Board Thread:Fleet's Prepared-ness/@comment-28251657-20160805180709/@comment-26464279-20160806000324

Smaller event doesn't necessarily mean that it will be an easier event than the 7-map resource draining hardcore masochist events that were Summer 2015 and Spring 2016. Tanaka can always bring back that "lovely" *cough* 6 Hime fleet from last event E-7 hard mode final dance.

Your buckets should be fine and you will probably eat through your resources far before reaching the end of your bucket stock. If I were in your shoes I'd farm fuel/ammo/steel (e.g. 5/21/37) and use daily missions for bauxite recovery until it hits the soft-cap and then go for either all (e.g. 2/6/38) or focus on bauxite and fuel + ammo (e.g. 5/6/21). Also 11 for overnight bauxite together with other expeditions that have a good resource gain there.

Now for the main part:

Unless the first map features SS Hime you are probably able to start out hard and then move down in the difficulty to medium or easy depending on the enemy encounters.

With SS Hime medium will probably the maximum you are able to clear because of your lack of Type 3 Sonars and Type 3 depth charges. That translates into fighting the 130HP version of SS Hime at maximum. Killing the 160HP version in a single fleet might be close to impossible with your ASW equipment. Because a combined fleet allows ASW attacks at night you might actually be able to face her in the 160HP version, but it's a gamble and could easily turn into a big resource sink. So, while it is possible I won't suggest you to try it out with the equipment & resources you have available and you might be better off going medium or easy.

Even though she's quite high level already you should train Satsuki until she has 72 base ASW to allow her using a proper 2x Type 3 Sonar + Type 3 DC ASW setup. For the other DDs you probably won't have the time to train them to pre-emptive ASW usable level.

Assuming the event features a 3-way shiplock and a transport combined fleet you might be able to make that transport combined map in medium or hard with 3 strong K2 DDs in your escort fleet and a number of mid-level Kai DDs in the main fleet. Don't expect to get S ranks that way. Most battles will be either B or A ranks but depending on the rewards it might be worth going with the harder difficulty. Just don't get stuck for to long when you notice, it is not possible to get through.

A transport combined fleet can possibly get an all fast preferential routing like in the last event. Since the main fleet does not deal very much damage in that kind of fleet unless you are allowed to sortie BBVs, you should be fine with Suzuya and Kumano as CAVs there. Give them a proper double attack setup + Zuiun(s) and they might be able to clear out some small fry. Mogami with her 11 plane slot might be better than those 2 but yours is too low level for this event.

Also you should hold onto your blueprint for now and wait until the branching rules for the event maps are found out. Only after that you can know who of the 2 should rather get the blueprint for a smooth sailing during the event.

Equipment isn't really my forte so I'll leave that to someone else, who can tell you better what you might want to improve on besides the ASW gear.

With that said, good luck for your event.