 Winter 2015 Event
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This is the easiest map in this event. 1CL 5DD composition with anti-submarine weapons does the trick nicely. There was a LoS check pre-boss and it appeared that high LoS would result in more ACDGI and low LoS result in more BEFHI. The LoS check seemed to be around 42-49 effective LoS (old formula).
It's recommended to have at least 4 sets of full ASW ships and 1-2 partial ASW ship for the final run. This leaves two ships with radars/seaplanes to meet LoS requirement. In either cases, Ooyodo with 2x Type 0 Observation Seaplane and another DD with Type 33 Surface RADAR solved LoS issue.
To make matters worse, G node had surface ships. Our fleet relied on Yuudachi and Ayanami for surface damage thanked to their innate firepower. We went double line against G node during the first run. Afterwards, we adjusted the LoS (threw out a radar and put a surface gun in) and went north instead. Line ahead Yo-class's preemptive torp is bad but at least we were prepared for anti-sub warfare.
Another note: never, ever, go into night battle against a flagship submarine. Can't hit 'em at all.
| A | Echelon |  
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| D | Echelon |
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| Echelon (F) | 
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| E | Echelon |
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| G | Line Ahead |    
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| Line Ahead (F) | 
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| H | Line Ahead |
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| Line Ahead (F) | 
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| I | Echelon | 
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| Line Abreast (F) | 
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This map is similar to World 3-3, but taken to the next level. Possible compositions in this map are:
- 2CV 2FBB 1CLT 1DD for BCFHI, with B node is a fuel maelstrom
- 1CV 1CVL 2FBB 1CA 1CL for AFHI
- 1CL 5DD for ADEFI (?)
There was a LoS check pre-boss which we were able to pass with 1x Saiun, 2x Type 0 Observation Seaplane and 1x FuMO25 Radar. Our fleet went with the first composition. For the first 6 kills, we followed this line-up order: Hiryuu, Kongou, Kaga, Kirishima, Yuudachi, Kitakami.
The most thought went to carriers' load out Hiryuu: Suisei (Egusa Squadron), Reppuu, Suisei Model 12A and Saiun. Kaga: Tenzan Model 12 (Tomonaga Squadron), Reppuu (601 Air Group), Reppuu, Suisei Model 12A
Yuudachi had AA Cut-in setup and Kitakami has Torpedo cut-in setup.
This composition allowed our carriers to shell heavily in daytime and Kitakami to preemptively cripple a Wo-class at boss, taking into account of the ammo penalty. As air power is limited in this set up, we ran into major risks at boss against the opening airstrike without AA Cut-in.
However, this set up allowed us to shell against double Ru-class flagship at node F easily as we have up to 4 ships capable of crippling Ru-class in daytime and Kitakami can also one-shot a Ru-class with her torp. Opening airstrike was powerful enough to wipe the floor with the light ships and focused our shelling damage on the heavy hitters.
Things changed at boss in final form because the number of heavy hitters on the enemy side increased to 4. We swapped positions and put our Fast Battleships in the first two positions following by the Carriers. This gave us the first strike in night battle and second shelling should the carriers are crippled by Wo-class.
In total, we needed 3 more runs on the last kill. We retreated twice at F node and twice did we fail to hit boss. We did 13 runs in total and used up a measly 35 buckets. All the hard works in World 3-3 paid up!
| A | Line Ahead | 
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| C | Line Ahead | 
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| E | Line Ahead |    
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| F | Double Line |  
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| G | Diamond | 
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| H | Diamond |
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| Diamond |
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| I | Diamond |   
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| Diamond (F) | 
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For this map, our Quick Response combined fleet was optimized for ABFHK route. Sometimes, we head CEFHK instead, hitting an extra fuel maelstrom node at E. Our main fleet consisted of 3CV 1FBB 1BB 1CAV, the second fleet consisted of 1CA 1CL 4DD. We utilized a variety of carrier techniques in this battle and made the changes in last dance since we had studied ahead of time the enemy patterns.
For the first three boss kills, we put high emphasis on overwhelming opening airstrike and carrier shelling power, the load out of our carriers were:
- Hiryuu: Egusa, Reppuu, Reppuu, Fleet Command Facility
- Kaga: Suisei Model 12A, Reppuu, Reppuu (601 Air Group), Suisei Model 12A
- Shoukaku: Tomonaga, Reppuu, Ryuusei (601 Air Group), Type 2 Recon Aircraft
Hiryuu has high innate firepower. This allows her to deal significant amount of damage with only Egusa equipped. Furthermore, her 3 plane slot is ideal for Fleet Command Facility as it has very little effect on her performance. Knowing the formula for calculating carrier shelling damage does not take into account of number of planes in slot, Kaga took two Suisei Model 12A on her smallest and second smallest slots.
The damage of the opening airstrike, however, is affected by plane count. However, we needed Kaga's largest plane slot for Reppuu (601 Air Group), our best fighter. Since Kaga had already had 2 shelling planes—any more shelling plane on her would be excessive—we put Tomonaga Squadron and Ryuusei (601 Air Group) on Shoukaku instead.
Shoukaku's evenly distributed plane slots are well-suited for the job. Experiences show that concentrated bombers on one slot deliver a single concentrated blow, and vice versa, two medium-sized bombers on two slots deliver two separate medium-power attacks. This is good because we wanted any of those two hit to be capable of sinking a late model DD.
Unlike in E2, daytime shelling damage is entirely optional. This strategy focuses on delivering the biggest payload right at the bat. We knew against BB-hime, we could not expect our carriers to last long enough for shelling and we would not want a T-advantage to help BB-hime send our fleet back faster. So, a Type 2 Recon Aircraft to further boost the opening airstrike on Shoukaku's smallest slots, which is the second smallest slot of all three carriers. All other slots are filled with Reppuu to achieve air superiority (AS) in every node.
Things changed a bit for the final battle as there are now two Wo-class flagship Kai at boss. The fighter power required to AS becomes 306. Since we would be facing even tougher enemies, we needed concentrated shelling power. So for the last run, the load out became:
- Hiryuu: Egusa, Reppuu, Suisei Model 12A, Fleet Command Facility
- Kaga: Reppuu, Reppuu, Reppuu (601 Air Group), Type 2 Recon Aircraft
- Shoukaku: Tomonaga, Reppuu, Ryuusei (601 Air Group), Reppuu
Kaga became unable to participate in shelling but Hiryuu got an extra firepower boost necessary to cripple a Wo-kai or battleship at boss. Shoukaku carried the same general load out for opening airstrike and shelling power. With this set up, we relied heavily on the fact that Kaga would not get hit since we would lose air control without Kaga. Shoukaku was more expendable; we would be able to at least air parity with only Hiryuu and Kaga.
For the final run, we ramped up the scale and replaced Nagato with Yamato in fifth slot. The set up was AP shell, 51cm cannon, 46cm cannon, and Obs plane. The FBB in fourth slot was Kirishima and she had a more accuracy-oriented load out with FuMO25 Radar and 2x 41cm cannon
Fleet Command Facility was an invaluable asset in this map. BB-hime pre-boss was especially merciless and we had to pull damaged ships out this way to get our boss kills. Since FCF uses a non-flagship undamaged DD of escort fleet from the top down, Shimakaze was positioned in second slot. She has high evasion, expendable and can tank hits if necessary. Shigure and Yukikaze were vital in our night battle fleet as we would rely on cut-in to bring down 170 armor boss.
Yuudachi was the next tow ship should something happen to Shimakaze, both of them had AA-cut-in-double-attack-night-battle setup to clean up the trash before Yukikaze. Arguably, Yuudachi was more valuable in battle than Shimakaze. For night equipment, a Night scout on third ship Nachi and Star Shell carried by flagship Shigure. Sendai on fourth slot and Yukikaze last slot.
The brainstorming was definitely worth it, we wiped the floor with boss fleet, final form, in day battle. AA cut-in from Yuudachi suppressed Wo-kai's airstrike. Both Late model DDs were sunk and Ta-class suffered light damage in a type-2-recon-contact bombing. Nachi double-attacked and crippled a Wo-kai. Our light fleet whittled down the other to medium damage in torpedo phase. Yamato crippled the light damaged Wo-kai, Hiryuu shelled Ta-class to smithereens and finished off the other Wo. Yamato added another shot dealing 100+ damage to boss before night battle. With star shell and night scout triggered, Shigure cut-in the crippled Wo-class, Nachi and Sendai finished off the boss before Yukikaze even had a chance to say "sha-sha-sha".
| B | Diamond | 
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| C | Line Ahead |
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| F | Diamond |
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| H | Double line |  
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| K | Diamond | 
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| Diamond (F) |  
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Appendix:
First fleet
- Hiryuu Kai Ni: Egusa, Reppuu, Reppuu, Fleet Command Facility
- Kaga Kai: Suisei Model 12A, Reppuu, Reppuu (601 Air Group), Suisei Model 12A
- Shoukaku Kai: Tomonaga, Reppuu, Ryuusei (601 Air Group), Type 2 Recon Aircraft
- Kirishima Kai Ni: 2x 41cm cannon, Obs plane, FuMO25 Radar
- Nagato Kai/Yamato: 51cm cannon, 46cm cannon, Obs plane, AP shell
- Mikuma Kai: SKC34 20.3cm Twin Cannon, 2x Zuiun (634 Air Group), SKC34 20.3cm Twin Cannon
Second fleet:
- Shigure Kai Ni: 2x 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount, Star Shell
- Shimakaze Kai: Akizuki's gun, 10cm Twin High-angle Mount, Type 13 AIR RADAR Kai
- Nachi Kai Ni: 2x 20.3cm(no.3) Twin Gun Mount, Night scout, Type 14 Air RADAR
- Sendai Kai Ni: 2x 20.3cm(no.3) Twin Gun Mount, Obs plane
- Yuudachi Kai Ni: Shimakaze Kai: 2x Akizuki's gun, Type 13 AIR RADAR Kai
- Yukikaze Kai: 3x 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount
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Similar to E2, this is another air-oriented map. This map has Wo-class and Nu-class in Diamond formation at every node and CV-hime as boss. The number of fighter power needed to AS in this map isn't as high as that in E2. Nevertheless, there's a catch: CV-hime is tough in Diamond formation and she hits very hard.
We deployed two separate fleets for this map. Our Admiral discovered a neat southern fleet consisted of 2FBB 2CA 2DD, no Naka-chan or Agano-chan was needed. It was possible to use CAV in place of CA but getting AS was pretty impossible with enemy carriers at every node, except for the transport node G. There's a LoS check pre-boss of around 53 ELoS, we made it with only one Obs plane on Nachi and a lot of radars.
Since we were on defensive against airstrikes, we took Akizuki Kai using AA cut-in set up (2x Akizuki's gun + Type 13 AIR RADAR Kai) with us. She was our primary defense, albeit an unreliable one she was: easy to get hit and easy to miss cut-in. Our secondary defense against airstrike was the sets of FuMO25 Radar and Type 14 Air RADAR on Kongou Kai Ni, Kirishima Kai Ni, Prinz Eugen Kai and Nachi Kai Ni respectively.
Our goal was to take out as many escort ships as possible and focus on night battle cut-in to take care of CV-hime. For that, we had Type 1 AP Shell on both Kongou and Kirishima for kick, 41cm proto on Kirishima for extra accuracy (since Kongou had her accuracy boost from the superior FuMO25 radar) and 41cm cannon for all remaining slots.
Shigure Kai Ni/Yukikaze Kai went with 3x Quint torp as flagship, Prinz Eugen had an extra Quint torp for night cut-in purposes. 2x SKC34 20.3cm Twin Cannon for Prinz Eugen and 2x 20.3cm(no.3) Twin Gun Mount for Nachi and off we went!
Boss node support is highly recommended in order to S-rank at boss.
For last dance, however, Ru-class Kai at boss was simply too much for our cruiser squadron to handle. Seeing was able to tank Nachi's double attack in night battle and T-disadvantage getting in our way (4x T-red at boss in a row was the new record), Admiral knew we would need bigger guns to take care of boss. Desperate times demand desperate measures, we sortied the heaviest fleet we could afford using the composition 2BB 2CV 2DD going the middle route.
- Shigure Kai Ni: 3x 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount
- Nagato Kai: 51cm cannon, 46cm cannon, Night scout, AP shell
- Yamato: 46cm cannon, 46cm cannon, Obs plane, AP shell
- Hiryuu Kai Ni: Egusa, Reppuu, Tomonaga, Saiun
- Yukikaze Kai: 2x 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount, Star Shell
- Kaga Kai: 2x Reppuu, Reppuu (601 Air Group), Reppuu
With decent luck, it would be possible to clear E4 using Combat cruiser squadron but Admiral was running low on patience. This final approach was costly and inelegant but at least it got the job done.
| D | Diamond |
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|---|---|---|
| Diamond |
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| F | Diamond |
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| Diamond |
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| G | Diamond | 
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| H | Diamond | 
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| Diamond |
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| I | Diamond (night) |
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| J | Diamond |
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| K | Diamond |  
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| Diamond (F) |
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Appendix
We also have node patterns for (Medium) difficulty albeit being incomplete.
| F | Diamond | 
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|---|---|---|
| G | Diamond |
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| H | Diamond | 
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| Diamond |
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| K | Diamond |  |}
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