I've been doing some pretty extensive research into Tigercat operations in Korea, and the most I can get out of it is simply bombs, rockets, and napalm. Night ops disliked HVAR rockets due to glare, and prefered napalm. What I can gather is that the 250lb bomb was used often, but I'm really not sure. They did carry combos of all three weapons on the missions. There's mention of flares but I can't decipher if they were dropped from Corsairs on the missions or the cats. (anyone want to add flares to C-54? it was a thing, until Privateers started doing it)
As far as loadouts here, any combo of three above could work, maybe a condensed version of what's available on the F7F-3 right now. Probably no need for torpedoes or Tiny Tims or all of the combinations(unless someone feels like it!). If I had to pick just one it would be probably be 3x500lb + 8xHVAR. Some combos with drop tanks and napalm included would be great. Sorry I don't have specifics.
The Tigercat actually did do a lot of day missions, though it showed it was better suited for operations at night. VMFN-542 was the first combat F7F squadron in Korea, a few days after the Inchon invasion, day and night ops. They transferred their Cats to 513 in the spring of 51, who were running Corsairs. 513 eventually was doing night ops with Corsair-Tigercat combos.
There's not a lot of photos or info on Korean Tigercat ops, but some info is there if you dig. My overzealous campaign writing ambitions are primarily based on real dates and anecdotal missions I could find. The Naval Air War in Korea, by Richard P. Hallion, is another great book.
Thanks for considering it, I switched all the aircraft in my missions and then realized they couldn't do much!
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Topic: Night Cat (Read 17978 times)
