Hey ya'll!

I thought I would share some war stories with you.

I've been away from Battlestations for a while now, only recently coming back on in the past month or so for a game or two a few nights a week. Between classes and work, I just didn't have time (Heck, I finished a 500 word essay on Othello no more than two minutes ago. Took me no more than ten minutes; not bad considering I didn't even pick up the play to read )

So, I got on tonight and hooked up with some clanmates and friends: Sith Darthfoxx, Bucky O Hare69, Roman Legion777, and Konjiki No Yami. Well, unfortunately for Golden Darkness (Konjiki No Yami), he got the short end of the stick and got stuck on the other team.

So, the first map was a four versus four on Coral Sea. The Hard Calibers took the American side because it is more difficult to work from and let Golden take the Maya. Things were going well at first, I sank a destroyer with my first wave of air-power (would have gone for Maya but she was still in the back). We killed off both of the Japanese subs within ten minute's off the game's start so we didn't have to worry about those. Unfortunately, that is when things went down the drain.

My air power became unorganized due to the rust that builds up over the months of being away and there was a major miscommunication that resulted in us engaging when we weren't ready.

The next five minutes was nothing but non-stop, hard fighting. Both sides suffered heavy casualties. The Hard Calibers lost the Atlanta as well as two destroyers. The Northampton sustained medium damage and was down to half health and was listing to port.

However, the Japanese took great losses. In the wake of confusion, Sith managed to organize some things. When all of the CAP that was circling our old battle group had been shot down, I arranged a date for Golden and the Devil in the form of 18, beautiful, angels with 1000LB bombs.

The Maya went down hard and fast, but not without a fight. Between the combination of non-stop aerial bombardment and shell after shell of artillery, nothing was left of the Japanese's main fleet at coral but two carriers and two destroyers. Of course, there were was also the elusive Kuma and Fubuki which has managed to sneak up within 1.5 nm of the Hard Caliber's carrier force during the fierce battle.

Bucky, who was in control of the Northampton, turned from the fleeing carrier force and made a hard turn to starboard and sailed full speed towards my running carrier. Sith and Roman, both of whom were in destroyers, also went back to save our carrier force.

The Big E and Lady Lex launched squadron after squadron of dive bombers to stop the advancing cruiser and destroyer. Hell and fire rained from the sky as my planes reached bombing altitude. The Kuma and Fubuki both came within their maximum range before they finally succumbed to the combined firepower of the destroyers, heavy cruiser, and dive bombers. When all was said and done, there was a moment of peace as we looked over what we had. Two carriers, two subs, two destroyers, and one heavy cruisers. When we compared ourselves to the Japanese, we saw we had the advantage. The Japanese were down to two carriers and were losing planes at a much quicker rate then us. They only had two destroyers left as well.

The moment of peace quickly ended as Japanese attack planes came. It seemed like a non-stop torrent of munitions that kept pounding the allied fleet. However, between the dogfighting of myself and Sith, the flaking of my carriers, Bucky's cruiser, and Roman's destroyers, we let next to nothing get past our wall of lead.

Golden harassed us with his destroyers and even scored a few torpedo hits. However, all was lost. We bombed his one destroyer and kept up our CAP until they Japanese had all but run out of airplanes.

In the end, we eliminated every Japanese foe in the Coral Sea while losing no more naval vessels of our own besides a submarine that had been depth-charged in the midst of our flak battle.

It was a great game and one that will go up on my list. It may have not been the most epic battle I've had, but it was fun.

We had another battle on Samar, but that is an even longer tale to tell. I'd post it but I'm afraid I must get to sleep.

Have a good one everybody.

lol/i missed this engagement by a few minutes