview

E-4

Note: All info is currently based upon initial reports, so take the advice with caution before using your fleet regarding what may come in later missions.

Event Planning

• This map utilizes the same locks as E-2. However, Fast speed is no longer a hard requirement, although some restrictions still apply (maximum number of 3 ships with base Slow speed, regardless of use of engine equipment; see branching rules).

• While Shimakaze, Naganami, and Okinami can be used for E-4 as part of the historical fleet there, they can also have an important roles for E-5 and E-6 please weigh your options before locking them into the fleet you want to use them in.

• CAVs like Suzuya, Kumano, Tone, and Chikuma can be used for E-4 as part of the historical fleet there, but you may need to also use CAVs for later sections of E-5 and E-6. Please carefully plan where you distribute your CAVs before locking them in your fleet.

Tag Notes

• This map requires you to organize the Kurita Fleet and Nishimura Fleet.
  • For more details on Historical Kurita/Suzuki and Nishimura Fleet members, please view the Historical Background for more details.
• Ships formed in the Combined Fleet with no tag will use the Kurita Fleet Tag.
  • When forming the Kurita Fleet, you can use both the Kurita and Suzuki Fleet members.
• Ships formed in the Striking Force Fleet with no tag will be marked as the Nishimura Fleet Tag.

Recommended Composition:

• Nishimura Fleet Composition:
  • Standard Nishimura Fleet Composition - 2 BBV, 1 CAV, 4DD (Nishimura Fleet members required Easy - 3 , Normal - 5, Hard - 6)
    
• Kurita Fleet Composition:
  • 2-4 (F)BB, 0-2 CA(V) 2 CVL / 1 CL, 1-2CA, 2-3 DD, 0-1 CLT 0-1 AO (Kurita Fleet members required Easy - 5 , Normal - 7, Hard - 10) - At most 3 Slow ships are allowed (Note: The slow ships that can be used are based upon their original speed. Modifying their speed to make their speed Fast will not override the speed restriction.)
    • AO can be considered for Final Kill as a possible strategy.

Unlocking the Boss Node

• Casual: Reach Node M
• Easy: Reach Node N
• Med: Score B+ Rank at Node N
• Hard: Score A+ Rank at Node N

Nishimura Fleet's Section

Recommended Fleet
2 BBV, 1 CAV, 4DD (Nishimura Fleet members required Easy - 3 , Normal - 5, Hard - 6)

Overall, the Nishimura phase is nearly identical to its E-2 counterpart. However, there will be additional surface encounters with submarines in mixed fleets, as well as air battle nodes.

Plan your LBAS deployment to defend the fleet as they advance the surface battles or Air Attack nodes and have you fleet set to vanguard to evade most incoming attacks

Once you reach the night battle areas, proceed to use the Vanguard Formation to protect the fleet until you reach the point you need to get to depending on the difficulty (Node M for Very Easy, Node N for Easy, Score an B+ rank on N for Normal, or Score an A+ rank on N for Hard).

Since PT Imps will appear on nodes H and M, use the Vanguard Formation along with having your fleet equipped with either an Anti-Air Gun and/or Skilled Lookouts (See PT Imp Group page for more details)

Node N contains an enemy fleet consisting of mostly (if not all) battleships. Use Line Ahead and the rest should be fairly straightforward as long as your fleet is capable of double attacking.

Once the prerequisite condition (above) has been completed, the path to the boss will appear which you'll then use the 'Kurita Fleet to complete.

Recommended LBAS for Nishimura Fleet

• 3 Bombers 1 ASW Bomber to Node F (node with mixed enemy fleet including 1 submarine)
• 4 Fighters / Interceptors to Node C (air battle node)
  • It is also possible to send this LBAS squadron - with Bombers - to Node H instead, but that node is less likely to give you trouble with the right equipment and formation.

Use of the in-route/node support expedition is recommended. Please note that Node N is not a boss node.

Kurita Fleet Phase

Recommended Fleets
2-4 (F)BB 2CVL + CL2DD 2CA CLT/CA '2-4 (F)BB CV CAV + CL2DD 2CA CLT/CA

This route involves 2 airstrikes followed by 3 surface battles prior to the boss.

• This phase requires a very high amount of fighter power, with CVLs as full fighter carriers not being uncommon
  • If additional air power is required, Nagato, Yamato, and Musashi can all fit seaplane fighters if needed, which will usually require the tradeoff of an AP shell (except on Musashi)
• On the boss node, ships in the escort fleet can also participate in the air battle (combined fleet vs combined fleet), should Suzuya and Kumano be used in the escort fleet, they can still contribute to the air fight here.
• Maya Kai Ni (also a Kurita Fleet member) is highly recommended for this map, both for her AACI, and also as a very strong attacker in the escort fleet, she is capable of running a TCI if luckmodded.

• The primary challenges are the surface nodes and the penultimate node, with up to 4 Nu-kais or 6 Rus.
• A 12cm 30 Tube Rocket Launcher Kai 2 has a chance to neutralize the damage done by an airstrike if equipped on a BBV, CV(B/L), AV, or CAV. In this case, it would be invaluable for protecting your vulnerable CVLs

The FCF is usually for retreating damaged ships, however, this map possesses some differences

• 5/7/10 (Easy, Med, and Hard respectively) Kurita Fleet ships are are required for the shortest route to the boss at node Q.
• The only node where the FCF is completely safe to use is therefore Node R (the pre-boss node), after the Kurita member check at node Q.

Despite this issue, bringing an FCF is still a valid option especially when chipping, given the difficulty of node R. Additionally, there is no LoS check between the pre-boss and boss nodes.

Battling the Escort Water Princess

The Escort Water Princess will be in a combined fleet, notably, her main fleet includes transport ships which themselves pose little threat to your fleet other than drawing fire.

The boss will only attack your fleet at night if you have a searchlight equipped; consider the risk of an attack against the rewards of bringing one to increase your night battling capability.

The boss, especially on hard mode, has extremely high armor (278 on hard), torpedo CIs here are highly recommended. Yukikaze and Myoukou are amongst the best choices for this map to take advantage of the Kurita fleet bonuses, especially in the absence of a luckmodded Maya/Choukai .

With regard to LBAS options, at least 3 bombers should be used, with the final slot being either a bomber or fighter. There is no point in using a fighter if doing so would not change the air state from AI to AD (see aerial combat).

AO as an option

With regard to final form (on hard mode), an AO with one Maritime Resupply may be considered to offset the fuel and ammo penalties.

Nonetheless, there are two key tradeoffs that need to be made:

• Firstly, there is a restriction of 3 ships with an base speed of "Slow", Hayasui being one of them would almost certainly require an extra raid node (or a slow BB to be removed in favor of a Kongou).
• Secondly, Hayasui would fit in the escort fleet alongside CL2DD, necessitating the removal of a CA or CLT from the composition, in itself significant.
  • Hard mode only allows up to 2 non-Kurita ships, of which Hayasui and a CLT would be, therefore requiring all 10 others to be historical ships (therefore shutting Abukuma usage out)

The Friend Fleet

It is possible to influence what friend fleets will arrive:

• Friend fleets will not appear if a member of your fleet match a member of the friend fleet. Wit hthe exception of DesDiv 19.
  • The best friend fleet that can arrive is the Nishimura fleet with its 7 members
• Maya and Yukikaze would be excellent choices for E4 even in the absence of this mechanic, and as such automatically exclude the possibility of CruDiv4 and the Guadacanal fleet

At this point, the three fleets which could appear are DesDiv19 (default), the European fleet (weakish), and Nishimura (ideal)

To exclude the European fleet would require one of Warspite, Ark Royal, Richelieu, or Jervis to be run. The only non-impractical way to exclude this fleet would be to use Richelieu in place of a Kongou (or Warspite in place of a Nagato/Yamato). Using Richelieu, of course, comes with its tradeoffs in terms of fleet composition, and may be more practical for medium or easy difficulties.

LBAS Recommendations

• 4 Land-Based Bombers - For Node R

This node requires a combat radius of 5. There being no enemy carriers here allows 4 bombers to be run.

• 3 Bombers +(Fighter or Bomber) - For Boss node

This node requires a combat radius of 4.

The boss node is a priority target, at least three bombers will be sent here. The fourth group, however, can depend upon the difficulty. Achieving AD (on hard) requires approximately 110+ fighter power, if this threshold cannot be reached with the addition of a single fighter, it would simply be better to use four bombers.

On Last Dance, you may wish to consider committing both LBAS to the boss node to maximize your chances of victory. As with other last dance runs, both support expeditions are recommended; sparkling your fleet is also an additional option.

E-5

Event Planning

For this map, you will be using members of the 'Shima Fleet. and also also other various members that partook in the Battle of Ormoc Bay. When planning for this map, carefully consider who can count historical team that partook in Battle of Ormoc Bay.

Historic Members of Battle of Ormoc Bay

CA: Ashigara,Nachi
CL: Kinu
DD: Akebono, Asashimo, Hatsuharu, Hatsushimo, Kasumi. Naganami, Okinami, Ushio, Uranami, Wakaba
DE: Shimushu

Do note that ships ships such as Abukuma, Shiranui, and Aoba do not count as part of the historical fleet for this segment of the event. Therefore it is possible to reconsider them for the map or for E-6 if necessary.

Tagging Rules

• Untagged Ships that partake in E-5 will be given the 'Shima Fleet Tag
• For Very Easy and Easy Mode it's possible to use the other tags without issue.

Phase 1 - Transport Phase

The Transport Operation is relatively straight forward as long as you are able to have enough historical members that partook in Ormoc Bay (2 on Easy / 3 on Normal / 5 on Hard) most of this map operation will invovle you arranging your LBAS properly to help protect your fleet as you make your way to the transport point and boss fleet.

As long as the fleet consist of the required fleet members you can organize a fleet in various ways. But some example players used that are most notable are:

Example Fleet Composition
2 CA, 1 CL, 4 DD
(Historical Fleet members required Easy - 2 , Normal - 3, Hard - 5) 2 CA, 1 CL, 3 DD, Akitsumaru (Historical Fleet members required Easy - 2 , Normal - 3, Hard - 5)

As long as you have the historic fleet requirements you should go C-D-E-G-F-H-I-L.

A good balance of equipped transport supplies and combat is also vital to helping deplete the TP gauge. So if you can bring Daihatsu carrying ships, consider using them here to help with depleting the gauge.

One important thing to note that is special with this transport operation is that in this event, the Type 2 Ka-Mi Tank has a special TP bonus in which it gives you 22 TP points upon successfully S-ranking the map. If you own these items, consider equipping them for this operation.

Most of the battles of this map consist of air battles and a few surface battles against light ships. So organizing your LBAS to attack the air nodes of D and F with fighters is highly considered. In addition, a ship with AACI equipment to help take out planes is also vital and if you happen to own Akitsumaru you can consider using her to provide further AA support by loading her with fighters and in addition can also provide easy air superiority against the boss node (on most difficulties).

In Node H and J you will face a surface fleet, consisting of destroyers and cruisers. Depending on the difficulty, you may either go with Vanguard Formation to evade attacks and get away with possibly scratch damage against the torpedo salvo. Since there will be some nodes that will feature PT Imp Groups consider bringing AA guns or skilled lookouts for some of your destroyers.

Remember that if you have to pull out a member from your fleet using the Striking Force Fleet Command Facility. As long as they have reached Node I, thier equipment will be counted for the TP guage once you fight the boss and score an A rank or above.

The Boss Fleet consist of Light Cruiser Princess along with a Nu-class carrier, some destroyers and some PT imps. If you send your land base to target this node it shouldn't be too difficult to overpower and take out some of the units allowing for an easier fight. As long as you score an A rank or higher you will deplete the TP gauge.

Once you deplete the gauge far enough for the final run, enemies become slightly more difficult, but otherwise not much changes are needed (outside of possibly taking off some TP gear depending on how much of TP gauge remains) and completing this part of the operation.

Recommended LBAS

4 Fighters/Interceptors (Distance needed 4)

This will be used to mainly protect your fleet along nodes D and G since these nodes can feature some heavy air power you'll need to deal with. Consider making one of your LBAS be used to protect the fleet along the path.

0-1 Fighter/Interceptor / 3-4 Land Base Bombers (Distance Needed 4)

This can be used to concentrate an attack on the boss node of the transport segment. Since there may by a carrier present on the boss node you may want to have a fighter to help protect your bombers as you allow for them to help take out the enemy fleets to improve your odds for an easier victory. You can use one LBAS for here of if needed, you can use a 2nd one is necessary.

Scoring Air Superiority on Node D (For Medium +)

As one of the requirements to accessing the next phase you will need to score AS on Node D since node D consist of a lot light carriers, you will need a sizeable amount of air power in order to gain the necessary AS you need. In order to do this, you will need a set of ships that can use fighters and Seaplane Fighters along with the assisting of your LBAS.

As such, Akitsumaru, seaplane tenders such as Commandant Teste Mizuho, and the Seaplane Tender versions of Chiyoda and Chitose are considered vital helping clear this segment. You can use Aviation Cruisers for this segment too if you wish, but carefully plan it out as you will need some for E-6.

Example Composition:

Akitsumaru, 1-2AV,0-1 CAV, 0-1CL, 4 DD

Recommended LBAS

4 Fighters/Interceptors (Both Land Bases, Distance needed 4)

Depending on the difficulty, you may need between 2-3 units fully loaded with seaplane fighters and/or Zuiuns along with an LBAS concentrating on whipping out some of the planes the carriers launch in the process. If successfully done it should be possible to get AS with little issue. If you have to take the long path to reach Node D, then plan several DDs to carry ASW gear to deal with the sub node along with a ship to perform Anti-Air Cut ins in the process.

If for some reason you lack in seaplane fighters and/or lack in them, consider building them in Akashi's Improvement Arsenal when available. Or in the worse case scenario, reduce the difficulty to Easy to by pass this requirement. Do note you will not be able to increase the difficulty again once you do this.

Scoring Air Superiority on the Land Base Air Raid (Hard Only)

If you loaded your fighters and interceptors you should be able to set your Land Bases on Air Defense and reenter the map. The cheapest and least resource consuming method to do this is to bring a single sub.

Example Composition:
1SS (Highly Recommended)

The sub will go through battles where it won't get hurt (since all the fights will be subs or air attacks) and should trigger the Land Base Air Raid Sequence before reaching the 2nd node or 3rd node. If your LBAS's air power is strong enough it should easily gain Air Superiority. Once this has been done the condition will be complete.

Once all of the following conditions are done you will have access to the next part of map.

Phase 2 - Taking out the Heavy Cruiser Princess

During the phase of the operation you won't be able to take any of your AVs or Akitsumaru to this map segment. So you will either be depending purely on an Anti-Air Cut in and/or on an Aviation Cruiser loaded with Seaplane Fighters to help pull the weight through the battle.

Example Composition:

2CA(V), 1CL, 4 DD (Historical Fleet [Shima Fleet preffered] members required Easy - 2 , Normal - 3, Hard - 5)

Keep in mind that your fleet will need to have the historical members along with 4 DDs if you wish to complete most of the map's requirements for this segment.

The fights will mainly invovle carrier battles which will invovle hoping for a strong AACI to take out most of the threats while also dealing with whatever is thrown at you, consider bringing an LBAS to help protect or defend you during these segments.

Most of the surface nodes will also feature strong enemy units which you have to force your way through and since they may pose a threat to your fleet, it's best to consider Vanguard formation to try to get past these sequences with the pre-boss node possibly featuring a submarine in the mix.

While it's possible to get through all of this, consider using a shelling support fleet if needed for the in-route path.

The boss node will feature a Heavy Cruiser Princess who will come with some Nu-class CVL, a few heavy cruisers and some Destroyers among her fleet. Using an LBAS along with boss support is preferred to soften the damage you'll take from other units since you may lack in a means of obtaining AS should the Nu-class CVL survive the LBAS strike. The fight itself is however manageable and members of the Shima Fleet get a historical post cap bonus (except Abukuma, Shiranui and Aoba) allowing for a much easier victory. Ships such as Ashigara, Nachi, Ushio and Hatsushimo (to name a few) will be vital to clearing the operation.

Do Note however there is No Friend Fleet for this segment. You will need to depend on your fleet's power to complete the operation.

The final kill's composition doesn't change drastically so using the same methods can work, but if needed, shift both LBAS over to the boss node if you feel you can manage all the node prior to it without loosing too many DDs or vital Shima members.

Recommended LBAS

2 Fighters, 2 Land Base Bobmers (1 Land Base, Distance needed 4-5 needed for nodes N and P)

Both of these nodes can present some difficult fights which the fleet will need to survive, so if needed send 1 LBAS to one or both of these nodes to help improve your chances of survival.

1 Fighter, 3 Land Base Bombers (1-2 Land Bases, Distance needed 6 needed for Boss Node)

Since the boss mainly consist of just some Nu-class Light carrier, it's possible to brush by using only one fighter while maintaining most your bombers to do some damage. If possible, hope that the Land Base bombers hit the Nu-class Carriers to minimize or eliminate any air attacks and if you have a CAV, possibly achive AS in the battle when the aerial sequence begins. You may want to bring both LBAS on the final kill to improve the likely hood of your chances of winning the fight.