Shortland Anchorage

Gimmicks

Node F1 / Node F2 / Node C

The same fleet as the boss phase of E1, but with a little equipment switchup. We did smoke and vanguard on D, as the equipment was already present.

Both LBAS were sent to the end nodes. We used the same planes for each node, meaning range 7 and ~161 air power for AS at F1.

Node F

The same fleet as above was used to get AS on node F, other than Katsuragi only having fighters for a total air power of ~276. Both LBAS were sent to node D for assistance, though that was probably not necessary.

Node K

The same fleet as above was used for node K, with some equipment changes on Katsuragi (torpedo bomber and two fighters) and Inazuma (sonar instead of barrage balloon). We did use node support; however, not sure it was needed. It did help a little on some of the nodes en route. Note that, other than K and H, vanguard formation was used. H used line abreast and smoke, and K was line ahead. LBAS was used as before, with the first base split between I and K, and the second base fully at K.

Transport to Node U

This operation went pretty well; the fleet has many of the special landing crafts with bonuses, so we were pulling 200+ TP each A-rank. Hatsushimo was fitted with landing crafts on most runs; however, she wanted to try a torpedo cut-in to attempt S-ranks. This attempt went pretty well, though we were fine with A-ranks.

Main Fleet

Escort Fleet

LBAS

Both air bases were sent to node U.

Support

Node support was used to ease things a little bit, but it was far from required.

Node support

Final Boss: Submarine Seerfish Water Demon

This phase was not going well on hard difficulty, so we ended up dropping to normal for our mental health, where it was much easier. We kitted ourselves out with anti-submarine equipment, plus Yuugure with smoke generators, which were critical for node V. No debuff was needed.