I I think you may be conflating "dropped out" with "shot down or lost". I take dropped out to mean escorts that reached their range limit or rtb voluntarily due to damage. Shot down or lost are those that are destroyed in combat and never rtb. So I would not roll for fate on an escorts that rtb

Rule section 11.2 In clear weather bombs hit on rolls of 4-6 Light Clouds.... 5-6 Heavy.... 6 It is confusing. The way they notate it on the counters makes it look like a modifier.

Glad to help.

The the row shift does not apply to the flak combat. See 8.0 and 11.1. Also the example of a flak attack makes no mention of the bombing modifier. Flak attack is a straight cross reference of the flak factors and the number of targets (bombers) in the formation.

Roll on the events table.

No

2.2 Living rules It's under the bomb run section 11.0 The Bombing Run 11.1 Conduct approach flak attack 11.4 Conduct egress flak attack.

Flak over target is always automatic. Once on ingress and once again on egress. Two flak attacks at target box.

My preference for a 1942 start would be 1 veteran and 11 greens.